A Small Matter (22 page)

“We’re managing,” Dalk said. “No, let me say
that we’re more than managing--we’re doing really well, in fact.
The truth is, our first night together was spent in the waiting
room while they resuscitated Mulroney. It’s a night we’ll both
never forget. We each took turns standing watch while the other
slept. By early morning, when they gave us the news that Mulroney
had stabilized, we had such a beautiful moment together. I have to
say, Vickie, that whatever crazy impulse caused you to put Mary-Jo
and me together the way you did, I’m becoming more grateful for it
every moment.”

“Are you still going to marry her?” Vickie
said.

“If it’s up to me, I will,” Dalk said. “She’s
one-of-a-kind. Irreplaceable, in fact.”

“Dalk,” Vickie said. “I need your help.”

“Anything,” he said.

“Don’t promise until you hear what it is,”
she said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Even though Dr.
Sellers threatened to commit me, before that, when we were talking,
I think I saw my situation from a whole new angle. I mean, we
actually talked about faith, can you believe it? Of course, she got
me banned from Mulroney’s room--I can’t forgive her for doing
that--but she did help me to see what I was doing to myself and to
Mulroney. The good and the bad of it.”

“I understand,” Dalk said. “After all, what
is good and what is bad is sometimes relative. I mean, you’re in
the position of having to make a tough decision--and trying to
decide on what to do involves deciding how much faith to place in
that decision.”

“Exactly,” Vickie said. “I have to ask myself
if my decision is an accurate reflection of reality--is it a good
decision--should I stake someone else’s life on it?”

“Decisions are hard,” Toyama piped in. The
little man, barely five feet tall, and thin as bamboo, rarely
spoke, an attribute which caused those around him to listen
carefully when he did. “When whatever we decide is ambiguous,” he
said, “when the result of our decision can cause many
possibilities--that is when we must fly above the black immensity
of the problem with the wings of faith--and it’s hard work--it
takes a great deal of energy to sustain our faith. The big problem
is that the decision will not leave us unchanged--it will change us
into something new, and we don’t know what the new thing will
be.”

“True,” Vickie said. “But I’ve gone over this
a thousand times since I saw Mulroney this morning. I think the
decision I’m about to make is the right one.”

Mary-Jo arrived with Vickie’s chili,
accompanied by a chocolate shake. Vickie set to work on her bowl
actively, interspersing mouthfuls of the hot, spicy mixture with
sips of cool, tongue-salving liquid ice cream.

“I didn’t think I’d be saying this,” Vickie
said, “but this chili is the best I’ve ever tasted. That’s why the
cafeteria is jammed. Whoever does the cooking back there has
somehow stumbled across the ultimate secret of chili.”

“Not as good as yours,” Dalk said.

“Better,” Vickie said. “But thanks for
lying--there’s a lesson here. The lesson is, we have to learn to be
humble, and to accept change. We get into a rut, and suddenly,
somebody cooks a better chili and we’re left behind. We start
thinking our chili is the best, and pretty soon our pride turns our
world static and lifeless--that’s why we have to swallow our pride
and go forward, even if it means everything in our life will be
overhauled.”

“Our ancestors and guardian spirits have
brought us to this table,” Toyama said. “From now on, we must lay
aside our self-importance. We must throw out the idea that science
is everything and get ready to believe in things that cannot be
touched or seen. After all--a man’s life is at stake.”

“He’s right,” Mary-Jo said. “The other day,
when I met Vickie, she was tapped into some kind of a spiritual
groove--I could see it in her eyes. When she told me I should marry
Dalk, something inside me decided not to brush the idea off--I
decided to take a chance--or, as Toyama said, I decided to believe
in something that couldn’t be seen. I’d never seen Dalk in
person--I made a decision to marry him without even knowing him.
But the result has been miraculous.”

Mary-Jo took Dalk’s hand in hers and the two
became momentarily lost in a gaze which held a fire between them.
Mary-Jo broke the gaze and smiled at Vickie. “You’re a
miracle-worker,” she said.

“I may not be a miracle worker,” Vickie said,
“but I know somebody who needs a miracle--Mulroney.”

