Lonesome Point (18 page)

“No, wait.” Leo set a hand gently on Martin’s forearm. “It’s not exactly what you’re thinking. This is about the
suggestion
, the
show
of taking control. Listen, she’ll say, ‘Who is it?’ or she might even open the door, and what you do, you stand right there, act cool and composed, and you say, ‘Rose, I need to speak to you for a moment, please. There is something I’d like to say.’ And then you keep quiet and just wait for her response. If she says something like, ‘Can’t it wait?’ you say, real cool, ‘No, it can’t, I’m afraid,’ and something like how now is as good a time as any, and then you say, ‘Rose, I want to come in.’ You don’t ask, you
tell
her you want to go inside, and you keep looking her straight in the eyes, Martin, and don’t you doubt for a second that she’ll let you in.”

The young man was thinking it over, squeezing his bottom lip. “But why do I want to do all this?”

“Demonstrate to her she’s on your mind, and it can’t wait anymore and you’ve got to talk to her, and like right now.”

Martin nodded, warming to the plan.

“Lemme tell you,” Leo said, deciding to nudge things three degrees, “with that room dark, that bed laid out, it’s the perfect setting, the ambience for an intimate conversation. A heart-to-heart. I’ll cover for you on the floor, there’s nothing to worry about. After you do it? Talk to her, I mean? You’ll feel a lot better about where you guys stand, and she will, too. Tonight’s a perfect time.”

Martin let out a sigh. He stared at the counter, maybe pictur
ing how it would go. “All right,” he said. “Why the heck not? You’ll cover for me?”

“Of course. Don’t worry about a thing, dude.”

AT 1:45, the phone rang and Rose, who was getting ready for her break, picked up. Leo was sitting in the gerri chair in the hallway. Rose sauntered past him with a pillow and a blanket and said, “It’s for you.”

Leo took the call.

Freddy Robinson said, “Four o’clock. You know what you have to do.”

“Wait… .” Leo sat down. “A little later is a better time because of the break situation.” Martin walked into the room, and Leo hunched over the phone for privacy.

“Gimme a set hour, man,” Freddy said.

“Okay, I’m thinking four-thirty.”

“Then I shall see you and Mr. Massani at four-thirty.”

And Freddy hung up.

Leo returned to the gerri chair with butterflies in his stomach. He tried to think through his plan one more time, but for a long freaky moment his mind was blank. He shook his head, sat up straight and exhaled, and the gears started working again. His hands had gone cold, so he rubbed them together, put some feeling back. All right, he was too nervous, he needed to cool it. He tapped his toes.

At 1:54, Martin left the nurses’ station, nodded at Leo and trekked down the hall toward the break room. Leo watched, three people on his mind: Martin, Freddy, Herman. Leo could
make out Martin’s form in the darkness as he rapped on the break-room door and stood back. The door opened, there was some murmuring, Martin walked in, and the door closed. Leo jumped up and walked to the door. When he heard the lock engage, he made his move.

He closed the nurses’ station, only a small square of light spilling into the hall now from the glass in the door. He checked his pockets, car keys and wallet there, plus his pocketknife, just in case. All that was left was Herman.

In his room, Herman was ready—baggy khaki pants and a red polo shirt, white tennis shoes without laces—holding his drawstring plastic bag of clothes.
“Ahora?”

“That’s right,
ahora.
”

Leo hustled the old man down the hall past the locked break room, where—he was positive, would bet his last dollar—Martin and Rose were deep into it. Because if there was one thing Leo had learned in two dates with her—the woman had emotional issues, confused sex with commitment, and required you to prove, with lots of sweat and exertion, how deeply committed you were. May the good Lord give Martin stamina.

They hurried past the nurses’ station now and all the doors of the women’s side, lights off in all the open rooms, the ward quiet except for Herman’s loose sneakers slapping the tiles.

Leo opened the back door with a key and they stepped out into the warm stairwell. They trudged down a flight of stairs before Leo stopped. “Look, you don’t have laces? We’ll need to move fast, and those things’ll fly right off and you’ll be running barefoot.”

Herman shook his head. Leo shook his head, too. “Come on,” and they continued until they reached the bottom of the stairs and Leo said, “Get behind me.” He cracked the door just enough to view the parking lot, air cooling his face. He’d parked his car in a middle row near the fence, a straight shot from the door, and as far as he could see nobody was lurking there.

