“Look,” I said, “I’ve got a friend here. I need to see him. He’s gotta be in the Intensive Care Unit. Can you tell me where that is?”
“You need to wait in room one nineteen,” he said.
“Down the hall to the left. I got it.”
“Would you like me to escort you there, sir?”
“I’ll manage,” I said. “Don’t leave your post.”
I went down the hall and poked my head in room 119. A table, more blue plastic chairs. A little sink with a coffeemaker next to it. A basket with packets of sugar and artificial sweeteners, a box of that non-dairy creamer stuff. Everything you need to make coffee except the coffee itself. Which is why my man was out looking for it instead of sitting here, waiting for me. Brilliant detective work on my part.
I looked back down the hall at the security guy. He was watching me. I gave him a little wave and kept walking, right into an open elevator.
The elevator had a list on the wall. Surgical ICU, Fifth Floor. That sounded like the right place. I hit five. As the doors closed, I heard the security man yell, “Hey!” and then a couple other things I couldn’t make out.
When the door opened, I followed the arrows to Intensive Care and opened the double doors. A nurse looked up at me, a telephone pressed to her ear. She raised her hand at me and held it there while she kept listening to someone on the other end. I stood in front of her desk, looking around the place. There were two hallways forming an ell, with the nurse’s station at the intersection. Most of the doors were closed in either direction, with gurneys and IV stands littering the hallways.
Then I saw a man in a uniform sitting in a chair outside one of the rooms, halfway down the hall to my right. He was looking straight ahead at nothing, his hands folded in his lap.
I heard the nurse making some kind of noise behind me as I went down the hall. I wasn’t listening. As I got closer to the man, I saw that he was a Kent County deputy.
He looked at me for a long moment. “Can I help you, sir?” he finally said.
“Who’s in that room?” I said.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m a friend,” I said. I knew Randy was in there. In my gut, I knew he was in that room.
The deputy stood up. “Nobody is allowed in this room,” he said.
“Do you know Chief Rudiger? I’m supposed to meet him here.”
“He’s not going to be happy that you came up here.”
“Just let me see him,” I said. “One minute.”
“Nobody goes in this room,” the deputy said.
As if to prove him wrong, the door opened and a doctor stepped out. While the door was open, I got a quick look inside. One bed, a man with bandages all over his neck. A tube in his mouth. It was Randy.
“Doctor,” I said. “That’s my friend. What’s happening?”
“You know this man?” the doctor said. He was wearing green scrubs, a stethoscope hanging from his neck. “Can you tell me anything about him?”
“He can’t go in there,” the deputy said.
The doctor looked at him and back at me. “Do you know anything about his medical history? We can’t get anything from his family.”
“I don’t think anybody’s even supposed to know who’s in here,” the deputy said.
“Too late,” the doctor said. “If you’ll excuse us.” He took me by the arm and led me down the hall a few yards. The deputy looked unhappy for a moment and then just sat back down on the chair.
“Why is there a county man outside his door?” I said. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “I’m just trying to keep him alive. Do you know if he has any drug allergies?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not going to be of much help to you. Until a few days ago, I hadn’t even seen him for nearly thirty years. Wait a minute-what did you say about his family? Why can’t you get the information from them?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t get through to anybody.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
The doctor shook his head. “He came in yesterday afternoon with a gunshot wound to the neck. He lost about forty percent of his blood and was in hemorrhagic shock. It’s been”-he looked down at his watch-”almost twelve hours. His blood volume is almost back to normal, but he’s still not conscious. In fact, he’s showing signs of paralysis, even though none of the buckshot hit the spinal cord.”
“Buckshot? Somebody shot him with a shotgun?”
“They didn’t get a clean shot,” he said. “Most of it went right over his shoulder. A few inches to the right and he wouldn’t have a head on his body. He should be conscious right now, feeling lucky.”
I thought about it. He’d stayed in Michigan, or else he’d come back. And then he got shot. By a shotgun.
“When will you know?” I said. “When will you know if he’s going to live?”
“That’s hard to say right now. Do you have a card or something? I can give you a call if anything changes.”
I gave him one of my cards. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate this.”
We both heard the footsteps and looked up at the same time. A man was coming down the hallway toward us, moving fast enough to rattle the papers on the bulletin board.
“Have you met the pride of Orcus Beach yet?” the doctor asked.
“Is he a tough customer?”
“No, but he plays one on TV.”
Before I could ask him about that, Chief Howard Rudiger stopped in front of us, his hands hanging down at his sides like a gunslinger. He was breathing heavily, and there was enough mileage on his face to put him in his late fifties, maybe early sixties. But he still had movie-star looks and more hair on his head than any man his age had a right to have. It was black and oiled up into a wave, and it looked so impeccable it could have been a wig. But of course it wasn’t. Police chiefs don’t wear wigs.
He looked at the doctor and then at me. His eyes stayed on me. “You,” he said, pointing his finger at me and then curling it in a come-hither. “Follow me.”
Five minutes later, I was back down on the first floor, sitting in room 119 while Chief Rudiger made the coffee. He stood with his back to me the whole time while he loaded the coffeemaker and then watched it make two cups’ worth. For another five minutes, there was no sound in the room but the steady dripping. I sat there and looked at all the little flowers and seashells on the wallpaper. It was obviously trying to be a cheerful room, in a place where the news is not always good. When I got tired of doing that, I looked at his police hat sitting on the table, ORCUS BEACH, MICHIGAN, it said, with a picture of a cannon sitting on a mound of sand.
He’s making me wait, I thought. I’m supposed to be sitting here wondering what he’s going to ask me, and when he’s going to ask me. An old cop game, but with a twist.
“How do you take it?” he finally said.
“Black,” I said.
He poured out two cups and put them on the table. Then he sat down facing me and took a long sip, looking at me over the rim of his mug. I returned the favor.
“Thank you,” I said. “I needed this.”
He nodded.
“So are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” I said. “Why is there a county man outside his door?”
“We’ll talk about that,” he said. “After I ask you a few questions. We’d be done by now if you hadn’t gone up there on your own.”
“Chief, please,” I said. “Don’t run the hard-ass cop game on me, okay? I was an officer in Detroit for eight years, and I’ve seen it done by the best. Hell, there’s a chief up in the Soo who could show you a few tricks, believe me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“You can’t do it in a room like this, first of all,” I said. “You need a dingy little interview room. In your station. You know, on your home turf. And you should be smoking, so you can blow it in my face. And for God’s sake, you shouldn’t be making me coffee.”
“We don’t have a police station,” he said. “We have one room in back of the town hall. I’m the only full-time officer, with four part-timers. I don’t smoke, and even if I did, I wouldn’t do it in a hospital. And I made you coffee because I was already making some for myself. I’m not playing a ‘hard-ass cop game,’ as you call it, Mr. McKnight. If I decide it’s time to be a hard-ass, believe me, you’ll know it. Now if you’re done with your critique, may I ask you some questions?”