Fools Paradise (29 page)

Six feet of nothing stretched between him and the end of the bridge. The piece stuck up between, a flimsy-looking sketch of a pine tree with soft stuff hanging off it that was meant to look like dangling fronds of pine needles. Bobbyjay stuck a foot out and joggled the tree experimentally. The light bridge wiggled.

“Hey!” Mikey Ray yelled.

A screwdriver slid off the bridge. Many voices swore on the deck.

“This thing's made of steel underneath.”

Bobbyjay blessed the scene shop for making the tree out of something stout, and cursed the designer for putting it too goddam near the first electric.

He yelled, “Can I have some light over here?”

The shout went across the stage. With a monster hum, ten thousand watts of worklight snapped on.

Bobbyjay could now see that the pine fronds were mounted on plain old triangle truss, welded together.

“Shit.” How was he going to shift it? Except it had to have come apart to go on a truck. So there must be— “Bolts. Halle-fuckin'-luia.”

He felt in his back pocket for his crescent wrench.

“Mikey Ray, I'm gonna jiggle the bridge a lot, coming over to you,” he announced.

“Let me get a better grip.”

Through the pine fronds Bobbyjay watched Mikey Ray curl his legs up and wrap them around a nearby railing support. “Go for it,” Mikey Ray grunted.

Experimentally, Bobbyjay swung out from the arbor tracks. His aching shoulders bitched and he missed the truss by four inches. He swung again, stretched until his crotch muscles complained, hooked the truss with one foot, pushed off from the arbor tracks and landed on the triangle-truss tree-trunk, panting, clutching the tree, spitting fake pine needles away from his face. The light bridge juddered and swayed.

Mikey Ray swore. The pine tree was wobbly, but the truss-trunk, Bobbyjay knew, would be bolted to the floor on big steel rabbit feet.

Now to figure out where he could take this tree apart.

The nearest segment break was over his head, just below the spot where the truss was tangled with the light bridge cable.

“I gotta come to you. Hold tight.”

Bobbyjay monkeyed up the tree and clambered onto the light bridge railing. The bridge hung at such a steep angle that he had to sit on top of the motor to reach the bolts.

“Heads!” he hollered, letting nuts and washers fall to the deck one by one. As the last bolt loosened, the treetop flapped away from the rest of the truss. Bits of pine tree crud rained down onto the deck.

Bobbyjay felt the fronds disentangle from the bridge cable.

“Clear the deck below!”

Shuffling and voices came from below, and then Tanny's voice called, “All clear.”

He dropped the tree top. It thumped to the deck like a corpse.
I'll sound like that if I fall.
He was so sick of being awake that his eyeballs hurt.
Don't think about it.

Now to make the bridge move again.

“Mikey Ray, what's up with this motor?”

“Shorting out.”

“Where's Daisy with my voltmeter?” Bobbyjay called below.

A voice not five feet away said, “Here.”

He looked up, startled, and saw not Daisy but Tony Ditorelli hanging onto the arbor tracks, reaching across thirty feet of air and the topless pine tree with the voltmeter in his hand.

“Thanks,” Bobbyjay said. “Got a flat-bladed screwdriver?”

Tony handed one across. He didn't look so happy.
Scared of heights, probably.

Four minutes later Bobbyjay had the chain motor working. On manual, he made it raise the low end of the bridge until the bridge was level.

Thirty seconds later, they stood on the deck.

“If I live a million years,” Mikey Ray said, thumping Bobbyjay on the back. “Christ, I was shitting my pants.”

“Thanks for the backup, Tony,” Bobbyjay said, turning.

Tony still looked miserable. “Something's happened to Daisy. The ambulance is on its way.”

Bobbyjay sat outside the emergency room when Marty Dit showed up, breathing fire.

“This is your fault! This is what happens to her when she works in the Local! Where's my
angelina?”

Bobbyjay was too worn out to get mad. “She's gettin' X-rayed, Marty. Some stage weight hit her on the back of the head.”

Marty Dit grabbed Bobbyjay by the wrist and jerked him close. His face was gray. His lips trembled. “What really happened?”