“You had an encounter with a statue of the
Virgin Mary,” Toyama said. “One that sheds tears of blood. In the
presence of her tears, your cancer was taken away. But you didn’t
ask Mary why she is crying blood. I will tell you. Mary is shedding
her tears over the fact that people today no longer perform
miracles. Because of this, evil spirits are everywhere you look!
That is why Mulroney lies in his bed. He is imprisoned by an evil
spirit--a fox!”

Toyama's outburst shocked Mary-Jo, but not
Dalk and Vickie, accustomed as they were to the tiny man’s
rapid-fire observations on things of the spirit.

“I failed Mulroney when I went into his
room,” Vickie said. “I placed my rosary on his chest, and made sure
the tear of blood on the crucifix touched his skin, but I didn’t do
it in faith--that’s why the thing didn’t work. I stayed in my pride
and the pride kept me in my comfort zone--I violated Mulroney’s
soul by not truly having faith that anything would happen--of
course, when he didn’t respond, I became angry at myself and
started shaking him.”

“Mary’s tears can still work,” Toyama said.
“You need a tiny bit of trust.”

“I won’t get a second chance,” Vickie said.
“Not since they banned me from Mulroney’s room. And I believe that
Dr. Lerner will now take steps to cut Mulroney open without my
permission. She was going to do the operation all along, she was
just covering her bases by asking my permission. I realized that
when her in-house shrink stopped by the room to check up on me. Dr.
Sellers’ session with me was part of the protocol to protect the
Cardiothoracic Division from a lawsuit--Lerner will open up
Mulroney and if he dies, they’re off the hook. Dr. Sellers will
simply produce an affidavit stating I wasn’t competent to give an
informed consent, therefore, my consent to the surgery wasn’t
needed.”

“This sounds a little paranoid to me,” Dalk
said.

“Get real,” Vickie said. “They’ve turned the
tables on me. At first, it was Dr. Lerner having to ask me
permission--now it’s me having to ask her permission to even go in
the room with my husband. Do I have to draw you a picture?”

“She’s right,” Mary-Jo said. “They’re going
to operate on Mulroney and kill him--and run up a huge bill.”

“Lerner did mention something about the
insurance not covering what she wanted to do,” Dalk said. “I hate
to say this, but I think Vickie’s right. For us, it’s a big
emotional thing to have a loved one lying in there in a coma, but
to them, it’s just a chance to add a little something extra to the
bottom line. What an outrage!”

“That’s why I need your help,” Vickie said.
“There’s something we need to do. We need to suck up all our
courage, as weary as we are. I need you to help me get back on my
horse one last time--if the horse takes off, fine. If it throws me
for a loop, then so be it.”

“Exactly what do you need us to do?” Dalk
said.

“Where’s Mulroney’s Suburban?” she asked.

“It’s in long term parking,” Dalk said.

“Good,” Vickie said. “Give Toyama the keys
and send him for it. Toyama, you bring the Suburban around to the
side entrance on Tiverton, past the ambulance dock. Mary-Jo and I
will go get Kilkenney and meet you there.”

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking what I think
you’re thinking,” Dalk said.

“Right,” Vickie said. “I’m thinking we’re
going to break Mulroney out of here and take him to a place where
miracles are still possible. He can’t stay here--this is where the
old money people have already constructed all the traps which we
have no chance of avoiding unless we do something drastic.”

“This is completely illegal,” Dalk said.

“And that is a problem because?” Vickie said.
“This is Los Angeles, not Topeka. Think of it this way--only the
rare few will make some sort of memorable contribution to the earth
and its populations. We’re not those rare few--we’re just the
little people who happen to believe that one extra-large little
person named Mulroney is important enough to risk our lives for.
There’s no going back now. We’ve all made a proper mess out of most
of our endeavors to fulfill our dreams--now we have a chance to
make a difference. I don’t care if it takes a crucifix or a
plateful of Toyama's roast mice to do the job, but we’ve got to
bring Mulroney back. When I received my cancer diagnosis, I
realized that the world didn’t need me after all--but now I realize
that I need it--I need to live here as long as I can with the man I
love. I’m willing to fight for the privilege. Are you with me or
against me?”

Toyama stood up, adjusting across his
shoulder his “rat bag” he always carried with him everywhere. “Give
me the keys to the Suburban,” he said to Dalk. “I am just a plain
and ordinary old man, and a pretty young girl has asked a favor of
me. It would be impossible for me to refuse her.”

Dalk handed him the keys.

