Heaven Preserve Us (4 page)

"Holy crap. You should be in bed," I said.

"That an offer?"

Oh, good Lord. Fine. Not my problem if he didn't have the
sense of a gnat. But I stepped back in the doorway. Whatever he
had, I didn't want any of it.

I told him about Allen calling me at home the previous evening.

"He called you at your house? How'd he get your number?" He
didn't look pleased. In fact, he acted like it was my fault "Allen"
had decided to harass me.

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"Well, I didn't give it to him," he said.

"He shouldn't even have known my name."

"Well, I didn't give him that, either." He sounded defensive.
"You're the only one who talked to the guy." He coughed, then
gasped for a couple breaths as if he couldn't get enough air.

My brow wrinkled. He sounded like he had pneumonia. "Listen, I'm not blaming you. I just wondered if this had happened
before. You know, see if there's a protocol to follow."

"No. Never before. No protocol." More gasping.

I couldn't help it. "Philip, are you okay? I really think you
should lie down. Or maybe go to the clinic down the street."

He waved his hand at me, dismissing the idea. "It's just something I ate. I don't know what to tell you about this guy, babe. I'd
go beat him up for you, but we don't know who he is."

As if Philip could have beaten up a kitten right then. "I'll figure
it out. Thanks for your help." More like thanks for nothing.

He licked his lips. "You know, I get threats all the time."

I paused in the act of turning toward the door. "Really? Why
would anyone threaten you?"

He shrugged. "Most of them don't come to anything."

I squinted at him. "What do they say?"

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "Various things.
Most of them reflect wishes for unpleasant things to happen to me."

I wondered if I'd stumbled into something. Maybe Allen was
less interested in me than in getting to Philip somehow. "This has
happened recently?"

He looked away and rubbed his fingertips across his lips. "Yeah."

"Somebody threatened you-did you tell the police about it?"

"Sort of. Sophie Mae, it doesn't have anything to do with that
caller."

"How do you know?"

"Because my latest threat was not exactly anonymous." He looked
back at me, and I saw his Adam's apple work again as he tried to
swallow. "Have you ever had your lips go numb?"

"Numb? No," I said. "Philip, is there some reason you're not
taking this last threat seriously?"

"It's just someone letting off steam. Are you still coming on
Friday?" His skin had taken on a weird grayish tinge.

"You look terrible. Go to bed."

"Friday?" he repeated.

I counted to ten. "Yes. I'll be here on Friday. I said I would, and
I will. Okay?"

"You should call the police about this Allen character," he said.

"Maybe. I'll think about it." Of course, calling the police in my
case was the same thing as putting my boyfriend on high alert. I
wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not.

"He probably followed you home from the parking lot," Philip
said.

An involuntary shiver tickled my shoulder blades. "Oh, that's
very helpful. Thank you for that thought. I'm going to go now."

"Maybe he's been following you for a while. Maybe it has nothing to do with the Helpline. Call the police, babe. I mean it."

"Sounds like you might want to do the same," I said.

He turned and threw up all over the wall.

"Holy shit!" It just sort of slipped out before I could stop it. I
mean, I wasn't trying to make the guy feel bad; he obviously felt
pretty bad as it was. His head lolled back and he slid off his chair.

"Maryjake," I called, hurrying around the desk. And then again,
louder. "Maryjake!"

PHILIP'S MOUTH OPENED AND closed like a beached fish now, but
he wasn't making much noise. With rigid fingers, he clawed at the
side of the desk. I was on the phone with emergency services when
Maryjake hit the doorway. She saw Philip's feet sticking out from
behind the desk and rushed around to join us. Now there were
three of us in that tiny space, and I stepped back against the wall to
make room, urging the 911 operator to send an ambulance as soon
as possible.

"Oh, God! Philip, honey, what happened? Oh, God. Ohgodoh-
godohgod." She dissolved into a puddle by his side.

Honey? I spared the briefest of moments wondering what
Maryjake's husband, James, would think of that.

"I don't know what's wrong with him," I said into the phone.
"He can't seem to breathe, and he threw up." All over the wall.
Which I was leaning against. I shut my eyes, trying to remember
how high the splatter had gone, and instinctively put a few inches
between myself and the plaster. I suspected it was too late, though.

Ew, ew, ew.

"Yes. Thank you. I hear them now," I told the operator, and
hung up.

The sirens got louder as I maneuvered around Maryjake sobbing all over Philip, now eerily quiet, his eyes closed.

"Maryjake, they're going to need to get to him. Come on. Let's
move the desk to the side."

"Oh, Phillllllllip." Her voice quavered like Laura Petry's on the
old Dick Van Dyke Show as she stood and ran out of the room.

Great.

I bent to try and move the desk by myself. Philip grabbed my
arm and pulled me down toward him. Eyes open again, his gaze
slid blearily around the ceiling. His mouth worked as he tried to
speak. He smelled like cigarettes and vomit, but I forced myself to
lean close to his lips.

"Threat. Meant it." He breathed the words against my ear.

"Who did?" I demanded.

But his lids fluttered down, and the grip on my arm loosened.
Putting my ear to his chest, I tried to determine whether he was
still breathing. Barely, and his heartbeat sounded way too loud.

