Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) (10 page)

Chapter 13

Abercrombie’s
car was done before mine. I had a few minutes alone in the lobby to think. So
Krystal had been in touch with Second Star. Looking at the sheets Abercrombie
had given me, I saw that one of the calls had lasted for nearly sixteen
minutes. That call had been just over a week ago. I definitely needed to go
back there and ask some questions.

It was
nearly afternoon now. I thought about stopping to get some lunch before I
headed over to Second Star, but I wasn’t that hungry yet. I might as well go
over there first and then maybe pick up something for an early dinner. My
stitches had started to itch again, though. I scratched at the one in my cheek
until I felt a sudden sharp pain. When I pulled my fingers away I saw blood on
them. A quick look in the rear view mirror confirmed that I’d managed to rip
one of the stitches open. It wasn’t bleeding much, but it was enough that I
needed to do something about it. Talking to people when you were visibly
bleeding tended to make them uncomfortable. I knew that from experience.

An hour
later I was back in the ER. I’d gone to an urgent care clinic first, thinking
it should just be a matter of fixing what I’d torn open. The doctor there took
one look at me and sent me on my way. Stitches weren’t supposed to come apart,
he’d said. It could be a sign of infection. I took it as a sign that I needed to
put some Neosporin on it so it wouldn’t itch so much, but that wasn’t going to
stop the bleeding.

Being a
somewhat infamous ex-cop means you don’t spend a lot of time in waiting rooms
at hospitals. They took me to an exam room almost immediately. A surgeon was
just finishing up my new stitches when a doctor I recognized from my trip to
the ER back when I’d been going through withdrawals drew back the curtain and
stepped in. I’d forgotten his name. I tended to have a short-term memory when
it came to things I didn’t really care about.

“Doctor,”
I said to him. “You missed all the fun stuff. We’re about done here.”

He was
tall, dark-skinned, and had a shaved head and goatee that would have probably
made him a movie star if his career had gone in that direction rather than
medicine. He took a look at my new stitches. “I have an idea for you,” he said.
“Why don’t you try taking it easy this time around? No more jumping through
windows. Or do you just have something against glass?”

“I
didn’t jump through a window this time,” I said. He gave me a skeptical look.
“I didn’t! The most strenuous thing I’ve done in the last week is talk to
people. And that’s a strain, believe me.”

“I
imagine. How’s your ankle?”

I hadn’t
thought about the ankle in a while. It still hurt, but not enough that it kept
me from getting around. Then again, it wasn’t like I’d tried to run anywhere. That
was probably not going to happen for a while. “Better,” I said.

“Good.”
He waited until the surgeon was done and then closed the curtain behind him
when he left. That seemed ominous. He was either going to ask me out, or…

“I want
to talk about your blood work,” he said. That had been the option I’d been less
enthusiastic about. Not that I’d wanted him to ask me out, either, but this
wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have right now. Or ever.

“How
about we talk about literally anything else?” I asked. “Hey, you like any of
those local sports teams? Go sports!”

“Nah.”
He smirked at me.

I cocked
my head at him. He was being awfully familiar with me. “Okay,” I said. “I’m
just going to say it. I don’t remember your name. Sorry. I’m an asshole. So what
is it?”

“Ray
Slatkin.”

“Okay,
Ray.” That hadn’t rung any bells, but I wasn’t really surprised. “You seem
really
amused right now, Ray. I’d expect someone delivering bad news to have at least
a little gravitas. Did I wrong you in a former life or something?”

His
smirk didn’t go away. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?”

“I’ve
seen you before. I was here a year ago. I crashed pretty hard when I quit
drinking.”

He
nodded. “That’s right. I was the one on duty when Captain Evans carried you in
here. Did you really think you were going to quit cold turkey and
nothing
would happen to you?”

“That
was more or less the idea.”

“You
could have died,” he said. “I thought we were going to lose you for a while
there, honestly. It was close.”

“Yeah.
I’ve heard it wasn’t so good.”

“It
wasn’t.” He narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t remember it, do you?”

