Better Off Dead (30 page)

A couple of very long hours later, a nurse
led us upstairs. Luke's room was unguarded, but a nurse stood watch
inside.

Luke looked so young. He lay against the
pillow, unconscious, his face crisscrossed with tubes that snaked
from his nostrils and throat, then led in labyrinthine paths to
machines that hummed and blipped around him. A sterile tent
protected his chest. Only his hands looked human. One dangled over
the edge of his bed. I touched it. The screens on the metal boxes
surrounding him did not waver. Luke was a long way away.

"Can I hold his hand?" I asked the
nurse.

She stared at me for a moment. I must have
looked a mess, even with a change of clothes. But she nodded.

I held his hand and stroked his fingers
while Bobby waited in the doorway and Fanny prayed some more. The
steady beep-beep of his monitors set the rhythm for Fanny's gentle
murmurings. I caught "this poor Yankee boy" a few times, but other
than that Fanny was pretty private about her prayers. What she had
to say was between her and God.

Luke did not move; no twitch, no sighs. He
seemed more dead than alive, kept in a semi-human state by these
cold and mysterious machines. The spark that was him was gone.

"Will he come out of it?" I finally dared
ask.

The nurse looked up from the magazine she
had been reading. "We don't know," she said. "I'm sorry."

What else was there for her to say?

What had Luke been trying to tell me in the
Gardens? I wondered. Who had he seen following me? Who was he
protecting me from?

"If he does ever come out of it," I said,
needing to know more, "will he be able to tell us what
happened?"

The nurse stared at me again, as if she knew
damn well what had happened. "Chances are very small that he will
be able to remember anything for a significant period of time
before the attack," she explained. "It's a side effect of
trauma.”

"For how long before the attack?" I
asked.

She shrugged, "There is no way of telling.
For most people, it's a matter of at least twelve to twenty-four
hours. Often longer. We won't know until—and if—he wakes up."

Twenty-four hours? That would mean he would
not remember me... or our near tumble in the bushes... or the fact
that I had not believed him when the time came. That I had run
away, convinced he was a killer.

We left the room a few minutes later, shooed
out by the private nurse. I didn't have to ask who was paying for
her services. Fanny is generous to a fault, especially in times of
crisis.

Detective Ferrar was waiting for us in the
hallway. He wore crisply ironed khakis and a black polo shirt. His
face gleamed with a fresh shave. He, at least, had gone home to
revive, delivered back into the world with some of its horror
mitigated by the love of his family. I envied him far more than the
clean clothes he wore.

"He's in a coma," I said. "He can't tell you
a thing. He probably won't even be able to remember anything once
he wakes up."

"I'm not here for him," Ferrar said, taking
my arm. "I'm here for you."

I looked back at Bobby. He nodded and turned
toward the critical care unit's special waiting room, where phones
sat on every coffee table: lifelines to the healthy, instruments of
tragedy. And a way to call my lawyer.

"She doesn't need a lawyer," Ferrar said,
waving Bobby away. "I just want to ask her about someone."

We rode in silence down two floors, sharing
the elevator with a blue-eyed priest handsome enough to convert me
on sight. Ferrar seemed to know the priest, they nodded their
greetings. But Ferrar would not even look at me. And he didn't
bother to explain where we were going. I didn't like it. One
bit.

"In here," he said as we entered a private
room on the third floor.

Of course. My new friend. The janitor. He
looked weak. But his eyes were bright and his mouth curled up to
let me know he was awake and well.

"You're okay," I said, relief flooding
through me.

"I'm okay," the janitor assured me. His
voice was raspy; a tube had probably been forced down his throat.
"They had to relieve some swelling on my brain, that's all." I
started to ask him a question, but a warning look in his eyes
stopped me. "I have been explaining to this gentleman here," he
said, "that you did come to see me, that you questioned me about
that professor, and that maybe you got a better look than I did at
whoever hit me over the head like this."

I glanced at Ferrar, then back at the
janitor. What did he want me to say?

"We have a witness who saw you leaving the
building," Ferrar interrupted gruffly. "So we know why you were on
campus. It seems you left that little part of your episode
out."

