Ticket to Ride (28 page)

The third night, Wendy snuck in a sausage pizza and two cans of beer inside a shopping bag. It was fun hiding it all from the nurses. Wendy was really good at playing innocent, even though the two nurses who came by sniffed the air and looked at her suspiciously. Around eight thirty when one of the nurses popped back in to tell her that visiting hours were over, Wendy said that since we were getting married this coming weekend, she would appreciate it if she could stay in my room all night.

The nurse, an older sentimental soul, gave one of those smiles contestants on quiz shows do when they've just won a new Chevrolet. “That's very nice, miss. I'll tell the people at the desk so they'll let the night nurses know.”

When she left I said, “That's a pretty expensive pizza. Marriage.”

“Don't worry. I don't want to get married any more than you do, Sam. But I like having a boyfriend.”

“So you wouldn't marry me even if I asked you?”

“Oh, God, you're not one of those, are you?”

“‘One of those'?”

“You know. You don't want to marry me until I say that I don't want to marry you, and then you want to marry me just so you can prove that I really wanted to marry you in the first place.”

“Gee, I don't know what the hell you're talking about but, it sounds kinda fun.”

“You know damned well what I'm talking about.”

The nurse was back with half a dozen roses in a white glass vase. She placed it without ceremony on my rolling table. She plucked the tiny white card from it and handed it to me.

I scanned the words. I laughed so hard it hurt.

“Who's it from?” Wendy asked.

“Molly. She must've snuck off to send the flowers and write the card.”

“What's it say?”

“‘Maybe I made a mistake. Last night he told me he knows John Lennon.'”

“That poor girl. He's probably an axe murderer.”

Every few minutes I had to adjust my position in the bed. The pain from the wound wasn't as bad as it had been the first two days, but it helped to keep shifting the shoulder slightly.

She leaned forward in her chair and touched my hip. “Don't you see, Sam? All those serious affairs you had and nothing came of them? You got hurt or they got hurt or you both got hurt. I think you went at them too hard. I just want us to have the kind of thing we would've had in high school if I hadn't thought you were kind of a dork.”

“You really thought I was a dork?”

“Well, Sam, you knew I was a snob. I was a cheerleader, for God's sake.” She stood up then and leaned over so she could see me better. “You're not over loving Jane, and I'm not over being Bryce's second choice. We have to face it, so we may as well face it together. But we've got to take it slow. That's all I'm saying.”

“Dear Abby's got nothing on you.”

“I'll bet Dear Abby never snuck a sausage pizza into a hospital.”

Then she kissed me and said, “Will you be mad if I change my mind about staying all night? I just realized that that chair will cripple me for life if I try to sleep in it.”

“You mean you wouldn't wrench your back out of shape even for love?”

She poked me in the chest and grinned. “Not even for love, bozo.”

On the fourth day, they started me walking up and down the hall three times before dinner. On my second trip, I decided to do something useful. I stopped in to see William Hughes. His room was seven down from mine.

According to Wendy, he'd been shot in the chest and the left side. Lying in his hospital bed, reading a paperback copy of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his open blue pajama shirt revealed white tape around his chest and an IV drip positioned on his left arm. The room was bright with the Indian summer afternoon. Two small monitors sat on a tall thin table next to his bed. They made tiny bleating noises every five seconds or so. The medicinal smell was sharp but clean.

Hughes showed no particular interest when he looked up and saw me crossing from the doorway to his bed. He closed his paperback, stretched his arm across to the rolling table where he took his meals and kept his personal items. He grabbed a Zippo and a pack of Pall Malls. “The doctor comes in and gives me the big speech every time he sees the smokes.” He had a grin that made you feel better about the world. He lighted his cigarette and clanked shut the top of his Zippo. In the sunlight I could see how much of his gray hair was turning white. I could also see that his burnished skin was more wrinkled than I'd realized. He was getting old.

“How're you feeling?”

“Now, how do you think I'd be feeling, McCain?”

“Stupid question, huh?”

“Very stupid.”

“You planning to stay on with Linda?”

“I'm not sure that's any of your business. But she plans to sell the house and move on.”

I nodded. I hesitated before I said it. It wasn't the kind of thing I wanted to think, let alone put into words. “Were you protecting him?”

The smoke he exhaled did a lovely blue dance in the sunbeams. Then he looked at me and said, “Why don't we cut the bullshit, McCain? You've got something to say to me, so why don't you say it.”

“Maybe I just stopped in to see how you're doing.”

“Oh, I'm sure that's true. I keep asking the nurses about how you're doing. We have something in common now, something we'll remember the rest of our lives. When Adair shot us. But that still leaves something unsaid, doesn't it?”

“We can always have this talk when you're feeling better.”

“Just get to it, McCain. Right now.”

I sighed. “If you knew Lou set up that fire, it was your legal duty to tell the law. You protected him because he saved your life. You committed a crime.”

The head sank slowly back to the propped-up pillows. “The outfit I was with in Korea, bunch of racists. Used to taunt me all the time. I figured the gooks would probably treat me better than the assholes in my outfit did. So if one of them had had to save my life, I wouldn't be here today complaining about them. But Bennett—he was decent to me. I could tell I was sort of mysterious to him. Like somebody from outer space. But he was decent and if he caught somebody giving me a hard time, he shut him down right on the spot. The same with saving my life. He could've been killed right along with me. But he didn't care. He ran crisscross in front of all the gunfire and grabbed me and dragged me back to where I belonged. And he got me patched up enough so that I could hold out until they got a medic to take care of me. Bennett was some kind of half-assed medic himself. Did a damned good job on me. Damned good job.”

