by Baxter Clare
36
She repeated the question to him from her hospital bed.
Darcy's smile was sheepish.
"Fubar's going to be asking you the same thing."
"He on his way?"
Darcy nodded. "With an entourage of big hats."
"At least I bought some time," Frank said, indicating the curtained wall. "He's probably still busy fucking up the scene."
Frank was exhausted, but nonetheless grateful for her fatigue and dull pain.
"Give me the lowdown before he gets here."
"It's pretty wild," he said, pulling the only chair up to her bed.
"You don't know the half of it," she said. "Or maybe you do."
He nodded.
"Turns out, this whole thing was a setup, and not just on you. Lucian—one of the twins—he and his brother's wife set this scam up on the Mother. Like begets like. According to him, she was starting to believe her own legends, acting like she was invincible. He saw after she killed her own nephew how far she'd go and how far she'd already gone. He didn't want to go down with her.
"The bembe was his idea. He was sure you'd come and she went along with it. The plan was to have you in imminent danger, then have the cops bust in at the last minute. No way the Mother could get off for jacking a cop. He didn't want you to die, but it was a chance he was willing to take."
"Yeah, I saw."
"The point was to set the Mother up. The son—Lucian—he was going to cop to everything so that the old lady would get sent away forever. But the plan slipped. When we came in, the other brother, Marcus, he fired shots and we took him out. Lavinia and the Mother went and hid behind you. The Mother had a knife on you and that pretty much stopped us. She called Lucian over to her and he went. He stood behind her and next thing we know he's got a gun on her. He said, 'I'm sorry, Mama,' and just like that he pulled the trigger. He dropped the gun and just stood there. He said one way or another somebody was going to die and that by killing her he ended the killing."
Through the haze of her concussion and meds, Frank stated, "That's beautiful. 'I'm sorry, Mama'. Sorry my ass. I bet he meant to smoke her."
"Probably, huh?"
"I wouldn't want the Mother alive after I'd ratted her out. If he'd already seen how far she'd go, what would keep her from frying her own son alive? There's no way he'd get out of that except by killing her. Then his army of lawyers get him off on self-defense and the kid's running an empire."
Frank studied the ceiling.
"Lavinia. She the skinny girl in the black dress?"
"Marcus's wife. She and Lucian cooked this up together."
Frank nodded, "She was going in and out. She's the one who called you." Frank had to close her eyes.
"But why did she call you?”
"This is where it really gets strange. Maybe you should rest a spell. The captain'll be here any minute."
Frank recognized the stall and said, "If I need to cover your ass, I better know about it."
Darcy huffed, "Who's covering whose ass?"
"Spill it."
"You're not going to believe it," he argued.
Frank's smile was weak, but she replied, "Try me. You might be surprised."
Darcy glanced toward the door.
"I was home working on a paper."
That had been another revelation about Darcy. For all his resemblance to a Hell's Angel, her cop had a PhD in criminal psychology and was published regularly in law enforcement journals. She watched him fidget, noting he'd cut his hair.
"I was trying to concentrate on it but I kept getting this picture of you in my head. It felt like you were in trouble. It seemed like Noah was with you, but that you were the one in trouble."
The blanket over Frank suddenly seemed thin. Darcy paused.
"Go on," she said grimly.
"I tried calling both of you but didn't get an answer. I left a page for you and when you didn't respond I got worried. Really worried. The feeling kept intensifying, that something was seriously wrong. And I kept getting these flashes of a brick building. Bobby and I'd driven past the Mother's place and I thought that was what it was. It looked like the same place."
Frank watched Darcy stare at his hands. Lifting his head, his blue eyes met hers.
"I was getting scared. I just couldn't shake that you were in trouble. So I got on the bike and drove over. I swear, the sense of. . . urgency got stronger the closer I got. I was scared. For you.
"And wet," he tried to laugh, but it didn't come off. "I drove right into a thunderstorm. I didn't want to go in there, Frank, but I felt like I had to. I thought about calling backup but what was I going to tell them? I tried the door and it was open. I heard those drums, and I tell you, I about fainted I was so fucking scared. I followed diem straight to you."
"So Lavinia didn't call you."
"No. She called the station. Two cars rolled a couple minutes behind me."
The implication of that made Frank queasy. When he'd been confronted with a particularly bizarre outcome of timing, Joe Girardi had frequently muttered, "Seconds and inches."
Sometimes that was all that separated the living from the dying.
In a hush, Frank said, "I was calling Noah. Marguerite told me to pray and I didn't know how so I was calling Noah."
Darcy nodded as if that cleared up any ambiguity.
