At this time of night all the doctor/nurse calls over the hospital system were muted. As I walked back to my seat in the ER area the noise my phone made was ominous in its loud pitch.
‘I told my friend in the police department about Howie Ruskin,’ Jane said, ‘and she recognized the name so she called me. Somebody shot him?’
‘Yeah. In the arm. I’m at the ER. I’ll get in to see him pretty soon here.’
‘This is getting scary.’
‘I just wish there was some angle in it that would help Robert.’
‘Yes. But it must have something to do with Tracy Cabot, don’t you think?’
‘Absolutely. But right now that’s all I know.’
‘I’m still at the office working on a case. I’ve got an important court date tomorrow morning. I’m going to stop in about an hour. If you’re up for a drink let me know.’
‘I’d like that. I’ll just have to see how it goes here.’
‘Sure. Well, good luck.’
By the time I got back to my seat Detective Farnsworth was talking to the woman at the desk. When he saw me he excused himself and walked over. He took the chair next to me. ‘When I was a kid I always liked horror films that were set in hospitals. You like horror films, Mr Conrad?’
‘A few of them. But not the gory ones.’
‘I’m the same way. The gory ones turn me off. My fourteen-year-old son talked me into going to see one recently and I barely got through it.’
‘You don’t look old enough to have a fourteen-year-old son.’
‘I also have a sixteen-year-old daughter. I run a check on all her dates.’
I laughed. ‘You tell her you do it?’
‘Hell, no. She’d never speak to me again.’
Easy to know what we were doing. He was trying to make us momentary friends so I’d tell him more than I already had. Since I knew how these things worked — had worked a few of them myself — I wondered if he had a son and daughter at all.
He stretched long legs out in front of him. He still wore his overcoat.
‘You working with Howie Ruskin now, Mr Conrad?’
‘I thought we were talking about horror movies.’
‘From what the ambulance crew told me, Ruskin is a horror movie.’
‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’
‘When we were sitting in your Jeep you said he called you.’
‘His girlfriend set it up. Just as I said.’
‘Any particular reason he wanted to talk to you?’
‘My favorite horror movie is still Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The one with Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.’
He smiled with great tolerance. ‘Too bad you’re not a priest or a lawyer or even a private investigator, Mr Conrad. That way you could proclaim client privilege. This way you’re shit out of luck. If I take you to the station and Hammell starts asking you questions, he won’t be happy if you bring up a movie called Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He won’t be happy if you bring up any movie at all, in fact. You’ll actually have to answer his questions.’
But it was then that an angel in the form of a nurse appeared before us, backlit by the soft bluish light of the ER desk, and said, ‘Detective Farnsworth, the doctor said you could talk to Mr Ruskin now. If you’d follow me, please.’
As he was pushing up from the chair, he said, ‘I shouldn’t be too long, Mr Conrad. I mean, if that’s all right with you.’
The nurse, a middle-aged woman, caught his sarcasm and then glanced at me to see how I was reacting to it.
But I didn’t give either of them the satisfaction they wanted. I just sat there expressionless and silent. Finally, seeming confused, she said, ‘This way, Detective Farnsworth.’
Farnsworth was in a hurry when he reappeared. The brisk walk, the curt nod to me, the intense expression — there might have been a break in the beating of the convenience-store woman. He half-jogged the rest of the way until he disappeared through the doors down the hall.
It was another fifteen minutes before a red-haired woman in doctor whites came down the hall from the right and walked straight to me. About thirty, I guessed, trim, glasses with dark frames, not unattractive. ‘Are you Mr Conrad?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Doctor Olsen. Mr Ruskin has asked to see you.’
‘How’s he doing?’
‘We took the bullet out. He’ll need rest but he should be fine.’ A smile. ‘He’s quite the character.’
‘You noticed that, huh?’
‘He says you’re a good friend of his.’
By now I was on my feet. After she said that I thought about sitting down again. I was afraid I’d pass out. ‘That’s strange.’
‘Oh?’
‘Actually, I hate him.’
She studied my face to see if I was joking. I think she gave up. ‘Let’s go see him.’
We didn’t talk until we were in a large room where there were four other beds, all empty now. Curtains could be pulled for privacy.
He was propped up on pillows, studying a smart phone with the intensity of a bookie surveying the latest results from the track. He was doing this one-handed. His left arm was in a blue sling. He was in a light-green hospital gown. His hair was wilder than usual, the operatic tentacles of a madman. When he saw me, he said, ‘Hey, dude. I bet you were scared. I wasn’t.’
‘Right. I noticed that being shot didn’t bother you at all. You were screaming because you were so happy.’
‘Can you believe this guy, Doc? His sarcasm?’
She was eager to leave. ‘I’ll leave you two alone for ten minutes. Then I’ll be back.’
The metal sides on the bed were up. On the rolling table next to the bed was a 7UP and a glass full of ice. Then there was the rosary. Howie Ruskin had a rosary? But somehow that fit his reality. He was this thirty-eight-year-old near-genius who wanted to pay the world back for a lot of different reasons. The rosary surprised me because he always denied being associated with the right-wing religious nuts, claiming he was a non-believer. I didn’t know many non-believers who carried rosaries.
I expected to hear more of his patter but instead he said, ‘You have to hide me, Conrad. That’s the first thing. You have to figure out where I’ll be safe while we’re setting everything up.’
‘You’re way ahead of me. First of all, why do I have to hide you? You’re the one who knows all the bad guys.’
‘Great. Somebody’s trying to kill me and you’re getting sanctimonious.’
‘Back up a minute. Who’s trying to kill you?’
‘The people who hired me.’
‘Why would they try to kill you?’
He winced — the first indication that he was in pain. ‘Because there’s already some jerk from the US Attorney’s office on my case. He left a message on my phone. That’s why I had to get the hell out of the hotel. They’re afraid with him involved I might get indicted. And that if I get indicted I might talk. It’d be safer to get rid of me.’
So he knew Hawkins was on his case; that, at least, was true. ‘This isn’t just paranoid bullshit?’
The childlike eyes. ‘Does it sound like paranoid bullshit?’
‘Yeah, it does.’
‘I can deliver names and dates of a lot of things. And you’re making shit out of me.’
The hell of it was the hurt feelings were sincere. A real grown-up would try to hide them, but then nobody had ever said that Howie was a real grown-up, had they?
He closed his eyes. Rested. I didn’t blame him. I’d been surprised at how active he was.