Chapter Two
Back in my office, I dictated an intake note for Doug, returned phone calls, and checked next week's schedule. I'd forgotten to put my new patient into the Friday afternoon slot and entered his name in the planner. Whether his mom brought him or not was another matter.
Satisfied, I slipped on my jacket and made my way to the parking lot.
I drove a used Malibu I'd bought after completing my post-grad training. That was seven years ago (ten since the Chevy rolled off the assembly line in Kansas City) and the car had started showing its age. I’d kept up with the maintenance—changed the oil and rotated the tires every five thousand miles, washed and waxed it regularly—but the odometer had recently ventured into six-figure territory, and the battle for its longevity would soon become too difficult and too expensive. Still, I was determined to squeak at least another year out of the old girl. With the ongoing cuts in insurance reimbursements eroding my earnings and Lansing's endless desire to slash teachers' salaries capping my wife's wages, Toni and I could ill afford adding a large car payment to our already tight budget.
Such was life in the service of America's youth.
Rolling out of the parking lot, I headed north to the interstate and eased onto the ramp heading west.
A few minutes later, I arrived at my exit. I hit the turn signal, wedged my way in front of a big twelve-wheeler, the cab decorated with a pattern of stars falling across a midnight sky, and happily left the congestion of city life behind me.
I drove south along Highway 40 toward Rock Mills. This part of Michigan was farm country, wide open and flatter than the Lions' defense. Crops consisted mostly of soybeans and hay, potatoes, wheat. And corn. Lots and lots of corn. Vast fields of it grew on either side of the road in the endless, uniform rows that stretched, uninterrupted, all the way to the horizon. During the summer months, when the heat of the sun beat down on you like a blacksmith's hammer, you would often see giant watering apparatuses, long and low to the ground, spraying life-giving nutrition over the valuable green stalks. Now, with the crops harvested, they sat idle, their steel frames looking like evil alien machines from an H. G. Wells novel, long ago abandoned by their owners and left to rot among the desiccated, yellowing husks of their victims.
A flash of light on the road pulled me out of my daydreaming. Debris was strewn across both lanes of the highway, about a dozen yards in front of me. I jerked the wheel and smashed the brake pedal against the floorboard. The Malibu fishtailed, the rear end skidding in fitful jerks and starts, the tires wailing as they shed inches of black skin onto the tarmac. I heard a loud pop like a gun going off and the car lurched to one side. The airbag exploded, shoving me back into the seat, followed by the tortured squeal of metal grinding against concrete. I kept my hands on the wheel as the car's back swung around. The bouncing continued until my poor, dependable Malibu shuddered to a stop in the northbound lane.
My heart thudded hard against my ribs. I blinked sweat from my eyes. The sudden quiet was unsettling, much like I imagined it would be after a tornado ripped apart your house.
Then I remembered I was sitting in the wrong lane and my eyes darted to the rearview mirror.
A long-hauler barreled down the highway toward me, its lights flashing wildly, no doubt signaling for me to get the hell out of the way.
My hand shot to the door handle. Sweat made my fingers slick and they slipped. I tried again, managed to hook two under the latch, and pulled. The door popped open.
I threw my body sideways but only moved a few inches before the heavy nylon straps across my shoulder and waist jerked me to a stop.
I looked down in horror. The damn seatbelt!
The long-hauler's horn gave a frightful scream, over and over, as it thundered toward me like a runaway freight train. The massive front grill grew bigger and bigger in the unforgiving surface of the mirror.
I jabbed at the seatbelt release and yanked on the strap across my chest. Nothing. Yanked again, harder. Nothing. The belt refused to give.
With an ear-splitting screech, the long-hauler's brakes locked and the rig began to shudder violently against the inertia it had built. It didn't take a mathematician to see that it wouldn't stop in time.
Muttering a quick prayer, I hunched over the seatbelt release and thumbed the button repeatedly.
"COME ON, YOU ROTTEN MOTHER’S WHORE!"
I hit the button as hard as I could and felt my thumbnail tear on the hard plastic casing. Fiery pain shot up my arm. Still, I managed to the push button a fraction of an inch more.
