Fire Lake (13 page)

"Who says that, Al?" I said through my
teeth.

"Your lawyer and I came to an agreement." I
glanced at Laurel. She sighed and nodded.

"So we all forgive and forget, is that it?"
I said to Al. He didn't say anything.

"Where's Jordan?" I said.

Al shook his head. "Just let it alone, Harry."

"Sure, Al." I brushed past him, took Laurel
by the arm, and walked out of the station house.

Outside it was fully night-cold, blue-black, filled
with wintry stars. After several hours in the overheated jail, I felt
the icy air like cold rain on my face. I shivered beneath my topcoat
and wrenched my back.

"He did all he could for you, Harry,"
Laurel said, coming up beside me.

"Foster?"

She nodded. "There was really nothing I could
have done without his help. Jordan had listed you as being
transferred to the Justice Center. I didn't know you were actually
still here, until Al stepped in." She smiled wearily. "I
tried to find you, though. Believe me, I tried."

"I believe you, Laurel."

"You better go to the hospital, don't you
think?" I nodded. "I guess I should."

"I'll take you," she said. "My car is
right across the street."

We walked over to her BMW. It was parked beneath a
fluted black gaslight. There was a police cruiser parked in front of
the BMW. I glanced into the cruiser as we passed it, half expecting
to see Jordan inside. But the cruiser was deserted.

Laurel gave me an anxious look. "Al was right,
Harry," she said nervously. "You've got to put this behind
you. You're never going to be able to touch Jordan, legally. And if
you lose your temper . . . nobody's going to be able to get you out a
second time."

"Let me worry about that," I said sharply.

"You don't know all of it," she said. "Al
really had to push to get you out at all. Jordan is trying to connect
you to a murder in Miamiville."

I shivered again and winced. "How?" I said
uneasily.

"Apparently your name was found on the register
at a motel where a murder was committed. Jordan is trying to make a
case that the murder was done over drugs. I'm not supposed to know
this, but apparently they found some crack on the scene. The same
batch that they found in your apartment."

"Jesus," I said.

"Al and I know you're not involved in this. But
Jordan isn't convinced. As far as he's concerned, you're still the
main suspect in the murder." Laurel shook her head ruefully.
"You shouldn't have punched him, Harry."

"I should have killed him," I said grimly.

It took me a full minute to get into Laurel's car. As
I settled down gingerly on the seat, I said, "Do you mind making
one stop before we go to the hospital?"

She shrugged. "It's your body."

"Let's stop at the Clarion, then. I want to
check on a friend."

She started the car up, drove onto Central and
circled back to Plum. We followed Plum down to Fifth. Even though it
was Saturday night, the streets were deserted. The cold had kept
everyone inside.

Laurel parked in front of the Clarion. I worked my
way out of the car and into the lobby. Several couples in evening
clothes stared after me with horror. I pulled my topcoat tightly over
my grimy shirt and went up to the front desk.

The night clerk eyed me with distaste, as if I were a
dog running loose in the lobby.

"I want to know if someone checked out," I
said.

"Who?" he said disdainfully, as if he could
scarcely credit the idea that someone who looked like me could have a
friend who stayed at his hotel.

"Her name is Karen Jackowski." I gave him
Karen's room number.

He flipped through an index on his desk and said,
"She checked out at five forty-five this afternoon."

He glared at me as if I were the reason why.

Feeling relieved, I hobbled back out to the car.
Karen had shown good sense, after all. I figured she wouldn't have
checked out unless she was leaving town. If she'd caught an evening
flight, she was already back in St. Louis, with her kids. And that
was where I wanted her to be--out of harm's way. Because, like it or
not, I knew I was still going to have to deal with Bo and his
friends. They weren't just going to forget about me or Lonnie or the
cocaine. They'd keep coming back, until they got what they wanted or
until Lonnie and I were dead. So would Jordan. He was like a pit
bull. Once he got his teeth in, he'd never let go. I was going to
have to run Lonnie down before Bo or the cops got to him. I was going
to have to find out what had really happened to the cocaine. Then,
somehow, I was going to have to make things right with Bo's boss,
even if I had to feed Lonnie to him in the bargain. Jordan was a
different question. He'd have to be dealt with too. I didn't know
exactly how, although I knew what I wanted to do to him.

One thing was certain, I was tired of being taken for
someone else. And I was deadly tired of being a friend to Lonnie
Jack.
 

19

Laurel drove me to University Hospital on Goodman
Street. She wanted to stay with me in the examination room, but it
was a busy night at the hospital and I knew I was in for a long wait.
I told her to go home.

"Is there anything you want to tell me?"
she said, giving me her lawyer's clear-eyed look.

I thought about it for a moment. "Not now."

"You're sure?"

I said that I was sure.
She
patted me on the shoulder and stood up. "I'll call you tomorrow,
in case you change your mind."

She walked out of the
examination room, leaving me alone.

***

It took me over three hours to get X-rayed and
examined. Either I'd been lucky or Jordan had been more skillful than
I'd thought, because nothing was broken. The intern wrapped my ankle
in an Ace bandage, drained the bruise on my shoulder, gave me a
steroid shot for my backache, and a bottle of muscle relaxants and
painkillers to get me through the night.

I stared at the bottle of painkillers and asked, "Am
I going to be mobile tomorrow?"

The intern smiled. "It depends on what you mean
by mobile. You'll be able to move, but don't count on doing any
lifting, running, or fast walking. In fact, if it's at all possible,
you should stay in bed for a few days."

"It's not possible," I said.

"Then keep taking those muscle relaxants and the
codeine."

