by ML Gardner
They pulled two lounge chairs and placed them in the middle of the deck. Aryl looked out over the moonlit ocean for a long time.
“We have a few hours before dawn.”
“Who’s turn is it?”
“I didn’t know we were taking turns.”
Sloan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. As long as we keep talking. Some of the stuff I’ve been telling you, I’ve never told a living soul. It’s nice to finally get rid of it.”
“Is that how it works? You talk about it and then it’s gone? You don’t have to worry about it anymore?”
“That’s how it works for me.”
“Here’s to hoping,” Aryl said and took a long drink.
“I woke up under that bridge and Deek told me that a bunch of little men carried me there shortly before I woke up.”
“The trading ship you wandered onto after leaving Charles’s truck?” Sloan asked as his head fell back onto the chair. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I can’t believe you were right there. Right there.”
“Sorry,” Aryl shrugged. “I had to pee.”
Sloan laughed.
“Deek introduced me to Gina the next day. I was scared, hungry and had no idea what to expect.”
Chapter Nineteen
Raising the Stakes
The next morning I was relieving myself behind a bush when I heard Deek call to someone from underneath the bridge. I craned my neck to see who it was. It was a damp overcast day. No glare prevented me from seeing her, but the distance did. I finished and stood up straight, wiping my hands on my pants. I scrunched up my face in disgust. I hated feeling so dirty.
When I approached, Deek was talking to a woman as much with his hands as with his words. Excited whispers were hard to make out and I hung back, waiting to be invited over. Her eyes flickered over Deek’s shoulder to me and she held my gaze for a moment. When she looked back at Deek, she nodded for him to continue. Deek went back to his fervent whispering. She nodded slowly.
“Perhaps,” she said, glancing at me again.
Deek looked up and waved me over. I pushed off the wall I was leaning against, wincing slightly and walked over.
She was pretty with curly, dirty blonde hair and crystal brown eyes. She was dressed stylishly, oddly enough in pants, and stood out from present company, clean and fresh. She didn’t seem entirely put off to Deek’s idea and took a few steps towards me.
“Deek said they call you John?”
“For lack of knowing what it really is, yeah.”
“And it’s true you have no memory before yesterday morning?”
“Yeah.” I looked down, shoving my hands in my pockets.
She looked all around, scrutinizing bushes and the edge of the bridge above. Satisfied no one was watching, she hooked her arm in mine.
“Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”
I didn’t have a choice as she turned and began down the street, tossing Deek a wink and a wave as she passed.
He could hardly contain his excitement.
“Don’t be a stranger, John!” He called after us, bobbing his head and rubbing his hands together. He hurried back under the bridge to Geddy.
We strolled along for a few blocks, leisurely.
“Excuse me, but, what are we doing?”
“I told you, going for a walk.”
“Why?”
“So I can talk to you. Deek had an idea for me to take you back to Mickey. Find a spot for you there.”
“And are you going to do that?”
“I’m still deciding.”
We walked toward the docks and I strained to see each boat, wishing I remembered the name of the one I’d crawled on to. I knew I was searching in vain. They had to be long gone by now. The street was littered with garbage, beggars and prostitutes. The absolute worst London had to offer.
“What was your name?” I asked.
“Gina. Didn’t Deek tell you that?”
“No.”
We rounded a corner and walked a few more steps before she whirled me around, slamming my back into the wall. My mouth popped open and I screamed. Sliding down, my eyes watered and my back throbbed. I doubled over and then came up, looking at her in furious question.
She planted the foot of her boot firmly against my crotch.
“Now listen to me, John, or whatever the hell your name is. I know exactly what’s going on here. I’ve known Deek a long time and I know he’d sell his own mother for a dose. He’s been trying to get someone into Mickey’s operation for months now, and I’m not nearly stupid enough to fall for it. He always thinks they get in and then just don’t come back. What he doesn’t know is that they get this same warning from me. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Your little plan isn’t going to work.”
I put my hands on her ankle, trying to relieve some of the pressure. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I grunted.
“The hell you don’t.” She pushed down harder.
“Alright, alright, he told me to find out where the medicine is kept and come back and tell him. I wasn’t going to do it though. I just wanted to get away from that filthy bridge and figure out who I am.”
I couldn’t help but press against the wall, trying to squirm out from under the pressure of her boot. “Please, this is killing my back!” I hissed. She kept it there for the moment, studying me.
She removed her boot suddenly. “What year is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, leaning over, protecting myself in case she tried to crush my groin again.
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know!” I said with a look of mingled frustration and helplessness.
“You’re American. Who’s your president?”
“I don’t know.”
“And how do I know you aren’t lying?”
“There’s no way I can prove to you that I don’t know these things,” I said, looking up desperately.
“I know you’re not lying because it’s my job to know. It’s what I do.”
She straightened and took another glancing sweep of her surroundings.
“Get up.”
I did, using the wall for support and she took my arm again, leading me back out to the road.
