CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) (24 page)

F
ORTY
-O
NE

Y
o. Yo, white meat. You sleeping?”

The words were like a shock of cold water. I was instantly awake, heart racing, skin electric.

It was dusk, the room dark and hazy. A yellow square of window showed in the closed door, but there were no lights in here. A long dark figure stood by the bed, hands in the pockets of a hooded sweatshirt. A gold blur lay against his chest. I didn’t need to see it clearly to know what it was.

“Snake,” I said, in as strong a voice as I had. “Get the hell out of here.”

“No, no.” He shook his head. “You got it wrong, white meat. I come to thank you.”

“Get out.”

“Yo,” said Snake softly. “You and me, we connected now, my brother. You working for me, and I ’preciate what you done already. So I come to thank you, and tell you what I’m gonna do for you.”

“The only thing,” I tried to clear my throat and my head, “you
can do for me,” I stopped, breathed, “is to let me be there … when you step on your cock. And I sure as hell … haven’t done anything … for you.”

That was enough for me. I was ready to go back to sleep.

“No, you too modest, my brother. Last night I be down to the cop shop, Lindfors in my face talking about he got me now. Yo, he stink, too!” Snake interrupted himself. “You notice that?”

When he got nothing from me, he went on. “Then, next thing, I be diddy-bopping out the door. Lindfors, he cursing you out, white meat, and your momma too. So I say to myself, Snake, you got to go thank that dee-tective. And plus, I tell myself, you got to ask him why. So here I am.”

“Get out.”

“You ain’t told Lindfors it was me mess you up. He want to hear that so bad it make his dick hard. How come you ain’t?”

“Shit,” I breathed. Suddenly it struck me there might be a silver lining to this cloud. “You have a cigarette?”

A reflected streetlamp flashed gold in the blur of his smile. He pulled out a pack. Maybe Camels, I wasn’t sure. He lit one, put it between my lifted fingers. I impressed myself by bringing my hand all the way to my mouth.

The smoke snagged in my throat; I coughed. Pain seared my ribs, banged against the inside of my skull. I forgot Snake, forgot everything in the agonized effort to stop moving, still the cough.

Finally motionless, I let myself breathe again, slowly, shallowly.

“Man,” I heard, “you ever think of quitting?”

“Someone,” I rasped at Snake, “tried to kill me. I want to know who. And why.” Breathe. “I want him cut into little pieces. If I say you, Lindfors locks up your ass. That’s good.” Breathe, very slowly. “But it doesn’t get him. Him first. You later.”

Snake grinned. “I get him for you.”

I tried to focus on his eyes, but I couldn’t. “What?”

“I be hiring you—” he nodded toward the bandage on my arm—“find out who settin’ the Cobras up. Figure this some honky shit, need a honky dee-tective. But now, things be different. You was working for me. And it a brother done you.”

“What’s the difference?”

He shook his head. “Not on my blocks. Word get out, Snake
don’t protect his boys. That ain’t right, white meat.”

“I’m not … one of your boys.”

“You was working for me.” He leaned closer. Light from the window gleamed dully on his cheekbone. His eyes were hidden in the shadow of his hood. “Prob’ly you don’t like Snake. But Snake take care of his boys. All the brothers and sisters know that. You stick with Snake, you got what you need.”

“I don’t need … anything from you, Snake.”

“We find him for you, white meat,” Snake whispered. “I got the street looking. When we find him, we do him for you. We do him good.”

I wanted to answer that, but the room was swaying a little too much, and the weight on my chest was a little too heavy. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see Snake leaning over me, didn’t want to smell his sweat, hear his whisper. Maybe if he thought I was sleeping he’d go away.

Instead, a light flared, stabbed bright through my swollen eyelids. I opened my eyes, squinted. The room light was on overhead, and a blur that looked like Lydia was standing just inside the door staring at Snake.

“Who are you?” the blur demanded.

“Yo! Pretty momma.” Snake’s eyes were as wide as his smile. “My, baby, you fine! Yo, white meat, you holding out on Snake.”

“He’s Snake,” I said to Lydia. “He’s leaving.”

“Good.” She elbowed past him, dropped her black bag on a chair.

“Yo, yo, momma—” Snake protested, chuckling.

“Should I call security?” Lydia picked up the room phone.

“Oh, no,” Snake squeaked in a falsetto, lifting his hands. “Oh, momma, you so mean. Okay, Snake leaving. But my brother, remember what I told you.” He grinned, made a wet, kissing noise at Lydia, and left.

Lydia took my cigarette out of my hand. “You were on oxygen until this morning,” she said.

“I wanted it … for a weapon. In case Snake tried anything.”

