Cat Bearing Gifts
Page 10
That little tart Debbie Kraft, she owed him one, the good sale he’d made for her. Maybe he’d use her old station wagon. Take the money he’d got from the fence down to her, and make nice. He’d sold everything she’d stole. When he handed over near three thousand in cash, that should make those dark eyes sparkle. Hell, she couldn’t refuse the loan of her car, not when she knew he could finger her for stealing, tip the cops that she was boosting the local stores. She sure wouldn’t want the cops to know she was using her daughter Vinnie as a distraction and, sometimes, setting the kid up to heist small items herself, silk bras and panties, a few pieces of costume jewelry, while Debbie kept the clerks busy.
Judiciously Vic went on spreading mud, not too much, keeping it to the lower parts of the car, the wheels and fenders and bumpers. Spreading the slop, watching it splash onto the shed’s dirt floor, he smiled. It was all coming together, his running into Birely like that, south of Salinas, the story Birely’d told that turned out to be true, the money in hand now, everything going real smooth. He had only a few more moves and he’d be out of there. Sell the Lincoln, get some shiny new wheels, not like Debbie’s old heap, and head north out of California, maybe way north, up into Canada. Get lost up in Canada for a while and then off again, he could go anywhere he wanted now, with this kind of money.
14
THEY’RE SURE TO stop us,” Ryan told Clyde as they entered the hospital from the covered walkway. She avoided looking directly at the two guards in dark uniforms who watched them from within, through the wide glass doors. “We look like a couple of tramps, with our dirty backpacks, look like we’re up to no good.” Their wrinkled, stained clothes smelled of sweat and of dog, of gunpowder and maybe of coyote, too, to a discerning nose, maybe even the scent of animal blood. “And my mop looks like a Brillo pad,” she said, pushing back her dark hair where it clung, frizzled into tight curls from their night in the fog. “Not to mention how your backpack is bulging. Be still, Kit,” she muttered, leaning close to the pack, afraid the guards would see it move and want to investigate, would paw through the pack and find Kit staring up at them or scrambling to bolt away.
But no one bothered them, they received only a bored glance from the two uniformed men who were deep in conversation, totally uninterested in what they might be carrying inside with them. Maybe they looked too tired and limp to be bringing in a bomb, to be smuggling in anything that would take much effort. Or maybe Santa Cruz Dominican hadn’t had any problems yet with bomb threats or petty vandalism, as the bigger city hospitals were experiencing.
But when they reached the emergency room, down an open flight of stairs, that area was more secure. The ER’s doors were locked, they had to give a nurse their names, and provide Lucinda’s and Pedric’s names, and wait for another nurse to lead them in through the heavy double doors. The short, pillow-shaped woman in green scrubs escorted them past the inner nurses’ station and on past rows of small, glass-walled rooms not much larger than a walk-in closet, some with the curtains closed, some open so they glimpsed patients within, sleeping or looking forlornly back at them. Lucinda’s glass doors stood open, the canvas curtain drawn halfway across, the lights dimmed down to only a soft glow. Wilma Getz and a lean, dark-haired nurse in scrubs stood one at each side of her bed, frowning as if they’d been arguing. Lucinda lay awake, scowling, but she seemed groggy, too. She smiled vaguely at Ryan and Clyde. “Kate and Charlie were here,” she said. “Gone down to Pedric.” And almost at once she dropped into sleep again. The cast and bandage on her left arm looked heavy and uncomfortable. Her right arm lay across a red windbreaker, holding it possessively. Wilma stood beside her, holding the red jacket, too, keeping it firmly in place as the nurse reached to remove it, apparently not for the first time. At Wilma’s angry glare, she paused and drew her hand back. Wilma’s gray ponytail was awry; she looked as if she’d pulled on her jeans and navy sweatshirt while climbing straight out of bed. But she looked, even so, not a woman to defy, with that steady and uncompromising gaze. Wilma had intimidated her parolees for thirty years, until she’d retired from the federal court system. She didn’t tolerate patronizing behavior from a person committed to easing the suffering of others, particularly of helpless patients.
