Strange Girl (13 page)

I swallowed. “I swear.”

Bart wished my friend all the best and hung up, leaving me utterly confused. His request, his demand—it had been so odd. He was acting like Mike would suddenly rise from his deathbed and transfer all his pain and injury directly into Aja’s head. Frankly, Bart had sounded more crazy than Mike’s mother.

Yet I had sworn to him.

I saw no reason why I couldn’t keep my word.

Dale returned shortly and brought me a coffee. Janet and Shelly arrived close to eight o’clock and woke up Aja. The waiting room was starting to feel claustrophobic to me and we moved to the hospital cafeteria, which was open and serving breakfast. None of us was really hungry but I picked up some scrambled eggs, toast, and a few slices of bacon, as well as a pot of coffee. Janet and Aja poked at the food, eating little. Dale and Shelly stuck to the coffee.

“You should have called us hours ago,” Janet said.

I shrugged. “Would it have helped? You and Shelly got to sleep. That’s a good thing. Mike’s going to need us today.”

“I know you told us everything the nurse had to say,” Shelly said. “But what was her attitude like? Was she optimistic?”

“She was professional,” I said. “She didn’t give anything away.”

“She sounded like a cold fish,” Dale muttered.

“We’re lucky Dr. Rosen is doing the operation,” Janet said. “People fly from all over the country to see him. Mike couldn’t be in better hands.”

I chewed on a piece of buttered toast; it felt tasteless in my mouth. “I don’t understand why we haven’t seen any cops all night,” I said.

“You know the answer to that question,” Janet said. “They’re the ones who cracked Mike over the head. Trust me, their lawyers have already warned them to keep a distance and to not say a word to anyone.”

“How could Mike be so stupid as to get caught in the middle of a drug bust?” Shelly said.

“Because he’s an idiot,” Dale said, and there was so much pain in his voice.

After eating less than half our food, we returned to the waiting room. It was eleven before Dr. Rosen finally appeared through the swinging doors. He’d obviously come straight from the operating room. There were splashes of blood on his blue scrubs. Although his dark eyes were weary, bloodshot actually, and he was on the short side and balding, the man had a strength to him. We jumped to our feet the moment he entered the room.

“Are any of you family?” he asked.

“We’re the only family he has,” Janet said. “Talk to us.”

Dr. Rosen told us the news. My fatigue might have dulled my mind but it seemed to me the man used a lot of long-winded medical terms I could have done without. The bottom line was that he’d been able to remove all the bone fragments but he feared the overall trauma to Mike’s brain would cause it to continue to swell. The next twenty-four hours would be critical.

“Could he die?” Dale had the guts to ask.

Dr. Rosen could tell, of all of us, that Dale was the most shaken. He patted him on the shoulder. “We’ll do everything we can to see that doesn’t happen,” he said.

“Is he conscious? Can we talk to him?” I asked.

Dr. Rosen sighed wearily. “We can only wait and hope he regains consciousness. Two of you can see him—no more—and only for a few minutes.”

Dale was the obvious choice to go, of course, and he wanted me to come with him. But Aja stepped forward. “I should go,” she said.

“Why?” Janet asked. “You hardly know him.”

Aja didn’t respond. Pulling her aside, I spoke so only she could hear. “I called Bart to tell him where you were. When I explained to him what had happened, he freaked out. He made me swear that I wouldn’t let you anywhere near Mike.”

Aja stared at me with her big eyes. “Bart knows not to interfere.”

“With what? You?”

“Yes.”

“I’m confused. Bart acted like Mike could hurt you somehow.”

Aja shook her head. “I need to see him.”

Dr. Rosen cleared his throat. “The two who are coming with me had best come now,” he said with a note of impatience as he turned toward the door that led to the recovery rooms.

“Come on, Fred,” Dale said, grabbing my arm. He literally pulled me away, leaving Aja following me with her eyes.

The recovery room was open; there were not even curtains separating the patients who had been operated on, perhaps because they were all males. I saw two elderly fellows who’d had their sternums sawed open; obvious heart patients. And a guy in his forties who had metal bolts holding his lower right leg together.

Yet Mike looked the sickest of them all.