"There was no harm in her questioning me,"
the janitor said gruffly. "She was just doing her job. I had a
right to speak to her if I wanted to." The janitor stared at me.
"Miss, did you know that right after we spoke, I discovered that
professor's office all tore up and such?"

"You're kidding?" I managed to say.

"Nope. Must have been the same man as hit
me."

I finally got it. Someone else had been in
the building, right behind me. Bad luck for the janitor. Good luck
for me. The second intruder could take the rap for the
burglary.

"I didn't tell you I had questioned him
because you told me to back off," I explained to Ferrar. "I didn't
want you to know I was still investigating Brookhouse. Sorry."

The detective waved away my apology. "I
don't care about that. What I want to know is if you saw anyone at
all who might have followed you into the building and done this to
this man."

I stared at the janitor's bandages. Had I
caused all that damage?

The janitor was sharp enough to read my look
correctly. "Someone hit me from behind," he explained to me
quickly. "They found a baseball bat nearby, my blood all over it.
My tissue, too. Bits of my brain probably. They practically drove a
hole in my head right here." He touched a spot toward the back of
his head and winced. "Must have taken a second swing, cause I also
got me a smaller wound right here." He touched his forehead where I
had taken my best shot. That was when I understood more. Whoever
had come up behind me had tried to do this poor man in with a
baseball bat.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't see anyone.
And I think I would have noticed if I was being followed. Like I
said, I was paranoid when I found out my car was missing."

I stepped up to the janitor's bedside. "Are
you going to be okay?" I asked. "Do you have family?"

He nodded. "My sister is on her way down
from the mountains. My boy is coming up from Atlanta." He didn't
mention a wife. I didn't ask. The world was a complicated place
these days.

"Are you sure there's nothing you need?
Anyone I could notify?"

He thought about it and smiled. "Well, I do
have me a close cousin. Name of Jim. Jim Beam. Smooth fellow."

“Tall?" I asked.

"Big as they come."

"He'll be here by nightfall," I promised.
I'd buy him a gallon jug of Jim Beam every week for the next year,
if that was what he wanted.

"Did you know my friend got hurt?" I told
the janitor as I turned to go. "The kid with the punk look? He got
shot. Real bad."

"I'm sorry to hear that," he replied. "But
you know what else?"

"What?" I asked.

"I think you best be watching your own back
right now."

I nodded, touched his hand and left. He had
a good point. A very good point.

"You're not much help with anything," Ferrar
said as we walked down the hallway. He sounded angry at me
again.

"I'm sorry. I can't make up details just to
suit you." This patent lie fled my lips with convincing outrage.
"Why is it so important? You think the same person who hit the
janitor chased me and shot Luke, don't you?"

Ferrar didn't even bother to answer. Of
course he did. How many maniacs were running loose in Durham?

A good question, I realized. How many
indeed?

By the time I got home, I was too tired to
care whether Burly was mad at me. By the time I woke up—a good
sixteen hours later—Luke was still in a coma and Burly was
squirreled away in the bedroom office, lost in cyberspace.

"What's with Burly?" I asked Bobby as I
wandered into the kitchen, still clad in the pink nightie and
matching gown that had failed to catch Burly's attention a few
moments before. "Why's he locked away like that?"

Bobby was eating a stale muffin as if it
were dog shit—a form of pouting brought on by Fanny choosing to
spend her waking hours at the hospital by Luke's side instead of
cooking for her man. Luke's parents were still MIA.

Helen was sitting beside Bobby at the table,
staring at an untouched cup of tea. She answered my question when
Bobby ignored it. "Burly says he's on to something," she offered,
not sounding enthusiastic about the prospect.

"What does that mean?" Was it possible that
instead of being angry at me, Burly was pouring his energy into
helping me?

Helen shrugged. "He won't say. He just said
he cracked some firewall last night and found out something
interesting. He's following up now."

I poured a cup of coffee, not believing my
luck. At least Burly was still on my side. He was not giving
up.

"I don't want you to go near that campus,"
Bobby ordered me. He knew my expressions well and could tell I had
been plotting. "Ferrar read me the riot act. He's gonna pull my
license if you keep it up."