The
truth was I remembered very little of what happened after my first seizure. The
first clear memories I had didn’t start again until three days later. “Just
flashes,” I said. “And to be honest I don’t know which of those were real and
which were hallucinations.”

“Well,
you may not remember it, but we did a full blood panel for you. Had to. Your
liver was a mess.”

“I’m
sure.”

“Your
enzymes were ten times higher than the maximum range we normally see. Ten
times. That’s not an exaggeration.”

“I’m
sure it isn’t.”

“I
mean…” he started.

“Look,
just give me the bad news and get out of here, all right?” I glared at him.
“How long do I have?”

“Until what?”

I glared
at him harder. “Until I’m dead, you stupid asshole. What do you think?”

I swear
to god the bastard was grinning at me now. “I don’t know,” he said. “If you
don’t get hit by a car or something like that…maybe another fifty years at the
outside.”

I’d been
bracing myself for bad news, but now I wondered if I’d heard him wrong. He
hadn’t actually just said… “What?”

“You’re
not dying, Nevada,” he said. “You’re fine.”

To tell
the truth, he may as well have just told me that aliens had landed their
spaceship in the parking lot outside and were asking for me. There wasn’t a
single smartass response I could think of. It was a good thirty seconds before
I came up with anything at all. “That can’t be right.”

“It’s
right. Your liver enzymes are back to normal. They’re right in the middle of
the healthy range now.”

I shook
my head. “You’ve gotten me mixed up with another patient,” I said. “There’s no
way…” Was this a weird dream I was having?
Another
weird dream, after
that surreal conversation with Abercrombie?

“I’ll
admit I did double-check,” he said. “They’re definitely your results.”

“But…” I
said. “I don’t…” This didn’t make any sense. “I
have
to be dying.”

“And yet
here we are.” He kept smirking. I might have punched him if he was standing closer
to me, but at the moment I was too stunned to move. “You’re fine,” he
continued. Your panel was clean. Liver, kidneys, glucose levels…all fine. Your
blood pressure is a little high, but if you stop eating fast food every day
that should work itself out.”

The world
around me felt as if it had shrunk to the size of the exam room. I was starting
to get dizzy. Everything I had believed about myself and my future had just
been shattered. “What are you…” I began. I looked at him. “How?”

“How?”
he repeated. “The liver is a very durable organ, Nevada. It has an incredible
power to heal itself. That’s how.”

“I was
sure I was drinking myself to death,” I said. “I mean I know a guy…he may be
here right now, actually. He quit twenty years ago and he still needs a
transplant. I was still a drunk a year ago and I’m
fine
?”

He
nodded. “I think I know who you’re talking about. Another ex-cop?” I didn’t say
anything and he continued. “There’s a point of no return,” he said. “Once you
cross it there’s no going back. We can’t do anything about it unless you’re one
of the lucky ones who can get a transplant. But if you didn’t cross it, you’ve
got a shot. And so here we are.”

I was
still dizzy. “I’m not dying,” I said. I needed to try the words on for size.

“No.”

I
couldn’t think of anything to say besides, “Wow.”

“Yeah,”
he said. “Wow.” His smirk seemed to be getting smirkier, if that was even a
word.

“You’re
just enjoying the hell out of this, aren’t you?” I asked. “Mr. Funny Doctor?
I’m not sure why you find this so amusing.”

“Hmm,”
he said. “Maybe it’s because of the way you swore at me last year. I have to
admit, I’ve never heard a person talk like that.”

“Oh,” I
said.

He shook
his head. “I mean, at one point you accused me of having an orgy with a group
of barnyard animals, and you made an
Animal Farm
reference that I didn’t
think quite worked, but you seemed to think it was pretty clever. You spent
about two minutes cracking up over it.”

What had
I said about
Animal Farm
? For that matter, when had I even read
Animal
Farm
? High school? “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was pretty out of my head then.”

“It
doesn’t matter,” he said. “I didn’t take it personally.”

“So…” I
started “What is this? Why are you so amused? I thought you were having a go at
me to retaliate, but…”

“You
think I’m that petty?”

“I don’t
actually know you,” I pointed out. “You might be.”

