The Man Who Risked His Partner

  Lifting me by the sheet under me, they heaved me off the gurney into bed while I did my utter best to pretend that I wasn’t being crucified. I feared passing out again, but this time I wasn’t that lucky.

  Then I heard a young woman whisper in surprise, “Did you see this?” Opening my eyes a slit, I saw an aide show my .45 to the nurses. “Is he a cop?”

  “I don’t know,” one of them replied. “But he has a license for it in his wallet. Put it back.”

  In Puerta del Sol a man’s gun is sacred. State law says so.

  With a shrug, the aide dropped the .45 into a grocery sack on top of the bureau. Apparently my clothes were in that sack as well. Soaked with blood. By now, the blood would be dry—crusted and harsh. The clean, tidy part of me wanted to throw up. The rest vetoed the idea. I should be glad I had any clothes at all. Now all I needed—

  But I couldn’t think of what I needed. The state of my gut crippled me. I tried again.

  Now all I needed—

  —was some way to reach the old part of town.

  Bravo. Good for me.

  Well, lessee. Put your mind to it, Axbrewder. Some way to get from here to there.

  I couldn’t walk. I’d have to drive.

  Good again. Doing fine. Keep it up.

  I couldn’t drive. I’d have to get a ride.

  Go on.

  I couldn’t call a taxi. No cab driver in his right mind would drive a gut-shot man away from a hospital.

  So who could I call? Who would be willing to drive me all over town while I bled to death? Who did I know who might conceivably be that desperate?

  I waited until the nurses and aides left, and the door swung shut, and the only light in the room came faintly through the window from the city. Then I pulled the IV away from my right arm.

  Slowly, carefully, hurting like Satan and all his demons, I rolled out of bed to the left and got my feet to the floor, then rested there trying not to breathe because breathing tore at my guts like a heavy-duty sailfish lure.

  Braced myself.

  Stood up.

  You can do it, I told myself. Just use the pain. Make it help you.

  For a while the room swirled like a sink draining all the life out of me. But pain hung at the center of everything, and it didn’t let me go. Eventually I got my hands on the side table at the head of the bed, held on there until the walls slowed down. Then I fumbled for the reading lamp.

  When I snapped it on, the light hurt my eyes. But once the pain shifted from my eyeballs back into my skull, I was able to see.

  The phone was on the table right in front of me.

  Good. Fine. Keep it up. One thing at a time.

  The other IV still restricted my left arm. But I could move it some, so I used that hand to lift the receiver. Almost randomly, I stabbed at the buttons until I finally got through to Information.

  Information listed six Rudolfo Santiagos.

  Six! I couldn’t call them all. I couldn’t stand that long. When the operator’s mechanical voice started reading the addresses, however, I recognized one of them. Somehow I managed enough sanity to ask the operator to connect me.

  The phone rang forever. Three or four times at least. Then a man’s voice answered in Spanish. My mouth and throat felt like I’d been living on a diet of wool socks. In fact, my whole body was stretched and urgent with thirst. My IV was practically empty. How much blood had I lost? The voice on the other end of the line demanded an answer three times before I figured out how to say something.

  “Señor Santiago?” I croaked.

  “Sí?” A question, suspicious and bitter.

  One thing at a time. Swallow. Clear your throat. Come on, Axbrewder.

  “I must speak with Senor Santiago.”

  “Ay, Señor Axbrewder.” Thank God he recognized me. “What transpires? You do not come to the vigil of our son? A curse upon all telephones. Your voice does not sound well. Have you been harmed?”

  He paused to let me respond. But I couldn’t pull myself together. In a whisper, he asked, “Have you discovered the killer of my son?”

  Ah, God. Everything hurt, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Had I discovered the killer of his son? Of course not. I couldn’t bear it.

  But there had to be some reason why I stood there holding on to the phone when I should’ve been horizontal and unconscious, pumped to the gills with medication. Eventually I remembered what it was.

  “Senor Santiago,” I said, “I am injured. I must have someone to drive for me. Will you come?”

