Suzy's Case: A Novel (45 page)

I have to agree with him there. “I had no idea that was you, Carlton. How was I supposed to know it was you? I didn’t even know you existed until you showed up here. So yes, I owe you a thank-you. No, two thank-you’s for saving my life twice.”

“Damn right, motherfucker,” Carlton fumes. “I also finished the job on that piece of white trash who tried to run you off the road. He wasn’t dead from the crash, but I made sure he wouldn’t come after you again.”

“Please, Carlton, I appreciate you saving my life, but please don’t
give me any information about your criminal wrongdoings. I don’t want to know any of that, okay?”

We sit there looking at each other for what must be half a minute. He finally decides he’s going to tell me what he’s been thinking about during his pause. “I did it for me, not you.”

“Did what for you?”

“I saved your life for me, not for you.”

“Carlton, I’m not following you here. Can you explain?”

“Yeah, I’ll explain. I was protecting my interests by saving your ass.”

“Can you explain that to me?” But I’m afraid I think I understand.

“Naw, man, I can’t. I can’t explain it to you, but you can explain something to me. What happens to that thirty-five million if Suzy dies? You know, if she dies from a complication of her medical condition or if she dies some other way?”

“Under the intestate laws of the state of New York,” I tell him without hesitation, “both you and your wife would get that money in equal shares.” Holy shit! Motive.

To kill Suzy, not me.

“Does June know I’m here?”

“Yes, she does.”

“We’re done talking. Good job on getting my daughter that money, lawyer. You and I, we helped each other. That’s good. About this conversation, we never had it. No one, I mean no one, and that includes June, is to know anything. Not that I intend to get back into Suzy’s life, not that I saved your life, and not about our conversation about what happens to the money if Suzy dies. You got that?”

“Got it,” I say. Meanwhile, I’m thinking that as soon as my office door hits this guy in the ass, I’m calling June to warn her.

“It’s late. You going home?”

“Uh, yeah,” I reply.

“I’ll walk you out and put you in a cab. It’s hard to do that with crutches. Come on.”

“Thanks, but I’m good. Need to tie up some loose ends. Been out of the office a lot lately.”

Carlton turns insistent. “Come on. Let’s go.” In the spirit of taking
the path of least resistance I stand up to leave. But immediately I feel dizzy and shoot my hands down onto the desk for balance. The various drugs I’ve taken are respiratory and cardiac depressants, and I just had an episode of postural hypotension.

“Are you okay?” he asks with seemingly genuine concern.

“I’m fine. I’m on some medication that interferes with the vasoconstriction ability of my arterial system to compensate for changes in gravity. The blood wasn’t forced to my brain fast enough when I stood up.” He’s unimpressed with my medical knowledge.

“I’ll carry that for you,” he offers. He takes my bag, which I’d been struggling to hold on to while also gripping my crutch. I hobble forward toward the door. “I got that,” he says.

After the elevator levels, Carlton holds open the door as I struggle my way from the deserted lobby toward the refuge of the busy street. Carlton, still being helpful, holds open the building door. Out on the sidewalk, I feel the relief of the street’s safe haven. People are everywhere.

“Let me put you in a cab,” he proposes.

“Thanks, but I’m going to pick up a bite and talk to a young woman named Margo. Former coma victims turn her on.”

“I figured you for a ladies’ man.” Carlton gives me an acknowledging nod.

I dissuade him of the notion. “Not really. Married, kids, you know the deal. I seem to strike out a lot anyway.”

“Yeah, right.”

I put my hand out for a shake while balancing on my right crutch. “Good night, Carlton. If you need anything else, just call.”

Carlton takes my hand and gives it a seriously firm squeeze. “Just remember, our conversation never happened. I believe you lawyers like to call it privileged communication.”

“My lips are sealed,” I respond. Of course, I haven’t changed my mind about warning June as soon as he’s out of range.

He smiles. “Later.” I detect a hint of cautious reserve in his completely buying my commitment to silence.

