Laura sat on the presswood coffee table, so that she could face Marvella. Laura’s back was to me. I moved to the other end of the couch so that I could watch the interchange, and maybe learn something myself.
“Here’s what happened.” Laura folded her hands in her lap, looking prim and proper despite her ruined clothing. “The asshole who performed the abortion—”
“Shh,” Marvella said.
Laura shook her head. “They know,” she said. “And besides, we’re alone here.”
Marvella’s gaze met mine, and I could see the frustration in it. She didn’t trust anyone, not Laura, not the hospital. I averted my gaze, figuring I would get involved when Laura was done getting us up to date.
Laura looked from Marvella to me. When neither of us said anything, Laura continued. “That asshole tried a D&C. Either he didn’t know what he was doing or she was too far along or both. Do you know how many weeks pregnant she was?”
Laura had Marvella’s attention now.
“I didn’t even know Val was pregnant.” Marvella threaded her hands together in an unconscious imitation of Laura’s position. “I hadn’t seen her for a month. She would call, but we never managed to get together. The first time I saw her was this morning. What did he do?”
Laura ran a hand over her mouth, as if she didn’t want to speak of the operation. Then she shook her head.
“To start,” she said, her voice low, “he didn’t get everything. He left a lot of tissue in the uterus.”
Marvella’s lips thinned. That hard expression had returned to her face. “So that’s what caused the bleeding.”
“Some of it,” Laura said.
It was almost as if they were talking in code, as if I were only getting part of the conversation. I was astonished at Laura. She was speaking in a tired but clinical tone about things I had no idea she understood.
With her thumb, she scraped at the blood stain on her face. Some of it flaked off. I wasn’t sure she was aware it was there.
“The doctor here,” Laura said, “Rothstein, he’s good. I fought with him a lot. He was trying the scare tactics, and when he realized she wasn’t completely conscious, he tried them on me.”
“Laura was tough out there,” I said, so that Marvella would understand how hard Laura had fought.
Laura turned that tired smile in my direction. “This was after you left, Smoke.”
That surprised me. I thought she had won the fight in the corridor. “He kept it up?”
That small, tired smile crossed Laura’s face again. “Don’t judge him too harshly. Val was in a bad way. He’s required by law to find out what happened to her, and if the hospital or the police feel he wasn’t diligent enough, they’ll go after him.”
Marvella wrapped her arms around her waist again, crinkling her black coat. “He was going to let her die?”
Laura took a deep breath. I recognized the tactic. She often used it to stall, so that she could think of the correct way to express her thoughts.
“At first,” she said carefully, “I don’t think he realized how ill she was. Not until we took her in the back, and removed the material I had used to stop the bleeding, did he understand how badly she was hemorrhaging.”
The material was my top coat, which I doubted I would ever see again, and which I knew I didn’t want to.
“He was going to finish the D&C, but when he started….” Laura’s voice trailed off. She looked at me. Her expression was pleading, but I didn’t know what she wanted.
“What?” Marvella asked. “What’s wrong?”
Laura bit her lower lip. She faced Marvella again. “He wasn’t sure if all of the bleeding was coming from inside the uterus. He thought maybe there was a laceration on the cervix.”
I winced. How could these women be so clinical about personal things? Men never talked like this—about anything.
“Did he dilate her?” Marvella asked.
“No,” Laura said. “He set down the curette and, to his credit, turned to me and explained everything. Now granted, I’d been fighting him the entire time. The last thing I wanted him to do was punish her for this one mistake, so I wasn’t going to let her go into surgery if I could help it. I think he knew that.”
“Punish her?” I asked.
Both Laura and Marvella looked at me. They had identical expressions on their faces, and the expressions seemed tolerant and sad at the same time.
“They—”
“I’m—”
They spoke at the same time and stopped when they realized what they had done.
Marvella nodded to Laura. “You tell him.”
Laura straightened her shoulders, leaning back slightly so that she could see me better. “I’m not sure if it’s the doctor or hospital policy, but sometimes—”
“Always,” Marvella said. “They always do it.”
Laura shook her head. “Not always.”
“On black women.”
“And poor women,” Laura said. “But some women manage to avoid it. Cook County’s the worst, from what I hear. I thought maybe we were safe bringing her here, but when we got here I wasn’t so sure.”
There they went again, speaking in that code. “You were going to tell me how they would punish her,” I said.
Marvella looked at me, her expression hard and her eyes flashing with something stronger than anger. It almost looked like hatred.
“They’ll sterilize her,” Marvella said.
I recoiled, from her tone as much as her words. I had never heard so much controlled anger in her voice.
“That’s why I didn’t want her in surgery, Bill. Because they’re going to declare her an unfit mother or they’ll say since she didn’t want this one, she shouldn’t have any, and they take away her chance to have children. Forever.”
I let out a shocked laugh. “They can’t do that.”
“I don’t know if they can,” Laura said. “But they do. I know a woman that happened to.”
“Me too.” Marvella raised her narrow chin, a movement so like Laura’s defensive gesture that it startled me.