But Leo knew better. He knew Freddy didn’t trust him, and that’s why Freddy was about to get tricked. He told the old man, “Let’s go, hurry.”

Roughly halfway to his car, he threw a glance to his right. Across the street in the lit-up short-term lot, Freddy was leaning against a car, arms folded, grinning at them. Then Leo saw a movement up ahead on the left: Bernard stepping out of the black Mercedes. Welcome, Bernard.

Leo grabbed Herman’s arm and directed him back to the annex, toward the courtyard gate. Fumbling with the keys to find the right one, trying to do it coolly so as not to frighten Herman.

Bernard hollered, “Yo!”

Leo slipped in the gate key, Herman conscious of the situation now and turning around.

“Hold up there!”

Leo pushed open the gate, hauled the old man in, slammed the gate shut.

Bernard shouted something incoherent, shoes clacking as he came running.

Herman dropped his bag, Leo swiped it up and kept tugging Herman along as they race-walked under the basketball hoop and across the courtyard. He heard Bernard rattling the
gate, shouting, “What game you playing, boy? You fixing to get your head lumped!”

At the south side of the courtyard, Leo opened a door with a key, and they entered a hallway, administration offices on both sides, doors closed. They headed toward the door at the end, a security camera in a corner above it, Leo knowing that guards would be on his ass in minutes. He paused in front of the camera, made sure they got a good look at him and Herman. Then he pushed through the door, into the lobby of the pharmacy, the two of them breathing noisily under the bright fluorescent lights. A hallway in front led to the rest of the hospital, a hallway to the left led to Crisis, sliding glass doors to the right.

Leo said, “You okay?”

Herman’s skin was flushed. He nodded, managing a weak smile.

“We’re taking these,” Leo said, pointing at the sliding doors, “out to the parking lot again, but going in the other direction. If we see that big guy again, if you feel me grab you hard again, like this, we’re heading back, understand?”

Herman nodded and Leo smiled for encouragement when a security guard in a blue jacket marched up the hallway, carrying a radio. Beautiful, these guys were good. Leo dug out his hospital ID badge from a pocket. The guard’s radio crackled. He raised it to his mouth, spoke, glaring at Leo and Herman when he reached them.

“You gentlemen work here?” His eyes swept over Herman’s bag with the Jefferson Memorial logo, the tennis shoes with no laces.

Leo presented his ID. “Upstairs, mental health.”

The guard examined the ID, looked at Leo, handed it back. “What were you doing in Administration, Mr. Varela?”

“Well, this patient here, he was …” He saw the guard glance to the left.

Big Bernard was strolling down the hallway from Crisis.

Leo said, “That’s the guy.”

The guard said, “What guy?”

“That’s what I’m saying, that’s why we sneaked into Administration. That’s the dude was chasing my patient I took down to Crisis for a checkup and he’s screaming at Herman here and getting him all agitated, I don’t know what the hell’s going on, where were you guys?”

The guard looked at Herman, Herman nodding at him. The guard turned and walked toward Bernard. He spoke into his radio, and Bernard slowed his advance, then stopped.

Leo took Herman’s arm and edged toward the sliding doors.

The guard reached Bernard and began talking to him, Bernard staring at them over the man’s shoulder. Another guard was coming up behind Bernard, who heard and turned around.

Leo said quietly, “Let’s go,” and he gripped Herman harder and they took off, trotting through the doors. One of Herman’s shoes slipped off in the parking lot and he bent over to get it as they were moving and went sprawling onto his stomach. Jesus Christ. Leo hoisted him up and they started off again, leaving the shoe behind.

Leo saw Freddy, off in the distance, perched on the trunk of Leo’s car like a man with no worries. Leo stuckclose to the building, dragging Herman and thinking this was what life amounted to, running around in circles searching for a way out of this
bullshit at two o’clock in the morning. They hit the sidewalk and turned the southwest corner of the building.

Herman was panting, asking where were they going, he was tired, he couldn’t … Leo told him it was almost over, not much farther, then, holding Herman’s hand like a child’s, he crossed the hospital campus’s main road, across the cobblestone plaza with the fountain, heading for the four-story parking garage.

