Last Ditch (20 page)

I
think I may
have even raised my arm and said, "No."

AND
THEN I was
back in the upstairs hall, wearing slipper-socks and that stupid plaid
bathrobe, staying off the carpet runner and its three squeaky boards,
creeping
all the way past my mother's room to the back stairs, where the rumble
of the
voices drew me downward toward the kitchen below, to the men who sat
sipping
whiskey and smoking cigars, to the talk of votes and variances and to
that last
dark stair, where, after everyone had gone and the glasses were rinsed,
my
father would find me sleeping and carry me back to my room.

IN
MY BUSINESS
it's pretty much an occupational hazard, but I've always hated getting
hit in
the face. In retrospect, the aversion probably saved my life. The
impact must
have thrown me face-first into the steering wheel. I awoke from my
dream with
hot blood running down my face and cold water running up my legs. For a
second,
I was giddy. I thought I'd fallen asleep at the wheel and was having
one of
those terror-filled "holy guacamole, I'm doing seventy, and don't
remember
the last five miles" moments, but no ... it was my nose . . . something
was emptying out over my upper lip and running down my chin, and I
couldn't
stand it. I pawed at my face and then held my hand out in front of my
eyes for
inspection. In the darkness, the blood gleamed nearly black. For some
odd
reason, I brought the stained hand to my face and licked it. Yup. It
was
official. I was bleeding. I staged a search for my other hand and
located it
over on the left, locked to the steering wheel. I blinked in wonder and
then
raised my eyes to the windshield just in time to see the side of the
ferry and
then a wave breaking over the hood.

Instinctively,
I brought both hands to the wheel and tried to steer, but the little
car merely
rotated slowly in a circle. The numbing cold had rolled up and over my
waist,
nearly paralyzing me. My teeth chattered, and I began to shake
violently.

At
that moment,
the extra weight of the engine in the front of the car stood the Fiat
on its
nose. Straight up and down, that ass-in-the-air,
last-moment-of-the-7i"faw'c pose. I was hanging from my seat belt
harness,
steering straight down into oblivion when the cold came rolling down my
neck. I
shuddered violently and gasped just as the car sank beneath the
surface, and as
I swung gently to the left in the wet blackness, steering happily away,
it came
to me that I was drowning.

I'd
like to
tell you how I remained calm. How I held my breath there in the
darkness,
coolly analyzed my options and realized that if I merely allowed the
car to
fill with water, the pressure inside would soon equalize with the
pressure
outside, allowing me to open the doors and waltz out. I'd like to tell
you
that, but it wouldn't be true.

I
lost it.
Completely. The only thing going through my head was music. I had this
tune
running through my head, and it wouldn't stop. Not a song really, more
like a
fanfare that I kept humming over and over, louder and louder as if to
remind
myself that I was still alive.

I
popped my seat
belt and began to thrash about in the narrow confines of the car,
punching and
kicking, trying desperately to break out a window or push open a door.
The air
in my chest was on fire, and my limbs were cold and clumsy. I put my
back
against the steering wheel and kicked hard at the passenger side
window.
Nothing. A second wild kick went off course, and I put my foot
completely
through the convertible top. I grabbed my leg with both hands and
pulled it
back through the fabric, then righted myself, grabbed the hole and
tugged for
all I was worth.

The
top split
right along the rip I'd fixed this afternoon. I got my feet under me,
stuck one
arm up through the hole and then used my legs to force my shoulders up
and
through. The music was screaming as I shook free of the car and began
to float
slowly upward.

The
sound
stopped abruptly a moment later when I couldn't help but open my mouth
and
replace the burning air in my lungs with sweet cool water. I remember
my chest
convulsing once and then again and then the twin rivers of sparks. The
rest, as
they say, was strictly fade to black.

"Are
you satisfied
now?" Rebecca asked.

Let's
face it,
when you're lying in a hospital bed, from whence a team of seemingly
competent
doctors has decreed thou shall not rise for several days, and you got
there by
doing precisely what everyone on the planet has been telling you not to
do,
this is not a fair question.

If
my throat
hadn't been raw from the collection of tubes they'd been running up and
down it
all night, I'd have defended myself. As it was, I had bigger problems.
She'd
brought visual aids. I pointed at the folded newspaper she carried
beneath her
arm and shook my head. The movement nearly rendered me unconscious.

"You
don't
want to see it?"

"No,"
I croaked.

"Oh,
I really
think you should see this." "Uh-uh."

"You
sound
like Scooby Doo."

She
unfolded
the paper twice, but kept the front page facing in her direction. She
tried to
look disgusted but only managed to smirk.

"There's
good news and bad news, Leo."

It's
a truly
loathsome woman who'll hit a guy when he's down. She didn't even wait
for me to
do my end of the good-news-bad-news joke. "The good news is that the
pictures of your dad and Peerless Price are much smaller this morning."

I
groaned and
tried to turn away, but even the slightest movement of my head sent my
vision
swirling. My head felt as if it were stuffed with steel wool. They'd
given me
enough Tylenol for a vasectomy, but it was barely keeping the
brain-rumor
headache at bay.

"The
bad
news is that the other two pictures are of you on a stretcher and your
car on a
hook." She turned the front page my way, holding it before her like a
banner. "See."

She
was right.
There I was in living color being wheeled to the wagon by a couple of
EMTs.
Thank God for the oxygen mask. The Fiat wasn't so lucky. In the
picture, it
hung on a hook like a dead fish, streaming water from its every pore,
its
once-rakish ragtop peeled back like a cheap toupee. A sad sight indeed.