I thanked him, picked up my coat, and hobbled out of
the examination room. The muscle relaxant made me feel as if I'd been
working out--loose-limbed, buoyant. But the feeling was illusory. If
I stepped the wrong way or made any sudden turns, a sharp pain shot
up my leg and through my spine like a jolt of electric current. Even
with the codeine, the pain was bad enough to make me catch my breath.

I called a cab from the emergency room lobby and had
it take me back to the Delores. I didn't really want to go home, but
I couldn't think of anywhere else to go on a dismal December night.
Besides, I didn't feel like wandering around unarmed, and I'd left
the Gold Cup in the bedroom when I'd changed clothes.

The cabbie let me out in front of the Delores's
courtyard. After I paid the fare, I stood on the sidewalk for a long
time, watching the cab's red taillights disappearing down Reading
Road, as if I were bidding adieu to a friend. There wasn't another
car on the street and just the faintest glow from the traffic lights
on Reading, flashing in the bare branches of the maples like
Christmas tree ornaments. It started to rain as I stood there on the
sidewalk, a cold drizzle mixed with flakes of snow. When the rain
started to come down harder, I turned away from the street and stared
at the apartment house. It was so quiet in the courtyard that I could
actually hear the rain falling, a shushing noise like silk rubbed
against silk. All told, I don't think I'd ever felt more lonely in my
life.

I took a breath of the cold night air and started
across the courtyard to the front entrance, walking carefully through
the slush. I made it to the lobby without slipping.

Inside the lobby, the little coiled radiator opposite
the mailboxes was hissing like a viper. I stared up the stairs with
foreboding. It wasn't just the climb. God only knew who was waiting
for me in my apartment this time. And this time, I was virtually
helpless. Unarmed. Unmanned. Unable to react.

I climbed the stairs a step at a time. When I got to
the landing, I peered down the hall. The wreckage from the afternoon
had been cleaned up and someone had nailed a piece of plywood over
the hole in the ceiling. I walked slowly down the hall, keeping my
eyes fixed on the door to my apartment. There was a note taped to the
door.

I thought maybe it was a message from Karen--a
good-bye note. But it turned out to be an eviction notice from the
management. I crumpled the paper up and shoved it in my coat. The
last straw. It took me a couple of minutes to fish my keys out of my
pocket. I fitted them in the lock, turned the handle, and let the
door fall open--resigned to anything that was in store.

At least, I thought I was resigned to anything. But
when I saw Karen, curled up in my pieced-together armchair, I almost
wept. She stirred as I came into the room, stretching her arms and
smiling at me sleepily.

"I thought I told you to leave," I said
with a stab at sternness. But my heart wasn't in it.

"Actually," I said, hobbling over to the
couch and lowering myself in stages to the cushions, "I've never
been happier to see another person in my life."

"Christ, what did they do to you?" Karen
said as she watched me sit down.

"Oh, a little of this and a little of that."

Karen got up, walked across the room, and sat down
beside me on what was left of the couch. She put a hand to my face
and stroked my cheek gently. Her lip trembled as if she was going to
cry. I studied her turned-up lip and smiled.

"It's not as bad as it looks," I said,
laying my hand on top of hers.

"Poor bear," she said softly.
 
She tried to pull me to her. When I groaned, she
jerked her hands away as if she'd burned them.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking pained for
me. "I'm so sorry."

"You're here," I said. "No need to be
sorry."

"Couldn't leave you in the lurch," she said
with a smile.

"Yes, you could have. You should have--for your
own sake. But I'm very glad you didn't."

"You need some rest," she said. She stood
up. "Let's get to the bedroom. I've flipped the mattress over.
It's thin, but it's sleepable."

"I'm afraid I'm not going to be much fun for a
while," I said with a sigh.

"You're not going to do anything--for a while,"
Karen said, holding out a hand to help me up. "Let Karen do all
the
work."
I
took her hand in mine. "Thanks," I said gratefully.
 

20

Pain woke me up, around nine that Sunday morning.
Pain that had circled around the bed all night long, and in the
morning light had driven its beak into my back, my shoulder, my leg,
my gut. I didn't know where to reach first. As the sleep left me, the
throbbing became even more intense. I bit my lip to keep from
groaning out loud and waking Karen, who was still sleeping soundly
beside me. I tried getting out of bed, but for a full minute I simply
couldn't move. I finally managed to push myself upright and swing my
legs to the floor. The effort made me break into a sweat. I wondered
despairingly how I was going to make it through the day. In the
movies, when a guy got beaten up, he was as good as new the next
morning, except maybe for a few painted-on bruises and contusions. In
real life, the pain stayed with you, like a lesson that was memorized
by your body and that was relearned, minute by minute, with every
breath you took. In fact, that lesson was the whole point of the
beating. Jordan had done a good job.

Just the thought of that vicious, dead-eyed son of a
bitch made me start to tremble with anger. As I was falling asleep
the night before, he was all I could think about, in spite of Karen.
He was all I could think about at that moment. I wanted to pay him
back so badly, I could feel it in my flesh, like another bruise.

And at the same time, I knew, in my head, that Jordan
was only one of my problems. Fantasies of revenge weren't going to
get me out of the trouble I was in with Bo and his boss or with the
police. Only Lonnie could do that. Finding Lonnie was the key. Only
Lonnie could tell me what had happened to the lady. With Jenkins
dead, only Lonnie could tell the cops that he had registered at that
motel using a false name-my name. It was a good thing that Karen had
relied on her heart instead of her head the previous afternoon.
Without her around to point the way to Lonnie's old friends, I didn't
know how I would have begun to hunt for him. To be perfectly honest,
without her around, I don't know how I would have gotten through the
night.