Trifecta (2 page)

"Black belt in karate, too, I'll bet?"

Julia almost smiled, but she was uncomfortable about the
way he was looking her over, as if she were vulnerable and lying about the mace. 
She dabbed with the tissue at her eyes, which were undoubtedly red as a rat's.

"Car trouble?" Robin asked, nodding at the car. 
"I could check it for you."

Maybe he's a mechanic, Julia thought, who had stopped when
he saw her wiping her tears.  But more likely, a car-jacker searching for an easy
mark.  Even in Boston she'd heard about the number of cars typically stolen in Los
Angeles.  At least the guy couldn't be carrying a gun.  He had on tight jeans. 
She doubted he could fit anything in his pockets as he leaned forward and looked
into the window of her car.

"It's a beauty.  What's wrong with it?" Robin
asked.

How should I know?  "It won't move."

"You try all the gears?"

Julia nodded.  "It seems to be stuck."

"Transmission.  They tow it from the front or rear?" 
He was walking slowly around the small car admiringly.

"The mechanic made a point of saying they towed it
from the front end.  But I was just complaining about the door."

Robin ended his inspection near where she was standing
and peered closely at the door.  "A real shame."  He shook his head. 
"I'll bet a week's pay they towed it from the rear, in Park, and ruined the
transmission.  In the process, it looks like they bashed it against something."

"I'm in a rush," Julia said.  "I'll have
to leave it here.  Call Triple A later."

"We'll put it in a parking place.  You won't get a
ticket now, but you'll have to move it early in the morning."

Robin stood there for a second, gazing at her and then
the BMW.  "I'll check for it on the way to work; feed the meter if you can't
get here in time.  You get in.  I'll push."

"I'll pay for your help..." Julia started.

"Never mind."  He sounded impatient.

"I'll help push," Julia said, and moved around
to the front of the car.

He was studying her again, probably deciding she was too
puny to help.  She saw his lips twitch, like he was holding back a smile, "You'll
need to steer."

Julia unlocked the door and got behind the wheel.  Robin
called out for her to shift into Neutral and he started pushing from the front end
until she was in the street.  Then he moved around to the back of the car.  She
could see him from the rear view mirror.  He was straining hard.  She had a view
only of the bent top of his dark head and his large muscled arms.  Then she was
busy steering into a vacant parking place right behind his truck.

Robin walked over as Julia got out of the car.  "I'm
going the same way.  Can I drop you someplace?"

"You're very kind.  I'll call a taxi," Julia
said.  She didn't believe he was a kidnapper, but you could never tell.  Now that
she could see him up close, without tears clouding her vision, she could tell he
was older than she had first supposed.  There were a few wonderfully placed white
streaks at his temples and his eyes had small lines around them, as though he spent
a lot of time in the sun.

"You mentioned being in a hurry.  It's rush hour. 
Hard to find a cab, now."

"Thank you for your help," Julia said, backing
up slightly.  She didn't want to hurt his feelings.  She wanted him to leave.  "You
really have been kind."

"I'd hate to abandon you alone in the street,"
Robin said, looking around with a slight frown. 

He was serious and she found herself believing him.  "Are
you going by Cedars-Sinai?"

Robin grinned and opened the passenger door.  A degenerate
with appealing dimples, she thought, as she got in.  The truck was astonishingly
high off the ground and she hiked up her skirt.  She could almost feel him glancing
at her legs from behind.  There was a queer sense of unreality.  Unbelievable she
was getting in a monstrous, repulsive truck with a stranger.

"I can see for blocks," Julia remarked appreciatively
as the truck moved forward, remembering the misery of driving a small car behind
SUVs and buses, craning to see around them and fanning at choking exhaust fumes.

"I've named the truck, 'Make my Day,'" Robin
said, patting the wheel with affection.

Julia thought he was rather obnoxiously referring to her 
presence in the hideous truck, when he explained, "If anyone gets nasty, this
is the perfect intimidation vehicle.  I'll just say, Go ahead, make my day...and
ram them."

