“Jim saved me,” Lacey said. She moved away from the pillow, away from the gentle hands investigating her wounds. Her eyes were open, and a bit wild. “Is he still here?”
“He went to call your parents, honey,” the nurse said softly.
“No,” Lacey said.
The other nurse had left, and I hadn’t even noticed. That told me just how shaken up I was.
She returned now, with a white doctor in tow. Fortunately, it wasn’t the doctor I had encountered almost a year ago. This man was younger, with black hair just kissing his collar.
“This your daughter?” he asked me.
“Niece,” I said.
“You probably don’t want to be here for this. Can you just wait outside the door?”
“Uncle Bill.” Lacey grabbed my hand. Her grip was tight. “Don’t leave me with him, Uncle Bill.”
Tears streamed from her eyes. She didn’t want to be alone with a strange man, even one who might help her.
It had already begun.
“I’ll stay, if you don’t mind,” I said to the doctor. “I’ll look away.”
“I have paperwork for you to fill out,” the nurse said. “Just outside.”
I shook my head. “Lacey needs me here.”
Besides, I didn’t think she would let go of my hand.
The doctor reached for her skirt. Lacey’s entire body convulsed. She kicked him, and kept kicking him, silently, without screaming, her lips pressed together.
The doctor backed away, his white smock smeared with dark blood from her high-heeled boots.
“He’s helping you,” I said, pulling her toward me. I reached for her legs, but she pushed my arm away with her free hand.
“We can’t do this like this,” the doctor said to the nurses. “She’s not going to calm down, and I need to examine her, stat.”
Lacey had stopped kicking, but she had moved closer to me, her body on alert. She had pulled the sheet over herself, and she was glaring at the doctor. “Don’t let him hurt me, Uncle Bill.”
“I won’t,” I said. I looked at the doctor, feeling helpless.
“We’re putting her under.” He kept his distance, his expression calm. He didn’t seem upset by her reaction at all. “Then I can examine her. Do you know her blood type?”
“No,” I said, my heart clenching.
He came closer again, this time to look at her face. Her cheek was swelling, too. He reached for it, and she thrashed. She let go of my hand and turned toward him, hitting and kicking, breathing through her mouth.
The doctor didn’t touch her. He’d clearly seen this before.
I reached over, and grabbed her hands. She was surprisingly strong. She kept kicking and fighting, red blood—fresh blood—dotting the white sheets on the cot.
“Lacey, honey, it’s Uncle Bill. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
She turned toward me. “Uncle Bill? Don’t let him hurt me, Uncle Bill.”
But I had. I had. If I had listened to Jimmy—
“I won’t,” I said. “We’re going to help you.”
She started shaking violently, but she stopped kicking.
“I’m staying with her,” I said to the doctor.
He nodded grimly. “Yes,” he said. “You are.”
FOUR
BY THE TIME her parents arrived, Lacey was in surgery. The doctor didn’t even end up using a speculum. Once she was unconscious, he took one good look at her, and decided she needed more than he could do in that exam room.
She didn’t let go of my hand even as she went under, and so I had to pry her fingers off. They were bruised and bloody. Her right forefinger was missing a nail. The other nails, carefully polished the night before in a pretty white, were ragged and broken.
Poor baby. She had put up a hell of a fight.
I stayed in that exam room after she left, filling out paperwork, signing forms giving my permission for the surgery, knowing none of it was legal, but also knowing that Franklin would arrive soon and redo everything.
The nurses didn’t talk to me while they cleaned up, and I was grateful. It took all of my strength to concentrate on the forms. They floated in front of me, small type against a white background, asking for things I didn’t know.
But I did sign the consent form. That was the one the nurses were the most concerned with. They needed it before Lacey went into surgery, a procedure I didn’t remember from any previous time I’d been around a hospital. I seemed to recall surgery first and signatures later.
Most of the time, however, I either wasn’t related to the patient or I was the patient, too ill to sign anything.
This time, I still had trouble. My shaking hand nearly wrote William T. Dalton, my real legal name. I stopped at the top of the T, leaving it off at the very last minute. I was not William T. Grimshaw, not according to my driver’s license. I was William Grimshaw, no middle initial, and that was how I had signed everything for the past two years.
The fact that I nearly blew my own cover showed how shaken I truly was.
After I signed the consent form and they whisked Lacey away, I sat for a few minutes, my hand over my face. I’d seen a lot in my life, I’d lived through a lot, and none of it had hit me like this—not as an adult, anyway.
Maybe it was the last straw after the difficult year. Maybe it was Lacey’s pretty face, swelling and bruised, her eyes unfocused and terrified.
Maybe it was simply the fact that I knew that little girl, that little arrogant reckless intelligent girl, would never be the same.
I blinked hard against my palm, swallowed several times, and nearly jumped out of my chair when a hand touched my shoulder.
I whirled, ready to do battle, but it was only the first nurse, the thirtyish one. She was looking at me with great compassion.
“She’ll be all right, Mr. Grimshaw. Doctor Fahey is one of our best.”
I shook my head, not sure I could trust my voice. I swallowed again, cleared my throat, and nearly contradicted her. But I couldn’t even speak what I was thinking.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it. “Thank you for helping her.”
