Alien Blues (9 page)

“She want the kids again?” David asked.

“Yes. What's so bad about it, David? She also wants to know if you've gone through your mother's things.”

“Nosy old bat. Why? She want something?”

“Their synagogue is putting clothes together for tornado victims, and she thought—”

“
Jewish
tornado victims, I'm sure. She won't touch anything of Mama's.”

“
Fine
. Don't yell at me about it.”

“Anything else she want to know? Like the details of our sex life?”

“What's to tell, lately?”

“Is that a complaint?”

“Yes. I demand my conjugal rights.”

“You're the one who keeps falling asleep.”

“Why don't you ask me when I'm awake?”

“You're never awake.”

“How would
you
know, you're never home.”

“Rose …”

She held up a hand. “David, I want to make a point, before we get way off the subject. The rent on Lavinia's apartment is coming due again. We can't afford to keep paying it. I haven't wanted to press, but we need to get her things squared away. Would you like me to do it? I don't mind.”

“I'll do it. I'm her son, I should do it.”

“We'll go together.”

“No. I'll go. It's not that big a deal, Rose. We just weren't that close.”

Rose looked sad. “Whatever you say, David.”

He went to his workroom—a small cubby, off the kitchen. The previous owners had called it a mud room.

“This is David,” he said to the computer. “Code Shalom. Come up please.” He fished his glasses out of a drawer and put them on.

The terminal hummed and beeped. The screen lit up.

“Shalom, David.”

“Simulation of the Darnell case.”

He sat in a battered brown easy chair and watched the screen. The image was very like an “exploded” blueprint. David had an aerial view of the killer at work—an angle he hated.

“Cut to face-on simulation.”

“As you wish. Accuracy sixty-eight percentile.”

David watched Machete Man ravage Millicent Darnell's underwear.

“Input entire caseload Machete Man to Darnell case.”

“As you wish.”

David drummed his fingers.

“Ready,” the computer said.

“Face-on simulation of Darnell case.”

“As you wish. Accuracy eighty-one percentile.”

The computer had given Machete Man a mustache—that was new. The face was bloated-looking, the eyes sleepy. David felt a hand on his shoulder. He jumped.

“Machete Man?” Rose asked.

“Yeah. Look familiar?”

“Kind of like Mel.”

“I'll tell him you said so.” David squinted at the screen. Rose rubbed the back of his neck. He sighed deeply.

“Everybody does so much work at home now. So you're never
home
at home anymore.”

“Gives us more opportunity to fight,” David said.

“Speaking of which. You weren't nice to Haas tonight, David.”

“I was too.”

“So why didn't he stay for dinner?”

“You heard him, Rose. His horse is having a baby.”

“You create an atmosphere, David.”

“What the hell kind of complaint is that? I create an atmosphere? Maybe Haas saw the mess in the kitchen, and that's why he didn't stay.”

“I thought you'd gotten over being jealous of him.”

David rubbed his chin. “I am not jealous. I admit I don't like it when the two of you have secrets.”

“We work together sometimes, David. Please remember that we're the only family he's got.”

“Just why is that?”

Rose shrugged.

“More secrets,” David said.

“You and Mel have secrets. You damn near talk in code.”

“Mel doesn't look like Haas.”

“Truer words were never spoken.”

David turned his chair around and faced her. “Time you told me what's going on, Rose. I need to know if you and the girls are safe out here. Right now, I'm afraid to leave you.”

“Okay, David.” She turned a chair backward and straddled it, giving him all of her attention. It was like being spotlighted, after sitting in the dark.

“The last job out was a bad one. Haven't seen one like that in a long time. Lately, you know, I've been thinking my job is obsolete, as far as the labs go, anyway. The laws on animal research are pretty tough now … and public opinion can pressure a sloppy operation. Turn it around. Most places use simulation models anyway, they're more accurate. There's really no
point
to these labs anymore. But there's always a few diehards. Usually, legal channels are all we need.”

