The Man Who Tried to Get Away

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

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  Note:

  By Stephen R. Donaldson

  MOMENT OF TRUTH

  Copyright Page

  To

  Real and Muff Musgrave

  friends to treasure

  1

  Of course, I lost weight. People do that after they’ve been shot in the gut. But I could afford a little weight. Cooking for Ginny had given me more pounds than it did her. My real problem was movement.

  Muy Estobal’s bullet had torn me up pretty good inside, even if it did leave my vital organs alone. And I hadn’t done myself any favors with all that hiking around the night after I got shot. The doctor told me that if I walked to the bathroom with my IVs nailed to my arms every hour or so until he started hearing “bowel sounds,” he would maybe consider removing my catheter. As a special reward for being such a good patient.

  That was easy for him to say. El Señor didn’t want him dead. It wasn’t his problem I might die because of the simple fact that I couldn’t get out of bed.

  I needed to move. To escape from the hospital. Before el Señor sent Estobal’s replacement after me.

  So far I’d only been stuck here for forty-eight hours, and it was already driving me crackers. If they hadn’t given me so many pills, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night. I would’ve stayed awake the whole time, watching the door. Expecting to see some goon with at least an Uzi come in to blow me away.

  Ginny hadn’t been much help. She kept telling me that there wasn’t any danger, there was too much heat on el Señor, he couldn’t afford to risk having me hit so soon. Which should’ve been true, I suppose. And I should’ve believed her. I’d believed her when she first said it.

  Hadn’t I?

  But after that, unfortunately, I got a phone call.

  It came during the day, when the hospital switchboard was on automatic, and the winter sunlight and the blue sky outside my window made everything I could see look safe. But I must not have been feeling particularly safe, because I believed my caller right away.

  When the phone rang, I picked it up and said, “Huh,” because that’s easier than hello when your whole torso is strapped with bandages and you don’t feel much like breathing deeply anyway.

  A voice I almost knew said, “Get out of there. He wants you. You’re a sitting duck.”

  Then the line went dead.

  Cheered me right up, that did.

  When I told Ginny about it, she looked just for a second like she believed it, too. Her gray eyes sharpened, and the lines around her broken nose went tight. But after that she grinned. “Probably somebody’s idea of a joke.”

  Oh, sure. I’d killed Muy Estobal, el Señor’s favorite muscle. Together, Ginny and I’d disrupted el Señor’s revenge on a man who’d ripped him off and murdered one of his people. Everyone around him probably laughed out loud whenever my name came up.

  But my caller wasn’t finished.

  The next day, the doctor heard gurgling in my guts—bowel function struggling back to life—and took out the catheter. I got the thrill of starting to feed myself hospital gruel, which tasted like pureed dog food. And I was encouraged to get out of bed and actually stand until pain made my head ring like a gong, and my famous bowels hurt like they’d been shredded.

  I was horizontal again, holding on to the bed and doing my best not to gasp, when the phone rang.

  This time my caller said, “I mean it. You haven’t got much time. He wants you dead.”

  I felt like I was inches away from recognizing that voice, but I couldn’t pull it in. Gremlins in spiked boots raced up and down my intestines, distracting me.

  “Who?” I asked. At the moment I didn’t care how much it hurt to breathe so hard. “Who wants me dead? Who are you? Why are you warning me?”

  The line switched to a dial tone.

  So when Ginny stopped by for her daily visit, I made her get the .45 out of my locker and leave it where I could reach it.

  “You’re taking this too seriously.” She sounded bored. “El Señor is practically paralyzed right now. The cops are watching everything he does. Even crooked cops are going to be honest for a while, with this much heat on. The commissioner is talking about ‘wiping out organized crime in Puerta del Sol.’ The newspapers are jumping up and down. I get interviewed at least once a day. Fistoulari Investigations never had so much publicity. I’m actually having to turn clients away.

  “Brew, you’re safe. Just relax. Get well.”

  Just relax. Why didn’t I think of that? “If this is supposed to be a joke,” I muttered past my bandages, “I’d hate to meet whoever’s doing it when he’s in a bad mood.”

  “You sure you can’t identify the voice?”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it was better than arguing.

  “I’ll check with the switchboard on my way out.” Now she was humoring me. “Maybe they can take your line out of the automatic circuit. If we screen your calls, maybe we’ll find out who’s calling.”

  I wanted to say, Don’t screen my calls. Get me out of here. But I didn’t. I let her go. She and I had too many problems, and the worst of them was that we were afraid of each other. We hadn’t had a straight conversation in months because we were both too busy trying to control each other’s reactions. She was afraid that if she said or did the wrong thing, I’d go get drunk and never be sober again. And I feared that I might push her back into being the lost woman she’d become after she lost her hand.

  She wore her “prosthetic device” now, the mechanical claw that took the place of her left hand. Which was an improvement. But she still wore it like a handicap instead of something familiar, something she trusted. I figured that the only reason she wore it was to appease me. She was afraid of what I might do if she didn’t. She had it on to protect me. Or to protect herself against me.