“This is what you meant, Marvella?” I asked. “Is this why you thought I was so stupid to bring her here?”
Marvella’s arms were wrapped so tightly around her waist that I thought she was going to rip her coat. “At least Dr. Jetten wouldn’t have done it unless he had to.”
“He couldn’t operate on her in your apartment,” I said.
“He could have done a new D&C there. I thought that was all she needed, when the bleeding didn’t stop. I figured there was still tissue, and I figured he would give her something for the bleeding and penicillin for any infection. If it was really bad, he would take her in, like I told you, but as one of his patients, and no one would have ever known.”
“That’s why you were gone?” Laura asked. “To get a doctor?”
Marvella gave a small nod.
“You actually know someone who does this? Someone you trust?” Laura sounded surprised.
Marvella looked guarded, but she nodded again.
“So why did she go to someone so incompetent? Isn’t she a friend of yours? Does she know that you know—?”
“Yes, she knows.” Marvella hunched forward. “And she’s my cousin. Sort of. And a friend. And I have no idea why she didn’t come to me. She knows I wouldn’t have told anyone. She knows I would have helped her. She knows. There was no reason to go anywhere else.”
For a moment, none of us said a word. Then Laura put a hand on Marvella’s knee. Her skin looked unusually pale against the black fabric of Marvella’s coat.
“Sometimes people don’t think too clearly when they’re in this situation,” Laura said.
I leaned back on the couch, obviously no longer part of this conversation—at least as far as they were concerned.
Marvella rocked, like a child trying to comfort herself. I wasn’t even sure if she was aware of it.
“Val’s one of the smartest people I know,” she said.
“If she had just come to me, everything would have been all right. Having kids was one of her main goals in life. If they take that away from her, I don’t know what she’ll do.”
It was my turn to shiver. Just recently, I’d seen what that kind of despair did to people.
“There may be too much damage,” Laura said. “If there truly are cervical lacerations or if that idiot abortionist punctured her uterus, then she might not have more children anyway.”
“He couldn’t have punctured the uterus,” Marvella said. “She would have had a different reaction. Wouldn’t she?”
Marvella raised her head. Her gaze met Laura’s. Marvella wanted Laura to tell her everything would be all right, and I could tell from the set of Laura’s jaw that she didn’t believe it would be.
I caught my breath.
Laura shrugged. “The gaps in my knowledge are pretty huge,” she said.
Marvella still studied her. Then Marvella said, “Why are you helping us?”
“It was the right thing to do,” Laura said.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.” Laura ran a hand through her hair, messing it further. “And I want to apologize. I wanted to stay and argue, but I ran out of expertise. As far as I know, he was right this time, and she had to go into surgery. I told him that if he did anything unnecessary, he’d hear from my lawyers, but I don’t know if that’s enough. If it’s hospital policy—”
“Then you’ll have even deeper pockets to sue,” I said.
“That won’t make up for being sterilized, Bill.” Marvella’s voice was soft. “Nothing will make up for that.”
There were tears in her eyes again. She blinked hard and looked toward the glass wall. Then she cursed.
I looked. Truman Johnson was walking down the corridor. His large, muscular body seemed even bigger against the institutional green walls. His chin jutted forward, as if he were clenching his teeth, and his fleshy face was lined with worry. His raincoat was rumpled and so were his dark pants, as if he had pulled them out of the dirty clothes pile when he pulled them on. He walked quickly, purposefully, as if he were using his strength to give everyone around him the message to leave him alone.
Marvella stood and crossed the room before Laura and I could move. She yanked the waiting room door open, and stepped into the hall, effectively blocking Johnson’s progress. For a moment, I thought he would revert to his old linebacker status, and simply plow her aside, but he stopped.
He raised his head to look her in the eye. With her heels, she was almost as tall as he was.
“So, you are alive,” he said, his deep voice rumbling.
Marvella’s cheeks flushed. I stood too, and walked to the door. I had called Johnson, and I had forgotten to tell her about it. It was time for me to intervene.
“Of course I’m alive,” she snapped.
I slipped into the hallway, and wedged myself between them. Johnson’s raincoat was cold. He didn’t budge as I brushed against him. Marvella was the one who stepped back.
“I’m sorry,” I said to her. “I called him about midnight. I thought you were missing and since I had to stay here, he was the only person I knew who might know where you were.”
As I spoke, her mouth opened and she looked around, as if searching for a way out. “You called him?”
“Yeah.” I had no idea why this upset her. “I was worried. Your friend was injured, I thought. Laura hadn’t said what was wrong, and your apartment was empty, so I thought the worst. I figured he would know how to find you.”
Marvella stepped around me. She put a hand on Johnson’s chest and shoved. “Go home.”
I grabbed her arm and stepped between them again.
“You don’t belong here,” she said over my shoulder. “Go home now.”
Johnson still hadn’t budged. Marvella’s shove had no effect at all.
“What friend?” he asked. I could tell from his tone that he already knew.
