by Ray Garton
“Hey, if you boys are gonna be around for a while, you be sure and let me know if there’s something I can do to help, you hear, just speak up, my name’s Angie and this is my friend Peggy, here, and I know how lonely it can get waiting in a place like this, I’d probably go crazy if it weren’t for Peggy, here, and—”
Carter backed out slowly, a grin frozen on his face. She was still talking when he finally got out of the room.
They walked down the corridor, trying to look casual. Adam walked as if something very cold were moving around in his shorts.
“Jeez, look at you,” Carter said. “You look like Don Knotts in Spartacus.”
“I recognized that girl,” Adam whispered.
“Back there?”
“Yeah. She was at Monty’s party.”
Carter was not very concerned. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. She was on the sofa and she threw up, and a girl—”
“Some chick was vacuuming her carpet while a few guys watched?”
Adam nodded. “She had a syringe in her hand.”
“Yeah, I saw her. Why did you want to get out of there so fast?”
“She could identify us!”
“Adam, that girl couldn’t identify her own reflection in a mirror last night.”
“What about the guy?” Adam said. “He doesn’t look familiar, but he could’ve been there. What am I saying? Look how upset he was, of course he was there, he’s obviously a friend of Monty’s. Maybe they’re lovers. Rain said he goes both ways. That guy in the waiting room was there and he could’ve seen us.”
“Hey. Oliver Stone. You need to double your dosage, you know what I mean?”
Adam groaned and scrubbed his hands over his face. They stopped walking and he leaned against the wall beside an abandoned gurney.
“C’mon, Adam, are you gonna do this, or not?” Carter said. “Because no offense, but I could be home working on my impaled eyeball.”
Carter was right. Adam had to do it, get it over with. He took a few deep breaths, clenched his jaw, his fists. Pressed the sole of his right sneaker against the wall and launched himself with a strong push. Walked briskly but clumsily down the hall as his legs continued to rebel. Carter was right behind him.
“Go to the car,” Adam said. “If I’m not down there in fifteen minutes, get the hell out of here.”
“Who’re you, Tom Hanks? You’re not storming Omaha Beach, you know. If it doesn’t look like a sure thing, then just get your ass outta there, Adam, I’m serious.”
“Just do what I said,” Adam said. A second later, he turned sharply to the right, toward the I.C.U. entrance.
TWENTY
Adam raised both hands, palm out, to push the doors inward/ but held them close to his chest. The doors burst open and the edge of one landed in the center of his forehead. He stumbled backward as a large young woman with blonde hair and a round face emerged from between the doors. A roll of lazy flesh lolled like a tongue between her pink tube top and denim cutoffs, both of which were too small for her.
The woman gave Adam a sturdy shove and he slammed against the wall. She released a long, ululalating wail as she rushed into the waiting room, which suddenly filled with activity and loud, emotional voices.
“Shit, man, are you okay?” Carter asked.
“No. I’m gonna pass out.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, shaking his head firmly. He put a hand on Adam’s shoulder and guided him back into the waiting room. “Come sit down and—”
“Carter, I’m gonna pass out.”
Still shaking his head: “No, you’re not, just sit—”
“Yes, I am.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
Four feet from the nearest chair, Adam passed out.
* * *
Carter guided him to the floor easily, dropped to his knees beside Adam, shook him a little. “Adam? Adam! Jesus, what do I do, here?” He was suddenly overwhelmed by a sickly-sweet, rose-like odor. It clogged his nostrils and constricted his throat.
“You step aside, honey,” Angle said, pushing him away from Adam, “because I did time as a nurse’s aide during my Stuart’s inventing phase, and I know my CPR.” She knelt beside Adam, shifted and wiggled her bulk to get comfortable.
Carter said, “I don’t think he needs CP—”
“Don’t you worry, honey, I know what I’m doing, and while I’m doing it you better call a nurse or doctor or something in here right away.” She put her hands on Adam’s face, pulled his mouth open. Stuck a finger in his mouth, felt around. Leaned her face over Adam’s with her mouth open wide.
