Loving Time

by Leslie Glass

  Gunn gasped, coughed, couldn’t catch her breath. She was aware of being wet all over and stinking, tried to vomit. Nothing came up. Bobbie stood over her, his broad, freckled face and huge, bulky body a mountain. He held the watering can above her so that it continued to dribble all over her. His face was bloated, swollen with rage. She’d never seen anything like it. She looked around wildly for the cops. The cops had to be watching him, watching the building. She probed the throbbing bruises on her neck. She was terrified. Bobbie had described killing chickens like that, then cutting their heads off after they were dead. It occurred to her for the first time that he was crazy.

  “Bobbie, don’t hurt me.… ” Her voice was a croak.

  “I don’t hurt people.” His strange blue eyes pulsed with the death-rays of the voodoo people. He once told her people with eyes like that could kill.

  “You don’t hurt people?” she whimpered.

  He banged the watering can against the sofa arm.

  “I’m a good person, loyal to a fault. I don’t hurt people.” He stuck his fingers in her face. “Do you hear me? I don’t hurt people.”

  She wanted to throw up.

  “I told you I don’t hurt people,” he insisted.

  “You hurt me,” Gunn said softly. “You almost killed me, Bobbie.” Gunn hung her head.

  “You hurt me, Gunn. Say you’re sorry.”

  “You know I’m sorry.”

  “Nobody says they’re sorry. They fuck you over. And then when they’re wrong they don’t say they’re sorry—You bitch! You set me up.”

  “No, Bobbie, I was trying to save you.” Gunn started to cough and cry again.

  “You set me up.”

  “No.” He was wrong about that. She shook her head. She’d helped him. Tried so hard to help him. Her eyes jumped around, looking for something to save her from this.

  “Loyal to a fault,” he spat at her. “I took care of you.”

  The wrongness of this made Gunn shake her head. Bobbie was all mixed up. The truth was she, Gunn, had taken care of him, got him a job, brought his old mother up north, found her a place to stay, took care of her while she was sick. She’d given Bobbie money and seen that the old lady got buried right. It had been expensive, but she had done it for him. “Bobbie—” He was all wrong. She wanted this to stop now.

  “Admit you set me up,” he said, his wrath erupting again.

  “I’m sorry, Bobbie.… I feel real bad. I didn’t mean to kill Dr. Dickey. I just wanted him to get a little confused and forget about you. Please believe me, I didn’t know it would kill him.”

  “You killed him?” Bobbie screamed. “You?”

  “I was trying to help you, Bobbie—”

  “You … bitch. You didn’t help me. You finished me!” He shook the watering can in her face. The water was all gone. Furiously, he slammed it down on the side of her face, splintering her nose and cheekbone. He hit her with it again, bashing her skull in with almost no effort. Then he dropped the watering can and without a backward glance returned to the bedroom, where Gunn never locked the leaded window because she was afraid of fire. He went down the fire escape and out through the garden.

  seventy-one

  April drove her own car up to Ninety-ninth Street. Mike sat in the passenger seat, unusually quiet until they hit the block. She had a feeling he was upset because she hadn’t said she loved him, too. But who knew, maybe he had other things on his mind.

  “I’ll go up and get her,” he said.

  “It’s my call,” she protested. “I’ll go up. You wait in the car.”

  “I’m not waiting in the car.”

  Good sign, they were fighting again.

  “Fine. How do you want to do it?” April asked.

  “I go up. You sit in the car.”

  “She’ll respond better if it’s me,” April argued.

  “You want to both go up?”

  “If I have no choice.” April parked the car at a hydrant. She switched the lights off and killed the motor. The night sky was overcast. Not many people out on the street. She got out of the car and spotted Andy running toward them from the alley by the building. He had the hood of his parka up and a scarf wrapped around his neck.

  “He got away—” he panted. “Daveys went after him.”

  “Fine, let Daveys deal,” Mike said.

