“Got some other news,” my friend offered. “Mister ‘Door Mat’ is conscious and talkin’.”
Felicity had been wrong. Lewis hadn’t been dead after all; this was a fact they quickly discovered when they finally entered the room. He had, however, been unconscious and bleeding from several wounds. Considering how bad he looked when the ambulance crew brought him out, I could easily see why my wife had thought he was deceased. To be honest, up until now I hadn’t known whether he had died on the way to the hospital or if he would even recover from his injuries.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked. As callous as it made me feel, the only reason I cared was because a good portion of my wife’s impending fate hinged on his health. Other than that, I didn’t give a damn one way or the other, and that was unlike me.
“He actually looked a lot worse than he really was… Not that he ain’t pretty screwed up though… He’s got a broken nose so mosta the blood ya’ saw was from that, and some other superficial wounds…
“He’s got some busted ribs, a concussion, and a buncha scrapes ‘n cuts… Lotta contusions shaped oddly enough like high-heeled footprints in Firehair’s size… Tons of gouges that ‘pparently came from the tips of the heels… Guess that’s why they call ‘im Door Mat though… Go figure…
“Ackman said he’s already startin’ ta’ turn black, blue, purple and the whole nine… Workin’ on a pair of shiners that are prob’ly gonna make ‘im look like a friggin’ raccoon… Gonna have some serious scars too, ‘cause she tore ‘im up good… Real good…”
My friend finally paused at the end of the inventory, then for some odd reason, he actually let out what sounded to be a perplexed chuckle before continuing. “But yeah… Yeah… He’s gonna be just fine. Physically anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re not gonna believe this,” he replied, shaking his head. “But the first thing the sick fuck wanted ta’ know when he came to was where his Mistress was. Ackman said he tried to explain the situation to ‘im, but all he did was ask for Mistress Miranda’s number, so he could ask her what he was allowed to say. Guess you could say he was exercisin’ his right ta’ remain silent after bein’ Mirandized.”
He snickered half-heartedly at his own joke, but his flippancy faded when he noticed that I wasn’t laughing. I really couldn’t find much of anything funny right now, least of all a play on words when the word happened to be Miranda. I simply stayed quiet and mulled over the meat of the commentary.
Finally, I said, “I guess that means he won’t be pressing assault charges against her then.”
“Yeah, I really doubt if he’ll be filin’ a complaint… And if he won’t do that, then the prosecuting attorney most likely won’t file either… Wouldn’t be worth the time. So, I think you’re prob’ly free ‘n clear on that one,” he agreed. “Although, ta’ be honest it wouldn’t surprise me if ya’ ended up filin’ a restrainin’ order against the friggin’ wingnut if he ever finds out where ya’ live. It sounds a lot like he lell in fuv with your wife.”
“That wasn’t my wife he fell for.”
“Yeah, I know… But you know what I meant.”
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” I replied. “I’m just glad she didn’t kill him.”
“Uh-huh. For his sake or for hers?”
“Hers.”
“Yeah. I figured as much.”
“Sorry,” I told him in a humorless tone. “When it comes to anyone besides my wife right now, I’m just not in a particularly compassionate mood.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Like I said, the sick fuck got ‘zactly what he wanted, and he’s already beggin’ for more.”
I fell silent and dropped my eyes back down to the disposable cup in my hands. I watched with a distant gaze as my hands continued moving without the benefit of conscious direction. My left was slowly spinning the Styrofoam vessel while with my right thumbnail I was making small indentations around the rim. It was already starting to crumble where I had been over the same spot repeatedly for who knew how long.
“What time is it?” I finally asked, looking back up to my friend and not bothering to check my own watch.
“Eight thirty or so, why?”
“Just wondering. Seems like we’ve been here quite awhile.”
“Yeah. We have. You got someplace to be? You need me ta’ make a call for ya’ or somethin’?”
“No,” I answered with a shake of my head.
“You sure?”
“No,” I repeated, mainly because I wasn’t really sure of anything at the moment. For all I knew I was leaving a client hanging or missing a breakfast meeting. That part of my life seemed so distant right now that it was as if it belonged to someone else.
“Well, just let me know if ya’ need me to call someone.”
“What about you?” I asked, purely out of reflex.
“What about me?”
“Do you have someplace to be?”
“No.”
Something about the way he spoke the word sparked a reaction in my brain that made me feel that he was lying.
“No?” I echoed, my psyche still hovering in a no-man’s-land somewhere between the conversation and my prison cell of introspection. “Are you sure?”
He sighed heavily and dropped his oversized frame into a chair next to me. “Well, funeral’s not until tomorrow, not that I really wanna be there ta’ begin with. I suppose I did promise Helen I’d help with some stuff today, but that can wait till later.”
“Funeral?” I asked.
“Yeah, the funeral,” he stressed bitterly.
His tone lit a wide swath through the fog of my obfuscation, and I seized on a vague memory that his father had recently crossed over. The remembrance made me feel like I wasn’t being much of a friend to him; but then, like I had told him, I wasn’t feeling much sympathy for the rest of the world right now anyway.
It also didn’t help much that the man next to me had been pointing a gun at my wife only a few hours ago, ready to pull the trigger if he felt it warranted. I still wasn’t sure that I had forgiven him for that trespass against our friendship, and I had already told him as much.
After a weighty pause he said, “You know I wasn’t aiming for a kill shot, Rowan. Right?”
I knew he couldn’t read my mind, but I got the distinct impression that everything I had said to him while standing on that motel parking lot was still weighing on him just as heavily as it was me. I suppose his sudden return to the subject was a verbal testament of that fact.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I replied coldly.
“I was doin’ my job, Row. I wouldn’t have killed her.”
“Maybe so, but did you really have to treat her the way you did?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Cuffing her on the ground like some kind of hardened criminal. I mean, come on… She’s over a foot shorter than you and barely a hundred pounds soaking wet, Ben. Not to mention that there were three of you. She was confused and scared. She wasn’t dangerous.”
“She took Mandalay’s weapon, Row.”
“You saw what she was wearing. Where was she going to hide it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“She wasn’t dangerous-she isn’t dangerous, Ben.”
“Tell that ta’ Door Mat.”
“That was different. He obviously wanted the abuse.”
“Uh-huh…Yeah, well then forget him. Just grab a mirror an’ look at what ‘barely a hundred pounds soakin’ wet’ did ta’ you.”
“That was different too.”
“Yeah, right. Well, I wasn’t interested in wearin’ her claw marks. Neither were Ackman or Drew. It was just procedure, Row.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
“Let’s just drop it, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. But, the point is I wouldn’t have shot to kill. I just want ya’ ta’ know…” He ended the sentence in a mumble, allowing his voice to trail off.
A tense silence fell between us, and I re-inspected my progress on the coffee cup’s disintegrating rim for a long moment while I listened to him shift uncomfortably in his seat.