Bobbyjay stared at him, wondering how much the old geezer could take.

“Come on,” Marty Dit said grimly. “I know Tony had something to do with it.”

“You do?”

“He called me. Before you called.” Marty Dit paused, then said grudgingly, “But thanks for calling me.”

“Tony called you?” Bobbyjay goggled.

“He knew I'd hunt him down and kill him if he didn't.” Marty Dit didn't look in the least like he was kidding. “Tell me.”

Bobbyjay licked his lips. “Dunno. I was onstage when it happened.”

“Talk!”

Bobbjay took a deep breath. “I get down off the light bridge and Tony tells me Daisy's been hurt. Says he's called nine-one-one, the ambulance is on the way.” He eyed Marty Dit, wondering what Tony had told the old man. “Said he boobytrapped my roadcase and Daisy knew it and,” Bobbyjay swallowed, “she opened it anyway. He put ten forties in the top drawer and they fell out on her.”

Marty Dit nodded as if he only half heard.

At that moment they wheeled Daisy out of the elevator and back into the ER. She looked dead. Bobbyjay's stomach turned over.

Marty Dit ran after the gurney, saying, “She's my granddaughter,” loudly, over and over.

Bobbyjay put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

He blamed himself as much as Marty Dit wanted him to. More. Daisy thought she was tough enough to face down anybody. But it wasn't punches she had to face. It was this sneaky shit. Bobbyjay had tried to warn her. But even after the incident on the truss spot cage she kept coming back to work, trusting in him maybe to protect her. It couldn't be done. Her own family was out to get her.
Tell me Tony Dit tried to stop her?
he thought cynically.

What were they doing in there? He wondered how long it would be before the doctors ejected Marty Dit for being a pain in the ass. They probably wouldn't let Bobbyjay into her room at all, now that blood relations had arrived. X-rays meant concussion. Brain damage. Spinal damage. He groaned and squeezed his head between his hands to keep the thoughts from flying out, or in.

One of the nurses came out of the emergency room. “Mr. Morton? You're her fiancé?”

Bobbyjay raised his head and leaped to his feet.

“Doctor Sim can talk to you and her grandfather now.”

Doctor Sim looked about nineteen, a pretty Asian woman with a lilting voice and eyebrows that went straight across her forehead, so it looked like she was frowning.

“Daisy has a pre-concussion injury and considerable blood loss, but there is no sign of cranial swelling, and she has the use of her extremities. She should stay here for another two days at least, until we determine that nothing further will develop, such as a blood clot. After that she should go home and rest. At that time I'll give you a list of symptoms to be on the watch for. If nothing new happens, she can go back to work as soon as she feels up to it.”

“Can I talk to her?” Marty Dit said.

Dr. Sim hesitated. “She mustn't be agitated.”

Marty Dit looked ashy. “She told you not to let me talk to her?”

Dr. Sim pressed her lips together and said, “She thinks you blame her. Or perhaps you blame her fiancé.” The doctor slid a glance toward Bobbyjay.

Marty Dit looked at Bobbyjay, too, and then bowed his head. “I won't do that.”

“Very well, gentlemen. You can see her for a few minutes.”

Bobbyjay was going to let Marty Dit go in first, but the old man hung back at the door. “I can't,” Marty Dit said. He looked scared.
Whoa.

“Bobbyjay?” Daisy said, and he went to the bed and took her hand. She lay there like a chicken carcass. Tears leaked out under her lashes.

Bobbyjay's knees gave out and he knelt beside the bed, holding her cold little hand as tightly as he dared.

“I love you,” she whispered to him.

“I—huk—I love you,” Bobbyjay whispered back. “You're gonna be okay. Doctor says. Long as we don't piss you off.”

She smiled feebly. “Remember that.” She turned her head. “Goomba?”

Her grandfather came to her other hand. From Bobbyjay's kneeling place, the old man's wrinkles seemed deep as canyons.
“Angelina,
I'm so sorry. He did it to you for revenge, because I sent him away.”

“He did it to Bobbyjay, to win your approval,” she said. “I just got in the way.”