“Lucinda wants the jacket near her,” Wilma said. “She says it smells of pine trees, and of the hills of our village. What harm, if it comforts her?” Her stubborn grasp on the jacket, and Lucinda’s own protective arm across it, even in sleep, didn’t hide adequately the little mound beneath but, confronted by Wilma, and now with Clyde and Ryan’s presence, the dark, sour woman seemed reluctant to push the matter. She smiled woodenly at the Damens, shook her head as if there were little she could do about unreasonable patients or visitors, and turned away leaving the jacket in place.
Moving to Lucinda’s bed, Ryan reached beneath the jacket, speaking softly to Dulcie, smiling up at Wilma.
Wilma grinned back at her. “Lucinda thinks Kit’s cuddled next to her. She’s much more peaceful since Dulcie slipped into bed with her. If the nurses will just leave us alone.”
“The best therapy,” Clyde said, slinging his pack off, resting it on the edge of the bed. “But there’s no need for a stand-in now.” And Kit peered out at them, her green eyes bright.
“Oh,” Wilma said, reaching for her, pausing to glance out the door and then leaning to hug her. “Oh, you’re all right, you’re safe.” She hugged Kit, squeezing almost too hard. “Pedric’s been asking and asking for you, they’ve been so upset. That’s made the doctor upset, he doesn’t want Pedric stressed.”
Ryan moved to the glass door and pulled it closed. She stood a moment looking out to the big, center island of counters and desks from which the nurses and doctors and orderlies could see into all the rooms. Only the canvas curtain offered privacy. When she closed that, too, leaving only a crack to look out, Kit slipped from the backpack, her dark coat stark against the white cover.
“Hurry,” Ryan said, “she’s coming back.” Kit didn’t crawl under with Dulcie, but returned to the depths of the canvas pack.
“Come on,” Clyde said, slinging her over his shoulder. “We’ll look in on Pedric. What time does the shift change, when does that nurse leave?”
“Twelve, I think,” Wilma said, glancing at her watch. The clock above Lucinda’s bed had almost reached eleven. Clyde and Ryan moved on out with their stowaway, leaving Lucinda sleeping happily with Dulcie as surrogate, and Wilma standing guard.
“How many cats,” Clyde whispered, moving down past the nurses’ station to the other side of the big, open square, “how many cats can you smuggle in, before you have Security in your face?”
“They let therapy dogs in,” Ryan said softly. “If the cats wore those same little therapy coats, maybe . . .”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “Don’t even think about it. This is dicey enough.”
“What would they do if they caught us?”
He laughed. “What could they do? Two innocent little cats? At least we don’t have to worry about Joe and Pan.” They’d left the two tomcats in the king cab, both solemnly promising not to open the door, not to set foot outside, had left them pacing back and forth past Rock, who lay curled up asleep. Having completed his night’s work, the silver Weimaraner didn’t mean to be kept awake by a couple of edgy tomcats.
“I just hope those two are as good as their word,” Clyde said.
“And how good is that?” she said nervously.
PEDRIC’S ROOM WAS brightly lit, the overhead fluorescents turned up high as if the softer lights of evening would too easily lull the patient to sleep when, with a concussion, he must be kept awake. Charlie and Kate sat crowded into folding chairs that they’d jammed between the wall and Pedric’s bed. His head was wrapped in a thick white bandage. His thin, lined face was painted with black-and-blue marks down the right side and around his eye where Vic had hit him with the tire iron, bruises that made him lo
ok like a dignified clown halfway through applying his makeup. A young, redheaded nurse was fluffing his pillows, he was talking softly to her, the look on his face intense. Whatever he was saying made her uncomfortable. She turned away as Ryan and Clyde entered, bending to adjust the height of the bed. She glanced up embarrassedly at them and at Charlie and Kate, her face flushed, and silently fled the room. Behind her, Charlie and Kate exchanged a look of amusement.
“What?” Ryan said when she’d gone. “Pedric, what were you saying? You weren’t coming on to her?” she said, laughing.