He regained consciousness and opened his eyes.
Adam’s scream was instinctive and came from his gut. It was jagged and ear-shattering, probably the most frightening thing anyone in the waiting room had heard all day.
Angie joined Adam with a scream of her own as she threw her tremendous weight backward and to her right. Everyone by the sofa stopped crying and hugging when they heard Angie’s ankle break beneath her. Probably the most painful thing anyone in the waiting room had heard all day. Angle’s scream was, without a doubt, the loudest.
Adam scrambled to his feet, but grabbed Carter’s shoulder when dizziness swayed him. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Carter’s attention was across the room. “No, wait. Come over here.” Holding Adam’s arm supportively, he led the way around Angie and closer to the sofa. The three young people had already forgotten about the sound of breaking bone and were crying again. The blonde cried out a single word over and over.
“My ankle, my aaaankuulll!” Angie shrieked. Peggy knelt beside her saying, “Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” The old woman who had been reading so silently and the man by the window quickly went to Angie’s aid. The man went to the phone on the wall, picked up the receiver, waited a moment, then spoke to someone.
“If we help you,” the old woman with the book said, leaning over Angie, “will you shut up?”
Adam and Carter watched the three people in front of the sofa. The hefty blonde woman who had nailed Adam on the forehead dropped onto the sofa, slid sideways and curled up, sobbing. The guy knelt in front of the sofa and leaned in close to whisper something to her. The dazed girl stared at nothing in particular.
“Monty!” the blonde cried. “Monty!” She repeated the name, dragged it into a longer cry each time.
Adam’s eyes widened as he glanced at Carter, at the girl on the sofa. To Carter, he said, “Monty’s dead?”
The blonde, the guy, and even the somnambulistic girl turned to Adam at once.
“You know Monty?” the blonde asked, voice thick with tears. She sat up slowly.
“Uuuhhh,” Adam said.
Carter said, “We were, um, y’know—”
“Not well,” Adam said.
“No, not very well at all.”
“But we’d heard, um, you know, that he was, uh...here.”
The narrow-faced guy eyed them as he got to his feet. “Who are you?”
“I’ve never met you,” the blonde said. She stood beside her friend, taller than he, pear-shaped. “How do you know my brother?”
Adam said, “I-I-I...we...I-I-I—”
“Oh, you’re Monty’s sister?” Carter said, trying to smile without his lips trembling. “Y’know, Monty talked about you all the time. I wish, um—” He dropped the smile, cleared his throat. “I wish we could have met under better—”
The girl’s wet face seized up with anger. “Monty hated my guts.”
Carter’s eyebrows bobbed up. “Oh. Well. Shit. You never would’ve guessed it from the way he—”
The guy stepped in front of the blonde and glared at Carter. “Who the fuck are, you? Huh, big guy?”
Behind him, the girl slurred, “The cops told us to watch for strange people comin’ around. Suspicious people.”
“And you two are definitely suspicious,” the guy said.
Adam’s vision blurre
d, breaths came more rapidly. Rusty railroad spikes were being driven into his skull. The pain in his head seemed to be directly connected to his stomach, where a big Fourth of July fireworks display finale was just beginning.
The guy looked at Adam. “What are you up to? Who are you?”
It happened suddenly, the result of his nearly incapacitating nervousness combined with the swift blow to the head. Adam bowed at the waist, as if greeting Japanese dignitaries, and vomited on the guy’s shoes.
“Oh, Jesus tits!” the guy cried, jumping backward. He turned and clumsily wiped his shoes, one at a time, on the side of the sofa. He turned to the blonde. “Where are the cops?”
“‘Cross the hall in I.C.U. Least, two were there when I left. Right after...right after...” Her large face quivered.
A nurse had arrived and tended to Angie, who would not stop screaming. Nor would she stop rolling her body back and forth, bunching her muumuu up around two dimpled slabs of white flesh.
“Don’tchoo worry, Angie,” the nurse said, “the wheelchair is coming, and we’ll get you to the emergency room.”