  I loved her. I used to think she loved me. But it didn’t show. Everything was twisted. We might as well have been chained together by our various fears. So I didn’t tell that her I was too scared to stay in the hospital by myself. I didn’t want to add to her worries.

  Unfortunately the switchboard couldn’t take just one line off automatic. The next day, I got another call.

  By then I’d spent twenty-four hours expecting it. I was just a touch jumpy when I reached for the phone. Ol’ nerves-of-steel Axbrewder. Weak as spaghetti in that damn bed, I fumbled the receiver onto the floor and had to pull it up by the cord to answer it.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t hang up,” I said.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I said.

  Impressive, no?

  The silence on the line sounded like snickering.

  “How did you get my number?”

  “Hospital information,” the voice I almost knew replied. “Anybody in Puerta del Sol can find out what room you’re in just by asking. You’re a dead man.”

  Leaving me with that cheery thought, my caller put down the phone.

  A couple of hours later, Ginny showed up. I told her about the call, but she didn’t seem particularly interested. Instead, she studied me as if I were exhibiting strange side effects to a new medication. “This has
really got you going,” she commented. Observant as all hell.

  “Think about it,” I snarled as well as I could. “How many people hate me enough to consider this kind of joke funny?”

  But my vehemence didn’t ruffle her. “Think about it yourself, Brew,” she replied calmly. “How many people love you enough to give you this kind of warning?”

  That stopped me. Who would know that el Señor actively wanted me dead? Only someone close to him. And who in that group would give a good goddamn what happened to me? Which one of his people would risk warning me?

  No one fit that description.

  I made an effort to look more relaxed. “I guess you’re right. It must be a practical joke. Some minor sociopath dialed the number and liked my reaction. Maybe he even dialed it at random.” I was trying to play along with her. Defuse anxiety. But the idea that I wasn’t worried was pure bullshit and moonshine, and I couldn’t keep it going. “It’s just a coincidence that I’ve actually got enemies.”

  “No, you don’t,” she retorted, grinning. Maybe she found it funny when I sounded so pitiful. Or maybe she was just keeping her guard up. “That’s what I keep trying to tell you. El Señor is paralyzed. There isn’t anybody else.”

  I liked her grin, no matter what it meant. But it didn’t cheer me up. Things like immobility and helplessness put too much pressure on my morale.

  I was recovering too slowly. Where the hell were my recuperative powers when I needed them? Movement is life. I was running out of time.

  I waited until Ginny left. Then I climbed vertical and practiced lugging the tight lump of fire I called my stomach around the room. Unfortunately that just aggravated my discouragement. About the time that pain and exhaustion got bad enough to make me sob, I decided to lie down and just let el Señor kill me.

  Teach her a lesson, that would.

  Self-pity may not be my most attractive quality, but I’m damn good at it.

  So she took me completely by surprise when she came in early the next morning, before any phone calls, and asked, “Can you walk out of here?”

  I stared at her.

  “Well, can you?”

  I stared at her some more.

  She sighed. “If you can get out of bed,” she explained with elaborate patience, “put your clothes on, and walk out of here, we’re leaving. I’ve got a job for us.”

  That early in the morning, I was still muzzy with sleeping pills. Nevertheless a few dopey synapses in my head went click. Before I could question them, I said, “You believe those phone calls.”

  She nodded sharply.

  “I can’t talk the cops into protective custody, but hospital security is watching your room most of the time. And the nurses here remember you.” She gestured with her left arm, and her claw gave me a flash of stainless steel. She’d lost her hand to a bomb in this hospital. “They’re doing what they can to keep an eye on you.”

  She didn’t let me interrupt. “It isn’t enough. If you don’t get out of here today, I’m going to move in with you.”

  I shook my head without realizing it. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you try to make me think you were laughing at me?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry,” she snapped. “You’re supposed to be recuperating, not lying there in a muck sweat.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Fistoulari, ma’am, sir,” I muttered.

  In a fine display of moral fortitude and physical courage, I closed my eyes.

  “Brew.” Her patience slipped a notch. “I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” I said through a haze of drugs and fear. “Go away. This stinks.”

  “What’s the matter? Those calls obviously bother you. Don’t you want to get away from them?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “But not like this.” In fact, the whole idea made me cringe. I was tired of being protected. Not to mention being protected against. “If it’s a real job, the last thing you need is a half-ambulatory cripple on your hands. And if it’s a nursemaid exercise for my benefit, just to keep me out of trouble, I don’t want it.” For a few months now I’d believed in myself enough to stop drinking—but that, as they say, was tenuous at best. The last thing I needed was one less reason for self-respect. “You said you’re turning clients away. Pick a job you can do by yourself. Leave me alone.”

  Unfortunately that shut her up. She didn’t say anything for so long that I finally had to open my eyes to see if she was still in the room.