  “I?” Shock showed in his voice. “You desire that I should drive for you? My son has been slain. Even now we hold vigil for him”—his shock turned quickly to outrage—“although his body is denied to us, and all we are given for our grief is an empty coffin and fifty dollars of candles. Also the time is beyond one in the morning. I do not—”

  “Rudolfo,” I heard in the background, his wife’s voice, “do not shout. It is unseemly. Some respect we must have, for those who watch with us at least.”

  Intensely he whispered at me across the dark city, “Have you discovered the killer of my son?”

  With elaborate care, as if I were responding directly to his anger and sorrow and incomprehension, I said in English, “I’m in University Hospital. Meet me outside Emergency. As soon as you can. Bring me an overcoat.” Then I remembered something else. “And a pint of mescal.”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. When he spoke, his voice shook with the effort he made to keep it quiet.

  “Señor Axbrewder”—he sneered the words—“I will not leave the vigil of my son so that I may run errands for a gringo whose heart is set on drink. Doubtless you are ‘injured’ by the excess of your drinking. For such as you I feel no pity.”

  Through the line, I could feel the force of his yearning to slam down the receiver, the pressure of his desire to shout, You promised to find the killer of my son!

  His vehemence sent a sting of panic through me. I fought the pain out of the way. “I don’t know who killed your son.” I stayed with English because I didn’t have the strength for Spanish. “But I know how to find out There are two men who might know the answer. If I can reach them tonight.”

  The silence at the other end of the line changed. Trying not to sound like a wild man, I kept going.

  “They won’t talk to the cops. They wouldn’t even talk to you. But they might talk to me.” If I found them before they disappeared for the night. And if I looked and talked and smelled like the Mick Axbrewder they remembered, Axbrewder the drunk, tanked to the scalp with mescal and tired self-contempt. “I can’t get to them if you don’t give me a ride.”

  He didn’t answer right away. I could hear him breathing, thinking. Fighting his way through his tangled emotions. I was an Anglo and a drunk. And I wasn’t just asking him to trust me. I was asking for his faith.

  Abruptly he said, “I will come.” Then he hung up.

  For some reason I didn’t put the phone down. “Don’t forget the mescal,” I said. I could get by without the overcoat. Freezing to death didn’t worry me. But I had to have that bottle of mescal.

  After a while, however, I noticed that I had a dial tone clamped to the side of my head. Moving my arm with a jerk, I clattered the receiver back into its cradle.

  Now all I had to do was get dressed and sneak out of the hospital before Ginny came to check on me again. That was all. A mere bag of towels, as some clown I once knew used to say. Child’s play.

  Well, so was the Spanish Inquisition, if you just thought about it from the right point of view. But I didn’t think I could bear being caught and stopped. The idea appalled me.

  So I propped myself against the bed while I untaped the other IV and pulled it out of my arm. Then I inched my way across the room toward the bureau.

  Sneaking out of the hospital wouldn’t be the hard part. Putting on my clothes would.

  It promised to be a pure gold immaculate and absolute sonofabitch.

/>   Concentrate on something else. A few weeks after leaving the bed, I arrived at the bureau. All my clothes and possessions were in the paper sack. It should’ve been easy to think about thirst. My mouth and throat felt like I’d eaten a pound of alum. When I’d shrugged my hospital pajamas to the floor, I got my first look at the bandages on my stomach. They were marked with small red stains like stigmata. Involuntarily I stared at them in a kind of fascinated horror.

  But Ginny might show up any minute. By twisting my shoulders into positions that gave me cramps, I managed to slip my shirt on. The fabric was stiff with dried blood, and it had nice neat holes over the bandages, front and back. I buttoned it approximately and tackled my pants.

  Putting them on was hell. Double-dipped fire-and brimstone with chocolate sauce and peanuts. But I did it anyway. The pain made me mad, too angry to give up. Then, instead of passing out, I pushed my feet into my shoes and slipped my jacket over my shoulders. The holster for the .45 I left behind. I didn’t have the heart for it.

