The Encounter (2 page)

Reaching for my phone, I dialed my assistant, Jasper. He might’ve been a man, but he was very proficient and knew exactly what to do in any situation. “Jasper, see if you can move back the meeting with the executive until 10:00 AM. If you can’t, then have Gerald take the meeting on my behalf and give him my notes regarding the client.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the mystery man was shaking, mumbling something underneath his breath and drooling down his chin. I didn’t know if he was having some sort of attack or some weird dream that he found himself in.

“I don’t think that they’re going to be very happy with your absence, but I’m sure that I can make up some sort of excuse. I could say that you are having woman issues and that should keep them quiet for the time being.” He was a master of subterfuge and telling a man that a woman had woman issues was like throwing cold water in their face.

“I don’t know how I got so lucky to have you working for me, Jasper; it feels like only yesterday that I stole you away from that office on the sixth floor. I thought for sure that you would balk at the idea of working with me, but you have turned out to be more than an assistant, but a best friend as well.” He was my confidante when I thought that my marriage was coming to an end and he was the one that talked me into giving it one last chance.

“You keep talking like that and I’ll be blushing by the time you get into the office. I don’t know what’s going on and it is not really my business, but if you need to talk, you know that I am always there.” I wasn’t sure if I could even muster the words that I had a man mumbling underneath his breath and injured to the point that I had to take him into the hospital.

There was construction up ahead and I could see that a detour was in order, which was going to take us a little bit longer to get to the hospital than I previously thought. “I know that you are always there for me, but this is just an errand that I have to take care of before I get back to the meeting. There’s nothing to worry about and this was just something last minute that came up.” I wasn’t sure he was going to believe me, because frankly, I don’t come in late, especially when I have a very important meeting waiting for me on my day planner.

It looked like there was a water main broken and I could see the water spouting into the air and flooding the street. They were working diligently to put things back together, but it meant leading us away from the main road and into the suburbs.

Looking over at my new companion, I could see that he was either sleeping or passed out. The gun that he had presented in the first place was now lying beside him, barely being clenched with his fingers. I was about to reach out and take it from him, but then it slipped from his grip and fell onto the floor. My breath got caught in my throat, because for a moment I thought that it might go off and discharge in the vehicle. It bounced a couple of times and then disappeared underneath the seat. With a sigh of relief, I was just happy that I didn’t get a bullet in the leg. If I had, I probably would’ve had to go to the hospital myself.

“The police are still on the lookout for a man waving a gun, yelling something hysterically into the air and making people a little leery about approaching him. They have no sightings in the last few minutes and apparently he has fallen off the radar. This could mean that he is hiding out somewhere and you are to be careful and cautious when you are outside in your backyard.” I kinda felt better about the fact that he wasn’t out there fending for himself, even though I didn’t know his story and I really didn’t want to.

I followed the progression of traffic, cutting off towards the hospital and finally seeing the big ‘H’ sign in the distance. It wouldn’t be very long until I arrived at their front door and that was when I was going to wash my hands of the whole thing. There’s really no way for me to get involved and the best thing to do was to drop him off and make a beeline out of there as fast as possible.

* * *

TWO

* * *

Arriving at the hospital, I was a mere three car lengths away from the front door, when I caught something a bit odd. A man was standing at the door smoking a cigar with a pair of dark sunglasses and wearing a dark suit. His hair was just so and there seemed to be some sort of communication device attached to his ear. Again, I was just using my instincts, but something told me that I shouldn’t venture too close.

Looking over, I saw that my mystery man had now slumped down further into the seat and it was fortuitous that he did so, because now he was virtually invisible to anybody on the outside. They would have to literally be on top of the car before they realized that he was there, making it easier for me to make a circuit around the hospital and back out again. There was something about the man at the front door that bothered me, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

If I couldn’t take him to the hospital, maybe I could have the hospital come to him. I did know somebody that was well versed in first aid and she was an army nurse in Iraq. Tina had probably seen worse than this and I wasn’t even sure if we were looking at a bullet wound or some kind of knife. She wasn’t that far away and getting to her wasn’t the issue.

The mystery man’s shirt was open down to the first three buttons and I could see a well defined pectoral region. Taking a deep breath, I reached over and grabbed onto the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up so that I could look at his wound. At least that was what I was convincing myself, but it was his body that I was most interested in. When I saw his six pack, I traced them with my fingers, before coming upon the wound. It looked like he had tried to fix it himself and for the most part he had done an admirable job.

Putting his shirt back down, I could see that the makeshift bandage that he had put on was still soaked through with his blood. The man was in bad shape and underneath his eyes were these heavy bags, indicating that he probably hadn’t had much sleep in the last few days.

Driving the car around the back of her house, I found that she was still there and her black wrangler jeep was sitting in its customary spot by the back door. Jumping out, I went to the door and pounded on it like a madwoman, until her face appeared at the window. Tina looked like she hadn’t been to bed yet, although her idea of a good time was dancing until the wee hours of the morning.

“I hope you have a good reason for being here this early on my only day off.” I thought fate had lent a hand, because this could’ve been any day. It was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time or maybe it was the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Tina, I need your help.” I didn’t give her a chance to ask any questions, going back to my car and opening up the passenger side door. He almost fell out and it was then that I smelled the pungent odor of rum on his breath. It could’ve been just as simple as him being a homeless man that was down on his luck, possibly with neurological disorders and he had gotten into a fight with somebody. “Come on… I can’t lift him on my own.”