“Yeah, later,” I respond.

I make it to the Gansevoort Park and lean against the outside of the building to catch my breath. I don’t want Margo to think I’m too out of shape and have her thus infer it’s reflective of my sexual prowess. The inference would be accurate, but I have great stamina when it comes to receiving oral favors.

I also want to reach June before I go inside, so I can have a clear conscience when I mesmerize and moisten Margo with my coma tales. That I can still think of engaging Margo after my exchange with Carlton is no doubt a flaw in my character, which admission makes the thought no more justified or acceptable.

I lean there for another ten minutes, just taking in the scene. I’m watching everything around me. Nothing is slipping by without being assessed and accounted for. I’m looking for anything that even resembles Carlton Williams Jr., and if I see his brother from a different mother who lives in South Dakota, I’m not making the warning call to June, for both our benefits. I’m not even going to motion toward my inside lapel pocket where my cell rests until I’m certain the coast is clear.

I’ve had my law office in this neighborhood for over eighteen years and never took notice during all that time of local sights I’ve seen in the last ten minutes. For example, I never knew I could try a Chinese hair-straightening, have my back waxed, eat a buffalo burger, have the skin of my cracked heels shaved off with a complimentary green tea footbath, sit for a palm reading, join Jews for Jesus, get my vision surgically corrected to 20/20 without a blade and without making a payment for twelve months, or ask that my wife’s G-string be analyzed by a professional lab for evidence of extramarital semen.

I’ve never smelled the roses, and I’m just this moment realizing what that saying really means. What a shame.

I take a far look uptown, a far look downtown, and survey the entire square-block radius from where I’m standing. I take three deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth, repeating my calming chant. To the best of my knowledge, Carlton Williams Jr. is nowhere in sight.

I take out my cell and press the button that needs to be pressed to get June on the phone. I’m looking back and forth, scrutinizing,
examining, checking, scanning, inspecting, and searching my environment for signs of danger as her cell rings once … twice … three times.

During this three-ring period, I recount that both Henry and June said Carlton was only murderous if he had a motive. He definitely has a motive to kill his daughter. I realize he gave himself a motive to kill me. I’m not safe.

June picks up midway into ring four. “Hey, counselor. Things go all right with Mr. Witness Protection flunk-out?”

“June, no time for jokes. Listen carefully. You got me? No kidding. Listen to me carefully.” Before I get my next word out—
bang, bang
—explodes and echoes from behind me. It’s a gunshot, point-blank, to the back right of my head. I lose voluntary control and find myself falling forward toward the roadway, vaulting over my crutches, and crash-landing onto the pavement. I sense I’ve been shot in the back of my head, but I’ve somehow miraculously survived. So far.

My head is hanging off the curb, face downward, between two parked cars. I can’t believe I’m still conscious. The GCS numbers 15, 14, 13, and 12 flash on my brain’s coma counter, reflective of my decreasing level of consciousness. Margo’s gonna love this shit.

I feel something running down my cheek like warm water. I want to wipe it away, but I can’t lift my arms. I see bright red blood, my blood, and a tiny piece of my shattered scalp floating downstream.

The turmoil around and above me sounds like white noise. It’s hard to make out what any one person is saying. I hear screaming, yelling, crying, arguing, directing, all with a common purpose: get help for the guy in the gutter with the back of his head shot off. The only thing I hear clearly is the voice coming from my cell resting on the concrete near what remains of my right ear. It’s June. “No! Oh my God! No!” Over and over again.

I watch the stream turn to a red river polluted with bits of ear cartilage. I love my wife. I love my children. I love my dogs. I also love Lily, who’s been such a big part of my life. I admit to myself she was right that the dangers of handling HIC cases are not a mere matter of isolated incidents, as she so perfectly defined that term.

Crap, I forgot to call my mom. I’ve been watching her die one cell at a time with dignity and courage over all these years, and now I’ve gone and got myself shot in the back of the head. I’ve now forced her to have to deal with the loss of a child after all she’s been through—and that ain’t right. This leads me to my next thought.