  With the dead weight of the gun in my jacket pocket, I fixed my attention on the door of the room and started toward it.

  With my luck, I thought, Ginny would arrive right then. Sure. Why not? But she didn’t. I reached the door, and no one was there. I couldn’t hear anything except the way I whimpered when I breathed.

  When I’d mustered my courage—not to mention what you might laughingly call my strength—I opened the door a few inches and scanned the corridor. Nobody there at all.

  Halfway down the hall, I saw the red-lit Exit sign and the door labeled Emergency Exit Only. I didn’t hesitate. Couldn’t afford to. From the room I limped toward the exit as if I knew what I was doing.

  Unfortunately, each ordeal led to another one, and what came next looked worse than everything else combined.

  Stairs. Lots of them. At least three or four flights.

  That sort of thing could be the life of the party. Hey, gang, I’ve got an idea! Let’s all shoot ourselves in the belly and walk downstairs! Even hanging onto the rail with both hands, I felt every step shred my guts. It would’ve been a whole lot easier to just fall and roll to the bottom. Only the simple logic of the situation kept me going. I was doing it, wasn’t I? And if I was doing it, it must’ve been possible.

  The last flight, I lured myself with promises of water. When I reached the bottom, I’d find a drinking fountain and have all I wanted. But I didn’t keep that promise any better than all the others I’d made. Instead I went into one of those curious lapses of awareness where your body keeps on moving but you can’t remember anything about it afterward.

  Presumably I was in the surgical wing of University Hospital. Therefore I must’ve come out of the stairwell opposite the Emergency waiting room. I must’ve gone straight out through Emergency to the parking lot. And the nurses and security guards must’ve been too busy to notice me.

  As far as I could remember, I lost track of things somewhere in the stairwell and came back to myself in the snow outside. The night and the clouds had closed down hard over the city, leaving everything black and thick, beyond redemption. But the Emergency and parking lot lights reflected off the snow, creating quaint pockets of visibility in the darkness. The snow fell almost straight down, gently, without any wind behind it. For some reason I didn’t feel cold:

  Cocooned in pain, my shoelaces untied and no socks on, I shuffled through the accumulating slush and tried to look conspicuous so that Rudolfo Santiago would find me.

  When a set of headlights slapped at me through the snowfall, they almost knocked me down. They were aimed right at me—I must’ve been standing like a derelict in the middle of the right-of-way. Knives of light cut through my eyes and did things to the inside of my head. Then they stopped moving. A car door opened.

  “Señor Axbrewder,” he said. “I am come.”

  I didn’t have the strength to move. Now that he was here, I had trouble remembering what I was supposed to do about it. But he had a front-row view of the bloodstains on my jacket and shirt. After a moment I heard him cursing.

  He got out and came over to me. In the headlights, he looked like someone had poured acid into the wrinkles of his face, making them deep and dark. “Ay, Senor Axbrewder,” he murmured, squinting concern at me, “this is madness. You are indeed sorely injured. You must return to the hospital for your life.”

  A vagrant eddy of wind swirled snow across my face, and I almost fell. I shut my eyes, put one hand on his shoulder for support. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said thinly. I owed him Spanish, but I didn’t have it in me. “I’m just a little weak. This will only take a couple of hours. Then you can bring me back.”

  He wasn’t persuaded. “Haste will not restore Pablo to life. I desire that the killer of my son be repaid for his evil. Yes, assuredly. But one day or two or a week will change nothing. Is it necessary that you suffer?”

  If I’d had any muscles left in my belly, I might’ve laughed. Sure. Why not? If nothing else, suffering was sure as hell educational. And sometimes it was the only thing I could do to pay my debts.

  But this was no time to discuss religion. “I don’t call it suffering,” I said. “I call it doing my job.”

  He hesitated a minute longer. Then I felt him shrug. “As you wish. I will assist you.”

  He let me lean more of my weight on his shoulders and slowly guided me around to the passenger side of his car.