“Young thing like that,” the nurse said softly. “All that Civil Rights stuff hasn’t changed everything, has it?”
It took me a moment to understand her meaning. Black women had gotten raped through most of our history in the United States, first by the men who owned them, and then by the men who thought they were uppity.
“Oh,” I said, “things have changed a little. I could bring her here, and Doctor Fahey would help her, no questions asked.”
The nurse smiled. I realized then that she had gotten me out of myself, made me think about something else, at least for a moment. I wasn’t used to being seen so clearly, but then, I wasn’t used to being this emotionally close to the edge, either.
“She will be all right, Mr. Grimshaw,” the nurse said with a lot of conviction. “She’s got those little boys who came to her defense, and she’s got you. She’s got a good family. That will help.”
I almost said, It hasn’t helped so far, but I realized that wasn’t true. Bad things happened to everyone, and Lacey was in the hospital because of her family. Because of Jimmy, who had had the presence of mind to save her.
Jimmy, who was still being strong somewhere outside of the emergency area.
I couldn’t rely on an eleven-year-old forever.
I thanked the nurse and finished the paperwork, feeling a little calmer. Or at least, superficially calmer. I had set the emotions to one side. I would deal with them once we knew what had happened to Lacey and how it had happened so close to the school.
I had a lot of questions, and I was going to need a lot of answers.
FIVE
I HAD CONTROL of myself by the time I entered the waiting room down the hall. It was the same room I had spent hours in last spring, and it hadn’t changed much. Someone had chain-smoked in there not long before I arrived, and the air was grayish yellow. Newspapers were scattered
across one of the couches, and a white and pink sweater draped over the back of a chair.
But the room was empty except for Jimmy and Keith. I stepped inside and both of them launched themselves at me, wrapping their arms around me. The gun in my pocket jabbed my hip. I had to get that thing out of my coat before I did much else.
I held the boys for a long time, my hands on their small skulls. They’d been spectacular, and I had to tell them that. And then I had to find out what they knew, and why the three of them hadn’t been in school on this weekday afternoon.
I let them break the hug. They had to be traumatized. I was amazed they had managed to hold on this long. They were nearly teenagers, boys who had spent the last month or two trying to prove that they were older than they were. But this had shattered that pretense, at least for them.
Finally, Jimmy pulled away. Keith followed. They both looked frail and too thin, little boys who weighed maybe eighty pounds soaking wet, little boys who might have saved a girl’s life.
“How is she, Smoke?” Jimmy asked. He tugged on his shirt as he headed toward the nearest couch. The shirt was bloodstained and askew. I almost asked him where his coat was, and then I remembered: He had given it to Lacey and the nurse had bagged it, along with the rest of her clothing.
“She’s in surgery,” I said. “We’ll know in a few hours.”
“Surgery?” Keith asked.
He had a streak of dried blood on one cheek. It looked like he had wiped his hand on his face.
I touched that blood, scraping it off gently with a fingernail. “Are you boys all right?” I asked as calmly as I could. “That man didn’t hurt you too, did he?”
“He didn’t get near me,” Keith said. “I seen him running out of the hotel. He was bleeding something fierce.”
I hadn’t even noticed a blood trail on the ice. That also showed how intent I had been on getting inside that hotel.
“I hit him with a screwdriver, really hard on his head,” Jimmy said. “I hit him a lot, as hard as I could, and Lacey was kicking him. He couldn’t grab his pants quick enough and get outta there. He was putting his pants on and running at the same time. I’da kept on him too, if he hadn’t hurt Lace.”
“Good job,” I said, feeling stunned. Jimmy truly had saved her. “Where did you get the screwdriver?”
The question was minor, but I couldn’t focus on the tougher parts of what he had to tell me; at least, not all at once.
“I brung it because me and Keith mighta had ta break into Lace’s locker.” His grammar had gotten bad again, like it always did in times of crisis.
“Her locker?” I didn’t know how that connected to anything.
Jimmy started to answer me, when the waiting room door burst open. Franklin hurried in, bringing some outside cold with him. He was a big man, although not as big as I was, and his terror made him seem bigger.
“Where’s Lacey?” he asked me.
“Didn’t you stop at the desk?” I asked.
“I did, they told me she’s in surgery, but I thought I’d better hear from you.” He let the door bang behind him. His coat was still wrapped tightly around him. He hadn’t even pulled off his gloves. His face was ruddy from the outside chill.
“She’s in surgery, Franklin,” I said taking his arm and moving him away from the door.
“Is she going to die?” he asked. He didn’t see the boys huddled together near one of the couches.
“I doubt it,” I said.
He let out a gusty sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath. “What the hell happened, Smokey? I sent my little girl to school this morning, and now she’s in the hospital?”
I wasn’t ready to answer that—not phrased that way. “Where’s Althea?”
“On her way,” he said.
“Did you fill out paperwork?” I asked. “Because I did, and you know, that’s probably not good.”
He blinked, frowned, and then nodded as he finally understood me. “Think they’ll give me some answers?” he asked as he let himself out the waiting room door.