“Where are we going?”
“To get a cup of coffee. You hungry?”
“I don’t know what day of the week it is, but this boat is supposed to pull into Boston bright and early on May second,” Sloan said. “We have to figure out how much time we have left.”
“You sound like you don’t want it to end,” Aryl said.
Sloan didn’t answer.
“What’s it been for us here…two days?”
“Three when the sun comes up?” Sloan laughed. “I have completely lost track. I’ll find out soon.”
Aryl kept his eyes on the stars and stretched out to get more comfortable.
“When you went to New York and found out all about Daniel Bellamy and my friends, you said you were supposed to be on medical leave.” Aryl rolled his head over to face Sloan. “What for?”
Chapter Twenty
A Gut Feeling
The Boston Herald must’ve gone over budget on ink.
Serial Cop Killer Strikes Again! All Of Boston On Edge.
Timothy Simmons, this time. An officer in charge of enforcing Prohibition. I glanced at my list of cops that had busted Daniel Bellamy. Bingo. I’m onto you, you slimy bastard. I’m right on your tail.
I walked into Captain’s office and told him I had a hot lead on Kimberly Weiss that lead to New York. Not entirely a lie, if you tease apart the sentence. He was distracted and told me in not so friendly words to get the hell out of his office and leave him alone. He’d spent the morning yelling at the team that was proving to be not so special. Their defense was they’d only had a week to work. He wasn’t hearing it. I should have shared it, right then and there. Had every man on our team and theirs searching for Daniel to put an end to this. But I didn’t. I was selfish. And I ho
ped I wouldn’t regret that.
I winced with a pain in my stomach, low on the right side and stopped to hold the wall.
I tried to hide the grimace on my face from the jabbing pain in my side. I caught Felix, my complementary pain in the ass, staring at me out of the corner of my eye. I had failed to get an official approval for an out of state trip from Captain, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t go anyway. I looked around, happy to see Fred with his head bent, hard at work at his desk. As soon as I could walk erect again, I made my way over.
“Hey, kid, let’s get coffee.”
“I’ll take some! Black,” Helen called out. Good old Helen. Of course, if the little plan I’d hatched in my broken head were going to work, I’d have to let her in on it. Just a little.
Fred shuffled his papers away in his desk and jumped up to follow me like a good dog.
We walked to a nearby park and sat on a bench far away from prying ears.
“Listen, kid, I’m gonna have to go away on a trip. Only Captain doesn’t know about it. It’s a real hot lead on another case. I can’t tell you anymore than that. You’re gonna have to trust me, okay?”
“Sure, Sloan, what do you want me to do while you’re gone?”
“Keep working the Weiss case. I really want that girl to get home. Most of all, I want you to pretend like I’m still here. If anyone asks for me, say you just saw me go that way or I headed home early. But I’m gonna let Helen in on this trip, so make sure you have your stories straight, got it?”
“Got it. Say, it must be something really important to be such a secret.”
“Well, Captain’s got a lot on his plate right now. But it is important. Real big, even. It’s…” I stopped and swallowed hard. The kid deserved to know the truth. Or part of it at least. “It’s a chance to redeem myself.”
His eyes went wide. “Oh, wow. Then you have to go! I’ll cover for you. Don’t worry about that, Sloan.”
“Thanks. And if it is found out I’m gone, you don’t know anything, alright? I won’t have you get in trouble over this. Play dumb.” It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, I thought with affection.
Before he could answer I doubled over again. It felt like something was digging into my side, trying to rip out my intestines.
“You okay, Sloan?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “It’ll pass.”
“Maybe you should go to the doctor?”
I shook my head and waited. It took longer to ease this time and I was panting and sweating by the time it did.
“I’m real worried about you, Sloan. You should get that checked out.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow, kid. Right now I got a trip to plan.”
Half way back to the precinct I remembered Helen’s coffee. I turned on my heel with my faithful pooch right beside me. I was somewhere in the middle of a sentence about Helen when it hit again, dropping me straight to the sidewalk.
For a moment I thought I’d been shot. The pain was blinding; I couldn’t see or hear anything. Next thing I knew, I was being carried into the hospital by Fred and a few Good Samaritan by-standers.
I vaguely remember people rushing around. I saw the lights on the ceiling passing quickly and felt my bed shudder as they pushed through a large door leading to a white room. A doctor appeared, his masked face was upside down. His eyes smiled and he told me from behind his mask that I would be okay. Isn’t that what they always said? I asked for Maggie and then blessed relief washed over me.
***
It felt like only minutes had passed. I had been talking to Fred, hit the sidewalk in pain, went to sleep and now I was opening my eyes again.
Slowly, painfully, opening them.
“Oh, thank God,” Maggie whispered. My eyes floated around until I found her. She was standing beside my bed. It was then that I realized she was holding my hand. “I was starting to get worried,” she said, with a warbling smile.
“What happened?” I asked, blinking the cobwebs out of my eyes.