“Well,
I’m not,” he said. “I’m amused because I actually expected that I was going to
have to call you and give you exactly the news you thought you’d get. I was
going to tell you we’d do our best to keep you comfortable but it was going to
be a long, hard road. Liver failure isn’t pretty. But instead…” he shrugged. “I
got to see your face while I told you the opposite. Pretty good day for me,
really.”

“Oh,” I
said. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately. I wasn’t sure how much sense it
made, but I supposed that to the doctor, we must have been almost like old
friends. I wished I could remember him. And also whatever I’d said about
Animal
Farm
. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

“No
problem.” He held out a hand and I shook it. Was that something doctors and
patients normally did? I had no idea, but I guess it seemed appropriate. “So
with your new lease on life, what do you think you’re going to do with yourself?”

What was
I going to do? That wasn’t a question I’d expected I’d ever have to answer.
“Honestly,” I said. “I really have no idea.”

Chapter 14

It had
been a very strange day. First the conversation with Abercrombie, and then the
unexpected news from Dr. Slatkin. I needed to get back to Second Star and
follow up with them, but my head was spinning. Everything I’d believed about my
life had changed in an instant.

I needed
to talk to someone, and given my reclusive and somewhat misanthropic lifestyle,
I didn’t have a lot of options. I’d tell Dan about the test results eventually,
but I didn’t want to see him right now. He’d sniff out that I’d been working
Krystal’s murder, and that couldn’t possibly work out well for me. There was
always another A.A. meeting, but that was a few hours away, and I wasn’t really
in the mood, anyway. I could hardly tell them I’d been at the hospital and
somehow forgotten to go see Paul. Nobody would believe I’d forgotten. They knew
me too well.

I took
my phone and dialed Molly Malone, instead. She answered on the second ring.
“What’s going on, Nevada?”

“Why do
you think there’s something going on?” I asked.

“You
never call unless there’s something going on,” she said.

I
thought about that. “I’m not sure that’s entirely true,” I said. I come by the
dojo and let you kick my ass sometimes and there’s nothing going on then.” I
had a black belt in Shotokan karate, but Molly’s skill level was so far above
mine that our sparring sessions were never much of a challenge for her.

“Okay,”
she said. “Fine. So what’s going on?”

I
sighed. “Do you have time to talk?”

“Not
about Sarah Winters, I don’t. You should know better than to even ask me that.”

To be
completely honest, I’d forgotten that Sarah was seeing Molly for therapy. “No,”
I said. “Nothing to do with Sarah. Why? Did Dan give you a heads up that I
might be asking?”

“He
called me and told me he’d accidentally let slip that I’m her therapist.”

“Well,
this is nothing to do with it. This is about me.”

“Nevada…”
There was a long pause. “I’ve told you before, I can be your therapist or I can
be your friend. I can’t be both.”

“I don’t
need therapy.”

“You
need so much therapy some lucky doctor is going to make a fortune off you.”

“Whatever.
Can we just get a late lunch or something and have a conversation like two
normal people?”

“I don’t
think we’ve actually done that in years. We can try, though” she said. “Half an
hour?”

“That
works. I’m near…well, in half an hour I can be anywhere. Thai Spice?” That was
an easy drive for me and near enough the dojo that Molly wouldn’t be going far
out of her way. I didn’t want to drive all the way into Pacific Beach if I
could avoid it. Getting into Pacific Beach was a pain in the ass.

“See you
there.”

I
arrived ten minutes early and got a table. Molly was in sweat pants and a
t-shirt when she walked in. She looked like she’d just gotten out of the
shower, which was entirely likely. Molly spent most of her time these days
teaching karate at the dojo she’d bought with the money she’d made as a
high-priced therapist. She didn’t practice much anymore, except in special
circumstances. One of those special circumstances had been me, a long time ago.
It hadn’t gone well. Sarah was another special case. I hoped Molly was having
better luck with her than she had when I’d been in her chair.

I stood
up and she gave me a hug. Molly was a hugger and I’d learned to deal with it.
She was exactly five feet tall and weighed maybe a hundred pounds. I was always
afraid if I squeezed her too tight she’d shatter, but she was a great deal
tougher than she looked.

