“Hey,” Homer said groggily. He reached over to shake Driscoll awake. The snores stopped abruptly. “Look who came back.”
Driscoll rubbed at his eyes, struggled up out of the chair. “Deal,” he said. “It’s about goddamned time.”
Deal ran his tongue about his lips, raised his hand to Driscoll in greeting. He counted five fingertips. Then lifted his other hand. An IV line taped to his wrist, some bandages, five more fingertips. He touched his face. Still bandaged, but there were cutouts now for his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He wondered how long he’d been in this bed.
The skin on his cheeks felt dry and tight, ready to split open. The pain, however, had subsided from agony to something that might possibly be measured. If you had the time.
“Where is she?” He swallowed. It felt like someone had run a plumber’s auger down his throat.
“Down the hall, pardner,” Driscoll said. Deal saw Homer’s anxious glance.
“Take me,” Deal managed.
“You can’t go anywhere,” Driscoll began, but Deal had already jerked the IV tube from his arm, was doing his best to untangle his feet from the bedsheets.
Driscoll reached for the call button dangling from the bed rail, but Deal grabbed his hand, ignoring the fresh burst of pain beneath his bandages. “Take me to Janice,” he said, his gaze locked on Driscoll’s. And they went.
Homer distracted the aide at the nurse’s station while Driscoll helped Deal down the dimly lit hallway. Deal was light-headed, his feet seeming to barely touch the floor.
Two turns, through an automatic door, into an area where the rooms were glass-partitioned cubicles, radiating off a central command post full of beeping monitors, flashing screens, computer printouts. There were nurses and aides there, but everyone seemed too busy to notice Driscoll and Deal.
“Be ready,” Driscoll said, tightening his grip across Deal’s shoulders. “It looks worse than it is.” The big excop turned them into one of the small cubicles, nodded at the form on the bed. “That’s her,” Driscoll said. “That’s Janice.”
Deal stared, feeling the lump in his throat grow until he wasn’t sure he could breathe. She lay motionless, covered in gauze—hands, arms, head—like something from a bad horror film. A bedside monitor beeped steadily, feeding out a little paper tape that tumbled into coils on the floor.
He started toward her, then stopped, afraid. “Janice?” he said, his voice strangled. His eyes were clouding with tears.
“Who let you in here?” The voice of authority, of outrage behind him. An intensive-care nurse, doing her duty. Deal didn’t budge, didn’t take his eyes off Janice’s quiet form.
“It’s her husband,” he heard Driscoll explaining.
“I don’t care who he is.…”
Deal felt a hand on his arm. He shook it off, clutched the rail of Janice’s bed.
“Just give us a minute,” Driscoll pleaded.
“Mr. Deal?”
Deal glanced at her. She had a more kindly face than he expected, a broad, grandmotherly brow, wire-rimmed glasses, a flush in her cheeks. “Are you Mr. Deal?”
Deal had his gaze back on Janice’s quiet form. He felt tears forming in his eyes.
“Then you’ll want the best for your wife, won’t you?”
The nurse’s voice seemed to reach him from a distant place. Oddly, Deal found himself nodding in agreement.
“She’s going to make it, don’t you worry, Mr. Deal. She’s out of the woods now.”
Out of the woods
, he thought. He wanted to touch Janice’s hand, her cheek, but there was nothing but bandages and tubes and wires.
Out of the woods. What was that fairy tale? The two little kids with the mean stepmother and the wimp of a father. Took their children into the forest to die. Yet the children had survived, made it out of the woods somehow.
He felt the nurse’s hand on his arm again, this time more gently. “You come out with me, Mr. Deal. We’ll have us some coffee, I’m going to explain things to you.”
Deal felt himself being drawn away from Janice’s bed then. The nurse’s big hands comforting him like the touch of some fairy godmother come to deliver him from trouble. He cast one last glance at Janice’s motionless form.
How he wished it were as simple as it was in fairy tales. Didn’t matter if you got your ass in a crack as long as you were pure of heart. Some genie or spirit would come along to clear things up.
But this was life. And Deal knew that he was responsible. That he
wasn’t
pure of heart. That somehow he had created the circumstances that had led to this calamity. He just hadn’t had time yet to figure out how.
He let the nurse guide him down the dark hallway. She knew about him, all right. He’d seen it in her eyes. He’d screwed up again. Maybe she could tell him why.
***
While no one was able to speak to the unutterable gnawing that Deal knew he would carry forever, he did learn a few things. From Mrs. Delaney, the nurse. From the attending physician, who arrived shortly after daybreak. And from Driscoll, who had learned what had happened during the fire.
It turned out that, despite his orders, Janice had followed him down the hallway after Isabel. She must have become disoriented, opened the wrong door, the guest room door, the very one Deal had scorched one of his hands on.