“You wanted it for a cigarette.” She went and threw it in the toilet. “What was he doing here?”

“Telling me … not to worry. Snake’s taking care of me.”

“Did that make you feel better?”

“I feel like shit.”

“Well, that’s how you look. Are you hungry?”

“No. Thirsty.”

“The doctor said you could eat if you wanted to.” She took a thermos out of her bag, poured something into the screw-cap cup, put a straw in it. “Here.”

“Water?”

“This is better.”

“I’m not sure … I can hold it.” I reached for the cup.

“You held the cigarette.”

I held the cup. She took other things out of her bag.

“You’re not as blurry,” I told her.

“As what?”

“As before.”

She turned from what she was doing, smiled. “Good,” she said gently. “I’m glad.”

I tasted the pale liquid she’d given me. It was salty and sweet and warm; it echoed with flavors like the tones that linger when a chord has almost died away.

“God,” I said. “Great.”

“It’s full of minerals and Chinese herbs. It’s a healing broth. It’s very good for you.”

“Did you make it?”

“My mother did.”

“Your mother?” I felt myself smile. “She likes me.” I sipped my Chinese herbs.

“She hates you. She also hates that I spent the night here with you. If you were a decent man, you’d die, she tells me. But since you won’t, this will help you get better fast, and then maybe I’ll come home where I belong.”

“That’s what I said. She likes me.” I drank some more. “Where’s Bobby?”

“He went home. The doctor said you’re out of danger now, it’s just a matter of healing. Mr. Moran needed to rest.”

“How is he?”

I couldn’t quite read her expression, even with the light to help. “Not well, Bill. He doesn’t look good.”

I finished my healing broth, settled back, closed my eyes. I hurt in a lot of places now, but my mind was clearer. Maybe they were
giving me fewer drugs. Or maybe the Chinese herbs were working.

“We’re close,” I said. “I can feel it.”

Something was working its way up from the depths, trying to break the surface of my thoughts. Floating, I tried to relax, give it room, and that almost worked; but two deep, muffled booms that I felt as well as heard scared it off, sent it diving for the bottom.

“Christ,” I said. “What’s that?”

“From the construction next door,” Lydia told me. “It’s driving everyone crazy, Dr. Horowitz says.”

“Who’s Dr. Horowitz?”

“Me!” a voice rang from the door. It belonged to a mustached, curly haired man with a stethoscope stuffed in his pocket. “God, what an entrance! I love that! How’s he doing?” he asked Lydia.

“He’s fine,” I said.

“Hey, he talks, he walks—well, maybe not that.” He lifted the chart from the foot of the bed. “Five minutes for some man talk?” he asked Lydia. “You could powder your nose, or have a cigarette.”

“Bill already had one,” Lydia ratted on me.

“Did you?” Horowitz raised bushy eyebrows. “Well, there would’ve been no point in powdering that nose.”

Lydia smiled at him and left.

“Has she got a sister?” Horowitz asked.

“Four brothers.”

“Hmmm. Listen, you shouldn’t be smoking.”

“You do.”

“Wow. They told me you were a detective. What is it, my yellow teeth? The tobacco odor on my breath?”

“Newports … in your pocket.”

“Oh. Well, they didn’t bring
me
in here on a stretcher yesterday. Of course,” he reflected, “if I don’t quit, eventually I suppose they will.”

“Can I … get out of here soon?”

“Are you kidding? You can’t even get out of bed soon.” He listened to my chest, lifted the blanket, poked around. I asked him some questions, he gave me answers.

He peered at my eyes. “Well, you’re lucky. Ten days, maybe two weeks, everything should be clear.”

“If only.”

He laughed. “I meant your eyes.”

The muffled booms came back, and the distant roaring of a large engine.

“God,” Horowitz said. “Well, it’s almost five. They knock off at five. Pain in the ass, huh? I guess you know all about that.”

“Construction?”

“No, pain in the ass. You’re going to be sore for a long time, my friend, so get used to it. But it wasn’t true what I said about your getting out of bed. I want you walking tomorrow.”

“Tonight?”

“Don’t be greedy. Listen, this isn’t an official visit. I was on my way home and I thought I’d drop by. You know, get introduced to someone I already know so intimately. But I’d like a look at this. Can I?”

By “this,” he meant my right arm. I wanted to say no, but that sounded stupid, even to me.

Horowitz stuck his head out the door, asked a nurse to step in. She was a tiny, tan woman; he spoke medical words to her. Then he started to unwrap my arm.

“Your wife,” he said as he worked. “She’s a gem, isn’t she?”

Maybe I hadn’t heard him right. “My wife?”