“Mary-Jo?” Dalk said.

“I feel a miracle in the air,” she said.
“Count me in.”

Dalk raised himself up, his short, powerful
frame and thick hands suggesting a power useful in setting straight
any number of unwieldy situations, including the one before them.
How he would transport a comatose two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man
out of the hospital without being stopped nobody rightly knew, but
nobody doubted that he could.

“No sense in letting one of life’s great
moments slip away,” he said. “Sensei, please bring the car around.
And don’t dawdle--I’ll be there with Mulroney in ten minutes. And I
may be in a hurry.”

“Thank you, Dalk,” Vickie said.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “This one’s for
Mom.”

Chapter 34

“I think I made a few enemies back there,”
Dalk said. “It was pointed out to me by several persons as I was on
my way out that I had no legal rights regarding Mulroney,
especially considering the life or death nature of his situation. I
think their objections were magnified by the fact that although I
hadn’t signed the necessary consent forms--which meant, in a way,
that legally I didn’t exist--I had in fact--despite my uninsurable,
legal non-existence--obtained actual and physical custody of
Mulroney by virtue of the fact that he was slung over my
shoulders.”

“I think the guard lady at the exit called
the police,” Mary-Jo said. “She was on her portable radio right
before you pushed her down.”

“I’m sorry I had to push her, but she was
reaching for her pepper spray,” Dalk said. “I can confidently
predict that I’m in a lot of trouble. This thing has civil suit
written all over it.”

“Toyama, take us to the 405 and head back to
the Valley,” Vickie said.

After having loaded Mulroney’s heavily
blanket-wrapped and inert form into the tail of the vehicle, the
Suburban had exited the hospital dock with all hands on board,
Vickie in the jump seat, presiding over the crew while Toyama
piloted the heavy vehicle slowly through the narrow, hilly,
ivy-edged back streets bordering the UCLA campus, picking his way
through the jaywalking students who mindlessly wandered to and fro
between the campus and their novelty-filled housing warrens.

“Speed it up, Toyama,” Vickie said. “Listen,
people, there’s a lot at stake here. Our first task is to get
Mulroney someplace where he’ll feel comfortable. I’m open to
suggestions, but my vote is to head over to The Lamplighter.”

“You want to take Mulroney to a bar?” Mary-Jo
said.

“Not just any bar,” Vickie said. “It’s his
bar. It’s a place he feels comfortable and safe. We can lay him out
on the pool table in the back room. I know it sounds odd, but we’ll
have everything we need there--not to mention total privacy. It’ll
give us time to work on his situation.”

Toyama gunned it across Sepulveda and headed
towards the onramp.

“Toyama, you ran the red light!” Vickie
said.

“You told me to speed it up,” he said. He hit
the gas and zoomed up the off-ramp, merging into the spectacular,
elevated flow of northbound 405 traffic paralleling the mountain
denseness of the Santa Monica range to the west. “We’ve got
company,” he said. “A black-and-white just pulled in behind us. A
CHP.”

Dalk twisted in his seat. “He hasn’t lit us
up yet,” he said. “Probably running the plates first. Or it could
be a coincidence. Toyama, stay in the right lane. We’ll get off at
Mulholland. If he follows us, we’re probably going to be stopped.
If we get stopped, don’t everybody wig out--act normal.”

“He put his lights on,” Toyama said.

“Floor it!” Vickie said.

“No!” Dalk yelled. “Toyama, put on your
blinker, like you’re going to pull over, but keep moving until you
make the Mulholland exit. Then pull over, but keep the engine
running, and I’ll get out and show him my badge. Maybe it’s a
coincidence. Or maybe he was parked on the side of the freeway
above the onramp where he could see you run the light. If that’s
all it is, I can show him my brand-new LAPD Sergeant’s badge and
he’ll let us go--after all, I’m a cop, and Mulroney is an ex-cop.
If we’re lucky, we can get a consideration here and the whole thing
will turn out to be nothing. I’ll get out first so he doesn’t
approach the car. Everybody remain calm--we’ll probably get through
this okay.”

“I’m scared,” Mary-Jo said. “I can’t believe
I let myself get sucked into this. What are the charges for
something like this? What if he isn’t stopping us for the red
light? What if all the cops are on their radios right now, closing
in on us? Is this kidnapping? How are we going to explain
this?”