The Night Before (11 page)

Joe said, “Yes, sir, but I'm hoping you'll come, too. For Christmas morning. We'll have breakfast.” He felt a catch in his throat. “It's a family tradition.”

The music played softly from the radio. Reverend Callum seemed to be looking past Joe and at something in the distance. He said, “That's kind of you, but…”

“You have someplace to be?” The reverend shook his head. “Then I'd consider it a favor. And an honor.”

Reverend Callum laughed quietly. “You show up with three strangers, three
black
strangers, and your wife's going to hit the roof. It's what, now, three in the morning?”

“She'll be fine. The kids, too.” He tamped down the throb in his chest and found himself saying please again, and then, “I'd be grateful.”

“It's a kind invitation,” the reverend said.

Joe said, “So we can go now?”

It was time for the last act and Joe was ready to get on with it. He spent a minute sharing the plan with Nicole as Malikah dozed in her lap. When he finished, she treated him to a searching look.

“You sure it's all right?” she said.

“It's fine. The reverend's coming along.”

She said, “I figured he would be.”

Joe stepped out the door onto the snow-crusted sidewalk. Behind him, Malikah's voice was like a sleepy bell as she asked where they were going now. He was turning to answer her when he heard a loud crack followed by another and felt a blow and then a knifing pain in his left bicep. As he clutched his elbow, he heard the reverend shout something and Nicole shriek all raw and angry.

“What?” he said over the noise in his ears. “What's wrong?” Nicole was yelling, “Goddamn you, Terry!
Goddamn
you!”

Now he felt a searing heat in his arm and he groped to find the sleeve of his coat soaked wet. In the next second, Reverend Callum whipped around him in a dark blur as he went to his knees on the cold concrete.

The first cruiser came wailing from Northampton Street with wild lights flashing. Joe, slouching against the storefront, shoved aside the impossible notion that he had been shot to consider that without the whooping of the sirens, the red and white and blue lights would be full of festive life.

Nicole had pulled his coat off one arm. She groaned when she saw his sweater wet with blood. She whipped off her scarf and wrapped it around the arm as far up as she could go and he grunted at the pain. But the bleeding stopped and the sharp ache settled into a throb.

In a breathless rush, she told him that Terry had fired twice. One bullet hit Joe's arm. The second had nicked Reverend Callum's right hand. Joe saw the reverend standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his foot planted on Terry's hollow chest and his hands clasped together as if in violent prayer. Nicole had ministered to him, too, wrapping a towel from the church bathroom around a wound to his palm.

“Where did he come from?” Joe asked her.

“He must have followed us from the house. Saw the van and…” Her voice trembled. “I'm so sorry. I can't believe he did this.”

Watching her face, Joe's fog lifted a bit. “What about Malikah?”

“She's okay. She's inside.”

“You left her alone with the cookies?” he said and saw sudden tears spring to Nicole's eyes.

The sirens blared louder and in the next seconds, the first patrol car slid to the curb. Two officers leaped out, their weapons drawn and pointed upward. Stalking around the car to the sidewalk, they conducted an instant survey of the scene. One of them, a short black man with a lean build, seemed to know the reverend and asked him to stand away. In a flurry of rough motion, he and his partner cuffed Terry and jerked him to his feet. The second cop, white and as burly as a wrestler, hustled the suspect to the cruiser and bent him over the hood.

The black cop approached Joe, kneeled down, peered at his bloody sleeve, and stared into his face. “Thomas” was spelled out on the silver tag over his breast pocket.

He said, “Sir, are you all right?” Joe nodded. “The EMTs are on the way. What's your name?”

“Joe Kelly. Joseph.”

“Do you have some ID, sir?”

Joe said, “Pocket.”

Nicole fished until she found his wallet. She handed the policeman Joe's license and he flicked his minimag over it. “What happened here?” he said. “I didn't see,” Joe said. The cop turned to Nicole. “Ma'am?”

She told him in a shaking voice how Joe had gone out the door ahead of her. She heard the two shots. The reverend shouted something and Joe folded to his knees. She saw Terry standing thirty feet down the walk with the pistol in his hand. She was dragging Malikah out of the way when Reverend Callum charged past her, knocked the weapon out of Terry's hand, and smacked him to the sidewalk.