  She was.

  She stood at the window with her back to me, hiding her face against the morning. Something about the line of her back, the way she held her shoulders, told me that I’d hurt her.

  “Ginny—” I wanted to explain somehow, if I could just think of the words. But nothing came out of my mouth.

  After a while she asked the glass, “Why is this so hard?”

  “I don’t know.” My usual frightened contribution to our relationship. “Everything we do to each other matters too much.”

  She turned.

  With the sunlight behind her, I almost missed the fighting light in her eyes. Wearing the conservative suits she preferred, her respected-private-investigator clothes, her blond hair tidy around her fine face and her mouth under control, she looked like nothing so much as an up-and-coming businesswoman, lean and ready. Except for her broken nose, and that light in her eyes, and her claw. The punk who broke her nose was long dead. She’d shot him more than once, just in case he missed the point the first time.

  “It’s a nursemaid job,” she said straight at me, “a piece of cake. You may remember the commission suspended my license.” Her tone dripped pure acid. “It’s temporary, but for the time being there are only certain kinds of jobs I’m allowed to take. And the fee is real. You know I can’t afford to ignore that. And it’s out of town. Up in the mountains, where el Señor isn’t likely to find you. It’ll give you a week where you don’t have to do anything worse than walk around.”

  I did my best to shake my head in a way that would make her believe me. “I don’t care about that. I—”

  She cut me off.

  “Listen. Just once, listen to me. I suppose I could take what money I’ve got and borrow the rest and just buy you a plane ticket. You could disappear. Make it hard for el Señor to find you.

  “But that won’t work. We’ve tried it before, and it never works. You end up drunk somewhere, and eventually I have to come get you.

  “Or I could go with you. I could sit around watching you until we both went walleyed or my money ran out. That won’t work either. You know it won’t.

  “The only thing that ever does you any good is a job. As far as I can tell, you only stay away from alcohol when you’ve got people depending on you.

  “Well, this job isn’t exactly hard. We can’t take on anything difficult with you in this condition. But it’s still a job. It’ll give you something to do, people to take care of. I don’t have anything else to offer.

  “I don’t care whether you want it or not. We’re going to accept that job if you can just stand.”

  For a second there I felt so sick that I wanted to throw up. Absolutely puke my life away. I had an existential knife in my guts. She was protecting me again. Protecting against me again.

  But then, all of a sudden, it occurred to me that knives cut both ways. Whether she intended it or not, she was offering me a chance to take care of myself. A chance to get up on my feet and make some of my own decisions.

  So I relented. I wasn’t exactly gracious about it. In fact, I was angry as hornets. But I said, “I don’t know why I bother arguing with you. I don’t like nursemaid operations. I don’t like being nursemaided. But I haven’t got any better ideas. In any case, you’re going to take care of me no matter what I do. I don’t have the strength or the willpower to stop you. This way I can at least try to return the favor.”

  Ginny glared at me. The flash of her claw in the light reminded me that she had her own reasons to hate being taken care of. She’d been depend
ent on me for six months after she lost her hand—and she was only just now starting to get over it. Sounding bitter, she rasped, “Is it the sleeping pills, or are you always this perceptive?”

  I ignored her irritation. The pain in my stomach lost its metaphysical significance. A job. Something to do. I wanted that, no question about it. As soon as I agreed to go back to work, I forgot that knives do only one thing, and it isn’t called healing.

  Helping myself up with both hands, I got out of bed.

  2

  I remembered getting dressed. I’d done it once before, when the hole in my gut was more recent. But that time I’d been too full of drugs and panic to have much rational grasp on what I did to myself. This time I knew where every single suture inside me was, and I could feel it pulling.

  One thing you’ve got to say for us private investigators. We know how to have a good time.

  Technically, of course, Ginny is the private investigator. She’s Fistoulari Investigations. I’m just the hired help. I haven’t had a license for this kind of work for years—not since I tried to help a cop who happened to be my brother apprehend a purse snatcher and accidentally shot him. Under the influence of alcohol. Amazing how the things we love best are the things that hurt us most. I couldn’t remember the last time I had one entire day where the idea of a drink didn’t sound like heaven.

  But I didn’t drink when I was working. In fact, I hadn’t had a drink since the day I figured out that Ginny needed me as badly as I needed her—since the day she lost her hand. But that was starting to change. She wore her claw now, did things for herself. Every time I saw her, she was more the woman I used to know, the Ginny Fistoulari who could go after Satan himself and not take any prisoners.

  Which was a good thing, as far as it went. The only problem was, it left me with fewer ways to protect her. Or to protect myself against her.

  On the other hand, getting dressed was work, no question about it. And we had a job to do. That was at least useful as a distraction.

  She watched me have fun with my shirt for a minute or two. Then she said, “Why don’t I go get your paperwork done? That way we won’t have to wait around for discharge.” She knew how I felt about having an audience while I suffered.