  Then they went up to Gunn’s apartment. Another old lady was standing in the hall, banging on Gunn’s door. “I heard him screaming at her. I called the police,” the old woman cried. “Gunn, it’s all right now. Open the door.”

  seventy-two

  A light powder of snow filled the sky as Bobbie went over the wall into the garden of the house next door and disappeared. He didn’t think anybody had seen him come out onto the street six houses down, almost at the end of the block, and saw no shadow behind him. Somewhere behind him an asshole or two were huddled in the cold, watching the building he’d left. So he thought.

  But he didn’t really care who was behind him. Like an animal seeking his lair, Bobbie was driven by a great urgency to get to the Centre, without any clear idea of what he would do when he got there. If only he got there, he knew he’d be all right. He was a survivor. He’d been trained in combat years ago and still knew how to fight and hide. If he got there he’d have some time to work things out. It would be many hours before anyone called Gunn. Maybe a whole day before anyone found her.

  Bobbie hugged the side of the buildings on Riverside, keeping as far out of the lights as he could. He was still furious at Gunn for killing Dickey and then telling the Fed bastard he had done it. He was stunned by the magnitude of the betrayal. It was the worst betrayal ever, and now it seemed clear to him that Gunn had been at the bottom of all his troubles. Dickey hadn’t set him up a year ago. Dickey hadn’t gotten him fired from the job he liked. It was Gunn, all Gunn. She was the one they questioned about every case. She was the one who kept the files. She knew what was added and subtracted to every file and why. She had control of everyone through the things written in their files. She helped people get raises and get fired. She got him fired because it was a way to make him dependent on her, to need her. She even killed his helpless, innocent mother.

  The wind picked up, whipping the fine, stinging snow into Bobbie’s eyes. The storm whirled inside him, too, as he tried to make sense of all the bad things that had happened to him. The dumb old bitch had ruined his life, but God had raised His hand against her and now she was punished. With this analysis made, Bobbie tried to calm down and focus on survival. He told himself that if he could just go back to where he used to be safe, he’d be safe again.

  Habit propelled him to the Centre, where he’d gone year after year, day and night—where the patients liked him and he’d been in control. At night no doctors were anywhere near the north dorm on the sixth floor where he used to work. Behind the glass wall in the nurses’ station sat just one nurse. There were maybe two or three aides for the whole floor. From midnight to seven-thirty or eight all the patients would be heavily medicated and asleep. Nobody would go in there; there he’d be safe.

  As Bobbie moved quickly through the snow, he began to feel better. He had some time. Hours and hours to collect himself, to think. He didn’t have far to go and kept his thoughts on the sixth floor, the community-service area, where he’d worked for so many years. He needed to sit on a chair in the fourteen-bed ward in the north dorm and feel the patients sleeping all around him. They had always liked and responded to him, even the really crazy ones. He’d taken care of them. Now he’d see them again, and they would protect him for a little while, give him the space he had to have to think things over and get himself together. He knew he couldn’t go home again, and couldn’t go back to the basement room where the two cops had found him this morning. He kept thinking of that chair in the middle of the unit, where his silent, crazy family would be sleeping, and no cop or FBI asshole would ever find him.

  Bobbie entered the hospital complex through th
e loading dock at the morgue. The guard in the tiny office with the windowed door had seen him before and didn’t even bother to wave him through. He traveled the musty corridors two stories under the ground that twisted and turned and sloped downhill into the basement of the Psychiatric Centre.

  No one ever challenged anyone at night There was no security on the graveyard shifts. Still, Bobbie played it safe and dropped into a supply closet to change into hospital whites. As he took his jacket and pants off, he noticed spots of blood on them. He changed, then buried the tainted clothes deep in a garbage can that was still full from the previous day’s waste. He checked his watch and came out of the closet. He felt fully in command of the situation. The halls were empty and silent; so was the elevator that took him up to the sixth floor.

  The sixth floor was the community-service catchment area, the place where anyone could be admitted. People on welfare, homeless, beggars—all those who couldn’t pay for treatment or their stay in the hospital. They were admitted, stabilized with medication over a period of days or weeks. Then they were released. Out on the streets again, they stopped taking their medications and soon spun out of orbit again. Many of them had to be admitted over and over.