There was a clear path to the door.
The guy turned to Adam, glared at him. “Go get ’em, Trudy,” he said over his shoulder.
“Get what?” she said.
“The cops!”
Taking a step backward, Adam whispered to Carter, “Time to go.”
“Sure!” Carter turned and broke into a run. Adam fought dizziness behind him.
“Hey, shit, wait a second!” the guy shouted as Carter and Adam left the room. They heard him shout, “Get the cops, dammit!”
“Hurry up!” Carter hissed. He reached back, grabbed Adam’s arm and pulled him along.
“I’m dizzy!” Adam whispered.
“Be dizzy later!”
The dizziness receded quickly when Adam heard footsteps gaining on them from behind. A chrome foodcart rolled toward them up ahead.
“Stop them!” the guy shouted behind them.
A small middle-aged Asian woman wearing a hairnet and a white apron over her uniform peered skeptically around the corner of the cart.
“Those guys, stop them!”
The Asian woman disappeared behind the foodcart and stopped pushing it as Adam and Carter ran by.
“Stop him!” Carter called over his shoulder. “He’s the bad guy!”
They rounded a corner, saw the elevator up ahead. Behind them, the guy’s voice faded as he shrieked, “What the fuck’re you—Jesus Christ, lady, will you get outta my fucking—back off you—”
“Stairs,” Carter said, out of breath.
“Yeah,” Adam agreed.
“Stop them! Somebody stop them!” the guy shouted to no one in particular. He was gaining on them again, but had not yet rounded the corner.
They passed the elevator, and Adam pointed to a door marked STAIRS. Slammed through it into the stairwell, stumbled down the stairs while Carter stopped and turned to the door. As he silently closed it, a voice shouted in the corridor outside.
“Where did they go? Jesus tits, where did they go?” The guy was angry.
Carter hurried after Adam, caught up on the second floor landing. Halfway to the first floor, they heard footsteps above them, muttering. Adam stopped on a step, looked up the stairwell.
The guy peered over the rail at Adam. “You bastards!” A moment later, muffled as he leaned into the corridor: “Bring the fucking cops, for God’s sake! They’re taking the stairs!” Then footsteps ratta-tatted down the stairs.
Adam went faster, somehow kept his balance and did not plunge headfirst down the stairs. At the bottom, he pushed through the door and looked around quickly, tried to get his bearings. Carter would not let him. He grabbed Adam’s arm and pulled him to the left, through the main lobby, to the automatic doors.
The thick summer heat crashed into them the second they stepped outside. They picked up speed in spite of it on their way to the parking structure.
Carter groaned on the way up the stairs. “You couldn’t find a lower parking space?”
Behind them, a distant, “Hey! I think they went over there!”
They did not stop running. All the way up the steps, across the third level. The only thing that stopped them was the car. They ran into it. Panting, grunting.
There was no one behind them, no one hurried toward them.
In the car, Adam started the engine.
“What happened?” Rain asked.
Adam said, “Shut up,” and backed out of the parking slot.
“Don’t puh-panic, Adam,” Carter said. He clutched the dashboard with both hands, trying to get his breath back.
“Don’t panic? Carter, I passed panic a long time ago.”
“No, I mean, your driving. Don’t speed. You’ll be tempted, but don’t. It’s a dead giveaway.”
Rain leaned in between them. “What’s the matter? What the fuck happened?”
Adam looked at her in the rearview for a couple seconds as he approached the parking structure’s exit gate. “Rain? Shut. Up.”
Both Adam and Carter looked around carefully as they emerged into the sunlight.
“Maybe we’re okay,” Carter said.
“Not until we’re out of here,” Adam said as he drove out of the parking lot, merged into traffic.
Rain shouted, “Goddamnit, what the fuck is going on?”
They shouted together, “Shut up!”
TWENTY-ONE
After dropping Carter off at his house, Adam drove Rain home in silence. He went upstairs to his room, flopped on the bed, and almost immediately fell asleep. An hour later, he awoke with a great jerk, ready to keep running. But no one was chasing him. He took a couple minutes to wake up, then realized he had come to a decision, as if it had happened in his sleep. In the hall, he went down to Rain’s room.