"Where's
the car?" I whispered.

"I
had
them tow it to Mario's. Bobby says it's a goner."

I
shook my head
and immediately wished I hadn't. "No way."

I
figured I
could get her off on the old "why in God's name do you keep that car"
tangent. That one always works. Would have worked this time too, except
at that
moment the door opened and Trujillo
and Wessels came blowing into the room.

Wessels
took
one look at Duvall and headed for the far wall, over by the John.
Trujillo strode over to
the side of the bed.

"Dr.
Duvall."

"Detective
Trujillo."

"You
guys
catch him yet?" I whispered.

Trujillo
made a
dismissive noise with "his lips.

"You
should count yourself lucky, Waterman. The owner doesn't want to drop a
trespassing charge on you."

I
cleared my
throat. My head was pounding. "What about speeding? I'll bet the car
was
going like hell on its way down to the river."

He
walked over
and handed Rebecca a piece of paper.

"That's
a
bill from the Matson Crane Company. Eleven hundred bucks for pulling
the car
out of the waterway."

"Wouldn't
that be littering?" she inquired.

"No.
With
that car it would be more like toxic dumping. But we've been thinking
about
maybe charging him with filing a false police report, haven't we,
Frank."

Wessels
grinned
but kept his mouth shut.

"Oh,
I get
it," I said. "You bozos can't even come up with a lead on a guy with
no ears?"

Trujillo
flipped open his notebook.
"Let's
see here. We interviewed the president of Triad, who assured us that no
one
fitting your description is in any way associated with Triad Trading.
Frank and
I, we're very thorough, you know, so we double-checked with both
payroll and
personnel ..." He gave me a wink. "You know, just to be on the safe
side. Same deal. No such person. Then we spoke with every guard who
works the
gate on Pier Eighteen. None of whom, incidentally, recall a man with no
ears."

"Not
even
a one-eared guy," Wessels added.

Trujillo
licked his finger and
turned a page.
"We spoke with security for the cold-storage company next door and
guess
what . . ." he waited. "You guessed it. They'd never seen anyone even
remotely like that either." He flipped another page. "Finally, we
even asked the crew working on the ferry on the other side of the
river. The
ones who hustled around and saved your butt, and lo and behold, they
didn't
know a thing about a guy with no ears either." He snapped the notebook
closed and returned it to his pocket.

"So
. . .
unless you've got something else you'd like to share with us . . . this
is
about as far as it goes."

"Some
lunatic attacks me, throws me and my car in the river and you're going
to
forget about it"

He
smiled.
"You know, considering that nobody but you has ever seen this earless
guy
and the doctors tell us you don't have a mark on you after this guy
supposedly
coldcocked you ..." He let it ride. "I hope you won't mind if we
don't exhaust our entire investigative arsenal on this one."

"He
hit me
with a rubber mallet," I said.

Trujillo
nodded with mock gravity.
"Boing," he said.

"The
man
with no ears thumps the man with no brain who found the man with no
hand."
Wessels chortled from the corner. "I think there's a definite pattern
here, Trujillo."

It
was hard to
argue with. I seemed to be developing a disturbing penchant for people
with
missing parts. "Is that all?"

Trujillo
walked over to the side of
the bed.
"No . . . as a matter of fact it's not." He looked over at Duvall and
then turned back to me. "I have been requested by my superior,
Lieutenant
Franklin, to tell you that the Seat-tie Police Department is currently
conducting an open investigation into the death of Peerless Price and
that your
assistance will be neither required nor tolerated." He fixed me with a
long baleful stare. "We don't know what you were doing on Pier
Eighteen,
but we don't like the smell of it. There's general agreement that
you're inclined
to poke your nose in where it doesn't belong. We figure this whole
thing with
Price is going to be too much of a temptation for a guy like you,
Waterman. So,
as an aid to your recuperation, as of this moment, we're pulling your
PI
license and both of your gun-carry permits until further notice." He
dropped a single sheet of folded paper into my lap, executed a crisp
military
turn and headed for the door. Wessels gave me a toodles wave on the way
out.

I
tried to sit
up. The sudden flow of blood to my head made me dizzy. I closed my
eyes. Just
for a second.

When
I opened
my eyes again, the light in the room had shifted. Duvall was gone and
Patrick
Waterman was standing in the middle of the room looking about as
uncomfortable
as I'd ever seen him look.

"You
look
dreadful," he said.

"You
ought
to see it from this side."

"Everyone's
very worried about you." You cur.

"I
was a
little concerned there for a while myself."

He
made a quick
inspection tour of the room.

"Catholic
hospitals even smell differently," he said. "I think it's the
piety." I figured he'd beat around the bush, but he surprised me and
got
to the point.

"I'm
certain I speak for the rest of the family when I say we're relieved to
see
that you're all right, and we all certainly hope a lesson has been
taken here."
You cur.

I
reached over
to the bedside table and got my water glass with the nifty articulated
straw. I
took a long sip and then put it back.

"What
sort
of lesson did you have in mind?"

"That
perhaps sleeping dogs should be allowed to he." He lifted the newspaper
from the chair and held the front page up for me to see. "This would
have
been over by Friday. The carrion eaters would have latched onto some
other poor
family and their tragedy and we could have gotten on with our lives.
Surely
this . . ." He rattled the paper and then returned it to the chair.
"... must suggest to you that some measure of discretion is called for
here." You cur.

When
I didn't
answer, he went into the prepared section of his presentation. "Has it
ever occurred to you, Leo, that perhaps we were never intended to know
our
parents in the way we know other people."