Marty Dit made a cutting gesture with the side of his free hand. “Why did you do it,
angelina?
You could have been killed. You knew it had to be dangerous.” He bowed his head.

She squeezed Bobbyjay's hand. “Remember when you tried to shoot Bobbyjay? And he wouldn't let me get between you?”

“The gun didn't fire,” her grandfather whispered.

“You pulled the trigger,” she said in a tart tone, and Marty Dit's head came up. “I wanted you to know how much I—how far I would go to stop—anybody—from hurting him.” Her voice got stronger. “I want everybody to know. Everybody talks in the Local. The word will get around.”

Bobbyjay stared at her in amazement. “You mean you—in cold blood like that—to start
gossip?”

She met his look. “Everybody should know the price of a stupid fight.” Then she tugged at her grandfather's hand. “Goomba. You have to stop the fighting.” Her eyes filled with tears again. Bobbyjay felt he ought not to be watching, but nothing on earth could have moved him away from her cold hand. “I love you, Goomba. Promise me you'll stop.”

Marty Dit met Bobbyjay's eyes across the white sheet. “I'll call Bobby Morton right now. Will you talk to him with me?”

Bobbyjay swallowed. “I'll try.”

Daisy squeezed his hand. “I love you both. Try.”

“Go to sleep, Daze.”

She smiled at him again and closed her eyes.

Bobbyjay's heart swelled up hot. He got to his feet.

“What's his cell number, Bobbyjay?” Marty Dit said.

Bobbyjay looked at Daisy. “D'you think we should, like, let her sleep?”

A short laugh popped out of Marty Dit. “Better not. If she doesn't think we're obeying, she'll do something worse.” He looked at his granddaughter with pride in his eyes. “She deserves to know how it goes.”

So Bobbyjay sat there, feeling like a man sitting on a keg of dynamite, and Marty Dit used the room phone to call Bobby Senior. Marty Dit explained what had happened, not even whitewashing Tony's role, and then he said, “Bobby. My little girl got hurt. You have no reason to believe me, but I'm sick of it. All this. I'm withdrawing from the election. My letter went out yesterday.” His voice broke. “You win. If that's what you want, you win. Can't we put the brakes on this thing now?”

He listened for a long time, and then he said soberly, “Your grandson is here with Daisy. I'll let him talk to you.”

Bobbyjay took the phone as if it would bite. “Pop?”

“I heard about what you did at the Opera House,” Bobby Senior said.

Bobbyjay blinked. “I what?”

“Saving Mikey Ray Ditorelli's life. That was good thinking. Does Marty Dit know?”

Bobbyjay glanced at Daisy's grandfather. “Uh, I dunno. Pop, I'm with him and Daisy at the hospital—”

“Old fucker's going sentimental,” Bobby Senior said in a rough voice. “This should be good for you in the future—”

“Are you gonna call off the feud, Pop?”

There was silence at the other end. At length Bobby Senior said, “His own grandson did something stupid, and the girl got hurt instead of you. What does this have to do with me?” Pop hesitated. “All I care about, it'll hurt his campaign when the word gets around.”

Bobbyjay wasn't fooled by the tone. The hesitation told him that his grandfather had been touched. “Pop, he's conceding the election. He gave up.”

“And you believe him?” Bobby Senior laughed—hollowly, Bobbyjay thought, but it could have been the cell phone.

“Yeah, I do,” Bobbyjay said sharply.

“Love's made a sucker outa you,” the Morton patriarch said and hung up.

Sorrowfully, Bobbyjay cradled the phone. “I'll talk to him, sir. He needs to get used to the idea.”

Marty Dit nodded, not looking surprised. “Hard head. Hardest head in the Local. Everybody thinks he's a pushover 'cause he's such a happy guy. But what they don't think, How does a pushover get on the Board twenty-one years in a row?”

“We'll talk him around, sir,” Bobbyjay said, clueless how to do it, but alarmed at Marty Dit's masterful summation of the patriarch's character. Daisy had worked a miracle getting Marty Dit to quit the feud. God alone knew how long that would last in the face of Bobby Senior's skepticism. “Give me a shot at it.”