2

Jack the Bear

Jacky Lee was said to be taciturn, but he didn't see it that way. He could talk fine when he had something to say. It was just that he never saw the need for casual talk. Who knew, for instance, that his real name was Jacques LeBruyn? The last name had proved too difficult for most people, so when he went into the marines, he dropped the “Bruyn.” It was just too much of a pain in the butt to explain time and again—to people who didn't really care—what the name was, how to pronounce it.

Too many people talked before they knew what to say, Jacky felt, before they actually knew anything. For instance, he knew nothing about the man he'd found on the highway, so when the admitting people at St. James asked for a name, Lee told them, “Carmine Deadman.” And when doctors and nurses or other cops asked him about Deadman, Jacky just shrugged. What was there to say?

Within twenty-four hours, Deadman's condition had stabilized. But he was in a coma, and Dr. Morehouse, the emergency-room leader, was not optimistic about the man's chances.

“The man's got a bullet in his head,” Morehouse said. “We could operate, but CAT scans and X rays cost money, and anyway, the prognosis is in the garbage can. I don't know if I'd recommend surgery at this moment if it was my favorite uncle. Who is he? Who will pay for it? The county? The bullet is antiseptic. It can stay there for now. Can't you find out who he is?”

“How come he's alive?” Jacky wanted to know. “A man takes a bullet in the middle of the forehead, he ought to be dead.”

“Oh, that bullet,” Morehouse said. “That's nothing. That bullet struck at a funny angle, I guess. It fractured the skull, but it didn't penetrate. It traveled along the surface, subcutaneously. Here it is.” He held out a misshapen chunk of silvery metal. “Found it in his hair, actually.”

“You mean there's another bullet in his head?” Jacky asked.

“Yeah, and four in the body. One in the shoulder was fragmented, the others were buried in the flesh of the back. You know, I'm gonna get me one of those ‘tin coats.’ I think that the low power of the bullet, plus the resistance of that heavy duck material, a shirt, an undershirt . . . it might be what saved his life—if he lives.”

“What about the other head shot?”

“It might have deflected, but it entered behind and below the ear. The X rays show it, with some destroyed brain tissue, probably. I probed but not too extensively. It's lodged in there. We really need better pix. And Dr. Wilder. He can pick a brain. I can't.”

Deadman looked like his putative name. His face was swathed in bandages, but it was about the size of a large pumpkin. He was wreathed in tubes and wires. The machines said he was functioning all right, heart beating strong and respiration regular, steady brain waves. He had a body like a god, tan and muscled. Morehouse pointed to this as the key reason for the man's startling physical recovery.

“The guy's got a hell of a lot going for him,” Morehouse said. “Anybody else lost that much blood he'd look like a deflated balloon. But this guy . . . hell, we hooked him up and he started cooking right away. Good brain waves, too. Who knows what's going on in that blown-up noggin?”

Dr. Wilder, the brain surgeon, had by now examined the patient extensively. He was more reserved in his estimates than Dr. Morehouse. “I think he is thinking,” the doctor said, “but who knows what thoughts? Bullet in the left lower cranium . . . I don't know.” He shook his own closely clipped skull mournfully. “One thing for sure: Mr. Deadman won't think like he used to think.”

Jacky had taken the fingerprints and transmitted them to the FBI, but nothing had come back as yet. The name Carmine Deadman didn't mean anything to the National Crime Net. Jacky had not given that as the victim's name, simply as a name found on him. They did come back with the name Dante “Carmine” Busoni, a well-known mobster who had been shot in Detroit six months earlier. Jacky Lee didn't make anything of this, but he entered it into the file.