T
HE GATE ARM ROSE and the old blue Camry rolled out of the garage onto the main campus road, Tessa behind the wheel, nervous and fidgety. She looked left, looked right, and for a second was confused. Which way led out?

She chose left, going extra slow when all she really wanted to do was speed, zoom, fly the hell out of there. But no, she needed to play this game right, not attract attention. Even though there was nobody on the road, and that’s exactly what was unnerving her—the place too quiet, pretty flower beds there by the benches, water splashing in the fountain she was passing now, the tires bump-bump-bumping over the cobblestone. Everything was a little too peaceful.

At the bend in the road, the headlights swept over the mental health annex and the parking lot and then she saw the main entrance and felt a lift. She pressed the pedal a touch harder. When she was almost there, she saw a man in the parking lot, a slim black guy in a tie standing around like he was waiting for a bus.

At the main gate the traffic light blinked yellow. She stopped, looked both ways on Twelfth Avenue, again fighting the urge to mash the pedal.

A huge man appeared from behind the fence and stepped in front of the car. Tessa gasped, couldn’t help it.

The man grinned at her. Not moving. A huge head, perfectly
round and smooth. He was nicely dressed, tie and long-sleeve shirt. Raised a small flashlight in his fist, like cops do, spotlighting her.

Tessa shielded her eyes, rolled down a window, the man coming around to her side, lowering the beam but his eyes never leaving her face. Tessa said, “Officer, Officer, thank god, I’m so lost.”

“Yo, lady, I’m not—”

“I need to get to the emergency room, I’m having awful pains.” Tessa touched her belly. “Just awful and I’m not due for a couple months and I need to see a doctor quick but I’m just so lost.”

“The emergency room is on Tenth Avenue. You go down this street, Twelfth right here, take the first right, then a right onto Ninth and down a ways to Eighteenth, and you see the sign for it there on the right.”

“A right here, two more rights … oh, thank you so much.”

Tessa was about to take her foot off the brake when the man said, “Wait,” and moved close to the window and shone the light into the backseat. An overnight bag, a pile of blankets on the floor.

Tessa said, “Oh, this hurts… .”

The man stepped back. “Sorry.” Clicked off the beam.

“Thank you, Officer.”

“It’s all right, but I’m not—”

Tessa rolled up the window and roared off, banking right and racing up Twelfth Avenue. She ripped through the intersection where she was supposed to turn right, then said, “Okay, who was that, who the hell was that?”

Blankets flew up into the air and landed next to her, and Leo
rose up and spilled onto the backseat, breathing heavily. “That was close … that was too close.”

“Who was that, Leo?”

He wiped perspiration off his face with his sleeve and climbed into the front seat. “Bernard. His name’s Bernard.” Leo raised the splints. “He’s the one. Pull over, babe, pull over and pop the trunk.”

Tessa aimed for a warehouse parking lot, the car careening over the curb and lurching to a halt. Leo jumped out and ran around to the trunk. Herman lay curled up inside, hugging his bag and one shoe. Leo helped him out and hustled him into the backseat. “If I wasn’t claustrophobic I’d have gotten in there, Herman, I swear, but you did good. Lie down flat now, don’t raise your head.” Then Leo hopped back into the front seat. “Go go go.”

Tessa peeled out onto Twelfth again and tore north through the blinking yellow lights of empty intersections and down a maze of dark streets toward 1-95. After everyone seemed to calm down, after her heart had slowed, it all began to sink in. “I can’t
believe
we’re doing this,” she said. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”

“Tessa, this is Herman. Herman, this is my fiancée, Tessa.”

She threw the old man a backward glance. “Hi, nice to meet you.” She looked at Leo. “I’m never doing anything like this again, so don’t ever ask me.”

“Okay. But do you love me?”

“Your chin’s bleeding.”

He touched it.

“Don’t, your hands are dirty.”

“I must’ve hit myself on the floor just now and didn’t even realize.”

“Let me see. Come here, let me see.”

“You’re driving.” But he obeyed anyway, leaning toward her.

“It’s your stitches, all right. You might want to clean it. When we stop at the apartment you should come up, I’ll wash it.”

“We don’t have time. Watch the road, Tess.”

“That needs cleaning, though.”

“Sure, but do you love me?”

Herman was sitting up. “The ramp. For the highway. Is here now.”