Once that door was opened, the air from the rest of the apartment fed the inferno inside and that was it, end of story. The fire turned into the freight train that had roared down the hall toward him. He knew what that heat had done to him. He could only imagine what Janice must have suffered there at the maw of hell.
The nurse and the doctor were in agreement on Janice’s prognosis. Cautious, but optimistic. Burn cases were ticklish business, but as long as she escaped secondary infection, it seemed that she would make it.
“She’s strong,” the doctor told him. “She wants to live. That means a lot.”
Deal saw the look in Mrs. Delaney’s eyes. They were sitting, the four of them, on uncomfortable plastic chairs in the nurses’ lounge, everyone’s wretched coffee sitting untouched before them on a Formica tabletop. “What else, Doc? What is it you’re not telling me?” Deal felt his lips pull and tingle with every word.
Another glance between them. The doctor and Deal’s fairy godmother.
“Nothing really,” the doctor said, his gaze wavering. “There’s the issue of reconstructive surgery, of course. But it’s a little early to discuss all that.”
Deal felt a chill run through him. He’d been so concerned that she was going to live…
“How bad is it?”
Mrs. Delaney coughed. The doctor looked off into that place they must teach doctors to look when the really bad shit has to be confronted. “As I said, it’s a little early to assess.…”
Deal leaned forward, caught the doctor by his lab coat. “Tell me what we’re talking about.”
The doctor looked at him, his eyes helpless behind his thick glasses. “Her nose, some ear tissue, the scalp…” He took Deal’s hand. “Please, Mr. Deal. I just don’t know yet.”
Deal fell back in his chair, raised his palms to his eyes, ignoring the pain. Worse than he could have ever imagined. He’d tear out his own eyes. Throw himself into the flames. If that could only make it better.
“I think you’d better get back to your bed,” Mrs. Delaney was saying.
“You got to take care of yourself, pardner.” It was Driscoll’s voice at his ear. “Lot of folks counting on you.”
Deal heard the bark of laughter escape his own throat. That was rich. Counting on
him
. Sure. He could be counted on. Stick with Deal, everybody. He’ll take you to hell in a handcart.
He was laughing raucously now, his hands still on his face, and then he realized he had pitched down onto the table. He felt tepid coffee soaking his arms, pouring off the table onto his legs and feet. After a moment he felt another needle prick the flesh of his arm, and heard Driscoll mouthing something else inane.
Well, fill him up with bromides, shoot him up with the pharmacy’s finest, it wasn’t going to do any good. Awake or in darkness, this was a pain that would never end.
Saturday night. Tommy at Doc’s in the Gables, busing dishes. It’s late, the place is jammed. A jazz combo in one corner of the main room, the other side of the big square bar. Tommy feels the bass through his feet, the sound running up his legs and spreading through him like something warm, feels himself nodding to the beat as he hustles toward the kitchen with a bin full of plates and silver.
Lots of pretty people in here tonight. Everybody dressed up.
A party-down town
, says a voice in his head. Tommy wonders who thought that. As if a stranger slipped in, told him something weird.
He pauses to let some customers file by. People going out.
Always stop for the customers, Tommy
. He remembers that, and who told him. Mr. Boss.
Steve’s my name, Tommy. Call me Steve. And always let the customers go first
. Right, Mr. Boss.
There’s a girl at the bar, watching him. A sparkly black dress, milky skin, hair satiny on her bare shoulders. Tommy sees her lips glisten in the dim light. He feels his dopey smile forming on his face, no way to stop it. She smiles back, then there’s a big guy muscling up beside her, his arm around her, kisses her cheek. She turns to this guy, kisses him back, moves inside his arm.
Tommy’s still smiling, watching them touch and nuzzle.
That’s nice
, he thinks, and knows it is himself thinking it. People liking each other.
Nice
.
“Tommy! Hey, Tommy!” a voice calls. “I need glasses over here.”
Fuck you and your glasses
. Tommy blinks, whirling toward Mac, the bartender. Good old Mac, every night slips him five from the tip jar, always has a joke and a wink. Who was thinking
fuck you
to good old Mac? Tommy gives him a nod and hurries on toward the kitchen.
Tommy’s inside the kitchen quick. Dump the dirty stuff—wipe your hands, Tommy—over to the dishwasher that belches steam and rolls out a rubber wire tray full of shining glasses for good old Mac. Glasses on the tray, hot, hot, hot.
And he falters for a moment, his hand on the hot glasses, finds himself thinking of the flames, and Mr. Deal crying, crying so hard that it made Tommy feel like crying too, and so he had. Then all those firemen and the police that had to come and pull them away. Poor Mrs. Deal.
“Garbage!” The voice behind him bellows. “Get this garbage out.” Tommy doesn’t have to look. That’s Dexter. The night chef. Dexter’s not so nice as Mac. Tommy nods without looking at Dexter’s toadlike face, puts a couple more glasses on the tray, and hurries out.
