A couple of reporters tried to get in to see me, but I told Abrams and the nurses that I didn’t want to talk to them.
Kerry came again in the afternoon. There was less strain between us this time, mainly because she did not try to cheer me up. She just sat and held my hand and endured the protracted silences between the words we said to each other. I was glad when she was there — she was the only person I wanted to see, except for Marcus or Klein with some word on the gunman — but I was just as glad when she was gone and I was alone again.
The nurses fed me three meals and let me get up twice to use the toilet. The rest of the time I slept or stared at the walls. I didn’t even make an effort to read the pulp magazines Kerry had brought; I had no interest in reading, no interest in fictional crime or fictional detectives.
Eberhardt was still in a coma, still in critical condition.
And I was still angry.
Wednesday.
I asked for the Chronicle and Examiner for the past three days and read all the news stories on the shooting and the police investigation. No facts that I didn’t already know. But a lot of crap about my background, the loss of my license; I was hot news again and the journalists were making the most of it. I threw the papers on the floor when I was done with them.
Two visitors showed up. One was Litchak, the retired fire inspector who lived in the flat below mine in Pacific Heights. The other was Kerry. I couldn’t seem to find much to say to either of them and they didn’t stay long.
No change in Eberhardt’s condition. Or in mine.
Thursday.
They let me get up and stay up for a while, with my left arm in a sling. As long as I didn’t make any sudden moves, I felt almost no pain in my shoulder. But the arm was still stiff; I kept having to make an effort to straighten out all but the little finger on that hand.
Kerry didn’t come. She called the head nurse, who passed along a message that she had business obligations at her ad agency and she would come again tomorrow. It mattered that she couldn’t make it, and yet it did not matter. I was better off by myself.
Two other guys I knew came to see me. One of them worked on the Examiner and the main reason he paid his visit was to get himself an exclusive interview; I threw him out verbally after five minutes.
Eberhardt remained the same. And the police remained stymied: the gunman was still unidentified and still at large.
Friday.
Abrams removed half the stitches and allowed as how the wound seemed to be healing satisfactorily. I asked him when I could get out of there. Tomorrow morning, he said.
Kerry came in the afternoon, very chipper, and made a conspiratorial thing out of giving me a pastrami sandwich she had hidden away in her purse. It was a nice gesture. I told her I was starved for some real food and would wolf the sandwich down after she left, but that was a lie; I had no appetite. I said I would be going home tomorrow, and she said she would drive me and offered to stop by my flat again to pick up some clothes.
Everything else was status quo.
Saturday.
Ben Klein showed up at ten o’clock. Nothing to report. The investigation was not going well, he admitted; nobody in Chinatown was talking, R&I hadn’t turned up any possibles on their computer checks, there weren’t any leads in Eberhardt’s case file or past history or personal effects. He offered to keep a police guard on me for a few more days, but I told him I didn’t want that.
After Klein left, Abrams came around with a bunch of instructions on how to care for myself, what I should and shouldn’t do, when to come back to have the rest of the stitches taken out. He also gave me some Empirin-and-codeine pills to take if I was bothered by pain.
At eleven-thirty, Kerry arrived with my clothes. I had some trouble getting into the shirt; she had to help me, and afterward she tied on the sling.
And at twelve-fifteen I walked out of the hospital with Kerry hanging on to my good arm. We left through the emergency entrance to avoid any reporters who might be lurking around out front. It was a gray day, foggy and cold, and that was good. I was gray inside, shading toward black; sunshine would only have fueled my anger by reminding me of the Chinese gunman backlit and half-invisible in the doorway of Eberhardt’s house.
Kerry kept up a running stream of chatter on the way crosstown. She had had one of her friends pick up my car, she said, and take it up near my flat; she told me where it was parked. I didn’t pay much attention to the rest of what she said.
She had also cleaned up the flat. The dustballs and dirty dishes were gone; the furniture gleamed with polish; the place smelled of lemon-scented air freshener. It didn’t look or feel right and it annoyed me. It was like walking into another hospital room — too neat, too antiseptic.
I said, “Why did you clean the place?”
“Well, it was pretty messy...”
“I like it messy. It makes me feel at home.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you’d be pleased.”
She sounded uncertain and a little hurt. I did not want to be angry at her, of all people; I tightened the wraps on myself and managed a small smile. “It’s all right. I’m glad you were concerned.”
She came over to kiss me on the cheek. “Are you hungry? I can make something...”
“No. I don’t want any food.”
“Some coffee?”
“Okay. Some coffee.”
She went out into the kitchen. I crossed to the pseudo-Hepplewhite secretary that serves as my desk, rummaged around in one of the drawers with my good hand, and came up with the envelope of old photographs. Eberhardt and me on a fishing trip at Black Point. Eberhardt and Dana in his backyard, with their arms around each other, grinning at the camera. Eberhardt, looking awkward and festive, trimming a tree in his living room one Christmas. A tightness formed in my chest; I put the photographs back into the envelope and the envelope away in the drawer. Taking them out had been a morbid thing to do. I was not even sure why I had done it.
Kerry came in with the coffee and we sat on the couch and looked at each other. She said, “Do you want to talk?”
“About what?”
“About what’s bothering you.”
“You know what’s bothering me.”
“Yes, but it’s doing things to you I don’t understand.”
“I don’t understand them myself,” I said.
“So you don’t want to talk?”
“No. Not now.”
“It’s just that I feel—”
“What?”
“That you’re shutting me out. Shutting everybody out, withdrawing into yourself. It scares me.”
“You said that on Monday.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve felt that way all week.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I said.
“But I do.”
“I’ll be fine. When Eberhardt wakes up, when the bastard who shot us is locked away... then I’ll be just dandy.”
“What if either or both of those things don’t happen?”
“They’ll happen.”
“But what if they don’t?”
“They’ll happen,” I said again. “Let’s drop the subject, okay? I’m not in any mood for it.”
We were quiet for a time. Then she said, “Do you want me to stay here with you?”
“For a while, yes.”
“I meant tonight. For a few days.”
“I wouldn’t be much good to you with this arm.”
“I wasn’t talking about sex. Is that what you thought?”
“I didn’t think anything.”
“What kind of person would I be if that’s all I had to offer you?”
“All right. Let it go.”
“I don’t think you should be alone,” she said.