“She was here all night with you. She’s a private eye too? I think you win the Most Exotic Couple of the Month award.”

“Lydia?”

“She brought in a specialist to look at your hands. I told her there was nothing wrong with them, but she said besides your eyes, that was the only thing you’d care about and she wanted to make sure.”

“She was right.” It occurred to me this whole conversation was designed to distract me from what he was doing. It only half worked; as he lifted the gauze pad from my arm I felt my left hand dig into the sheets, felt my breathing stop.

“I know,” Horowitz said sympathetically. “The good news is I think it’ll heal nicely.” For all his casual air, I saw he had positioned himself to block my view. He took something from the nurse, dabbed at my arm. It tried to yank itself away, but he wouldn’t let it move.

“All right,” he said soothingly, “all right, I’m through. I’m going to wrap it up now.”

“Let me see it.”

“You really want to?”

“Yes.”

Horowitz hesitated, then moved aside, cradled my arm differently. I tried my best to focus. Lifted in the doctor’s hands, my whole forearm glistened with whatever he’d put on it. Under that, red, purple, angry, a hooded cobra seemed to shimmer, as though seen through water.

I closed my eyes.

Horowitz rebandaged my arm. “I’m going to send Sol Mayer down here tomorrow,” he told me. “He’s a plastic surgeon. There’s a lot he can do for something like this.”

“Does it need that? Skin graft? To heal right?”

“No, it doesn’t need it—”

“Forget it.”

“It’ll be a pretty ugly scar.”

“Either way.”

I could see he was confused, but after a moment’s pause he chose not to argue with me.

“All right. I’ll be back tomorrow.” He prepared a syringe. “This is for the pain.”

“Wait,” I told him. “Not yet. Puts me to sleep.”

He grinned. “That’s part of the point.”

“I want to … talk to Lydia first.”

“This takes a few minutes.” Horowitz pricked my arm with the needle. “I’ll send her right in.” Then, smiling, he left, stepping aside with a flourish to let the nurse go first. It was a nice exit, but not as good as his entrance.

F
ORTY
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WO

L
ydia came in soon after, just enough time between them that I knew she’d stopped to discuss me with Dr. Horowitz.

“The doctor said you wanted me,” she said.

“Always. When did you … marry me?”

“In the ambulance on the way here. I thought they’d be more likely to tell me things and let me stay with you if they thought we were married.”

“Was the … honeymoon good?”

“We’re getting divorced as soon as you can get out of bed.”

“Long time.”

“Dr. Horowitz says you’ll be up tomorrow.”

“Blabbermouth.” I asked casually, “What about Paul Kao?” Maybe I’d hallucinated the guy in my delirium.

Lydia didn’t answer me.

“None of my business?” I offered.

She smiled softly but still didn’t say anything.

I got it. “He was mad? Because you … stayed here?”

Now she said, “None of your business.”

Her tone ended that discussion. “You should sleep,” she said. “Look, I brought you some music.” She pointed to a small boom box and a handful of tapes. “I didn’t know what to bring. I just took some from your shelf. I did find the one that was open on the piano.”

“The Schubert?”

“I think that’s it.” She flipped through the tapes. “Do you want to hear that?”

“No. Not yet. You said … before … a story?”

“Once upon a time,” she said promptly, “there was a bank account at Emigrant Savings Bank. Now it’s closed.”

“Reynolds?” What was it Margaret O’Connor had said? “Medical Services, Inc.?”

“You know this story?”

“Closed?”

“Yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” The room had started to sway gently. “Reynolds was … already dead.”

“That’s the punch line.”

“Who, then?”

“I don’t know.”

For a minute, nothing. Then, floating on the gentle waves, I started to laugh. It hurt too much; I had to stop.

“Bill? Why is that funny?”

“Doesn’t end,” I said. “Always another. That place. Think you found it … back to the beginning. World without end. Amen.”

“All right,” she hushed. “Go to sleep. Don’t think about it now.”

Floating, I didn’t have the strength to open my eyes. “Lydia?”

“I’m here.” She touched my hand.

“Chopin?” Music suddenly seemed very important.

“Wait,” she said. “Let me look.”

Silence, then clicking. Then the room was flooded, whirling with the Chopin C-major Prelude. Half a minute, then the A-minor; then the others, G-major, E-minor, D-major, the rest, all independent, separate pieces, but all connected, interrelated. I’d never learned them all. Always meant to. Unfinished business. Maybe Ida played them, used to. Lots of unfinished business. Separate. Connected, interrelated.

“Bill?” Lydia’s voice was soft. “Is that good?”

“It’s good.” I reached for her hand, found it. “It’s good.”