I heard voices downstairs and called out, "Up here."

Boots pounded up the old wooden stairs. Maryjake darted in
with a damp washcloth in her hand just before the bevy of uniformed men began filing into the room. She knelt over Philip and
put the cloth on his forehead. It seemed an odd way to address an
emergency medical situation, but what did I know?

If I'd thought there were too many people in the room before,
now it turned into a how-many-people-can-you-fit-in-a-phonebooth thing. I struggled through the paramedics, which was not nearly as unpleasant as it sounds, and out to the hallway. Behind
me Maryjake shrieked, whether because of the thoroughly uncharacteristic hysteria that seemed to have grabbed her, or because of
anger at the paramedics asking her to move or leave, I didn't
know.

One of the uniformed men followed me down the short hall.
We paused outside the closed door to Philip's apartment, and I
turned to him.

"Why so many EMTs?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Everyone at the station was available. Plus, we're
training."

The last time I'd called for paramedics only two had shown up.
Of course, the man I'd called them for had been dead. But still.

Tall, blond, and cute-as-a-button spoke again. "You're the one
who called?"

I nodded.

"Tell me what happened"

"We were just talking. He didn't look so hot. In fact, his assistant-" I pointed toward the office to indicate Maryjake, and he
nodded his understanding, "-told me before I came up that he
wasn't feeling well this morning. His speech was slurred, he
couldn't seem to catch his breath, and then he threw up. After that
he kind of turned gray and collapsed." I craned my neck to try and
see if I had Heaven barf on my behind, then realized how strange
my contortions must look.

He had a few more questions, but I couldn't really shed any
more light on the situation. When he'd finished, Mr. Paramedic
gave me a smile and thanked me.

As I noticed his pretty white teeth, the little voice that lived in
the back of my brain noted ironically that having sex on a regular
basis seemed to have a kind of ripple effect; getting more, I wanted
more. It then reminded me not to leer, and I complied. I did, however, continue to stand with my back to the wall as he walked away
so I wouldn't inadvertently show any unsavory smears that might
be on my backside.

"Is he going to be okay?" I called.

The paramedic turned. "I don't know." And this time he didn't
smile, not one bit.

Suddenly my calm didn't seem so laudable. Suddenly I felt like
a horrible person. Philip was obnoxious and silly and rude and
terribly inefficient, but I didn't want anything truly bad to happen
to him. I mean, so he called me babe all the time. It was kind of
cute, really.

Wasn't it?

I leaned against the wall and covered my face with my hands.

They took Philip off to the hospital, and I sent a hysterical Maryjake
home. I stayed to answer the Helpline, until Ruth Black showed up
for her volunteer shift. I practically wept on her shoulder when she
walked in the door, I was so grateful to be able to leave. Ruth, seventy and sassy with her spiked white hair and an elaborate quilted
cardigan that looked more like a work of art than something to
wear, accepted my enthusiastic welcome with good grace, though
the look she gave me wasn't exactly sympathetic.

The morning had evaporated. What had started as a quick
break had turned into three traumatic hours. At home Meghan
greeted me with a frustrated, "Where have you been?"

She'd had to begin the process of making wine jelly without
me, and obviously wasn't very happy about it. Two dozen squat
jelly jars sat waiting on a towel on the counter, still steaming from
the sterilization process. On the stove, the huge black canning kettle roiled with boiling water. Meghan slowly stirred the beautiful
deep red liquid in the double boiler, melting sugar into the hot
cabernet sauvignon before adding the pectin that would cause it to
gel.

"I'm sorry. I have a good excuse, though." I poured a cup of
coffee and took over stirring, filling her in on the excitement at
Heaven House.

"Oh, my God. Is he going to be okay?" she asked when I'd finished.

She'd added the pectin to the mixture while I'd been talking,
and now I skimmed a little foam off the top while she fitted the
pouring funnel into the first jar.

Grimacing as I ladled out the hot wine jelly, I said, "I don't
know. That paramedic didn't look very happy."

"I'm calling the hospital." Meghan left to get the phone, wiping
her hands on a well-stained floursack dishtowel.

I continued ladling until all the jars were filled and began fitting the lids on and affixing them with the screw-on metal bands. I
heard Meghan murmuring in the other room. I had just placed the
first set of jars in the boiling water canner, replaced the lid and set
the timer when she came back in.

"Philip's in the ICU."

"Do they know what's wrong with him?" I asked.

Meghan bit her lip. "This isn't official information, by the way.
They don't just give that out. But I called someone I know over
there. Apparently it could be a ton of things, maybe even a stroke,
but they're thinking it was probably something he ate."

I leaned against the counter and stared at the runnels of collected moisture making vertical worm tracks on the steamed-up
window over the sink.

Threat. Meant it.

Had someone poisoned Philip Heaven?

"Are you okay? It must have been awful," Meghan said.

"Well, it wasn't fun."

"Why'd you go over there this morning anyway? Forget something last night?"

I turned and looked at her. "I went over to find out from Philip
whether there had been any other instances of a caller to the
Helpline focusing on a particular volunteer."

"Is this about the suicidal man last night?"