Marvella glanced at me. She had that trapped expression again. Even though she had stopped fighting me, I hadn’t relaxed my grip on her arm.
“It’s just someone I know,” she said to Johnson. She was a terrible liar. Her cheeks flushed a deep red. “I’m sorry for the false alarm. Really, go home, Truman.”
I wasn’t sure what the problem was, but Marvella obviously didn’t want Johnson to know who the woman was. Because of the illegal operation? Because she was afraid that Johnson would arrest Val?
“We were just getting ready to leave,” I said.
“You’re leaving?” He turned toward me. There was a challenge in his rumpled features. A challenge and something else, something I’d never seen before. I would have guessed he was drunk, but I knew better. I had awakened him just an hour ago. He seemed lucid, and he had been out searching. He wouldn’t have gone drinking during that time.
“Yeah,” I said. “There’s not much else we can do—”
“You’re leaving, too?” His voice rumbled with barely contained anger. He directed that last question at Marvella.
“No,” she said. “I just got here.”
“Laura and I,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
“Laura?” Johnson repeated. Then I realized he had never met her. She stood and walked toward us.
He took in the ruined pantsuit, the blood, and her tousled blond hair. Then he looked at me and Marvella, as if he didn’t understand how Laura was connected to this.
I could understand his confusion. Not only was she the only one covered in blood, but she was white as well. Maybe he thought she was here for another emergency.
“Go home, Truman,” Marvella said, catching his attention again.
Laura came up behind me and slipped an arm around my waist. Her body trembled with exhaustion.
“You tell me what’s going on first,” Johnson said.
“A friend of mine got in trouble,” Marvella said, and this time the words came out easier since she wasn’t exactly lying. “She came to me too late. I was trying to get help when Bill found her and brought her here.”
“She’ll be all right.” Laura was using that soothing tone again, and she was using it on Johnson.
He frowned at her, then turned away. He didn’t care about her. He didn’t seem to care about anyone except Marvella.
“A friend,” he said again.
“Yes.”
“I know all of your friends.”
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“Stop lying to me, Marvella. It’s Val, isn’t it? Val’s in there.”
Marvella’s mouth opened, then closed. “I—Truman, you have no right to be here. Just go home.”
“No right to be here?” His voice rose with each word. “No right to be here? I have every goddamn right to be here. You should have called me, Marvella.”
“You’re forgetting yourself, Truman,” she said.
“I’m not forgetting anything.” He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her aside as if she were a rag doll. “And now I’m going to go see my wife.”
FIVE
I HAD NO IDEA Johnson was married, although it didn’t surprise me. Cops rarely mentioned their home life or their families, and wives rarely answered the phone, because any time it rang, it was probably an emergency, something to do with the job.
What did surprise me was that Johnson’s wife had a different last name than he had. I had never encountered that before.
Having moved Marvella aside, Johnson whirled and walked back down the hall. He had obviously been in this hospital many times before and knew where the exam and surgical rooms were.
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his rumpled coat, and strode with his head down, almost as if he were plowing through an imaginary defensive line.
Marvella put her hand on my shoulder, pushing me forward ever so slightly.
“Stop him, Bill,” she said, “please stop him. He can’t go down there.”
“If it’s his wife, then he has every right—”
/>
“It’s not,” Marvella said. She gave me one more pleading look, and then hurried after him, her normally confident walk shaky on her high-heeled boots.
Laura and I stood side by side. She was still leaning against me, her arm around my back. She must have moved forward as I did when Marvella pushed.
“Do you know what’s going on?” Laura asked.
“I don’t have a clue,” I said. “But if she got an abortion without his permission…”
I didn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t. I’d seen Johnson in action. He had a temper and sometimes it ruled him. I could understand why a wife, set on getting rid of a child, wouldn’t tell him anything.
Halfway down the corridor, Marvella caught up to Johnson. She leaned forward, grabbed his arm, and he shook her off. She stumbled, but kept after him. She grabbed him again, and he pushed her away.
Marvella slammed into the wall and stood there, hands pressed against the green paint as if it were holding her up.
“My God,” Laura said.
I sighed. I didn’t want to get involved in this domestic drama, but I had a hunch it would be me or hospital security. And in this case, with all of its legal ramifications, it would be better for me to be involved.
I eased out of Laura’s grasp and hurried down the hall. Marvella hadn’t moved. Johnson was looking around as if he were searching for the exam rooms.
“Truman,” I called.
Johnson ignored me. He reached the second corridor.
“Truman, wait.” I had nearly caught up to him.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw how close I was. He frowned. “You don’t know what this is about, Grimshaw. Butt out.”
“I don’t know and, honestly, I don’t care,” I said as I reached Marvella. Her breath was coming in short gasps. He had shoved her so hard he had knocked the wind out of her. “But there’s more going on here than you may realize.”
Johnson stopped walking. He crossed his arms, rumpling his coat further.
Marvella shot me a cautionary look. I glanced toward Laura. She was coming down the hall, too, her right hand clasped in a small fist. I wasn’t even sure she was aware she was walking like that.
Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 6