Joe was awed. “He did that?”

She nodded. “Knocked him right down. Then stood on him.”

Officer Thomas tilted his head to the cruiser and said, “And this individual. Mister…”

“Neal,” Nicole said.

“Neal. He followed you here?”

“He lives down on Grant Street,” she said. “That's where he came from.” The cop's eyes shifted back to Joe. “How do you know him, sir?”

Joe said, “I don't. Didn't. He put her and the kid out of the house. I was helping the reverend tonight and went to collect them.”

“You were helping the reverend how?” Thomas said. “I answered the phone for him.”

The officer was about to ask another question when the clashing lights and sirens of a second and a third cruiser and a boxy ambulance cut him off. He told Joe he'd wait for the EMTs to work on him before taking the rest of his statement. He straightened and stepped back as the ambulance slid to the curb.

The EMT who jumped down from the passenger side looked too young, but was clearly the one in charge. Her hair was cut short and parted in the middle, and though she was all business, Joe liked her face. He guessed she was Italian and smiled when he saw the tag stitched on to her jumpsuit.
Antonicci.
In two quick movements, she opened one of the side panels on the truck and pulled out a medical kit. The driver who stepped from the cab was in his thirties and reminded Joe of a soldier. They conferred with Officer Thomas, glancing over at Joe and Reverend Callum. The driver grabbed a kit of his own and moved to tend to the reverend.

Officer Thomas and Antonicci kneeled down. The EMT nodded briefly to Nicole, glanced at Joe's face, then studied his arm. Joe regarded her in a daze. She had a nice face, olive-toned with freckles, a good nose, and very dark eyes.

She was all business. “Sir?” she said. “Can you get up and walk to the ambulance?”

Joe nodded and said, “Think so.”

Officer Thomas bent down and he and the EMT helped him to his feet. They stood still for a moment, then Antonicci fitted herself under his left arm and wrapped him around his waist, as if they were lovers embarking on a stroll. He felt like giggling as she managed him across the sidewalk toward the back of the ambulance.

Nicole said, “My daughter. She's inside.”

Office Thomas said, “Go ahead, ma'am. Just don't leave the scene, please.” Joe and the EMT had gone only a few steps when he stopped.

“Wait a minute.” He moved his good arm to pat his pockets in a clumsy way. “Where is it?”

“Where is what, sir?”

“It was in my pocket,” Joe said. “A box.”

The officer patted Joe's coat and then the front of his jeans. “What kind of box, sir?”

“Something I bought. I think I dropped it.”

He tried to turn around but Antonicci was holding him fast. “We've got to get into the vehicle now.”

Joe turned his head to call over his shoulder. “Nicole!” The movement made him dizzy and his legs went loose. The EMT lifted his foot onto the metal step and she and the cop hoisted him into the back of the ambulance.

Antonicci peeled off Joe's coat and then his sweater and shirt. After cleaning the wound with a solution that shot shards of pain through his arm, she bound it with a bandage and draped a blanket over his exposed side. She explained that he had suffered a gunshot wound to his bicep. That part he knew. “It was a small caliber,” she said. “A .22 or a .25. The bullet passed through the back without striking the bone, so the damage is all to tissue. But you're going to require treatment at the ER. We'll be transporting you in a few minutes.”

“Transporting me where?”

“Charity.”

Joe said, “Shot?” He was back to being stunned by the news. Antonicci peered more closely. “Is there anyone you want to call?” Joe thought about it. He shook his head. “Not now. Later.”

The EMT gave the bandages another inspection, then told him they'd be leaving directly and made her way back to the cab.