There were two things Rain needed to know. First, that his fingerprints were all over the gun she was keeping, and he wanted them back. Second, he would kill his dad, but he would have absolutely nothing to do with killing Gwen.
He stopped outside her bedroom, raised his hand to knock. The door was already open an inch. Adam lowered his arm and said, “Rain? We need to talk.”
No reply, not a sound.
“Rain?” He nudged the door and it eased open a foot, a little more. Poked his head into the room and looked around.
The decapitated clown was gone and the headboard had been cleaned. A large poster of Marilyn Manson covered a good portion of the wall behind the bed, including the bullet hole.
Although the room was still a disaster area, he could see more of the carpet than he had seen the last time. Had she actually picked up some of her mess, or simply rearranged it? Impossible to tell.
He stepped back and looked up and down the hall. No one was around, the house was quiet. Adam quickly stepped into Rain’s bedroom and closed the door.
Where would she put that gun? he wondered, eyes darting around the room. Clothes were everywhere and hid any number of things. Adam got on all fours and swept his hands through the clothes. Back and forth over the carpet, through silky underwear, over shoes and T-shirts and jeans. No gun. He went to the big papa-san chair in the corner and plunged his hands into the mass of clothes that covered it.
Two angry voices drifted upstairs, grew louder.
Adam’s hand fell on cold metal and he pulled it out of the pile. Monty’s gun.
“—and you’re not going anywhere until we talk.” It was Gwen.
He held his breath.
“Come on, Goddamnit,” Gwen said. Closer now, in the hall and closing in. “In your room, now, c’mon!”
With no time to think, he rushed into the dark walk-in closet and was pulling the door closed behind him when the bedroom door opened.
“What were you thinking?” Gwen said as she slammed the bedroom door. “Just what the fuck were you thinking, getting involved with him? He’s scum.”
I didn’t get invol—”
“Close
enough! You got lucky. He died.”
Adam stood perfectly still and listened.
Gwen continued: “From now on, until this is all over, you have no contact with anyone, you understand? No old friends, no new friends, and no—”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do, sit in my fuckin’ room all the time?”
“Later you can do whatever the fuck you want. But for now, you’ll do as I say, or we’re screwed, okay? Are you listening to me? You think I’m enjoying this? Huh?”
In the closet, Adam frowned as he listened, confused.
Rain spoke in an even tone when she asked, “I’m supposed to live like a fuckin’ grandma while you’re...doing what?”
“Whatever I have to do, just like you. Where’s your pot? I need some.”
“You’re not takin’ none of my fuckin’ shit!” Rain shouted.
“You wouldn’t have that shit if I didn’t give it to you. Jesus Christ, don’t be such an ungrateful cunt!”
The sound of a drawer opening.
“You’re fuckin’ crazy if you think I need you to get pot,” Rain said. “I can get drugs you don’t even know exist whenever I want, and I can—”
“But you need me to get this, so shut the fuck up.”
“To get what?”
“All this money, stupid.” Gwen sounded suddenly weary.
Sweat beaded Adam’s forehead, dribbled down his spine.
“Here’s a couple joints,” Rain said.
Gwen lowered her voice. “Is he gonna do this, or what? I don’t know if I can spend another second in bed with that troll-dick.”
“He’s gonna do it. He’s too fuckin’ scared not to.”
“Well, start pushing him to do it soon, okay?”
“I am.”
“You gonna use the gun you got from your friend? Who you shouldn’t’ve been fucking around with in the first place?”
“Probably”
“What do you mean, probably?”
“I don’t know, I’m just kinda makin’ this up as I go along, you know? Gimme a break.”
“How does my eye look?”
“Swelling’s gone down a little, but the bruise is ugly. Want me to hit you again? That’s my favorite part of this whole fuckin’ deal, y’know. Gettin’ to punch the shit outta your face once in a while.”