I jerked on the belt and it came free. Diving out the door I landed on my belly and crawled like a madman to get away from the car.
I’d barely rolled onto the embankment when the long-hauler smashed into the Malibu, lifting it off the ground and flipping it over. It seemed to sail through the air in slow motion, like a crappy shot in a bad action movie, and landed, its frame bent and twisted. Windows exploded in grainy clouds of safety glass.
The impact had torn the car nearly in half.
I tasted the bitter burn of gasoline. Jerking to my feet, I stumbled toward the long-hauler. It had come to a stop about twenty yards up the road.
The driver dropped from the cab, her face pasty white.
"Jesus, mister. You okay?" Her voice was breathy from her own exertions.
I waved away her concern. "We need to get away from—"
The Malibu detonated into a ball of flame and black smoke. Something exploded out of the burning mass, screamed through the air, and punched a hole into the long-hauler's cargo trailer mere inches above the driver's head. It ricocheted off something inside and shot out the top, trailing smoke. The firefighters found it later, deep in a corn field. It was the Malibu's right, front strut.
"Holy fuck!" the woman cried.
I fumbled for my cell phone. "Yeah, holy fuck."
* * *
Colored lights flashed with surreal urgency, the alternating pulses of red and blue taking on an odd, Doppler-like quality. They momentarily jerked the rescue vehicles—the fire truck, the police cars, the ambulance—into stark focus, only to have them recede to shadowy, indistinct blobs.
Forward and back, forward and back...over and over. Watching it reminded me of a scene from an old Vincent Price movie, House of Wax, where a slick-talking carnie playing paddle ball smacked the red rubber orb directly at the audience, over and over. Back then, the effect had been unsettling. Nothing had changed. I started to feel nauseous.
An EMT knelt before me. "Sir, you really should be checked out by a doctor. Airbag deployments can be nasty." He was young, perhaps mid-twenties, and had the kind of bad boy looks you rarely see outside of a movie theater. He brought up a penlight, flashed the beam into one eye and then the other. I tried not to wince. Lowering the penlight, he adopted an expression so sincere Jared Leto would have wept with envy. "You sure you won't reconsider?"
I started to shake my head and thought better of it. Everything from the waist up ached, as if glass rods had been driven up my spine and then shattered. Instead, I pointed to the Malibu's charred corpse.
"If that didn't kill me, I doubt a little dizziness will."
"You're feeling dizzy?" the EMT said with dramatic perfection. "Like, concussion dizzy?"
"No." I was unwilling to admit he might be right. "More like fortunate dizzy. You saw the wreck—I could have been inside when it happened. A little dizziness is a small price to pay for keeping my insides on the inside." A midnight blue Dodge Charger rolled to a stop behind the ambulance, the grill’s emergency flashers working overtime. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Besides, there's my ride."
A man stepped out of the Charger. Frank Swinicki wore a brown suit that looked like it had come straight-off-the-rack at Kohl's, a paisley tie, and slip-on loafers. Running a hand through his thick hair, he sized up the scene with a cop's practiced efficiency, his eyes darting from the police cruisers to the ambulance and, finally, to the blackened remains of the Malibu.
He winced. Frank had liked the car as much as I did.
I waved. He didn't return it. That didn't bode well.
He stomped toward the ambulance. I was surprised the concrete didn't crack with each step.
"You okay, Paco?" he asked me. Not bothering to wait for a reply, he turned to the EMT. "Yo, pretty boy. Is he gonna be okay?"
If the EMT took offense, he didn't show it. Slipping the penlight into his shirt pocket, he said, "That's what the man's telling me, but I'm not convinced. See the abrasions on his face? They were caused by the airbag. He must've slammed into it pretty hard. I'm worried about cervical muscle strain, a torn ligament or two, possibly a concussion or a traumatic brain injury. He needs to be checked out by a doctor."
