Well, no, not really, Kelly admitted to himself, parking the car. So what if it was vengeance? Ten minutes later another garbage bag filled with another set of discarded clothes found its way to the Dumpster, and Kelly enjoyed another shower before making a telephone call.
“Nurses’ station, O’Toole.”
“Sandy? It’s John. Still getting out at three?”
“You do have good timing,” she said, allowing herself a private smile at her stand-up desk. “The damn car is broke again.” And taxicabs cost too much.
“Want me to look at it?” Kelly asked.
“I wish somebody could fix it.”
“I make no promises,” she heard him say. “But I come cheap.”
“How cheap?” Sandy asked, knowing what the reply would be.
“Permit me to buy you dinner? You can pick the place, even.”
“Yes, okay ... but ... ”
“But it’s still too soon for both of us. Yes, ma’am, I know that. Your virtue is not endangered—honest.”
She had to laugh. It was just so incongruous that this big man could be so self-effacing. And yet she knew that she could trust him, and she was weary of cooking dinner for one, and being alone and alone and alone. Too soon or not, she needed company sometimes.
“Three-fifteen,” she told him, “at the main entrance.”
“I’ll even wear my patient bracelet.”
“Okay.” Another laugh, surprising another nurse who passed by the station with a trayful of medications. “Okay, I said yes, didn’t I?”
“Yes, ma’am. See you then,” Kelly said with a chuckle, hanging up.
Some human contact would be nice, he told himself, heading out the door. First Kelly headed to a shoe store, where he purchased a pair of black high-tops, size eleven. Then he found four more shoe stores, where he did the same, trying not to get the same brand, but he ended up with one duplicate pair even so. The same problem attended the purchase of bush jackets. He could find only two brand names for that type of garment, and ended up getting a pair of duplicates, then to discover that they were exactly the same, different only in the name tag inside the neck. Planned diversity in disguise, he found, was harder than he’d expected it to be, but that didn’t lessen the necessity of sticking to his plan. On getting back to his apartment—he was, perversely, thinking of it as “home” though he knew better—he stripped everything of tags and headed for the laundry room, where all the clothes went into the machine on a hot-hot cycle with plenty of Clorox bleach, along with the remaining dark-color clothes he’d picked up at yard sales. He was down to three clothing sets now, and realized he’d have to shop for more.
The thought evoked a frown. More yard sales, which he found tedious, especially now that he’d developed an operational routine. Like most men Kelly hated shopping, now all the more since his adventures were of necessity repetitive. His routine was also tiring him out, both from lack of sleep and the unremitting tension of his activity. None of it was routine, really. Everything was dangerous. Even though he was becoming accustomed to his mission, he would not become inured to the dangers, and the stress was there. That was partly good news in that he wasn’t taking anything lightly, but stress could also wear at any man in little, hard-to-perceive ways such as the increased heart rate and blood pressure that resulted in fatigue. He was controlling it with exercise, Kelly thought, though sleep was becoming a problem. All in all it was not unlike working the weeds in 3rd SOG, but he was older now, and the lack of backup, the absence of companions to share the stress and ease the strain in the off-hours, was taking its toll. Sleep, he told himself, checking his watch. Kelly switched on the TV set in the bedroom, catching a noon news show.
“Another drug dealer was found dead in west Baltimore today,” the reporter announced.
“I know,” Kelly said back, fading out for his nap.
“Here’s the story,” a Marine colonel said at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, while another was doing much the same thing at exactly the same time at Camp Pendleton, California. “We have a special job. We’re selecting volunteers exclusively from Force Recon. We need fifteen people. It’s dangerous. It’s important. It’s something you’ll be proud of doing after it’s over. The job will last two to three months. That’s all I can say.”
At Lejeune a collection of perhaps seventy-five men, all combat veterans, all members of The Corps’ most exclusive unit, sat in their hard-backed chairs. Recon Marines, they’d all volunteered to become Marines first—there were no draftees here—then done so again to join the elite within the elite. There was a slightly disproportionate representation of minorities, but that was only a matter of interest to sociologists. These men were Marines first, last, always, as alike as their green suits could make them. Many bore scars on their bodies, because their job was more dangerous and demanding than that of ordinary infantrymen. They specialized in going out in small groups, to look and learn, or to kill with a very high degree of selectivity. Many of them were qualified snipers, able to place an aimed shot in a particular head at four hundred yards, or a chest at over a thousand, if the target had the good manners to stand still for the second or two needed for the bullet to cover the longer distance. They were the hunters. Few had nightmares from their duties, and none would ever fall victim to delayed-stress syndrome, because they deemed themselves to be predators, not prey, and lions know no such feelings.