“Christ, Tommy, you stuck in slow motion tonight?” Good old Mac, smiling while he says it, gives him a wink, and Tommy hurries back into the kitchen, with hardly any time to sneak a look at that pretty girl with the long black hair.
***
It’s later—must be the same night, but all nights are the same for Tommy. Whatever night it is, he’s back to the garbage, garbage, garbage. Little cans by the food line, three of them, one, two, three into the big can—Tommy sees a whole burger tumbled faceup in the mess, he’d grab it and have a bite if it wasn’t for eagle-eye Dexter over there ready for him to slip up again.
Who elected you Pope, asshole
? Tommy stops, shakes his head. What’s going on, these strange voices inside his brain? He feels something hot in his head, something small and hot and glowing.
He grabs the sides of the plastic bag that lines the big can, pulls, twists, makes a knot like Mr. Boss showed him, jerks the whole thing out, hustles out the back door into the cool night.
Outside, it’s suddenly peaceful. Good old peaceful alley. Quiet and dark. He glances up between the backs of the buildings and sees a slice of sky with stars, a chunk of moon floating there.
Moon over Miami
. What’s that? Tommy wonders, then hurries on toward the Dumpster.
He’s humming something, like a song, maybe. Trying to think of the words. But he doesn’t know any songs.
Drops the bag, fishes in his pocket, key there someplace. Why’s there a key for a garbage Dumpster, anyway? Who’d want to steal garbage?
Finds the key, the lock, snap, snap, the lid’s up, the junk’s inside, lid’s down, snap-a-roo, locked up tight.
He’s moving back up the alley toward the door when the man steps out of the shadows to stand in front of him.
Tommy stops. Nobody has to tell him this is bad. Worse than even Dexter’s blackest moods.
Tommy looks down at the man’s hand where something catches a sliver of moonlight, glinting. Looks back at the face. A face that makes Dexter’s face seem kind. This is a face turned inside out. A skull that somebody tried to put flesh on. Eyes that look at Tommy and right on through him. Like he isn’t anything, anything at all. A sour smell from the Dumpster drifts over them.
The man takes a quick step forward, feints with his empty hand, but somehow Tommy isn’t fooled. He leans in, then steps away like a dancer or a bullfighter, and the man with the knife in his hand slips and nearly falls.
Be careful, Tommy. Be careful at night
. Mr. Deal told him that. Plenty of bad people around. Tommy knows. Here’s one in front of him to prove it.
But who is it who’s moving Tommy’s body around, he wonders as the man turns upon him with a hissing sound. He feels like a puppet, someone else directing his hands, his feet. Tommy edges away, his hands at the wall behind him, his fingers dancing along the rough bricks like nervous spider legs. He can feel the music throbbing inside the building, it’s something fast and happy.
The man lunges again, and again Tommy skitters away, something just brushing the front of his busboy’s coat. There’s the sound of metal scraping on stone and a curse in a language that’s strange to Tommy’s ears.
Tommy glances at the doorway to the restaurant but knows there isn’t time, no matter how fast he runs. He sees a fleeting picture of a deer on a plain somewhere, dogs tearing at its flanks and throat, pulling it to the ground.
The picture goes away and he’s back in the alley staring at an old mop leaning against the wall in front of him. Old mop, Tommy thinks. And sees his hands snatch it up. And knows that he spins about in one fluid motion, one hand beneath the stick, the other on top, so it’s braced. He steps toward the man who’s charging after him and makes a short chopping motion.
The mop thuds into the side of the man’s head so hard that the grimy sponge end flies off into the darkness. As the man staggers sideways, Tommy pivots into him, feels his right hand swinging the other end of the stick up. There’s a cracking sound and a sharp cry that wings into the darkness. The man’s knife falls as he throws his hands to his face. All of this so fast, Tommy hardly knows it’s happened.
Wow
! Tommy thinks.
Who’s doing this
? He steps away, holding the stick like he’s rearing backward with a shovel, then steps forward and drives the point into the man’s unprotected stomach.
The man goes down with a gasp, tumbling onto his side, his toes drumming the pavement in pain. Tommy stares down in amazement. Looks at the mop stick in his hands like it’s magic.
“You fucking retard.” Dexter’s voice booms through the night behind him, along with a blast of music. “What the fuck are you doing out here?”
Tommy turns. Dexter is standing in the doorway, shielding his eyes from the bare bulb that hangs there, blinking out into the darkness.
Ever see close-order drill, dickhead
? That voice again, that weird voice in Tommy’s brain.
Tommy shakes it off, runs toward Dexter. He’ll show him what he’s doing out there.
But by the time he manages to pull Dexter back down the narrow alleyway, there’s nothing left to show. The man is gone. There is no knife. And to Dexter the mop stick’s just a mop stick, after all.