What he did not say in front of Helen was
that if Ferrar went fishing for P.I. licenses, he'd soon discover
that I didn't have one. I got the message anyway.

"I'm not planning to go near the campus," I
promised as I rummaged through the cupboards. God, there was
nothing to eat in the house but Cap’n Crunch, Hugo's favorite
American delicacy. When was the last time Hugo had gone to the
grocery store, anyway? That was his main task in our carefully
balanced community, by his own preference. He loved wallowing in
the bounty of an American grocery store and always overbought. If
it's possible to overbuy food with Bobby D. around.

"Where's Hugo?" I asked.

"Hugo's out front," Bobby grunted. "With a
whole pack of Frito Banditos."

"You ought to consider a career in the
diplomatic corps," I suggested. He stared at me blankly, muffin
crumbs tumbling from his mouth.

"Where's your mother this morning?" I asked
Helen.

"In bed. She says she's not feeling
well."

Probably Valium withdrawal, I thought. What
with Fanny not being around to mix up her special Mai Tais.

"I think it's the black eye and bruises on
her face," Helen explained. "She hates for anyone to see her
looking less than perfect."

Less than a perfect what? I wondered. She
looked, dressed and acted like the Wicked Witch of the West as far
as I was concerned. But at least she was staying away from the rest
of us. Saved me throwing a bucket of water on her.

I wandered out to the front porch, coffee
cup in hand, spoiling for a fight to take away the crawlies
creeping through me at the thought of what I had helped do to
Luke.

Bobby had not been kidding about a "pack."
Hugo sat in a rocking chair facing the narrow highway that wound
past the house. Two other thin Mexican guys balanced on the railing
beside him, while one stocky, bullet-headed fellow blocked my way
down the front steps. Between him and Burly's wheelchair ramp,
there was barely enough room for my fabled refrigerator butt.

"What gives?" I asked, wiggling into a spot
next to Bullet Head. He glanced at me, then moved as far away as
the ramp would allow him, going so far as to perch on it rather
than sit next to me. Maybe I should have showered again when I
first woke up.

"These are my friends," Hugo explained.
"We're waiting for the bad man to come after Helen. And then we
will get him."

Or bad men. I surveyed her new protectors.
The two fellows on the porch railing looked like brothers. Or at
least they shared the same bad hairdresser, obviously someone who
had watched too many Air Supply videos in the 1980s. Both men wore
their hair long in that peculiar fashion where the top is feathered
tightly against the head like a helmet, but a mane is left to
dangle down the back like some sort of mutated coonskin cap. People
from Charlotte call it a "mullet" because it looks like a giant
fish has died on the wearer's head. People from the rest of the
state call it a "charlotte" because so many rednecks from the Queen
City favor it. These guys were from Tijuana, however, as their
round faces, broad noses and wide lips testified. They had small
raisin-like eyes. Eyes that were checking me out even more
thoroughly than I was checking them out. Perhaps it was time to
slip out of something a little more comfortable and into something
a little less revealing? Did they even have pink night slips with
matching fur-trimmed robes south of the border?

Only in bordellos, I suddenly realized.

Bullet Head could read my mind. I caught him
trying to sneak a peek at my fur trim. And I am not talking about
my robe. "Just pretend I'm your sister," I suggested to him
sternly.

He looked away, offended. "If you were my
sister," he informed me, "I would not let you sit on a porch in
that outfit."

"Welcome to America." I raised my coffee cup
in a toast. He hid a smile. Bullet Head was also a Pineapple Face,
with deeply pitted skin and black hair that stuck up in inky
spikes. At least his hairdresser had moved on to a Sid Vicious
phase.

"It takes all four of you to guard one
house?" I asked the men.

"My friends and I do not fuck around," Hugo
announced with satisfaction. "Let this coward come after us and we
will show him how real men deal with scum like him." The men
shifted proudly, touching their waists. That was when I realized
that the bulges in their britches were not due to Mother Nature's
bounty but mankind's folly. They were packing. And how. Especially
Hugo.