He did a pretty good Clint Eastwood, with that softly menacing
voice.  Julia couldn't help smiling.  The truck was so ugly and dented it wouldn't
matter at all if he dinged it up a little more.

"If you have a few minutes, we could stop at the service
station on Santa Monica," Robin said.  "They're the best in Los Angeles
for transmissions.  Then you'll have to sue the towing company."

"I won't have time to sue.  I'm going home." 
And can't wait, Julia thought.  As soon as Brian was able to leave the hospital
she would take him home to Boston, where he would get world-class care.

Julia sat in the truck at the service station as Robin
made arrangements for her car.  He greeted the busy mechanics like they were all
good buddies.  There was excessive back slapping and joking, a sort of silly male
bonding, she suspected due to her presence in the unsightly vehicle.  She had to
hand over her car key and sign a form that said they would give her an estimate
before beginning the work.

Robin jumped back inside the truck.  "You have a relative
at Cedars?" he asked as he turned south on San Vicente toward the hospital.

Julia nodded.  She couldn't say anything about her brother. 
In her emotional condition right now, she might start bawling in front of a stranger. 
She had to change the subject, "You seem to know all the people at that repair
place."

"I work with them a lot."

"You're a mechanic?" Julia asked.

His gaze was piercing, the large eyes seemed impossible
to look away from, almost hypnotic in their blue power.  Had she made him angry? 
No, she could see he was smiling.

"How'd you guess?" Robin said.

"But you don't work for them?"

He shook his head.  "If I'd taken you to a BMW dealer
they would have charged twice as much."

Well, that explained how he had known it was her transmission,
Julia thought, his being a mechanic. 

The big truck turned right on Gracie Allen Street.  The
street names had been changed and Gracie Allen Street intersected George Burns Drive. 
Julia thought it was a charming and romantic thing for the city to do.  Then she
remembered that this same city had towed her car away from the hospital. 

They went under the bridge that connected two of the mammoth
hospital buildings.  Robin stopped at the entrance. 

Now all she had to do was leave gracefully, and hope Robin,
the mechanic, wouldn't be insistent about wanting to see her while she was in Los
Angeles.

Robin got out of the truck, walked around the front of
it and opened her door.  He steadied her out of the vehicle, holding her arm courteously. 
She was glad because she might have fallen out.  Julia thanked him profusely and
waited with dread for him to beg for her number.

Robin told her, with another show of dimples, that it had
been his pleasure.  He got in the truck and left.

Well, Julia thought as she walked into the lobby of the
hospital, that was refreshing.  A man who assisted her and asked for nothing in
return.

Julia didn't see the huge yellow truck go around the block,
pass the entrance to the hospital once again, and then park nearby.  She didn't
know that the big, blue-eyed mechanic went into the building and stopped at the
Information Desk in the lobby.  Using an abundance of charm, he requested facts
about the beautiful blond who had gone to the west wing of the hospital.

J
ulia left the mechanic, whom she was now regarding
as rather charming, notwithstanding all of his obvious faults; his horrible taste
in motor vehicles, his crass manner of dress, and his stupid jokes, because he had
been of courteous assistance without obnoxiously coming on to her.  Of course, he
could be married, Julia thought, as she walked softly down the long linoleum tiled
hospital corridor.  But she hadn't noticed a ring.  Not that she had been looking. 
She just felt safer with men who had wedding rings on.  The fact that he hadn't
tried anything seemed rather out of character for one of his type.  A bias which
she admitted could be wrong.  In her experience she had found that attractive men
tried their schemes on anything female that moved. 

Julia lifted her head and sniffed with distaste.  The whole
hospital had that terrible medicinal tinge in the air she always associated with
hospitals and which could not be mistaken; alcohol, pine disinfectant and sickness. 
The unnerving quiet. 

The nurses at electronic consoles which monitored the patient's
vital signs in the Intensive Care Unit were so busy they hardly noticed her.  Julia
hurried past the nursing station.  She didn't want to interrupt their work.  She
needed to peek in on Brian and have the comfort of seeing his chest still rise and
fall with each of his breaths. 