  The car was so old that it no longer seemed to have any specific make or model—it was just a generic clunker. But the engine ran. The doors opened. One of the windshield wipers worked.

  Trying to keep the stress off my torso, I eased into the car. But there was no way to sit that didn’t put pressure on my guts.

  Santiago closed the door, walked around to his side of the car, and got in. “Now, Senor Axbrewder,” he said. “Where does one go to speak with these two men who may have knowledge of my son’s killer?”

  “The old part of town.” I was definitely on my way out. “The little park on Tin Street.” There didn’t seem to be any way I could hold myself together. “Get as close as you can.” It was going to be downright humiliating if I started to cry in front of him. “But stop before you reach the park.” On the other hand, if I passed out, I might not regain consciousness for weeks. “Don’t let them see you bring me.”

  Judging by his silence, he hadn’t understood a word. Nevertheless he put the car in gear. All Anglos are crazy. With exaggerated care—unaccustomed to snow—he crept out of the parking lot.

  As it happened, I didn’t start crying. And I didn’t go the way of the gooney bird. Pain has more imagination than you might expect from a mere sensation. Or maybe it’s the way the brain reacts to pain. In any case, I hadn’t exhausted the possibilities—not by a long shot. This time the way I hurt was like the snow, blown against the windshield and set dancing by the movement of the car. Rendered as blind as a wall by the reflected light. Delicate and impenetrable. Hypnotic. I stared into the snowfall until it seemed that the whole world contained nothing but misery.

  And eventually it came to an end. Santiago nosed his car to the curb just around the corner from the Tin Street park.

  When we weren’t moving, the snow swirled less, and I could see better. I recognized the place with an ache of familiarity. I’d spent a lot of time there, drunk out of my mind. But not just drunk. Desperate, too. This park was where I used to go when my self-revulsion finally grew too strong to be ignored. Here I waited like I was praying for Ginny to come along and rescue me, call me back to work. When the bars closed, I came here with drunks and bums like myself, whoever happened to be in the neighborhood that night, and we shared whatever was left of the booze we’d scrounged against the long, lonely dark. Then the others wandered off to their private hovels, barrios, or beds. But I stayed where I was, lying curled up on a bench with my arms and knees hugged over my stomach and waiting with the passivity of the damned for Ginny to come. The sight of the old place sent a lick of
panic along my nerves, and my head cleared a bit.

  The blunt edge of an adobe building blocked our view of the park. Santiago ditched his headlights, killed the engine. Abruptly our enclosed little world turned quiet. When my ears adjusted, I could hear the faint wet sound of snow on the hood and roof.

  Santiago struck a match to light a cigarette, and the yellow flare showed his face for a second. He looked old and tired, but his eyes caught the light like bits of glass.

  Sucking on the coal of his cigarette, he reached into one of his pockets and brought out a flat pint bottle.

  My hands shook when I took it. He watched me hard while I pushed the pain out of my way and forced my fingers to screw off the cap. Right away I smelled mescal, strong as a shout. Thirst clenched my throat. It was just possible that if I took a good long drink I wouldn’t hurt anymore.

  Covering most of the mouth of the bottle with my thumb, I splashed mescal onto my clothes. Quite a bit of it. To hide the stink of blood. Then I unlatched the door and opened it a few inches so that I could pour about a quarter of the bottle onto the street. Finally I replaced the cap and dropped the bottle into my other jacket pocket, opposite the .45.

  Santiago still didn’t say anything. Reaching into the back seat, he produced an overcoat. Its old fabric was greasy and smelled like mildew.

  I had to get going. No time like the present. Apprehension and the scent of mescal made me urgent. I nodded toward the park. “You can wait in the car. Or watch from the corner. Just don’t be seen. Otherwise they won’t talk.”

  He nodded stoically.

  Pain burning in every muscle, I levered myself out of the car and stood up. I couldn’t raise my arms, so I just pulled the overcoat onto my shoulders and let it hang. Now I felt the cold. The overcoat didn’t make any difference. But at least I could hold it closed so that the bloodstains wouldn’t show.