“But when that doesn't work, they call you. What do you do, Rose?”

“You're a cop, David.”

“I know that.”

“Then don't ask me what I do. I'm an enforcer—professional harassment.”

“My wife is hired muscle?”

“Put it any way you want. Why is that funny?”

“Rose, you're such … I'm sorry. You just don't … I better shut up.”

Rose smiled lazily.

“What do you do, Rose? What kind of enforcement?”

Rose shrugged. “Usually it doesn't take much. You get through somebody's security, and let them know it—let them know what could happen to their research. That's all it takes. They've gotten radical, they leave booby traps. Usually very amateurish. Most of the time I could do this job in my sleep.”

“But not always.”

“No. Not always.”

“Rose, I always wanted to ask you. That lab in New Jersey, the one that blew up. Did you …”

“If I did, I wouldn't admit it.”

“You
did
, didn't you? The whole
town
was overrun with mice. And what about that zoo where the gorillas disappeared?”

“David, you're a police officer. It is your job to uphold the law. Don't ask me things that will cause us both problems.”

David leaned back in his chair and stared at his wife. “What now? What is it with the rabbit?”

“A joke, a message—the gauntlet.” She propped her chin on the back of the chair. “This last job did not go well. There was more going on there—areas I didn't penetrate. Santana was waiting for me.”

“Santana?” David narrowed his eyes. The way Rose said the name was unsettling. “Who is this Santana?”

“Someone from the old days. Hires out.”

“Like you.”

“Not like me. But I will have to go back. And Santana knows that. So, I'd like to send the girls to Ruthie, in Chicago.”

“You think they'll be safer there?”

“The safest place for the girls is with me. But they'll be all right in Chicago.”

“You're leaving then?”

“Not yet. I need to work out a little, firm up. Job's been too easy, and I'm soft.”

“I like you soft.”

Rose sat in his lap and put her arms around him. “Can I be on top tonight?”

David kissed her ear. “Good night, Machete Man. Hello, Rose.”

THIRTEEN

The bedroom was lit by sunlight—too much sunlight. David rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. He reached for Rose, but found cool empty sheets.

“Looking for me?” Rose leaned against the doorjamb.

David stretched and yawned. “Where you been?”

“Just checking. The girls are okay. No visitors last night.” She slid back into bed and kissed him.

“Your feet are cold.”

The phone rang.

“God damn it.” Rose picked up the receiver. “
What
. You, David. It's Mel.”

David took the phone. Mel's voice came through loud and crisp.

“Where you been, partner?”

“At home, where the action is.”

“Or isn't,” Rose muttered.

David ignored her. “Somebody dropped by, night before last. Killed the rabbit.”

“Some kind of criminal cat in the neighborhood, huh? Probably doesn't know you're the resident cop.”

“Strangled.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“Somebody strangled your rabbit? Jeez, no wonder Rose was upset. How come she didn't tell me?”

“You pissed her off.”

“That ain't difficult. Look, David, the Darnell woman … uh, Millicent Darnell. She had a massive coronary day before yesterday. She's at the hospital, fading in and out. Insists she wants to talk to you. Della's over there right now, but says the lady wants Detective Silver.”

“I'm on my way.”

David hated hospitals—one of the minor reasons being the incredible slowness of their elevators. He knew his way around Euclid Central, where they took the trauma patients. Most of his case victims wound up there. He'd never been to Southern Medical before, and he couldn't find their stairwell. Some detective.

The elevator came to an abrupt grinding stop and the door shushed open. David's steps were quiet on the thin blue carpet. He wrinkled his nose at the hospital smell of alcohol and dirty socks. He stopped at a central desk and looked over a grey counter. A woman sat behind a lit terminal. She didn't look up.

“Excuse me.”

The woman stared at the small screen of the terminal.

“I'm Detective Silver, here to see Millicent Darnell.” He flashed his badge.

