The Hanged Man (22 page)

Before I could put all this into operation, a bright light started flickering at me, off to my right.

“Hey.
Hey
, you okay in there?”

Paul Chang?

I reached over to the passenger seat, groped around for the gun.

It wasn't there.

“Hey, mister,” came the voice. Suddenly a flashlight beam lanced through the passenger window, directly into my eyes. “You okay in there?”

The passenger window was gone, too.

“Yeah,” I said. “Could you get that light out of my eyes?”

He did, whoever he was.

“Thank God,” he said. “I thought you were a goner. I saw that truck coming at you and then you went off the road and started cartwheeling.
Jesus!
You are one lucky man, mister.”

“Where's the truck?”

“The sonovabitch took off. I couldn't believe it! Just backed up and turned around and headed down the hill. The sonovabitch! I never saw anything like it! He came right
at
you,
deliberately!
”

My head, saturated with down-rushing blood, felt as big as a basketball. “You think—”

“What's this world coming to? Jesus, mister, your car is
totaled!
” There was a kind of awe in his voice, almost religious.

“You think you could come around and help me get out of here?” I said.

“I don't think you should move, mister. That's what they say. You don't move an accident victim. I already called the cops on the car phone and they're on their way. Be here any minute. An ambulance, too. Judy, that's the wife, she's up there waiting. She'll send them right down.”

As though she'd heard her name mentioned, a woman called out from somewhere far away, “
Roger? Are you all right down there?
”

“I'm fine, hon!” the man called out. “He's okay, I think!”

“Roger,” I said.

The flashlight blinded me. I shut my eyes and turned away. I realized that my neck hurt.

The beam swung off my face. “Sorry,” he said.

“Roger, it's probably become pretty obvious to you by now that I'm upside down. This isn't my normal position, Roger. I'd like to get back to my normal position. Do you think you could help me do that?”

“I don't know, mister. You're not supposed to move the victim.”

“Fine, Roger. I'll do it myself.”

“
Wait wait wait
. Hold on. I'll see what I can do.”

I watched through the crazed windshield as the beam of the flashlight, occasionally revealing Roger's upside down legs and feet, slid and slipped across the upside down snow. And then Roger was outside my window, his head and shoulders a black silhouette against the gray. I still couldn't see his face.

“Jesus,” he said, “your car's a wreck. I hope you've got insurance.”

“Are you going to help me, Roger?”

“You're sure you want to do this?” he asked me.

“Yeah. I'm going to open the door.”

“Hey. Hold on.
Wait
. I smell gas.” He stood up. I could see only his lower legs against the pale gray snow.

“Is there any gasoline by the door?” I asked his legs.

The flashlight beam wobbled. “I don't see any,” his legs said. They didn't sound entirely convinced.

“Okay.” I pulled the door handle. Nothing.

“It's jammed,” I told Roger.

“Why don't we just leave it until the cops come. They've got tools. They've got that Jaws of Life deal.”

“Can you pull on the door, Roger?”

“I don't know, mister.”

“My name is Croft, Roger. Joshua Croft. I'm perfectly okay. I'm fine. Just pull on the door for me. I'll push from this side.”

“I don't think this is a good idea. You've been in an accident. You're a victim.”

The woman's voice came again: “
Roger, what are you doing?
”

“Everything's okay, hon!” he called out. “The guy wants to get out of the car!”

“
Then get him out of the goddamn car! It's freezing up here!
”

He muttered something under his breath.

“Roger?” I said.

His head and shoulders were back in the window. “What?” A note of impatience in his voice now. I think that he was reappraising the concept of the good Samaritan.

“Pull on the door, Roger,” I said.

“Awright, awright.” Under his breath: “
Shit
.”

“You got it?” I asked him.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Very slightly, the car rocked.

“Won't open,” he said.

I sighed. “I wasn't ready, Roger. Wait a second.” I braced my knees against the dashboard, my feet against the ceiling-floor, my right hand against the passenger seat. “Okay. Let's try it on the count of three. One, two,
three
.”