“Your appendix ruptured, Richard.”
I took me a second to realize she was talking to me. It’d been so long since someone called me by my first name.
“It what?”
“It ruptured. It’s a miracle you lived. You were in surgery for over two hours. They worked fast and did everything they could but an infection developed two days later.”
“Two days? Just how long have I been out?”
“Today makes a week. They ended up taking you back into surgery to try to clean out the infection. That was three days ago. Your fever finally broke last night.” I could hear a smile in her voice and was happy for it.
“I was starting to get worried.” I could tell she was struggling with emotion and watched her pull herself together.
“Several friends from the precinct have been by. Captain brought those over there.” She pointed to a beautiful bouquet sitting by the window. “I think his wife made him do it. You should have seen how uncomfortable he was, holding those flowers.”
I gave a tired laugh and it hurt my stomach.
“He said don’t worry about a thing. You’re on paid medical leave. And…Fred, I think his name was, he has stopped by every day. He said to tell you he’d talk to you soon.”
“He’s a good kid,” I said. I tried adjusting in the bed, my body was stiff as steel, but couldn’t move without excruciating pain.
“Someone named Felix stopped by. Said to tell you to concentrate on getting better and that he’s got a handle on your cases.”
“I’m sure he does,” I sighed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“Nothing.” I looked around the room, disbelieving I’d been here for a week.
“The doctor said you can go home in another week or so, if the fever stays away and your incision heals well.” She sat smiling at me. “How do you feel?”
I felt like I’d been thrown over a cliff, ping-ponged off jagged rocks and bounced on the ground a few times.
“I’m fine.”
She busied herself straightening my bedding and fluffing my pillow. I took her hand, stopping her efforts.
“I’m glad you’re here, Maggie.”
She looked down, shy and demure, reminding me of the first time I saw her, which happened to be same moment I fell in love with her.
“It’s late. Visiting hours are almost over. Can I bring you anything from home tomorrow?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Just come back tomorrow, please?” I asked, sounding a little desperate.
She put a hand to my forehead with a gentle caress. “They were honest with me about how serious this was. They said there was a chance you wouldn’t make it.” She touched my chin and her lip quivered briefly. “I told them you were a fighter. You’d never given up on anything in your life and you wouldn’t start now.”
“Sounds like you got me pegged, beautiful.”
She smiled again, picked up her handbag and left.
***
When the doctor told me I had to take a month to recuperate at home I thought I would lose my mind. I argued and protested. He gave me pills that made the room tilt and reduced my fight to grumbling and complaining.
I left the hospital with strict orders given to Maggie, not me, that if I tried to do too much or dare try to go back to work, she was to tell him immediately.
And so began my long month of doing nothing. I had never done nothing in my life and it was as foreign to me as French. The upside was that Maggie doted on me like when we were first married. Seeing her act like she loved me was reassuring but odd after all these years. I wondered from time to time if she really did love me this much, or if she were just overly grateful she didn’t have to deal with one more loss. I knew she couldn’t take it.
I thought a lot about work and itched to get back to the office. Before I left the hospital, Captain had assured me that all my cases were being handled and ordered me not to even think about them. Yeah, right.
He lef
t with a hard glare, which was as close to affection as he could muster, mumbled something about being glad I lived but if I tried to work any cases from home, he’d pay me a visit and rupture my guts again.
I smiled as he left and told him I loved him, too. I tried not to think about work but I was sure that Felix was having a heyday with my cases and had probably found half of them by now. Bastard’s desk was probably overflowing with flowers and thank you cards.
I thought a lot about retiring. Thought a lot about walking away. But like Maggie said, I’d never given up on anything in my life and I wasn’t about to start now. I ate too much out of boredom and got hooked on a few of those radio soap operas that old ladies and kids love to listen to. Maggie even started listening with me, adjusting our dinner hour so we could tune in to Death Valley Days. I loved the time together. We needed it. It was long overdue.
Too bad my insides had to explode to get me to stop and see what little it took to begin reconnecting with my wife.
If I had known, or stopped to think about it, I’d have turned on the radio a long time ago, took her knitting from her hands and pulled her down to sit by me. Things may never be the same, but they could at least be better.
Fred came and visited several times and I was so anxious to talk shop I’d shuffle to the kitchen in my bathrobe, still hunched over my sensitive abdomen and listen to him blather on about anything and everything that was going on at the precinct. It was when he was around that I missed it most. I felt left out of the loop.
“I know I shouldn’t, Sloan, but you want me to bring you anything? From your office?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “I know you gotta be going nuts here.” It took a minute but I quickly realized he was offering to raid my office and bring me files. It was tempting. But I had the most important one tucked away in my home office, the wallet sitting neatly on top.
“How are you coming on the Weiss case?” I asked instead, delaying an answer.
“Good. Got a few solid leads. I confirmed that her boyfriend Sal has her and based on an account I got from someone last week, she’s not having the time of her life.”
