Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [71]
I winced. “Not funny.”
“Irish humor.”
“He’ll be all right.” Mike shifted his head so I could see the constancy in his eyes. “The bullet wounds sound like no big deal.”
“What about the heart attack?”
“Same thing happened to my uncle,” he said stalwartly. “Eighty-three years old, goes in for a hernia operation and his heart stops. Major alcoholic, so you’d think, End of story. Well, he’s in Vegas, as we speak.”
“In a pickle jar, in Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” said Barbara.
“He was a good uncle to me.”
“Why? Because he took you out and got you laid when you were twelve?”
“Actually,” said Mike, “we didn’t have sex in our family.”
“You still don’t,” observed Barbara.
“That’s not entirely true.”
“They have a chameleon,” was my contribution through a swollen nose. “And the chameleon just had babies.”
“See?” said Mike.
“I think there’s a cable channel devoted to exactly that sort of thing,” Barbara replied. “Why don’t you go home, girl?”
“That would be worse.”
I never wanted to go back to that apartment again.
“Sit here,” said Mike. “I’m going to get you an iced vanilla blended.”
“Can I have one, too?” called Barbara as he left. Her phone was ringing. “Nicest man in the world.”
I knew that.
“Yes, she’s in here.” Pause. “Ana, it’s for you.” Her eyes were sober. Her whole body was sober as she moved to give me the phone. “It’s the lieutenant from the Santa Monica police.”
“I just spoke to him, two minutes ago.” Panicked. “Is it about Andrew?”
She sat down close and put her arm around me.
“Barry?” I whispered.
“Since you asked about the weapon, I thought you’d want to know. Just got word. We think we found it.”
“You found it? Where?”
“In Andy’s car.”
“In Andy’s car? How could that be?”
“I don’t know, he sure as hell didn’t shoot himself, but it’s a thirty-two, same size as the slugs.”
“Well, that’s good news.” I turned to Barbara with a madcap grin. “They recovered the gun!”
Sixteen.
The automatic doors swung open, I walked into the deserted lobby, and my knees went out like rubber bands. Eight-fifteen at night is not the time to be visiting a hospital. Not when the rest of the world is washing its dishes and doing homework, families coming together after the day. Night shift in a hospital is the time for separation and good-byes, for facing the hours of darkness, in whatever bed, alone.
Bad things happen in a hospital at night. Knife wounds, sick patients taking turns for the worse, walleyed weirdos on the graveyard shift of the nursing staff. What you did not care to know during the day, you definitely do not want to know now, lost in a maze of empty corridors smelling of institutional mashed potatoes and gravy, buildings and parking structures cloaked in shadow; no escape. To run out of here screaming would put you right into the arms of the dark.
Eight-twenty-three p.m. Visiting time at the ICU would be over in seven minutes. I picked up the pace, although I did not want to see him. I did, and I didn’t. I had come late hoping at least the family members would be gone.
Two Santa Monica uniforms, obese Detective Jaeger from the Boatyard bar and a couple of other brown-suited old-timers, were standing around the nursing station with their hands in their pockets, chewing the fat in low, irreverent tones:
“—Because he was stupid enough to get into a hot tub and make sexual remarks to subordinates.”
“The picture will come clear.”
“No it won’t. Not with this guy. He’s the fair-haired prince.”
“Princes don’t pick up their own droppings.”
We eyed each other until slowly my identity came into focus somewhere in Jaeger’s dog skull. An upward nod of the jowls signaled it was okay to approach the group.
“Has Andrew said anything more about the assailants?”
Jaeger shrugged. “Couple of guys in a parking lot.”
“He’s in a coma,” one of them said.
“I know.”
There was a moment of shared heartache.
“What do the docs say?”
“Not much.”
“They haven’t ruled out brain damage. He was without oxygen for some time.”
“Hopefully,” said another, “he hasn’t lost too