Julia's last glance at her brother, when she had left him
to go get her car, had been shocking.  Maybe the move from the county hospital had
injured him further.  But Julia felt she didn't have a choice.  The county hospital
didn't have the facilities or staff to care for him. 

The scariest thing she had learned from Brian's new team
of doctors was that he had received several cranial blows.  The neurologist told
her he was in a coma.  Now Julia was afraid her baby brother might never wake up.

Julia was sure she had entered the correct room and went
outside to check again.  She walked back inside slowly.  The bed was empty.  The
whole room was empty.  Even the I.V. stand by the side of Brian's bed, which fed
him plasma and glucose through tubes attached to his arm was gone.  She looked around
wildly, as though her eyes were mistaken and she was imagining the empty room, with
the unmade bed that looked as though someone had just thrown off the covers. 

Julia's eyes flooded with tears.  Sparkling lights appeared
in front of her eyes, winking like gold dust, and Julia could hear her heart beating
madly as darkness clouded her vision.  There wasn’t enough air.  It had been sucked
out of the tiny hospital room, along with Brian.

Julia was afraid she was going to faint for the first time
in her life.  She reeled back against the wall opposite the bed, taking deep breaths
for control, and noiselessly slid her back down the wall until her bottom hit the
floor.  She put her arms around her knees and rested her head on them, making her
body a little ball of pain.  Tears coursed down her cheeks, soaking her shirt. 

After a while she decided they had probably taken Brian
out of the room for tests.  It had been the shock of the empty room that caused
the faintness.  That and the fact that she hadn't eaten anything all day.  And she
needed to cry because of the terrible harm that someone had done to her brother. 

She thought about Brian's letters and phone calls to Boston. 
He had been living on the estate of Aaron Quijada in Beverly Hills, to help ghost-write
a memoir of the famous movie producer.  Brian had hinted that the renowned mogul
was working on the book in anticipation of running for public office in California. 
Brian sounded happy and optimistic.  He had urged Julia to come to Aaron Quijada's
estate to take photographs and put together a center pictorial for the book, showing
off Quijada's present home and comparing it with the pitiful background he had come
from.  There were childhood pictures of Aaron Quijada and his family in a virtual
shack, when Los Angeles really did have orange groves and they had come from Mexico
as migrant workers each year, starting in Florida for the citrus crops, then Maine
for the potatoes, and moving in a pattern from South to North, finally ending up
in California for the harvesting of lettuce, oranges, lemons, almonds, peaches and
sugar beets.

When Julia had arrived in Los Angeles and called the Quijada
residence, she was shocked to learn that they hadn't seen Brian for several days. 
He hadn't kept the writing appointments he had made with Aaron Quijada.  The man
she spoke to sounded aggrieved that Brian had left without notice.  He said Mr.
Quijada was now sending out feelers for someone to complete the work.  He complained
that Brian hadn't even cleared out his personal belongings from the guest house.

Julia knew that Brian would not have left an assignment. 
Besides, he had been expecting her.  He would never just leave.  She began the horrible
task of calling police stations and hospitals.

Julia didn't know how long she sat curled up against the
hospital room wall, painfully remembering Brian as a young boy.  Both of their parents
had died in a boating accident on Lake Michigan.  Julia had been seven, and Brian,
four.  He had retreated into himself, a sad, lonely little boy who would not give
up the teddy bear he clutched to his chest, night and day, and his thumb found permanent
residence inside his mouth. 

Julia had mothered him during her own grief, stomping her
foot and screaming if anyone tried to take Brian's teddy bear from him.  She read
him stories for hours and moved into his room in case he cried in the night.  The
nurturing had been Julia's way of dealing with her own terrible sense of loss, and
her concern for her little brother helped her deal with the pain.  Both children
were sadly strengthened by the ordeal they passed through, and grew as close as
is possible for siblings. 

