The Lime Pit (31 page)

Porky's face reddened. "You got him killed,"
he said flatly. "I won't forget it, neither."

I nodded to the kid behind me. "Better look out,
Porky. If Red thought he could pull a buck out of your pocket while
your back was turned, just think what that one is capable of."

He smiled like a baby jackal. "I'll keep it in
mind."

And, maybe he would, I
thought as I stepped off the porch. Anyone as affable as Porky Simlab
has to be a predator at heart.

***

It was almost two when I parked the Pinto in the
Jewish Hospital lot.

The receptionist in the lobby gave me his room number
and asked me if I was a relative or a friend.

"A friend," I told her.

"Then you ought to know that he's in critical
condition. He's been semi-comatose for almost a week. There isn't
much chance that he'll live out the week."

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Has
he got ... everything he needs?"

"His son's been in earlier this week, and I
believe he's arranged a nurse for him."

I walked up to the second floor, where they keep the
old ones with terminal illnesses. And down the hall, past the nurses
station, where two pretty young nurses sat laughing behind the
plexiglass window, to room two-ten.

He was sitting on the bed, staring blankly out the
open window at the parking lot, where the cars were sparkling in the
sun. He was wearing a thin hospital gown; his arms protruded from the
sleeves like sticks. The blanket was folded neatly at his chest.
There was no nurse in the room.

"Hello, Hugo."

He turned his head and looked up at me. Blankly. Then
he smiled.

I walked over to the bed and squeezed his hand. He
looked down at my hand the way a child looks at a new rattle.
Everything was new to him again. Every gesture and face. All new.

He looked up from my hand, cocked his wispy white
head and tried to speak. He moved his mouth a couple of times. But
the words that once filled it automatically wouldn't come, now. And
he spent a second trying to figure out what had become of them,
before he looked away with a trace of embarrassment in his juicy blue
eyes.

I patted his hand again. "I found her, Hugo.
She's fine."

He looked at me uncertainly.

"Cindy Ann is fine," I said. "She was
in Denver. Like I thought. I found her and sent her home to Sioux
Falls."

Something connected in Hugo's shattered mind. His
eyes filled with tears and his thin lips trembled. He touched my
hand.

"I gave her your love," I said heavily.

My throat began to burn. "She told me she loved
you, too."

He tried to say something
again. His mouth struggled with the thought, but no words came out.

***

There was a check from Meyer on my anteroom floor.
And a note from Jo postmarked almost a week before. I tucked the note
in my coat pocket and walked into the inner office.

The wasps were at it, again.

I put my feet up on the desk and stared at them and
thought about Hugo Cratz. I didn't think he'd believed me--about
Cindy Ann.

But, then, Hugo was always a hard man to lie to. And
she was all he'd had.