With a sickening metallic crunch, the door swung open.

“It was just luck, I guess,” said Roger, walking beside me. “I mean, we haven't been up to the Big Trees in ten, twelve years. It was Judy's idea. Jesus, we didn't expect anything like this.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“Yeah, well, sure. Of course not. And you're really okay?”

“I'm fine.”

We walked up the incline, the soles of my boots slippery against the snow. My body was beginning to stiffen up, joints going grainy, ligaments tightening. I felt very cold, very shaky. I paid close attention to the beam of Roger's flashlight as it spotlit the lumps and ridges in the snow along my path. I didn't want to fall down. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get up.

“Why would someone do a thing like that?” Roger asked me. “Come at you like that?
Deliberately?
”

“It's a cruel world, Roger.”

“Yeah, but
deliberately
…”

We reached the top. I could make out, against the backdrop of roadway and forest illuminated by the headlights, a figure standing beside the car, wrapped in a bulky coat, hands buried deeply in the pockets.

Roger said, “This is Judy, my wife.”

The flashlight beam lit up the wincing, displeased face of a middle-aged woman. “
Roger!
”

“Sorry,” he said. “And this is, um.”

“Joshua Croft,” I said. “Hello. I want to thank you, both of you, for …”

“Hey,” said Roger, “are you okay?”

I didn't actually faint, although I admit it might've looked as though I did. I simply decided that I was tired of standing up and being conscious, and so I toppled to the ground.

Everyone kept telling me that I was a lucky man. The paramedics did, when I came to, inside the ambulance as it raced toward town. The head nurse did, in the emergency ward at St. Vincent's. The X-ray attendant did, as he walked beside my gurney on the way to his radioactive lair.

They wouldn't let me get off the gurney. They wouldn't let me make a phone call.

“Just relax,” everyone kept telling me. “You'll be fine.”

“I've got to make a phone call.”

“Relax.”

For some reason, I've never been able to relax in an emergency ward, surrounded by people in various states of dismemberment.

“Nothing is broken,” the doctor told me, after he received the X-ray results. He was a small slender man, East Indian, probably Pakistani, with large brown eyes and a small slender mustache. We were in a small examining room and I had finally been allowed to sit up. I was perched on the examining table. Getting upright had taken me less than an hour. “You have many contusions on your left side, oh my yes, many many contusions, eh? And, yes, a serious strain, here, you see, along the neck. Painful, eh? You will need to wear a collar for a time, most probably. But nothing is broken, nothing at all. You are a very lucky man, yes indeed.”

“A collar? What kind of collar?”

“A foam collar, to provide the support, you see. It will reduce tension to the neck.”

“Great,” I said. “Can I get my collar and go home now?”

He giggled. “Oh no, no no no. Not as yet, you see. We will be keeping you for observation, you see. Overnight. Because, you see, there is always a danger, in situations of this sort, of the bleeding inside the skull.”

“Subdural hematoma.”

“Ah yes, excellent, you understand, do you? Excellent!”

“Could I make a phone call?”

He frowned. “Not as yet, I am afraid, no. There is a policeman wishing to speak to you, you see. He seems quite a nice chap. If you are too tired, of course, I can ask him to postpone this discussion.”

“After I talk to the cop, can I make a phone call.”

“We shall see, yes?”

“Hello, Hector.”

He nodded. “Josh.”

Sergeant Hector Ramirez worked the Violent Crimes Unit of the Santa Fe Police Department. A weightlifter, he was under six feet tall and he weighed about two twenty. His neck, thrusting up from the collar of his black trench coat, was as big around as my thigh. Beneath the trench coat he wore a gray three-piece suit, a tattersall shirt, a blue silk tie. “You come here often?” he said.

“Whenever I can,” I said. “It's the smell of disinfectant. It drives me wild.”

He ran his hand down over his Frito Bandido mustache. “They tell me you're going to live.”

“Yeah. But they won't say for how long.”

Hector smiled grimly. “Not very long, you keep getting run off the road like that. How you feeling?”