But they were also men. More than half had wives and/or children who expected Daddy to come home from time to time; the rest had sweethearts and looked forward to settling down in the indeterminate future. All had served one thirteen-month tour of duty. Many had served two; a handful had actually served three, and none of this last group would volunteer. Some of them might have, perhaps most, had they only known the nature of the mission, because the call of duty was unusually strong in them, but duty takes many forms, and these men judged that they had served as much as any man should for one war. Now their job was to train their juniors, passing along the lessons that had enabled them to return home when others almost as good as they were had not; that was their institutional duty to The Corps, they all thought, as they sat quietly in their chairs and looked at the Colonel on the stage, wondering what it was, intensely curious but not curious enough to place their lives at risk again after having done so too often already. A few of them looked furtively left and right, reading the faces of the younger men, knowing from the expressions which ones would linger in the room and place their names in the hat. Many would regret not staying behind, knowing even now that not knowing what it was all about, and probably never finding out, would forever leave a blank spot on their consciences—but against that they weighed the faces of their wives and children and decided no, not this time.
After a few moments the men rose and filed out. Perhaps twenty-five or thirty stayed behind to register their names as volunteers. Their personnel jackets would be collected quickly and evaluated, and fifteen of their number would be selected in a process that appeared random but was not. Some special slots had to be filled with special skills, and in the nature of volunteering, some of the men rejected would actually be better and more proficient warriors than some of those accepted because their personal skills had been made redundant by another volunteer. Such was life in uniform, and the men all accepted it, each with feelings of regret and relief as they returned to their normal duties. By the end of the day, the men who were going were assembled and briefed on departure times and nothing more. A bus would be taking them, they noted. They couldn’t be going very far. At least not yet.
Kelly awoke at two and got himself cleaned up. This afternoon’s mission demanded that he look civilized, and so he wore a shirt and a tie and a jacket. His hair, still growing back from being shaved, needed a trim, but it was a little late for that. He selected a blue tie for his blue blazer and white shirt and walked out to where the Scout was parked, looking like the executive salesman he’d pretended to be, waving at the apartment manager on t
he way.
Luck smiled on Kelly. There was an opening on the traffic loop at the hospital’s main entrance, and he walked in to see a large statue of Christ in the lobby, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet high, staring down at him with a benign expression more fitting to a hospital than to what Kelly had been doing only twelve hours earlier. He walked around it, his back to the statue’s back because he didn’t need that sort of question on his conscience—not now.
Sandy O’Toole appeared at three-twelve, and when he saw her come through the oak doors Kelly smiled until he saw the look on her face. A moment later he understood why. A surgeon was right behind her, a short, swarthy man in greens, walking as rapidly as his short legs permitted and talking loudly at her. Kelly hesitated, looking on with curiosity as Sandy stopped and turned, perhaps tired of running away or merely bending to the necessity of the moment. The doctor was of her height, perhaps a little less, speaking so rapidly that Kelly didn’t catch all the words while Sandy looked in his eyes with a blank expression.
“The incident report is filed, doctor,” she said during a brief pause in his tirade.
“You have no right to do that!” The eyes blazed angrily in his dark, pudgy face, causing Kelly to draw a little closer.
“Yes, I do, doctor. Your medication order was incorrect. I am the team leader, and I am required to report medication errors.”
“I am ordering you to withdraw that report! Nurses do not give orders to doctors!” What followed was language that Kelly didn’t like, especially in the presence of God’s image. As he watched, the doctor’s dark face grew darker, and he leaned into the nurse’s space, his voice growing louder. For her part, Sandy didn’t flinch, refusing to allow herself to be intimidated, which goaded the doctor further.
“Excuse me.” Kelly intruded on the dispute, not too close, just to let everyone know that someone was here, and momentarily drawing an angry look from Sandra O’Toole. “I don’t know what you two are arguing about, but if you’re a doctor and the lady here is a nurse, maybe you two can disagree in a more professional way,” he suggested in a quiet voice.
It was as though the physician hadn’t heard a thing. Not since he was sixteen years old had anyone ignored Kelly so blatantly. He drew back, wanting Sandy to handle this herself, but the doctor’s voice merely grew louder, switching now to a language he didn’t understand, mixing English vituperation with Farsi. Through it all Sandy stood her ground, and Kelly was proud of her, though her face was growing wooden and her impassive mien had to be masking some real fear now. Her impassive resistance only goaded the doctor into raising his hand and then his voice even more. It was when he called her a “fucking cunt,” doubtless something learned from a local citizen, that he stopped. The fist that he’d been waving an inch from Sandy’s nose had disappeared, encased, he saw with surprise, in the hairy forepaw of a very large man.
“Excuse me,” Kelly said in his gentlest voice. “Is there somebody upstairs who knows how to fix a broken hand?” Kelly had wrapped his fingers around the surgeon’s smaller, more delicate hand, and was pressing the fingers inward, just a little.
A security guard came through the door just then, drawn by the noise of the argument. The doctor’s eyes went that way at once.
“He won’t get here fast enough to help you, doctor. How many bones in the human hand, sir?” Kelly asked.
“Twenty-eight,” the doctor replied automatically.
“Want to go for fifty-six?” Kelly tightened his pressure.
The doctor’s eyes closed on Kelly’s, and the smaller man saw a face whose expression was neither angry nor pleased, merely there, looking at him as though he were an object, whose polite voice was a mocking expression of superiority. Most of all, he knew that the man would do it.
“Apologize to the lady,” Kelly said next.
“I do not abase myself before women!” the doctor hissed. A little more pressure on the hand caused his face to change. Only a little additional force, he knew, and things would begin to separate.