After a few numb seconds, a film began rolling in his head. First came the blunt, sudden shock, followed by the bolt of pain. The sidewalk tilts and he's on his knees, staring at the dark stain seeping through the fabric of his coat. In the next instant, he turns his head to see Terry standing twenty feet away, a shaking wreck, the pistol dangling from his hand. Reverend Callum appears from out of the frame moving with an agility that's amazing for such a large man, grabs Terry's wrist, twists the weapon away, then slaps him to the ground with a thick palm. Only after he kicks the pistol down the sidewalk and plants one large shoe on Terry's chest does he clutch his own bloody left hand. Nicole is kneeling at his side, her eyes wild, wailing,
Oh, my God! What should I
do?
What should I do?
Joe says:
My cell phone. 911
- And she fumbles into his coat pockets until she finds it and starts punching numbers. He looks past her to see Malikah gaping in wonder at his arm, her mouth a wide O as the projector winds down and stops.

A magazine article he had read came to mind. It was a story about movie deals falling through because the incidents they were based on were so improbable that no one would believe something that crazy could have happened. Now he understood.

Officer Thomas reappeared, clipboard in hand. He climbed into the ambulance, sat down on the opposite bench, and spent a few minutes letting Joe walk him through the crime, starting with the call to the church and ending with the reverend slapping Terry to the ground. The cop closed his clipboard and told Joe to expect to be contacted about a court date. He called up to Antonicci that he was finished and with a perfunctory nod, stepped down. In the next moment, Nicole climbed inside and handed Joe the zebrawood box. He sighed with relief and clutched it tight.

She went back to tend to Malikah and Reverend Callum appeared at the ambulance door. “How are you feeling, son?”

“I'm all right,” Joe said. “How about you?”

The reverend flipped his bandaged hand. “This ain't nothing,” he said. “Just barely got me.” Nicole and Malikah sidled up next to him and peered inside. Behind them, the car with Terry in the back seat pulled out, blue lights flashing in the darkness. “You taking him to Charity?” the reverend called to Antonicci. “Yes, sir,” the EMT said. “We'll be leaving in just a second.”

“We'll follow you, then.” He smiled at Joe. “You know, we're both lucky it wasn't worse. Boy would have pointed that pistol an inch or two left or right and…” He lifted his arms and said, “I guess God had other plans for us tonight.”

Joe stared at Reverend Callum's retreating back. He was still working to get his mind around the reverend's parting words when the male EMT stepped up to strap him to the steel cot and then join Antonicci in the cab.

By the time they reached the hospital, Joe was wondering frankly if he had been transported into someone else's movie after all. Never one to shy away from trouble, he had never hidden behind his computer and then pretended to know life's raw realities. He had worked blue-collar jobs, construction and such, and had always felt more at home on the funkier side of a street. It was yet another point on which he and Mariel diverged, but he believed his books were the better for it and so did the critics who had reviewed them. He was not afraid to get his hands dirty, get into it,
engage.

But this night was beyond ridiculous. If it wasn't for the hole in his arm, the stricken looks on the faces of Nicole and Malikah, and the gleaming display of steel, glass, and plastic apparatus around him, it could have been a silly dream, a plot line he made up and then discarded.

The ER nurse, a brisk and cheerful Latina, escorted him to a gurney and then closed the curtain. He sat there for a little while, trying to piece together the fragments of the last ten hours and wondering if it would ever make sense. Heroes got shot, but he didn't feel like a hero. Mariel and Christian would be distraught when they found out. He hoped Hannah wouldn't think it had been a thrilling adventure. Maybe the reality of his wound would shock her out of such notions. He could only hope.

The curtain opened and the nurse was back with a doctor who looked like a gawky kid. He asked Joe some general questions and his condition. Neither he nor the nurse was all that excited about his wound, just another entry in a catalog of damaged body parts. In what seemed a matter of a few busy seconds, the doctor had cleansed and stitched his flesh and the nurse had re-bandaged and wrapped and taped his bicep. The doctor wrote out some prescriptions and now it was the nurse asking Joe if there anyone he wanted to contact.

Joe thought it over and pictured Mariel answering the phone in the middle of her frenetic night to hear him babbling a story about getting shot and going to the hospital. She'd think he'd lost his mind. Also, there was the chance that she wouldn't pick up, fearing what she might hear. He shook his head. “My friends are outside.”

The nurse said, “All right, then. Someone's coming in to get your insurance information and all that.” Joe made a face and she said, “I know. But as soon as she's done, you can go.”