Pedric looked puzzled. “I was talking about the old country, the old myths, the old Celtic tales. I told her she looked like the princess from under the hill, but I guess she didn’t understand. I guess I made her nervous.” He looked vaguely up at them. “I guess if you’re not into mythology, that might sound a bit strange?”
Charlie pushed back her red hair, where a loose strand had caught on her shoulder. “You got her attention, all right. Maybe nurses aren’t into folklore. Maybe, when you work in a world of discipline and hard facts, slipping away into imaginary places can be unsettling.” Though for Charlie that wasn’t the case; she seemed, in her paintings and her imaginative writing, to live comfortably in both realms.
But Pedric’s attention was on Clyde’s backpack, which had begun to wriggle. When he saw Kit’s bright eyes peering out through the mesh his face broke into a smile, he raised his arms to her as she struggled to get out to him. She was about to leap down beside him when another nurse, a blond, shapely woman, started across from the nursing station and Kit ducked down again. She was stone-still as the nurse entered. Her name tag said HALLIE EVERS. She opened the glass door wide, and opened the curtain.
“You can visit,” she said, looking sternly at the four of them. “But not so many at once. One, maybe two if you’re quiet. We don’t want him excited, though we do need to keep him awake. We need to do that calmly, do you understand? Dr. Pindle will be in shortly. Are you all relatives of Mr. Greenlaw?”
“We’re good friends,” Clyde said. “The Greenlaws have no relatives. We came to do whatever we can for them.”
She frowned. “He’s been talking strangely, going on about some kind of fairy tale, about harpies and dragons as if they were real,” she said doubtfully. “Maybe the concussion has stirred up some childhood fancy.”
Kate hid a smile. Charlie frowned, looking down at her hands.
“That’s not surprising,” Ryan said, giving Nurse Evers her most beguiling smile. “Pedric’s a folklorist, that’s his profession. He studies the old, classical myths and folktales, he has an impressive collection of ancient literature, he tells wonderful stories. You should visit with him sometime, if you’re interested in such things. But you’re right,” she said, her green eyes wide and innocent. “Four of us is too many, all at once.” She turned to Pedric. “We’ll take turns visiting, then, seeing that you don’t sleep,” she said gently.
Kate grinned at Charlie and rose, and the two of them left, highly amused by Nurse Evers.
“We’ll be quieter,” Ryan told the nurse. “How long must he be kept awake?” Still smiling, she stepped back, easing against Clyde.
“Until the doctor has done an evaluation,” Nurse Evers said, “possibly longer, depending on what is found. Dr. Pindle will give you that information. Mr. Greenlaw’s hurt his knee badly, as well. He seems to want to wait for treatment on that until he returns home to his own doctors. He’s very vague, most likely due to the concussion. The doctor may want to talk with you about that.” All this as if Pedric were not in the room with them or as if he didn’t hear or understand her. “Vague, and then he’ll start in again on those strange stories.”
Clyde pretended to adjust his backpack, where Kit had begun to wriggle with impatience.
“He seems able to remember only fragments of the accident, but that’s to be expected. He remembers more distant . . . things. I suppose,” she said doubtfully, “if these stories are his profession, I expect he would remember those.” She gave them a brighter smile as if to humor them, and she left abruptly, leaving the door and curtain wide open behind her. Returning to the nurses’ station, she moved directly to a computer where she sat facing them, keeping them in view.
Ryan moved to the door, smiled across at Nurse Evers, then closed the door and drew the canvas curtain. She turned to the bed, where Clyde had lowered the backpack and opened it. Kit’s black-and-brown ears emerged. As her little tilted nose pushed up over the edge of the pack, Pedric reached in to her, such joy in the older man’s face that Ryan had to wipe her eyes and Clyde turned away embarrassed by his own emotion. Quickly Pedric lifted the sheet and Kit crept under, tucking down so close to him that when he’d covered her again, she was barely a lump in the thin white blanket.
“After the wreck,” he whispered, “where did you go? Where were you when they found you?”