  In Community Service they sometimes had people who couldn’t speak English, couldn’t speak a language anybody knew. Once they had some kind of illegal alien. No one knew where he came from or what language he spoke. No one could talk to him, and he didn’t even have a name.

  Bobbie had chosen the last elevator on the bank, the one that wasn’t visible from the nurses’ station. He got off and saw a bent, graying head. He checked his watch. It was just after eleven. The nurse was probably going over the M.D.s’ order book. Eleven-thirty was the latest they gave medication. Most everybody was already juiced by then, but sometimes the doctors left special orders for problem patients. Before the nurse lifted her head, Bobbie ducked and turned left. He streaked past the small elevator hall. Then he straightened up, took another left, and strolled down the long, dim hallway, jubilant at being back where he belonged, safe and sound.

  Bobbie had always liked the unearthly quiet of night on the wards. There were rules here. No TV, no radio after ten P.M. On either side of him, doors were closed on silent double and triple rooms. Everyone had to follow the rules. Bobbie felt ever more confident as he headed down the hall.

  The north dorm was a large circle with no doors at the very end of the long hall. There, too, the lights were low but not off. Bobbie could see everything clearly. He checked his watch again and assessed the situation. Several patients were up, but only one was on his feet. An angry-looking guy paced a five-foot area. He was wearing only pajama bottoms, and even in the dim light, Bobbie could see this one was trouble. The patient had a web of scars on his chest. His eyes burned in what looked like a death’s head; half of one ear was missing.

  That was the only bad one, though. Most of the other patients were in their beds, staring at the ceiling or snoring. Two were playing a silent game of checkers. One guy was reading a nudie magazine, fondling himself under the covers. Bobbie pulled up a chair and sat down facing the pacer. He wanted to keep an eye on him.

  As soon as Bobbie sat down, the guy stopped pacing and bunched up his fists. As if hit by an electrical force, the man in the next bed sat up. Then the one next to him rolled over onto his back and sat up. Bobbie ignored them. The man with the scars started punching at the air in his direction. Bobbie sat in the center of the dorm and watched him. He checked his watch. As he expected, at 11:20 a nurse came in.

  At first she didn’t see Bobbie. She walked over to the patient punching the air. “Seamus, how are you feeling?”

  The man stood still, his eyes on Bobbie. “I’m feeling … tense.”

  “Really? What’s bothering …?” Slowly the nurse turned around. She saw Bobbie and looked confused. “Seamus, excuse me for a minute. I have to find out something.”

  The nurse headed across the ward toward Bobbie, her brows knit in puzzlement. Bobbie ignored her. The two checkers players started chattering in Spanish.

  “I need to pee—” A short bald man got out of bed and started crying.

  “Get back in bed, Alberto.… Excuse me.” The nurse stood in front of Bobbie, a puzzled expression on her broad face.

  Bobbie ignored her.

  “Who are you?” she asked softly.

  Bobbie couldn’t think of a good answer, so he looked the other way as if she wasn’t there.

  “Excuse me, I don’t remember having a need for anybody here tonight.” The puzzlement turned into a frown. “Do you speak English? I need some clarification here.”

  Bobbie didn’t move. He wanted to stay frozen in time until the nosy bitch left. She didn’t seem to get it. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t have anything to say.

  She persisted. “Are you specialing somebody?”

  Without meaning to, Bobbie snorted and spoke. “Yeah, I’m specialing. That’s it.”

  “I got to pee!” Alberto cried.

  “No, you don’t. Get back in bed.” The nurse spoke automatically, her eyes narrowing on Bobbie. “I’m sorry. I don’t know you. Who are you?”

  “I said I’m specialing, so you can beat it.” Bobbie was getting really upset. He’d worked on this floor for almost fifteen years. And this nosy nurse had to humiliate him by demanding to know who he was.