He lolled his head to the right so he could see the table. He stabbed out his cigarette in a round tin ashtray. He left his head lolled like that, just staring at me. Something had changed in his demeanor. He wasn't as severe and formal as usual. And when he spoke, the language was a lot looser and friendlier.

“There I was with all these peckers picking on me because I was colored and I was half bleeding to death when Bennett went all heroic and rescued my ass and—” He smiled. “And I still didn't answer your question, did I?”

“No, no you didn't.”

A deep sigh. He touched brown fingers to the white tape. His face reflected pain. “Lou was shady. Took me a long time to figure that out. He ran on two tracks. There were the businesses everybody knew about, and then there were the businesses almost nobody knew about. He used a lot of different corporate names, so it was hard to trace any of it back to him. I put up with it. As far as I knew, nobody was being hurt. It was just—shady. Even when Roy Davenport got involved. Davenport was a mean son of a bitch, but I never knew about him actually hurting people. He did, of course. Maybe I forced myself not to realize that—you know, so I wouldn't turn against Bennett. But I happened to be around, the night that Raines and Davenport forced Bennett to write the letter admitting that he'd paid them to set the fire. They wanted it as insurance. They were afraid that Bennett had enough clout to set them up and turn them in. Later on, they started blackmailing him with it. That was when I couldn't handle it any more.”

“You were friends with Karen.”

“I was half-assed in love with her. Just like most men were.”

“So what did you do?”

“I knew Davenport had the letter. I had to figure out where he kept it, and then I had to figure out how to get it. He'd just fired this secretary he'd been dallying with, and she was real, real pissed. I offered her five hundred dollars for the combination to his safe. I got the letter with no problem.”

“What happened to it?”

“I put it in my safe deposit box in the bank. I'll turn it over to the law as soon as I leave here.” His face was grim. “I didn't figure on anybody getting killed. That came out of nowhere.”

“Maybe I should stop back.”

The voice came from behind me. When I turned, I saw Mike Parnell in his wheelchair sitting outside the door.

“Hey, Mike, c'mon in.” Hughes waved him in. Then to me, “Mike and me play shuffleboard over at Henry's Tap all the time. He's been up here every day visiting me.”

Mike rolled in, right up to the bed. His new white T-shirt bore a vivid image of the American flag and beneath it, the slogan “The Blood of Heroes.”

“You like hanging out with Commies, do you, William?”

“Oh, now, c'mon, Mike. You know what I told you. There's some people who just don't understand why we need to be over there. That doesn't make them bad people, that just makes them full of shit.” I got the grin when he finished talking.

“Well, if there's one thing McCain is, it's full of shit. Always has been.”

“So you two know each other?”

“Old friends,” I said.

“Used to be old friends, you mean.”

I guess it was the sudden tension. Or maybe it was just because I'd been standing for so long. The legs started to tremble and the head started to spin a little.

“I'm sorry, Mike. I feel like hell about it. I just think it's a mistake being over there.”

Then I fell against the rolling table on the side of Hughes' bed.

A strong hand grabbed my forearm. “You all right?” Hughes said, still holding onto me.

“Just a little weak. I'd better get back to my room.”

“Maybe I should call a nurse.”

“No. I'll be all right. But I'd better get going.”

I looked over at Mike in his wheelchair. I put out my hand. He wouldn't shake.

About halfway back to my room, I wished I'd asked Hughes to call for a nurse. I was sodden and chilled with sweat. The legs were weaker than ever.

By the time I reached my room, I was staggering. I was so concerned with not falling over that I didn't realize Wendy had not only appeared but helped me to my bed.

“Real smart, Sam. What'd you do, run up and down the hall?”

But I was too fatigued to say anything. I drifted into a half sleep, aware that Wendy had been joined by a nurse. There was something about a sponge bath and something about sheets being changed and something about another IV drip. Then there was something about sleep.

Voices woke me. Man and woman. Both familiar.

When I rolled on my side and opened my eyes, I wasn't sure if what I saw was real. Wendy sitting in a chair next to my bed. Mike Parnell sitting in his wheelchair next to Wendy.

“I saw Mike in the hall. I wanted to tell him how much he hurt your feelings. Which was fine, because Mike wanted to tell me how much you hurt his feelings.”

“You should be a cruise director.”

“Very funny. Now I want you two morons to agree to disagree. I've invited Mike out to my place as soon as you get out of here and are able to have a little fun. We'll have some steaks and some liquor and we'll have a nice time. Mike's girlfriend will be joining us.”

“I still can't believe you're going out with him,” Mike said. “You were a cheerleader.”

“I know. But times change. You have to make do with what's available.”

“Yeah, but Sam McCain? You can't do better than that?”

“I know, it's terrible, isn't it? The worst thing of all is that I even started to like him. I like him quite a lot, actually.”

Mike looked right at me and said, “I sure wouldn't admit it to anybody.”

“I agree. Just please don't tell anybody what I said.”

Shaking his head, Mike said, “Well, I need to leave. An hour and a half in a hospital is about all I can take.” He reached over and patted Wendy's arm. “It's great seeing you again.” He too had long lusted for the cheerleader. “Bye, Wendy.”

“Bye, Mike. Remember my invitation.”

He wheeled around in his chair and started rolling fast for the door.

“You're not going to say good-bye to me?” I said to his receding back.

He raised his right hand and without turning around gave me the bird. On his way toward the door, he said, “You're an asshole, McCain. You always were. I just never got around to telling you that when we were growing up.”