They were raised by an indomitable maternal grandmother,
Charlotte, in Boston.  Both had gone off to college in creative subjects; Brian
in Journalism, and Julia, who had majored in Art, had ended up a free-lance photographer.

Julia was startled out of her reverie by the sound of the
door opening.  There was a clatter as something metal hit the door frame.  She brushed
the tears out of her eyes and saw the I.V. stand being pushed into the room, first,
by a hospital orderly.  Then came another man pulling a gurney.  Brian was on it.

Julia's enormous relief was quickly countered by the fact
that he still appeared to be at death's door.  She was amazed that the vital body
could be so small under the covers.  Brian was a little taller than she was, not
tall for a man, but he usually radiated so much energy that his presence could light
a room.

The orderlies seemed oblivious to the small figure sitting
on the floor, but the nurse supervising the movement of Brian from the stretcher
to the bed, noticed her as soon as she entered the room.  She came over as Julia
stood up.

"Where was he?" Julia asked.

"The doctor had an MRI done.  Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 
It's a picture of the brain."  The nurse looked at her again.  "You didn't
think...?"

Julia nodded.  "For a moment."

The nurse shook her head.  "I'm so sorry.  A radiologist
will be in later to tell you about the test."

Julia sat at Brian's bedside for several hours.  He didn't
move or respond when she spoke to him.  She kept up a monologue, nonstop, until
her mouth felt like cotton, sure he could hear her on some deep, primitive level. 
She would sit there forever if it would help him.

She was finally shooed out of the room when they had to
take  blood and do more tests.  The doctor had not come to give her the MRI results. 
Julia wandered the corridor.  She dreaded calling grandmother Charlotte, but couldn't
put it off much longer.  To delay the painful phone call, she dialed her friend,
Alexander,  a doctor at Boston Memorial Hospital, at a pay phone near the nursing
station. 

"Julie, Julie, Julie," Alexander said when he
heard her voice.  She could picture him, tall, slender and perfect.  The problem
had not been his.  He was intelligent, serious, rich and handsome.  And in love
with her.  Everyone expected them to marry.  But somehow, being all those wonderful
things, he was also boring and predictable.  She could envision their life together,
which would be perfect, predictable and boring, and she could not fall in love with
this really wonderful man. 

The moment she heard Alexander's voice she felt relief
and also had a strange flash.  She saw the mechanic, Robin, in her mind.  He was
everything that Alexander wasn't, and nothing she wanted, yet she knew with absolute
certainty that Robin would never bore her.  Robin might be a dangerous degenerate,
but he was a fascinating man.

"Hey, are you there?"  She heard him tapping
on the phone.  "Enjoying the California sun and getting a tan?"

"Oh, no," Julia wailed.  "It's horrible. 
Brian was mugged. He's in the hospital.  I wanted to take him to Boston Memorial,
where he would get the best care, but it's too risky to move him now."

"God, Julia.  I'm sorry.  Where is he?"

Julia explained how she had found him in the county hospital
and had him moved to Cedars.

"Honey, if he's at Cedars he's getting the best care
you can find in the country."

"Really?"

"He wouldn't do any better at Boston Memorial.  But
I'll come out there and make sure.  Give me his doctor's name.  I'll call him as
soon as we hang up."

Julia tried to talk Alexander out of making the trip to
California.  Of course, he wouldn't listen and insisted on flying to Los Angeles
on the first available flight.

Julia sighed and hung up.  She couldn't persuade him not
to come and she wanted to spend all her time with Brian.  Alexander undoubtedly
thought it was his duty, that his swift arrival might persuade her to marry him. 
He had asked her several times.  Julia had said no, in the nicest possible ways,
trying hard to spare his feelings.  Which had probably been the problem.  She had
been too nice, and he hadn't believed her.

She dialed Alexander's number again said into the phone,
"Don't come.  And don't tell Charlotte.  She doesn't know yet."

Julia slammed down the receiver and peered around guiltily. 
People didn't yell in hospital corridors.  She was a little overwrought.  Alexander
would think she was hysterical.  And he would come.  There was no doubt about that.