I hate Henry Benson and I hate Carlton Williams Jr., who are jointly responsible for my more-than-likely impending death. But I have to take responsibility here. Once I realized what these HICs were all about, I made a business decision to keep on representing them for the money.

I slowly feel myself falling into Glasgow Coma Scale 11, then 10, as I make my way down, hoping to avoid GCS level 3.

“You’re going to be fine, I promise,” I hear a sympathetic little girl’s voice say, or so I think as I slip deeper into nothingness. It’s a sweet voice, a kind voice, a caring voice. A voice I have heard before. I search for the source of this familiar voice. Rummaging about with my mind’s eye, which is slowly losing its acuity.

“Just relax, you’re going to be just fine, no worries,” the soothing voice reinforces. My jaw drops in surprise—no, bewilderment. There, kneeling over me, as I lie with blood trickling out of my head, is Suzy. Is my brain playing tricks on me? She looks like a perfectly normal, healthy, and thriving twelve-year-old child. As if nothing ever happened to her. Wearing that yellow party dress she wore in the video of her fifth birthday party. And she is beautiful, just like her mother.

“Is that you, Suzy?” I ask now, somehow face-to-face.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“You can talk?”

“Yes, in this place I can talk.”

“What place is this?”

“Between the universes of here and there. The place you told Ginger and Margo about at the Gansevoort bar.”

“How do you know about that?”

She smiles, as if it were a naïve question.

“So, I’m not going to die?”

“No, Mr. Wyler, you’re not going to die. Like I said, you’re going to be just fine.”

“Please, Suzy, call me Tug.”

“That would be disrespectful, you’re an adult. My mother always told me to address adults in a proper way.”

“I could see her telling you that.” She smiles again. “Can I ask you something, Suzy?”

“Of course, that’s why I’m here. And to comfort you the way Nurse Braithwait consoled my mother and me early that morning before she electrocuted me. She’s a caring lady. Please make sure she never finds out what she did to me. She would never be able to recover from it if she knew.”

“I’ll never tell her, Suzy. I promise. And I’ll call the Weasel and make sure she doesn’t, either.”

“Good. We don’t need any more unnecessary suffering, now, do we?”

“No, no we don’t.”

“So, what is it that you want to ask me, Mr. Wyler?”

“Well, in my law practice I represent many victims of traumatic brain injury. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, Mr. Wyler, I most certainly do—you know, given my condition. Go on.”

“Just checking, sorry.” She smiles. “Anyway, one of the items of damage that I get money for, to compensate the injured, is known as
conscious
pain and suffering.” I pause to see if she needs explaining.

“Yes, go on, Mr. Wyler, I understand. Go on.”

“Well, I just wanted to know, when you’re as brain damaged as you are, stuck there in a wheelchair, staring out into space, with no control over the movement of your body, drooling, seemingly unaware of what is going on around you, with the whole world assuming you can’t understand a thing—well, is that really the case? Or are you
conscious
of your environment and aware of the fact that you have been severely injured and permanently compromised? I always wanted to know the answer to that question. And more so in a case like yours, where you
seem to respond to things with the appropriate
sch-weet
s and
not
sch-weet
s.”

Suzy smiles, the kind one gives when asked an intelligent question particular to the circumstance. She folds in half the napkin that somehow materialized in her hand and dabs the sweat off my forehead in a caring way. Just as she is about to answer, I slip further into unconsciousness, leveling at GCS 9. As I do, Suzy, in a snap, disappears, vanishing into thin air.

A
fter an undetermined period of time suspended at GCS 9, I start to become consciously aware of my surroundings. I’ve ascended back to a GCS 14 and see a paramedic on my left. He’s finishing his work on me with the skill and expertise of a tenured veteran. I’m still on the ground, but they’ve turned me over so I’m facing up at a circular line of very interested New York City bystanders who are surrounding me.