The woman looked up reluctantly, her face shadowed with fatigue. “Sir, this is the coronary care unit. We won't have visitation until this afternoon.”

He looked at her name tag. “Dr. Juddson? I didn't flash my ID there to impress you. I'm here on official business.”

“Oh? Sorry. Been on duty too long.” She looked up absently. “Harry?”

A nurse looked up from a switchboard. “One sec.” He turned to the intercom. “I'll be down in a minute.” He stood up and stretched. “What you need, Glenda?”

“Harry, this is Detective … gosh, I don't know. Whatever. Here to see somebody or other. Can you—”

“Thanks, Glenda, I'll take care of it.” Harry came out from behind the partition. “You the one Darnell was asking for? Detective Silverman?”

“Silver.”

“Come on, she's down here.”

The nurse was a big guy, apish. He had a heavy head of dark hair and a full beard, and his body canted from side to side as he walked, like a captain on deck during heavy seas.

A knot of men and women in white jackets clustered around a tall, gliding Elaki. The Elaki had a white jacket too, and a stethoscope wound around his midsection. The men and women held clipboards and looked at the Elaki with absorbed reverence.

Several of them were talking, but a woman's voice rang above the others.

“But suppose the physical manifestations are psychosomatic in nature …”

David and Harry flattened themselves against the wall to avoid being trampled.

“The good doctor,” Harry said mildly.

“How's she doing?” David asked.

“Darnell?” Harry shrugged. “You better ask her doctor.”

“Would that be Juddson?”

“Juddson or Knapp.”

“I'd rather ask you.”

Harry shrugged again and started walking.

“Look, Harry, I'm not family. I'm a cop. Mrs. Darnell is a witness in a capital crime—she's important.”

“Okay, then, she's dying. Needs a bypass and doesn't qualify. Her last attack was a bad one. She's in a lot of pain. She'll probably have another attack in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, and that will finish her off.”

“There's nothing you can do for her?”

“Lots we can do for her, nothing we're budgeted for.”

“So you stick her in a room, make her comfortable, and that's that.”

“I wish we could do even that. But the fact is, she's
not
comfortable and she's in a
ward
.”

They stopped in front of a large room divided by thin fiberboard partitions. A woman peered out from the third cubicle on the left.

“Della?”

“Here, David.”

David turned to thank Harry, but the nurse was gone. Della met him in the hallway.

“How is she?” David asked.

“In and out,” Della said. “She seems awful tired. Keeps asking me to open the window. I don' have the heart to tell her there isn't one.”

“She talk any?”

“Not to me. She's had a few conversations with some dude named Earl. She's been holding out for you, Silver.”

Della took a packet of crackers from her shirt pocket. The Southern Medical logo was stamped on the package.

“Really, Della. Have you no shame?”

“Honestly, Silver, guy named Harry gave these to me. Listen, I been working 'round the clock. My kids are gonna bark when I come in the door. I'm gone. Good luck with her.”

“Sure.”

David walked to the third partition, trying not to stare at the patients in the cubicles. Millicent Darnell's eyes were open and she watched him come around the corner.

“Finally,” she said. He walked to the side of the bed. “You got that notebook, Detective?”

“I've got it. How are you, Mrs. Darnell?”

“Not so good.”

She was right. Her color was bad, her lips bluish, eyeballs yellow and bloodshot. She seemed very, very tired.

“I'm going to die,” she said conversationally.

“So I heard. I'm sorry.” David pulled a chair close to the head of the bed.

“I'm sorry too,” she said, sounding surprised. “He killed me, you know. Sure as you're sitting there. Courts won't recognize it, but you and I know better.”

“Courts
will
recognize it.”

She twisted a wad of sheet in her fist. “I keep thinking about him, in the house. What he did on the bed.”

David dropped his pencil and it rolled under the bed. He bumped his head getting it back. The chair squeaked and scooted sideways when he sat back down.