She came out with a very sheer robe that, to be honest, didn’t leave all that much to the imagination. She felt the cold breeze and reached in for her long suede brown jacket hanging by the door. “I’ve often said that you should leave Mike, but I never thought that you would take it to this extreme. You don’t have to hurt a man to bring him home with you and that went out in the caveman days.” She always did tend to lean towards humor when things got a little too serious.

“You’re a funny girl, but can the funny girl help me before I drop him on the ground?” She came out and helped me to bring him inside, laying him down on the kitchen table so that Tina could look at his wound. There wasn’t much that I could do except stand by and give her the things that she needed, which included gauze and tape. Her first aid kit was a little bit more advanced than most, but this came from her days in Iraq and being prepared for anything. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I could see the telltale scar underneath her eye. I’ve tried to get her to talk to me about her time overseas, but she would always get this faraway look, before turning around without making eye contact.

She was amazing and she never said a word the entire time that she was working on him. That girl has what I call a one track mind and she was very proficient and detached the entire time. There was no emotion and she was treating him as nothing but a patient, which was probably something that she had learned to compartmentalize in the army.

“I think we should take a step outside and leave him to rest for a little bit. He can’t stay here and neither can you and Andrew will be home in a few hours.” Andrew was her 12 year old son and this was not something that he had to see. This would scar the kid for life and it was just by luck and good management that he was already on his way to school. “You really do go for the hard luck cases. I’ve known you for 15 years and in all that time I would say that you should’ve been the nurse. You have a nurturing soul and why you didn’t go into medicine is beyond me.” We stepped outside and she pulled out a cigarette before lighting it and letting the smoke drift aimlessly into the sky.

“What’s his condition?”

“Cecily, I would say that he was shot, but someone cauterized the wound. It was a good thing they did, because he probably would have bled out in a matter of minutes. As it is, the stitches that I put in will hold, just as long as she doesn’t move around too much. He is going to need constant supervision and someone to look after him, at least until he is able to get up on his own two feet.” I could see that she was looking at me and then it dawned on me that she was thinking that I should be that someone.

“I can’t take him home with me because Mike is there.” What she didn’t know was that Mike was always working late and I might actually be able to take care of this guy before he even noticed anything was going on. We had a basement that was half finished and there was a pullout couch downstairs with a small fridge that would be perfect for his needs. Mike never went down there, even though he promised that he would finish what he started, but he always said that when he got a project in his head.

“I can tell you that he can’t look after himself, although I get this feeling that he would argue that point. I just hope that you know what you’re doing and getting involved in somebody else’s business is never a good idea. How do you even know that he isn’t dangerous, because I saw some battle scars that would indicate that he had seen his fair share of fighting?”

“I guess I just saw it in his eyes.” I saw her looking at me funny, smiling and making me feel that I was doing something wrong. “Don’t look to me like that; it’s not like I’m falling in love with him.”

“It’s interesting that you would go there, Cecily. It’s the wounded bird when you were a child all over again.” I was always taking in strays, those animals that weren’t wanted by anybody. It was no wonder that my aunt had turned gray before she was 50 years old. With a combination of my destructive streak and taking in strays, it was a wonder that all of her hair didn’t fall out. “Please, just take him to the hospital and they will take care of it from there. I can see in your eyes that you’re not going to do that, but I think I’ve known you long enough to know that once you get something in your head there’s virtually nothing that will stop you.”

“I don’t appreciate the comment about the wounded bird and you know that I feel for things deeply. I guess it was because I didn’t really feel loved as a child and I wanted to make sure that nothing suffered the way that I suffered silently. You don’t know the full story of how I grew up and I really don’t intend to get into that long and tedious story right now.” I knew that she didn’t mean any disrespect and I can understand how she could mistake what I was doing for this man for what I did for the wounded bird. Perhaps, she was right and I was just projecting a caring and compassionate attitude towards somebody that couldn’t defend himself.

It was possible that he was as dangerous as the radio broadcast had mentioned, but I didn’t feel that from him and was going to go by my instincts. There was definitely an edge to his personality, a cold and determined look in his eyes that came from living dangerously. It just wasn’t a foregone conclusion that he was a bad man or got caught up in something that wasn’t in his control.

“I didn’t mean to say that you fall for those that are scarred emotionally, but I think you can agree that you tend to try to take a damaged man and fix him. You’re doing it for Mike and there are times and I think that you should leave him, but I keep my mouth shut. It’s your life and you can live it any way you want, but I do feel that I should be able to give you my opinion from time to time.” The mystery man was lying on the table and it appeared that the blood had stopped.

“Is he in much pain?”

“As much pain as it takes for somebody with a bullet wound. The only saving grace that he has going for him is the fact that the bullet didn’t nick any vital organs. If that had happened, there wouldn’t be anything I could do to save him, so I guess he has a lucky rabbit’s foot somewhere. I’m going to try to find you some medication that he can use for the pain, because he is going to need it when he wakes up.” It still amazes me that people could be in pain awake, but sleeping they could literally not feel a thing. I’ve had toothaches that were killers, but once I found myself sleeping, I was able to block it all out. “I’m not sure if I have anything in the house, but I might have something around from when my husband had his back injury.” This was well before they had their child and when things were a lot more stable.

“I never even thought to ask you for anything to give him and I guess that’s why you have the training as an army nurse.”

“Don’t think for one second that I don’t know that you’re buttering me up and I get this feeling that you want me to keep my mouth shut about this.”