Two days after Deadman was picked up, an anonymous woman called St. James hospital. Presumably she'd read a press report, for she inquired after the condition of “Mr. Deadman.” She also inquired about the medical expenses. She was referred to billing, where Mrs. McCoy rattled off a figure that she said was growing by the minute and informed the caller that if they were unable to identify Deadman and if he had no insurance, then the county would have to assume the burden. The following day, ten cashier's checks totaling nearly $30,000 arrived at St. James, via Federal Express. They were drawn on ten different banks, or bank branches, in Salt Lake City and were accompanied by instructions that the amount was to be applied to the medical expenses of “the patient known as Carmine Deadman.” Further funds would be available, the instructions said.

With that the doctors proceeded. The patient's condition had improved considerably and surgery seemed a good bet. The bullet was removed and the patient responded well. He was young, healthy, and not just stable but improving. He did not regain consciousness, however, and the doctors weren't sure that he ever would. In subsequent days, more cashier's checks arrived via regular mail, each one in the amount of $2,995, and dedicated “for the recovery of Mr. Deadman.” At first the checks were all from Salt Lake City, but then checks appeared, usually in groups of ten or more, from Los Angeles, Reno, Denver, and again, Salt Lake City.

When Jacky Lee heard of this development, he contacted the banks. It was a dead end: In every case, a woman had simply purchased a cashier's check with cash. The bank people remembered her, however, and generally described the purchaser as small and dark, about twenty-eight to thirty-four years of age, abundant black hair with a silver or white streak running back from the right temple. In a couple of cases, the woman wore a scarf, and then no mention was made of the hair, but she was always described as attractive. She never gave a name. One bank officer in Salt Lake City noted that she was suspicious of the woman, who had carried an expensive piece of luggage in which there was, she estimated, more than $50,000 in cash. But as the woman only purchased a check for $2,995, there was nothing to be said about that.

The Federal Express people remembered the woman, who had given the name “Alice Williams” and a Main Street address in Salt Lake City. The phone number belonged to a realtor's office. They told Lee that they'd never heard of any “Alice Williams.” Subsequent letters didn't even have this information.

The next interesting development came when Deadman regained consciousness. He couldn't talk. His jaw on the left side had been shattered by the bullet, and part of his tongue was macerated by bone splinters. But his blue eyes were open and he seemed mentally alert. He made some preliminary sounds, not much more than groans, then he lapsed into silence. But his eyes began to move around, to register what was happening.

His nurse was Cathleen Yoder—Cateyo (or “Katie-Yo") to her friends. She was delighted with her patient's partial recovery. She'd been washing his body for several days, and she was impressed. “This is no dead man,” she told her fellow nurses, with a little smile.

Dr. Wilder, the brain surgeon, told Jacky Lee that until Deadman chose to communicate, there was no way of knowing if the man remembered anything of the shooting, but he would be surprised if he did. “Usually a trauma of this sort blanks out the incident. It can be recovered, sometimes, in part, but rarely completely. We just have to wait and hope. For all I know, he doesn't remember anything at all.” Too much of the brain had been destroyed, the doctor suspected. The injuries to the jaw and tongue could be repaired. The man would need speech therapy, no doubt, but it seemed likely that he would talk again, though it wasn't clear just how all this would come about. For the time being, Deadman was a ward of the county. Assuming that his anonymous benefactor continued to provide assistance, the hospital would provide the best of care.

In the meantime, Jacky Lee attempted to reconstruct the scenario of the crime. It had happened in broad daylight, practically high noon, but no one had witnessed it. Newspaper accounts had included a plea from the police for witnesses, but the only ones to come forward had said that they had noticed a pair of men hitchhiking in that area, about that time. An abandoned vehicle had been found some fifty miles west, on the same interstate highway, stolen in Missoula and out of gas. Had the hitchhikers been in this vehicle? Had another good Samaritan picked the two men up? If so, why would they be let out at such an odd place, nowhere near another road? Was Deadman one of the hitchhikers, or was he someone who had picked up the other two, who then shot him and left him out on the highway? There seemed no way to tell.

The story soon disappeared from the news, the patient made progress, and Jacky Lee turned his attention to a series of arson fires that were plaguing the Butte area.