Frank hesitated. A cigarette pack stuck out of his shirt pocket. He carried them as a reminder of why he'd stopped smoking. His parents, both long-time tobacco junkies, had died from aggressive forms of lung cancer before the age of sixty. Their deaths had shaken him, and he'd ended his own habit soon afterward. To help keep him honest, he thought of carrying around the memorial cards from their funerals. I suggested the cigarettes. They didn't need to be looked at for them to be effective: a simple touch would do the trick. Besides, tangible worked better than visual in these cases.
He reached up and caressed the pack with his thumb. He did the cigarette thing when he felt nervous or concerned. The EMT's words were weighing on him, and if he believed our future Oscar contender, I’d be stuck with an unwanted trip to the hospital.
I caught his eye and shook my head, ignoring the pain the movement caused. I’d made my mind up. I was going home.
One side of his mouth pulled down in a look of disapproval.
I stared blandly back at him.
Frank grunted. Turning to the EMT, he said, "If Paco here says he's all right, he's all right. I'll take him home. His wife can look after him. Shit, maybe I'll come by and hold his hand while he sleeps. It'll be special."
The EMT rolled his baby blues, reached into the back of the ambulance, and pulled out a clipboard full of forms. Finding the correct one, he handed it to me, along with a ballpoint. "Sign here, please. Refusal of medical assistance."
I scrawled my name across the bottom and handed it back. "Thanks, I appreciate your help."
"Any signs of nausea, any vomiting or blurred or double vision, and you get to an ER. Understand?"
"Perfectly."
"And follow up with your family doctor." The EMT turned to go, stopped, and looked at Frank. "Why do you call him 'Paco'? He doesn't look Hispanic."
"Because it'd sound dumb if I called him 'Taco.'" Frank's grin was all teeth and biting sarcasm.
My own lips twitched into a smile. It was an old joke between Frank and me, one that never seemed to grow old, even as we did.
The EMT wasn't amused. Stuffing the form into his pocket, he said, "You gentlemen have a good day." He walked away, his stride red-carpet perfect.
Frank shook his head. "Fucking hose hauler. Bet his dick gets hard every time he wraps his hands around one of those canvas monsters."
"You're biased," I said. "Besides, I think he was a paramedic."
"There's a difference? Come on, I wanna pay my respects to the old shit-kicker."
We approached the smoldering husk of twisted metal. The death stench of burned rubber and melted plastic assaulted our senses. We stopped at a safe distance.
"Thanks for coming," I said.
"Tell me you kept the comprehensive."
"Dropped it last year. Just PLPD."
"That sucks."
"Undoubtedly."
Frank kicked at a piece of debris and sent it tumbling across the tarmac. "We had a lot of fun in that car.”
"Remember the time we got tossed out of Soaring Eagle?"
Frank snorted. "That was your fault. I claim no responsibility."
I'd arranged for a guys' weekend at the casino in Mount Pleasant. Figured we could benefit from a little downtime. Frank had been embroiled in a nasty manslaughter case involving a powerful state senator intent on keeping her involvement out of the papers and out of the courtroom. She brought to bear her considerable influence to hinder the investigation. But Frank was Frank and, despite almost losing his job, he’d followed the investigation to its conclusion. The senator was currently on probation and working as a consultant to a K Street lobbying firm. Not quite justice for the man she’d killed, but the world wasn't always fair.
As for me, I had been recovering from a gunshot wound I'd received from an angry parent opposed to my involvement in his child’s custody case. After nearly two days of testimony, where I had outlined the various horrors the man had inflicted on his eight-year-old son and the ramifications of such abuse, the court recessed for lunch. The man, Jerome Bailey Hutchinson, out on bail for domestic violence, cornered me outside the courthouse, pulled a small caliber pistol he'd retrieved from his car, and shot me. I felt a pinching in my thigh, like a bee sting, which quickly grew to a burning pain, which then became a throbbing ache that brought me to my knees. Hutchinson pulled the trigger three more times before a bystander tackled him. Luckily those shots went wild. Today, Jerome Hutchinson wore a blue jumpsuit and wandered the grounds of the prison facility in Standish.
Hence, the downtime.