It was his color—he didn’t have any. Being Hispanic, always out in the sun, it seemed impossible but Mike was white as a bedsheet. The top of his head was encased in bandages; the gauze came down to near eye level. On the left side it was stained with blood. “Soaked” would have been a more accurate word. A narrow tube ran from his nose to an air pump. The latter hissed as it rose and fell. He was being mechanically ventilated.

“Can he breathe on his own?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Dr. Rosen said. “But that can change. All we can do is wait and see.” He turned to leave. “My prayers are with your friend.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Dale whispered, wiping away a tear. He turned to me as if looking for a miracle. “Fred?”

I pulled Dale close. “There’s hope, you heard what Dr. Rosen said.”

Dale’s head sagged heavily. “I wish I hadn’t heard what he said.”

We stayed with Mike ten minutes, both of us taking turns squeezing his right hand, the only limb that didn’t have an IV stuck in it. Dale spent most of the time talking to Mike, telling him that he was going to be all right, that he had a lot of living left to do, a lot of concerts left to play with us. He told him how much he loved him and it was all I could do to keep from crying. I hated crying in public. Even more, I hated what the oozing blood in Mike’s bandage told us about his odds. He looked so lifeless; like no one was home.

Finally a nurse came and kicked us out. It was just as well. Seeing Mike, who’d never been sick a day in his life, in such bad shape had been too much for Dale. He was beyond overwhelmed. I practically carried him back to the waiting room. Janet and Shelly were anxiously waiting for our report. But Aja was missing.

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“She went to the bathroom,” Janet said.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

Janet was in a rotten mood. She snapped at me. “Who cares? She’s human, Fred, you know. She uses a toilet just like the rest of us. Now tell us how Mike looks.”

Dale had already collapsed in a chair and covered his face with his arms. I did my best to put a positive spin on what we’d seen. My lies were not very convincing. I probably should have lied more. When I mentioned that Mike couldn’t breathe on his own, Shelly broke down and Janet turned away so no one could see her crying. She was worse than me when it came to public displays of grief.

Aja didn’t reappear in the next fifteen minutes. I finally went looking for her and found her sitting near the hospital entrance. She was bent over and clutching her abdomen as if she had a bellyache. I sat beside her.

“You okay?” I asked.

She slowly raised her head and looked at me. She hadn’t seen me approaching. Her gaze looked somehow off. She kept blinking and a muscle in her cheek was twitching. “I’m fine,” she said.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t bother returning to the waiting room and the others. I just texted Janet a brief message saying I would catch up with them later and that one of them should pick up Mike’s mother and explain to the poor woman what had happened. I knew Janet would take care of it herself.

Aja and I were no sooner in the car than she passed out, her loose hair hanging over her face. I wasn’t really worried about her. At best she had only slept four hours. She must be exhausted, I told myself. It had been a little selfish of me to bring her in the first place. Then again, I had not been lying to Bart when I had told him she had insisted on accompanying me. On the surface Aja acted easygoing but I was beginning to see she was not used to being told no.

I didn’t disturb her until we were driving up the long driveway to the old Carter Mansion. It was then she gave me a bit of a scare. I had to shake her hard to wake her up. “Aja?” I said loudly.

She finally stirred, raised her head. “It’s okay,” she whispered.

“What’s okay? Are you all right?”

She nodded, her eyes half-closed. “Fine.”

Bart came out the front door, onto the porch, and down the steps as I stopped at the mansion entrance. I’d hardly put the car in park when he flung open the door and undid Aja’s seat belt. He practically lifted her from the front seat, all the while glaring in my direction.

“I told you that you should have taken her straight home!” he screamed at me. His venom threw me off guard.

“She was just taking a nap,” I said.

Yet Bart had a right to be concerned. Suddenly I could see Aja was far from all right. She was having trouble staying awake; she kept sagging into Bart as they went up the stairs. Finally, and this really scared me, he lifted her off the ground and carried her into the house. Jumping out of the car, I tried to follow but he shouted for me to leave.

“You’ve done enough for one day!” he cried, slamming the door in my face. I stood there for several minutes feeling like a complete fool. I wanted to knock, talk to him, explain that I had kept my word. What made it worse, of course, was that I had no idea what was wrong with her.