“He’s really upset,” Keith whispered. “Is he mad at us, Uncle Bill?”
Through the yellow-stained glass window, I could see Franklin almost run down the hall. He rounded a corner. I’d never seen him panic before.
I turned away. “I don’t even think he saw you, Keith. He’s not mad. He’ll be proud of you when he figures out what happened.”
“We cut school,” Keith said.
“We had a good reason, Smoke,” Jimmy said.
I was certain they did. I nodded. “You can tell me all about it when Franklin gets back.”
Jimmy let out a small breath. Keith started to cry. He bent over and put his hands on his face, hiccupping and rocking as the tears became sobs.
Jimmy went to one side of him, and I sat on the other, putting my arms around him.
“I never….” Keith raised his head. Snot dripped from his nose, and his entire face was wet. He kept taking hitching breaths. “I mean, I’m really mean to her, Uncle Bill. I never say nothing nice. And now, Daddy said she might die.”
I pulled him close. “She’s not going to die,” I said.
“But what if she does? I haven’t said nothing nice in forever. I just been teasing her about her stupid clothes and that makeup and those boys. And now one of them mighta killed her.”
“That weren’t no boy,” Jimmy said. “That was a full-grown man, and you know it, Keith. And if Smoke says she’s not gonna die, she’s not gonna die.”
I half-smiled at him, wishing he hadn’t given me that much power. I wasn’t in charge of who lived or who died. I wished I was. That man who attacked Lacey would be dead right now.
I reached into the pocket of my coat. My fingers brushed coins and a guitar pick I carried as an emergency lock pick. I didn’t even have a handkerchief. So I used my fingers to clean off Keith’s face as best I could.
“Lacey’s hurt,” I said, “but she’ll get through it. And so will you. You and Jim were the heroes here. You can tell us everything we need to know when your parents arrive. And if they get mad at the small stuff, I’ll talk to them.”
“Did you talk to the cops?” Keith asked.
I opened my mouth, about to lie to him. I could tell him that I had spoken to the cops in the emergency room. But I wasn’t going to. I might need Keith’s help. I was getting the glimmerings of an idea.
“Not yet.” I wiped my wet hands on my already filthy coat.
Then Keith rubbed his sleeve over his nose, and his other arm over his eyes. His face was dark red.
“You gotta catch that guy,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” Jimmy said. “Smoke will. That’s what he does.”
I glanced at Jimmy, who was still remarkably calm. He nodded at me, as if his sentence had been some kind of code between us, as if he expected me to run off right now and do something to the man who hurt Lacey.
“Promise?” Keith asked, his eyes still on mine.
I said, “I’ll make sure he never hurts her again.”
SIX
FRANKLIN CAME BACK into the waiting room, Althea beside him. She wore her Sunday-best coat, and she clutched her black purse against her stomach. Her expression was fierce.
Her gaze found me and leveled me to that couch.
“What happened to my daughter, Smokey?” she asked in a voice I had never heard from her. It sounded like she blamed me. Maybe she did. I had taken Lacey to school that morning, and I had brought her to the hospital.
“I’m not certain about the sequence of events,” I said.
“Don’t talk around it,” she snapped. “What happened?”
I swallowed, ignoring my instinct to protect the boys from the harshness of this. They’d already seen the harshness. They knew.
“The doctor will have to tell you about the injuries,” I said. “I’m pretty sure she was raped—”
“She was,” Jimmy said. “I seen that guy—”
I put my hand on hi
s, silencing him.
“—and she was beaten pretty badly,” I said. “The boys are the ones who found her. They saved her. They called me.”
“Not me?” Althea asked, looking at Keith as if he had committed some kind of grave sin.
“That guy had her in a hotel, Mom,” he said. “Jimmy ran upstairs and got her free and told me to call Uncle Bill.”
“Why not the police?” she asked Jimmy.
Jimmy frowned at her. “Aunt Althea, the police don’t come to places like that.”
“Places like what?” she asked, looking at me again.
“Look,” I said. “The boys haven’t told me everything yet. Sit down, Althea, Franklin. Let them tell us—”
“You know where she was,” Althea said to me. “You got her and brought her here.”
“Yes,” I said. “I did. And I’m not sure exactly what happened either. She was already hurt and the man was long gone when I got there.”
“So you haven’t caught him,” Althea said.
“Not yet,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Jimmy said. “I gots—”
I squeezed his hand again. I wanted to control how this conversation went. Franklin and Althea were already upset. I didn’t want this to get worse.
“Raped,” Franklin said, and sat heavily on the couch. “How could that happen?”
“She was wearing a really short skirt, Dad,” Keith said.
“Enough,” I said. “What happened is not Lacey’s fault.”
“Smoke, we been warning her about them guys,” Jimmy said. “She shoulda listened.”
“What guys?” Franklin asked, his voice calm. “Did you know about these guys, Smokey?”
They wanted to blame me. I understood that.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know anything about this.”
Althea still loomed over me, clutching her purse as if she were debating using it as a weapon.
“So who is ‘we’?” she asked Jimmy.
“Me and Keith,” Jimmy said. “Mostly me. I seen stuff like this before, with my mom.”
Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel Page 3