After checking into the hotel, we started drinking. I fed Frank whiskey sours to match my beers, the alcohol flowing as easy as the indignities we had suffered at the hands of John Q. Public. Later that night Frank began arguing with the pit boss running a craps table. Claimed he'd rolled a Little Joe—double twos—on his pass line bet and wanted his point. The pit boss reviewed the video and politely corrected him. Slurring his words like a man having a stroke, Frank insisted he receive his fushin point! Things deteriorated quickly, with Frank shambling about, yelling for his fushin point among the flashing lights and ringing bells of the nearby slots, and generally scaring the hell out of everybody.
The pit boss whispered a few words into his sleeve. Three big men wearing suits and no-nonsense expressions converged on us. Frank tried to badge them, but his alcohol-infused body seemed to have malfunctioned. He couldn't pull out his shield.
Security hustled us, gently but firmly, out of the casino, and we spent an uncomfortable night in the Malibu, sleeping it off. I had booked a room for the weekend at the casino's hotel but felt too embarrassed to go in and ask for a refund.
"You called Toni?" Frank asked as we stared at our dead friend.
"First one I made. No answer, which worries me a little. She should be home by now."
"I checked with Kerry after you called. She said they left work together." He shuffled back and forth from one foot to the other. That's what I liked about Frank: get him away from the Job and he wasn't so almighty tough.
"Call her again?" he said.
I pulled out my cell and hit my wife's speed dial. I knew by the third ring she wasn't going to answer. I was officially overdue, and Toni would either have called me or would be waiting anxiously for me to call her. No way her phone would have rung more than three times before she pounced on it.
I waited for her voicemail. "Hey, hon. Call me when you get this. Love you."
I disconnected and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
The fire truck rumbled to life, followed by the ambulance. Both left; the cops stayed. This side of the road remained closed as the police waited for the tow truck that would haul away the wreckage.
Finally, Frank asked, "Want me to have Kerry go check on her?"
He made it sound as if he were offering to expunge a sin.
"She's not with him," I said, more to myself than to him. "She made a promise, and I trust her to keep it. Sending Kerry would—"
"Send the wrong message. Yeah, I know, and I agree. She'll be true to her word. But what if she's hurt? You know, slipped and fell or something. She might need help."
Turning away from the Malibu, I said, "Let's go find out."
Chapter Three
> The Charger's grill lights flashed hot and the traffic melted away.
Frank had his cell glued to the side of his face as he yammered with the State Police about the accident. I slouched in the seat next to him, keeping as still as possible and staring out the window. My neck pain had migrated to my entire body, every nerve and fiber aflame and protesting the abuse I had put them through. My right thumb felt as if someone had flayed the skin off with a razor and dipped it in battery acid. And if that weren't enough, a dull ache had lodged itself behind my eyes. It beat a painful tympani against my retinas.
I was all messed up.
After grunting his goodbye, Frank tossed the phone onto the dashboard. "Goddamn idiots," he said. "They have no idea where the debris on the road came from. Said maybe there was an unreported accident earlier. Oh, gee, what a stunning example of investigative police work."
"Knowing the cause isn't going to change the outcome."
"That's no excuse for laziness."
"Maybe it's more a matter of priority than apathy."
"Kill the reasonableness, Paco. You're harshing my angst."
I stared at Frank's cell. "Should I think about getting a lawyer?"
"What would they charge you with? Reckless saving-your-ass-from-certain-death?"
"Malicious destruction of a Chevy. That's a felony in some states."
"Others might consider it a blessing."
"Unlike your cooking. Now there's a crime."
"Funny guy." His eyes cut over to mine. "Look, let's scratch tonight's card game. I doubt you're gonna feel up to it. Another time, maybe?"
I frowned. Card game?
Oh, right. Our once-a-month gathering—me and Toni, Frank and Kerry, food, drink, camaraderie, and euchre.
"Let's see what's up with Toni first," I said. "She looks forward to these nights, and I don't want to disappoint her. I can always take a couple Advil when I get home. I'm sure it'll be fine."
"So says the man who can barely sit up straight."
"Keep driving."
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