In the end, though, I accepted that I was not wanted and trudged back to the car. Driving back to town seemed to take an eternity. The weird thing was, I suddenly felt more worried about Aja than I did Mike.

CHAPTER NINE

GOOD NEWS CAME later that day. When I returned home, I passed out on the living room couch and was only awakened at six o’clock, about an hour before I expected my parents home. Janet was calling.

“He’s awake!” she cried into my cell. “He’s talking and everything. Dr. Rosen can hardly believe it. He says it’s a miracle.”

I sat up, wiping the sleep from my eyes, relief swelling in my chest. I’d passed out thinking I’d never see Mike again. “Thank God,” I said.

“And Allah and Krishna and the rest of them!” Janet exclaimed. “Seriously, Dr. Rosen said in thirty years of practicing medicine he’s never seen anyone recover so fast from such a severe head wound. The swelling in Mike’s brain has totally stopped. Except for being tired, he’s not showing any side effects of the surgery. Think about that! He was on the table ten hours with his skull sliced open!”

“I don’t know what to say. It does sound like a miracle.”

Janet lowered her voice like she didn’t want anyone else to hear. “Fred, you’ve got to get back here. Since he woke up Mike’s been saying he has to talk to you. That it’s real important.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“No. I only know he’s desperate to talk to you.”

“I’ll leave now. I’ve still got your car, you know.”

“Glad you brought that up. I’ve got Bo’s car. Could you swing by and pick him up? He wants to see Mike and, besides, he needs the Camry back. I can drive you home later in the Mustang. Bo has somewhere he has to go tonight. I’ve already told him to expect you.”

“No problem. I’ll pick him up,” I said.

Bo was waiting on the porch when I drove up; he hopped in the passenger seat. Janet had given him the full scoop on Mike, and Bo kept shaking his head in wonder.

“If something like this doesn’t force Mike to clean up his act I don’t know what will,” Bo said. “He’s been given a second chance in life. Tell him those don’t come around too often.”

“I will. Hey, do we know yet who attacked him?”

“From what Janet told me, it sounds like an entire SWAT team surrounded the house seconds after Mike went inside to collect his dope. The SWAT leader called out on his bullhorn for them to surrender. The dealer and his gang figured Mike was working for them. They tried using him as a hostage to help them escape. You can imagine how that worked. The SWAT team swept in and opened fire. One guy was killed, two others besides Mike were wounded. The SWAT leader says the dealer hit Mike over the head with a baseball bat. The dealer says it was the cops who did it.”

“What does Mike say?” I asked.

“I don’t know if he knows.”

“Were any police hurt?”

“No.”

“There were no cops at the hospital after the raid. That’s pretty odd, don’t you think?”

Bo shrugged. “They were probably avoiding the press. Your main problem now is Mike was the catalyst for the shoot-out. Chances are he’s going to do time. Your band’s going to need a new drummer.”

“I’m not worried about the band right now,” I said.

The others were still at the hospital: Janet, Dale, Shelly. Dale was so relieved Mike was going to make a full recovery he wept as he hugged me. “That bastard,” he said. “That goddamn bastard. I’ll never forgive him for the hell he put us through.”

“Yes, you will,” I said. “You always forgive him.”

Dale came close and whispered in my ear. “Mike’s going to tell you something bizarre. Trust me, you should believe him. Everything he has to say checks out.”

It took permission from Mike’s mother—who looked to be holding up better than we had expected—for me to be let in to see Mike. I was led by a nurse to the critical area, where he’d been given his own room. Before leaving, the nurse warned me not to tire him.

I couldn’t believe this was the same person I’d seen that morning. The ventilator had been removed and he had regained his normal color. Actually, he looked like he was glowing. It made no sense; he was sitting up in bed, drinking a bottle of apple juice, and grinning away. His bloody bandage from that morning had been replaced with fresh gauze and there was no sign of further bleeding.

“Hi, Fred,” Mike said and shook my hand like he hadn’t seen me in years. His grip was firm.

“Welcome back,” I said. “You gave us quite a scare.”

He spoke in a tone I’d never heard before. It was like another miracle; he sounded mature. “I know exactly how you and the others felt. That’s why I told Janet to get your ass back here. I need to tell you what happened during the surgery.” He gestured to a nearby chair. “Pull up a seat.”