“You really
look like hell,” Molly said.

We took
our chairs and I pointed at my new stitching. “Jumped through a window,” I
said.

“I
heard. Did it ever occur to you to take the stairs, Nevada?”

“Right
after I jumped through the window,” I said. “It would have been a much better
plan.” I cocked my head. “How did you hear? Dan tell you that, too?”

“Does it
matter who told me?”

“Sarah,
then?”

“We’re
not talking about Sarah.”

“That
doesn’t count as talking about Sarah!” I protested.

Molly
smirked at me. “Maybe you were trying to angle things in that direction.” I
glared at her. “Okay, okay,” she said. She raised her hands. “I’ll accept
you’re not trying to trick me into giving something away here.”

The
waiter came by and we ordered food. I wasn’t especially hungry, but I figured
the restaurant staff would prefer their place not be used for impromptu
meetings without them getting something out of it. Besides, I could always get
my food boxed up if I didn’t want to eat it and take it home for later. It was
like getting take-out the long way.

“So,”
Molly said once the waiter had gone. “What did you want to see me about?”

“I got
some news,” I said. “I’ve been freaking out over it for the last hour or so.”

“You’re
always freaking out over something,” Molly said, “but you don’t always call me.
This must be big.”

“It’s
big.”

“So…”
She waited. “Are you going to tell me what it is or did you want me to guess?”

I
sighed. “I went to the doctor,” I said. I pointed at my stitches again. “This
wasn’t something I could fix myself.”

“Sure.”

“They
took a lot of blood and tested the hell out of me.”

Molly
nodded but her face went a shade paler. She reached across the table and took
my hand. “I was afraid of this,” she said. She looked into my eyes. “Are you
okay?”

“Well,
no, not really.”

“Of
course you’re not,” she said. “Did they give you any idea how long you have?”

“How
long?” I asked. Oh. She’d reached the same conclusion I had, of course. Clever
girl. “No,” I said. “That’s just the thing. I’m fine.”

Molly
had been reaching for her glass of water with her free hand but it froze in
midair. She put her hand back down on the table and shook her head. “Wait.
What?”

“I’m
fine.” I nodded. “My liver is fine. It checked out. There’s no sign of organ
damage.”

“You’re
fine,” Molly said. She shook her head again. “You’re fine. You
can’t
be
fine. A year ago…”

“A year
ago my liver was dog shit,” I said. “It got better. I can’t believe it, but I’m
actually healthy.”

Molly
went back to her water glass and took a drink. She swirled the liquid around,
making the ice clank as she stared at it. “My god,” she finally said. “My
god
,
Nevada.”

“Yeah.”

Molly
put her glass down. “Okay,” she said. “That’s not the news I was expecting at
all, but it’s great news.”

“Yeah.”

“So why
is it bothering you so much? You didn’t call and say you wanted to celebrate.
You
should
be celebrating. You should be dancing in the streets after
what you’ve done to yourself. Good god. You got away with it.”

“I think
you know exactly why it’s bothering me,” I said.

Molly
nodded.

“And you’re
going to make me say it,” I said.

“Of
course I am.”

“Christ’s
sake,” I said. I looked away. “It changes…because this…” I ran my fingers
through my hair and hit a tangle. I really needed to start taking better care
of myself. “My entire world view just got taken away. I’ve been living with…”

“Living
with what?”

“With
the assumption that I was dying,” I said. “That it didn’t matter what I did.
Nothing I did. Because in two years, or maybe three at the outside, I’d be
dead. And I was fine with it, as long as I caught the Laughing Man first.”

“You
could curse out your friends, live alone in a house with no furniture, jump
through windows…”

“Well,”
I said. “Yeah.”

Molly
nodded. “And look at you now. Suddenly you’re faced with the prospect of having
to live a real life. Suddenly it
does
matter what you do.” She smirked
at me. Everyone seemed to be smirking at me today. “What’s
that
like,
Nevada?”

