The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [111]
Jack Peregrine raised himself with effort. His taped palms had the look of someone about to pull on boxing gloves. “Beautiful. You’re just gorgeous.”
Annie stepped aside so the slanted light didn’t strike her. She tried for irony but couldn’t keep sorrow from her voice. “So, Coach Ronny, what’s wrong with you? Are you ill or did somebody beat you up?”
He made an effort at a grin. “Like the Ringo Kid said, ‘There are some things a man just can’t run away from.’” Slowly he wriggled his fingers. “A man can try but some times he’s just not fast enough.”
“What happened to your hands?”
He held them out to her. “You should see the rest of me. Raffy saved the day.”
The Cuban returned to the bedside to corroborate. “He was lying there, blood everywhere, and I leaned down and he whispered, ‘Raffy!’”
“I thought I was yelling, ‘Raffy!’ If he hadn’t dragged me off the sidewalk and gotten me in here to Chamayra, I’d be dead.”
“Inevitable,” Raffy agreed.
“Or worse,” her father said. “I’d be in jail. Somebody across the street had watched these guys kicking me to the curb and called 911. We saw the squad car arrive.”
“We were hiding right out there by the dumpster, waiting for Chamayra to let us in before the bastards came back or your poor dad bled to death. The cops looked around but they didn’t see us.” Raffy kissed his cross then returned to the window where he banged his back ferociously against the wall. “Those bastard s.o.b. pingitas! They would chainsaw the fingers off Elton John.”
Her father gestured at his friend’s bandage. “What happened to your hand?”
“Her dog bit me,” Raffy explained. “It’s okay. I can still play. She’s got your metal case, Jack. And she’s got the emerald. And she knows the codes.”
Jack smiled. “Good girl.” He nodded at the Cuban who excused himself; he’d keep watch by the door.
Annie arched her Colbert eyebrow at her father. “Even s.o.b.s have reasons for what they do…So, did ‘these guys’ have any particular reason to kill you?”
Jack smiled. “Ah, you were a skeptic before you could walk and you’re still a skeptic.”
She shook her head at him. “This isn’t skeptical; it’s a real question: Wouldn’t sitting in jail be preferable to being kicked to death?”
He shrugged, a frail version of his old nonchalant style. “For some people it’s heights, for some it’s rats, for me it’s jail. Sorry I skipped out on you in St. Louis but I couldn’t take the chance.”
“Hey.” She mimicked his shrug. “Nothing new.”
He moved in the bed as if adjusting to pain. “Thanks for bringing the King. Sorry I couldn’t fly with you.”
She told him the plane was now in the Hopper lot at the St. Louis airport. The engine had died on her while she was landing.
He murmured so quietly she had to bend over his pillow to hear him. “Thanks for trying.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for the card at the Admirals Club. A little soupy.” She pulled the crumpled flowery To My Daughter birthday card from the flight jacket.
He shook his head, looking baffled. “I didn’t leave this at the Admirals Club.” He read it aloud. “‘Annie. Wrong to get you involved. Stay out of this. Go home. Love you.’ I didn’t write this. Who told you I did?”
“The receptionists at the Admirals Club. Well, they said an old woman brought it in and told them someone had asked her to leave it at the Admirals Club for me.”
He looked concerned. “An old woman?”
Annie let out a breath. “Don’t try. You know you wrote it. Who else?” She put the card in her purse.
Frowning, he insisted, “Does it sound like me?”
“How would I know?” She tossed his jacket on the bed. “Here’s your jacket. So is it mainly criminals who’re after you or mainly the Miami police or the St. Louis police or what?”
He sounded preoccupied, his thoughts still on the birthday card. “People get in a rut; they keep doing what they’re paid to do. Could be anything; happens to be me they’re after.”
She told him she’d just gotten an anonymous call from a woman, a warning to keep away from him.