  The nurse flushed at his tone. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “I don’t need this, okay? I don’t want trouble, so just go away.” Bobbie bit off the words.

  “I’m in charge here. I have to know.”

  Bobbie tried to keep the pressure down, tried to think of something to say to make the bitch go away. Seconds passed and then she spoke again.

  “Look, where do you work? Who do you report to?”

  Bobbie made an angry noise. He’d warned her. He didn’t want to have to warn her again. He didn’t answer. Alberto shuffled over to where she was standing and raised his hand to her arm.

  “Alberto, please get back into bed.” The nurse had her hands on her hips now. She didn’t want to be bothered by the senile man. Her face was red and angry. “What’s your schedule?” she demanded of Bobbie. “Show me your identification.”

  For the first time in his life, Bobbie didn’t have one. He didn’t have any ID at all, not for any department. The nurse’s insensitive treatment of the senile patient and her humiliation of him joined forces. He lost his concentration.

  “Fuck you.” Bobbie half rose, then slammed his butt down on the chair. None of them needed this shit. Finally he made up his mind and stood up. He was a good eight inches taller than the nurse. “Get out of my face, you hear me, bitch? Get lost.”

  The nurse gasped. “I’m in charge here. You’re in the wrong place. You get lost. Now!”

  That was it. There was no negotiating with this bitch—no way was he leaving. Bobbie raised his arm. In one quick motion, he backhanded the nurse, knocking her down. Alberto just missed getting knocked down with her. The old man backed away from her still form, whimpering. Then he dropped his pajama bottoms and peed on the floor beside her.

  Seamus stopped punching the air. In two catlike leaps he was across the floor, pummeling Bobbie, kicking him, biting whatever he could reach with his teeth, and tearing at his ears.

  seventy-three

  April and Mike stayed in Gunn’s apartment until there was a response to their call for help. It took less than six minutes to secure the area and explain the situation to the uniforms who arrived on the scene.

  Mike phoned the squad room three times to see if Daveys had called in with his location, but there was no message from him. At eleven-ten, there was a call from Andy Mason. Daveys left a message at the station that Bobbie had gone into the Stone Pavilion and disappeared in the basement. So had Daveys.

  Four blue-and-whites were on the street with their lights flashing when Mike and April left Gunn’s building at eleven-twenty-five. The snow had
stopped, but the temperature was still dropping.

  Mike checked his watch and sighed. “How many Feebs you figure Daveys has in the hospital by now?”

  April shook her head and tossed him the keys to her car. He took the driver’s seat, turned on the engine and the lights without comment.

  “I don’t think any,” she said to Mike after the heat started to come up.

  “No other Feebs. How do you figure that?”

  April shivered, thinking of Daveys’s interview with Boudreau. “Some of what he said was the usual bullshit. But some of it was personal.” April studied Mike’s profile. “Like what you did was personal with you, know what I mean?”

  Mike pulled away from the curb. “No,” he said curtly.

  “Daveys kept talking about his family with us, remember? His big brother died in ’Nam. His little brother is a cop. He’s a big family man, an all-American racist.”

  “So?”

  “So he hates guys like Boudreau, really hates them. It wasn’t just a line to get the guy to squawk when he said he’d get him. It was personal.”

  April studied the side of Mike’s face. She’d seen his profile a thousand times. His right ear was scarred from the burns he’d received in the fire. She, too, had some scars that would never go away. They were connected by those scars, by the ghosts of the victims whose deaths they’d investigated, by the cases they’d cleared together.

  “It was personal when you lost it, Mike. But afterward it was over. You didn’t want to kill the guy. Daveys wants to kill him, and he can’t have a bunch of buddies with him. I’d guess there won’t be any team. He’ll be alone.”

  Mike sneaked a look at her. “Is this your way of telling me you love me, querida?”

  April stared out the window. “I’m telling you Daveys went alone. We have the advantage here.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that?” Mike ran the red light at Riverside, headed south to the hospital.

  “We know where Boudreau went.”