“You have very bad manners, sir. You only have a little time to learn better ones.” Kelly smiled. “Now,” he commanded. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, Nurse O’Toole,” the man said, without really meaning it, but the humiliation was still a bleeding gash on his character. Kelly released the hand. Then he lifted the doctor’s name tag, and read it before staring again into his eyes.
“Doesn’t that feel better, Doctor Khofan? Now, you won’t ever yell at her again, at least not when she’s right and you’re wrong, will you? And you won’t ever threaten her with bodily harm, will you?” Kelly didn’t have to explain why that was a bad idea. The doctor was flexing his fingers to work off the pain. “We don’t like that here, okay?”
“Yes, okay,” the man said, wanting to run away.
Kelly took his hand again, shaking it with a smile, just enough pressure for a reminder. “I’m glad you understand, sir. I think you can go now.”
And Dr. Khofan left, walking past the security guard without so much as a look. The guard did give one to Kelly, but let it go at that.
“Did you have to do that?” Sandy asked.
“What do you mean?” Kelly replied, turning his head around.
“I was handling it,” she said, now moving to the door.
“Yes, you were. What’s the story, anyway?” Kelly asked in a reasonable voice.
“He prescribed the wrong medication, elderly man with a neck problem, he’s allergic to the med, and it’s on the chart,” she said, the words spilling out rapidly as Sandy’s stress started bleeding off. “It could have really hurt Mr. Johnston. Not the first time with him, either. Doctor Rosen might get rid of him this time, and he wants to stay here. He likes pushing nurses around, too. We don’t like that. But I was handling it!”
“Next time I’ll let him break your nose, then.” Kelly waved to the door. There wouldn’t be a next time; he’d seen that in the little bastard’s eyes.
“And then what?” Sandy asked.
“Then he’ll stop being a surgeon for a while. Sandy, I don’t like seeing people do things like that, okay? I don’t like bullies, and I really don’t like seeing them push women around.”
“You really hurt people like that?”
Kelly opened the door for her. “No, not very often. Mainly they listen to my warnings. Look at it this way, if he hits you, you get hurt and he gets hurt. This way nobody gets hurt except for a few bent feelings, maybe, and nobody ever died from that.”
Sandy didn’t press the issue. Partly she was annoyed, feeling that she’d stood up well to the doctor, who wasn’t all that good a surgeon and was far too careless on his post-op technique. He only did charity patients, and only those with simple problems, but that, she knew, was beside the point. Charity patients were people, and people merited the best care the profession could provide. He had frightened her. Sandy had been glad of the protection, but somehow felt cheated that she hadn’t faced Khofan down herself. Her incident report would probably sink him once and for all, and the nurses on the unit would trade chuckles about it. Nurses in hospitals, like NCOs in any military unit, really ran things, after all, and it was a foolish doctor who crossed them.
But she’d learned something about Kelly this day. The look she’d seen and been unable to forget had not been an illusion. Holding Khofan’s right hand, the look on John’s face had been—well, no expression at all, not even amusement at his humiliation of the little worm, and that was vaguely frightening to her.
“So what’s wrong with your car?” Kelly asked, pulling onto Broadway and heading north.
“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be broke.”
“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Kelly allowed with a smile.
He’s a changeling, Sandy told herself. He turns things on and off. With Khofan he was like a gangster or something. First he tried to calm things down with a reasonable word, but then he acted like he was going to inflict a permanent injury. Just like that. No emotion
at all. Like squashing a bug. But if that’s true, what is he? Was it temper? No, she told herself, probably not. He’s too in control for that. A psychopath? That was a scary thought—but no, that wasn’t possible either. Sam and Sarah wouldn’t have a friend like that, and they’re two very smart people.
What, then?
“Well, I brought my toolbox. I’m pretty good on diesels. Aside from our little friend, how was work?”
“A good day,” Sandy said, glad again for the distraction. “We discharged one we were really worried about. Little black girl, three, fell out of her crib. Doctor Rosen did a wonderful job on her. In a month or two you’ll never know she was hurt at all.”
“Sam’s a good troop,” Kelly observed. “Not just a good doc—he’s got class, too.”
“So’s Sarah.” Good troop, that’s what Tim would have said.
“Great lady.” Kelly nodded, turning left onto North Avenue. “She did a lot for Pam,” he said, this time reporting facts without the time for reflection. Then Sandy saw his face change again, freezing in place as though he’d heard the words from another’s voice.
The pain won’t ever go away, will it? Kelly asked himself. Again he saw her in his mind, and for a brief, cruel second, he told himself—lied, knowing it even as it happened-that she was beside him, sitting there on the right seat. But it wasn’t Pam, never would be again. His hands tightened on the plastic of the steering wheel, the knuckles suddenly white as he commanded himself to set it aside. Such thoughts were like minefields. You wandered into them, innocent, expecting nothing, then found out too late that there was danger. It would be better not to remember, Kelly thought. I’d really be better off that way. But if without memories, good and bad, what was life, and if you forgot those who mattered to you, then what did you become? And if you didn’t act on those memories, what value did life have?