Our
waiter came back to our table with food. We’d both ordered flat rice noodles
with basil and chicken. Mine was spicy. Hers wasn’t. She started rolling her
noodles onto her fork while I thought. “It’s goddamn
weird
,” I finally
said.

“I would
think so.” She nodded.

“Maybe I
should…I don’t know…buy a couch or something.”

“Maybe
you should get a life. That’s what we’re actually talking about here.”

She was
right. The problems with my lifestyle had very little to do with furniture. It
had everything to do with the fact that I lived as if there were no
consequences to anything I did. I’d been a dead woman walking, and the truth
was I’d kind of liked it.

“It’s
tempting,” I said. “I wonder what it would be like to live like a normal
person. And not like…well,
me
.”

Molly
wiped her mouth with her napkin. “You know,” she said, “people come to me
sometimes and have this idea that they’re unique. That nobody else has their
problems, you know?”

“That
they’re all special sparkly unicorns.”

“Well,
okay,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t have put it like that.”

“I
would.”

“But
anyway, what I try to show them is that they’re not unique. Other people have
had the same experiences they have and found ways to deal with them. But you’re
a strange case. You actually
are
unique. Your relationship with the
Laughing Man…I’m not sure
relationship
is even the right word…”

“I’m
not, either.”

“It is,
though, in a way. You two have been fighting a war against each other for
years. Having an enemy has defined you, and…I’m not sure what it does for him,
honestly. You have this sick kind of symbiosis that people in my field write
textbooks about.”

“Symbiosis?
You’re pulling out the big words now.”

“You
know what it means. If this was a mystery novel I’d say you’re two sides of the
same coin. Or that you can’t exist without each other. You’re like Batman and
the Joker.”

“You
like Batman?”

“Everyone
likes Batman. Stop changing the subject. The thing is you’ve had this going on
for so long.”

“Not for
lack of my trying to end it. I just can’t find the motherfucker.”

“And
that might be the only way to end it,” Molly said. “You could stop chasing him,
Nevada, but I don’t think he’d ever stop chasing you. It isn’t over until…”

“One of
us is dead,” I finished the sentence for her.

Molly
nodded. “If you just gave up, what do you think he’d do?”

“I think
he’d visit me at my house and make me smile,” I said. The Laughing Man’s
calling card was the exaggerated grin he carved into the faces of his victims.
He’d promised to give me one someday.

“He
probably would,” Molly said. “So I don’t know how you’d ever have a normal life
until he’s out of the picture.” She shook her head. “It’s like you
have
to deal with that first. You could never settle down or have a family while
he’s out there.”

“I never
said I wanted a family,” I said.

“You
used to talk about it,” she said. “A long time ago.”

“I did?”
How long had I known Molly? It had to have been a long time. I hadn’t said
anything like that in recent memory.

“You
did. And I know you won’t believe this, but you have a lot to offer. I know
someone I could introduce you to.”

I was
about to ask how much she hated that person, but decided not to. “It’s
irrelevant,” I said. “Even if I thought I could live with another person, and
I’m not sure I could at this point, anyone I was involved with would be a
target for the Laughing Man.”

“Yes,”
Molly said. “They would.”

“I
wouldn’t even risk getting a cat. I’d come home one night and…god knows what
I’d find.”

Molly
nodded. “So I guess that’s an obstacle that has to be overcome. No big changes
until the Laughing Man has been dealt with. You could at least do some small
things, though. Now that you’re going to have to get yourself a life. Maybe
start with getting a couch. It would be nice to go over to your house and have
a place to sit for a change.” She frowned. “And also to feel like I’m not in
Fort Knox. You practically live in a bank vault.”

“Well,
that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

“I
know.”

“Watch
the Laughing Man kill someone in your house while you’re taped to a chair and a
bank vault doesn’t seem like a bad place to live.”

“I said
I know, Nevada. I wasn’t criticizing you.”

“A couch,
though. Maybe a couch.” I shrugged. “It’s not the worst idea in the world.”

I
thought about telling her what Abercrombie had offered me, but decided against
it. I knew what she’d say. She’d say I couldn’t run away from my problems. And
I wasn’t sure how I felt about it myself, honestly. I had a lot of thinking to
do.