“I'm okay. But what brings you here, Hector? You working Traffic these days?”

He shook his head. “I was at my desk when Gonzalez told me you'd taken a tumble. The officers in the cruiser called in your name. The witnesses said the guy in the truck took off after he ran at you. That right?”

“I saw him run at me. I didn't see him take off.”

“Any idea who it might've been?”

It didn't seem to me that I owed Paul Chang or his sister anything. I told Hector about meeting the lovely Miss Chang that morning, about the fight with Paul, the two phone calls from Veronica, the race down the highway.

When I finished, Hector said, “But you couldn't identify the driver of the other car as Paul Chang?”

“No. I didn't see his face. And the license plate light was out. But it was a gray Chevy pickup. Fairly big. Three-quarter ton. Maybe ten years old.”

He nodded. “Are you working on anything else right now?”

“No.”

“Can you think of anyone besides Paul Chang who might want to see you splattered down the mountainside?”

“No one, Hector. I'm beloved by all and sundry.”

“By sundry, maybe, but not by all. You're sure that the vehicle that came at you was the same truck that'd passed you?”

“I told you, I didn't actually see the vehicle. The headlights blinded me. Roger, the witness, the guy who helped me out of the car, he told me that it'd been a truck. Speaking of which, do you people have his address?”

“The officers do.”

“Could I get it from them? I'd like to thank him.”

He nodded.

“And my gun,” I said. “It's in my car somewhere.”

He shook his head. “Sanchez, one of the officers, found it. You know, Josh, it was a good thing for you that Roger Morrison came along when he did. You're—”

“Hector, please don't tell me that I'm a lucky man. My car is totaled. I feel like I spent my summer vacation inside an Osterizer. The doctor tells me that probably I'll need one of those collars that make you look like you've got a goiter. I don't feel very lucky right now.”

He nodded. “Well, think about this. Whoever was in that truck, he probably drove away because he saw Morrison's car. If the car hadn't shown up, he might've left the truck and come down to make sure you were out of action.”

I hadn't considered that.

“Maybe,” I said. “Listen, Hector. They haven't let me use a phone. Could you call Rita for me and tell her what's going on?”

“I already did. She's waiting outside.” He smiled. “Want me to send her in?”

Smiling, she came across the room. Her walk seemed perfectly normal; unless you were looking for the faint limp, you wouldn't notice it.

Gently, almost tentatively, she put her arms around my shoulders and her face against mine, cheek to cheek. I held her. Carefully, because the muscles along my left side were sore, from my calf all the way up to my ear. I could smell the perfume she used and the lingering scent of shampoo in her hair. She felt as soft as a cloud, something I could sink into, and disappear.

“Hi,” she said. Her breath was warm against my neck.

“Hi.”

“I'm glad you're all right.”

“Thanks.” My voice sounded a bit scratchy. Damage from the accident, no doubt. I cleared it. “So am I. It's good to see you.”

She kissed my cheek. “Nothing's broken, the doctor told me.”

“They want to keep me overnight.”

“Naturally.”

“I feel fine.”

“Joshua?”

“Hmmm?”

“Shut up.”

I smiled. We stayed like that for a time, neither one of us moving or saying anything. Finally she said, “Are you really all right?”

I nodded. “I had a couple of bad moments there. But I'm okay now. A little stiff.”

She stood back, looked at me. Concern had tightened the corners of her big dark eyes. “They said you fainted.”

“I was just resting for a while.”

“Joshua?”

“Shut up?”

“Yes.”

I don't know why it happened then, or why it hadn't happened before. Maybe it had been waiting, like some beast of prey, to catch me off guard, to jump at me when finally I felt safe, wrapped in Rita's arms and the warmth and the smells of her. But suddenly it was there: the headlights flaring as the big truck rushed at the Subaru, the sickening sensation as the station wagon soared off the road and began to roll, the disorientation, the feeling of helplessness, the crashes coming like explosions as the car and I cartwheeled crazily down the slope …