Frank didn't want to flunk anymore. She just wanted to close her eyes for a while. "Do me a favor," she said. "Another one. Call this number."
She waited for him to get his pen.
"It's Doc Lawless' number. Tell her I'm okay, but tell her where I am. Now let me get some sleep before Fubar gets here."
Darcy's chair scraped back and as he pushed the curtain aside, Frank said, "Hey."
He turned.
"How do I thank you for something like this?"
He shrugged and disappeared.
Gail arrived just as the hats were leaving. The men stared at her breathless entry. They seemed to collectively decide they didn't want to know any more and almost pushed each other out the door.
Perching on the edge of the bed, Gail demanded, "What the hell happened to you. You look terrible.”
"I'm fine," Frank assured, offering what she could of a smile. Her face was swollen and scraped and she wondered what she'd feel like when the drugs wore off. Reveling in the luxury of touching Gail's cheek, she added, "Just a little banged up. Nothing that doesn't happen to a good quarterback a couple times a season."
Gail pointed out, "You're not a quarterback, Frank. What happened? That damned Darcy won't tell me a thing."
"That damned Darcy saved my ass tonight."
Frank gave Gail the short version of the story. How she'd gone over on a hunch, how the whole thing had been a scam, how she'd tried praying, and how Darcy had stepped in at the last minute.
Gail blanched and kept repeating, "Oh my God."
"Yeah. Somebody's God. Pretty freaky, huh?"
Gail started to cry.
"Hey," Frank soothed, touching a tear with her thumb. "Hey."
"I don't know whether to hit you or kiss you. You knew what you were getting into and you didn't tell me!"
"Jesus, Gail, I didn't know. I knew I had to go, and I didn't know why. I knew I didn't want to go, but I had no fucking idea all this was going to go down. I wouldn't have gone in, at least not alone, if I had. Give me some credit. I just thought it was a church thing. Like a party."
"Then why didn't you tell me where you were going?"
"It just seemed silly. I didn't want to break dinner because I had to go to a party. I don't know. I didn't have a good reason for going, but I felt like I had to. I can't explain it."
Frank shrugged and the movement made her flinch.
"What sort of a relationship can we ever have if you can't tell me the truth, Frank?"
"The truth is I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't plan on going there when I left you. I just remembered I'd been invited, and it seemed dumb to go, but
I was . . . drawn. I had to go."
"Well then why couldn't you have just said that?"
Gail's voice was rising and Frank was too tired for another fight.
"I don't know. I honestly can't tell you. I'm sorry I didn't. And I can't argue with you right now. I was wrong. You're right. It's over.
The whole fucking thing is over and I just want to move on. Can we do that?"
She was still pissed, but Frank could at least see Gail considering her request. Before she could answer, Frank said, "Hey. I got something for you. Darcy said he brought my wallet and stuff. Do you see it?"
Frowning, Gail pulled a plastic hospital bag from under the bed.
"How can I impress upon you the need to communicate with me?"
"How can I impress upon you that I'm trying? I'm not used to communicating with myself, nonetheless another human being, Gay. I'm not good at it. I'll be the first to admit that. But I'm trying."
Finding the tin heart in her pants pocket, she told Gail, "Close your eyes and put out your hand."
Gail sighed, but did as instructed. Frank put the heart in her palm.
"Okay."
The doc opened her eyes and Frank said, "You're holding my heart in the palm of your hand."
Gail studied it a long time before answering, "I'll be very careful with it."
Cupping Gail's fingers around the stamped heart, Frank was at last able to say, "I love you."
Epilogue
On his way home from school, a boy stops by a pile of blankets. They are dirty and smell like his baby sister when her diaper needs changing. He sucks thoughtfully on his Tootsie-Pop, calculating how long before he gets to the chocolate center. He takes the candy out, studies it, then looks back at the blankets.
They are heaped in the middle like they're covering something. Maybe there's a backpack underneath. Or a radio. The boy looks around for the blanket's owner. The alley is empty. Only blind cars pass on his left. He nudges the blankets with the toe of his sneaker. Nothing happens. Again he looks around. He kicks the pile, scattering the mounded blankets.
The smell of old pee lifts into the air. And a nasty smell, like from that cat his uncle hung in the basement. The boy waves his hand in front of his nose and swears. He doesn't notice the hot breeze that snakes around his ankles. Or that the pigeons on the wire above have suddenly cried out and taken flight.
FB2 document info
Document ID: a42d685d-3e72-473b-afcc-17dd2e8a1db9
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 5.6.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.53, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Baxter Clare
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