“Above the landslide,” Kit said softly. “Rock and Joe and Pan found me and Ryan and Clyde right behind them and Ryan had her revolver, one shot at that coyote that was trying to dig me out of the rocks, and that mother died, serves him right, trying to eat a poor little cat, and those other two ran like hell and then Pan was there and, oh my . . .” She stopped talking, purring so loudly that anyone passing might have heard her. But then, suddenly yawning, she went quiet beneath the blanket, all worn out. Snuggling deeper against Pedric’s side, she drifted off into a deep and healing sleep—while Pedric, longing for sleep, for a forbidden nap of his own, lay watching over her, as their friends stood guard.
15
IT WAS MIDNIGHT when Vic crawled into his sleeping bag on the floor of the stone shack, careful not to wake Birely and have him start whining again. The little turd was finally sleeping deeply, despite having to breathe through his open mouth. Even in the dim glow of the battery light, he was pale as milk. Vic had tried to get him to eat but he didn’t want anything, just sucked at the water in the limp paper cup. He’d woken up once and talked for a while, his voice slurry, rambling on about his childhood again and his sister, Sammie, and how she came by all that money. Birely’d never say why the old man would send that kind of money to a young niece, send it clear up from Mexico, maybe didn’t know why. They’d already found over a hundred thousand, and sure as hell Sammie’d had more down in the house. Weird, her growing old in that run-down place when she’d had enough to live high on the hog. Birely said she liked living the way she did. He said, look at Emmylou, her only friend, another recluse just like Sammie.
Strange, the change in Birely. He used to be a real wuss, a drifter, went right along with whatever anyone wanted him to do. But after Sammie’d given away what was his, now he was all anger, so mad at Sammie that he got moving, all right, looking for her hidden stash.
Birely never knew the old uncle, all he knew was what Sammie and maybe their folks told him. Old train robber did his share of prison time back then, Birely knew that much. Sammie was about nine when Lee Fontana made his big haul and lit out for Mexico, running from the feds, got out of the country shortly before Birely was born. Sammie called him the cowboy, Birely said. She claimed that sometimes she knew from her dreams what he was doing, knew what was happening to him even when he was halfway across the country. Well, you couldn’t believe half what Birely told you. Birely said the old man’s last robbery was big in the papers back then, and Vic could believe that, all right. Some kind of federal money, Birely didn’t know exactly what. Said you’d get burned bad, back in them days, for a federal heist. Vic wondered if the feds kept records back that far. If, tucked away in some musty drawer of ancient files, some federal office had the serial numbers on those old bills.
But what the hell? Even if these cops here in Molena Point got their hands on the money, which wasn’t likely, even if they figured out it was real old money, who would think to look back to the last century for some federal robbery? Who would even care?
THE DAMENS WEREN’T night people, Ryan and Clyde were early risers, they were often in bed by nine or ten, but somehow in the small hours of this long night they managed to stay awake and to keep Pedric awake, taking turns, one dozing, one asking Pedric for details about the wreck to keep him from drifting off.
Charlie had gotten two adjoining motel rooms nearby at Best Western, so they could all take turns sitting with Pedric; Ryan had stayed with him while Clyde left to take Rock and the two tomcats there, to feed them and get them settled in. Kibble and dog food for Rock, a nice spread of takeout for Joe Grey and Pan, of rare burgers and fried cod. He praised the three trackers lavishly again for their night’s work before he left to join Ryan.
Rock, having bolted down his supper, was tucked up with Charlie on her bed. Joe sprawled across Wilma’s empty pillow while she and Kate and Dulcie were still at the hospital; Pan didn’t settle but paced restlessly, leaping onto the daybed that had been set up for Kate, aimlessly wandering the two rooms, missing Kit, wanting to be with her, still suffering the aftermath of his worry over her. How strange is that? he thought. Kit was his first true love, and he didn’t quite know what to make of the condition, of the intensity and turmoil that had descended to change his carefree life. Kit is all fluff and softness—over slashing claws, he thought, smiling, sharp teeth, and a will more stubborn even than my own. She was brave as a cougar one moment, dreamy the next, always volatile, keeping him forever off balance. All he knew was that right now he missed her; he paced until he wore himself out, and then settled down next to Rock and Charlie and, like the softly snoring Weimaraner, Pan slept.