Gone Bamboo (22 page)

39

B
e happy!" said Richie Tic, struggling to pull the brand-new strawberry blond Dynel wig over Jimmy Pazz's basketball-size head. "You read the paper. He's dead! Whaddayou bustin' the guy's balls for?"

"No pitchers," complained Jimmy. "There should be pitchers." He finally managed to pull the wig halfway down his forehead. Paulie Brown sat across the desk from him, looking sheepish.

"You din't see nothin'?" asked Jimmy again.

"Jimmy, it was like World War Three in there," said Paulie. "I'm layin' up inna weeds all fuckin' night. I'm gettin' bit like crazy - you should see my legs - there's things crawlin' around. But I stayed. I stayed there all fuckin' night. They were still haulin' bodies outta there when two dogs start lickin' my face. I hadda get outta there. There was cops all over the place, army guys, guys with fuckin'
hoods
on." He scratched his ankles and groaned. "I musta been bit a million times. I'm surprised I still got any blood left."

"Henry . . . he looked like he was gonna make it? I mean, there's nothin',
nothin'
inna papers about him, they don't say anything," said Jimmy, not letting go of the subject.

"The cops took him out. He got pinched. They put him inna back of a van and took him off. What can I say? What was I gonna do? The wife too. She didn't look too good. She looked pretty messed up. There was a lot of blood." Paulie looked up warily. "They was haulin' stiffs outta there left an' right . . . it was hard to keep track. Then the house went up. He musta been still inside."

"I just don't get it," said Jimmy. "It don't make no sense."

"The Irishman's definitely dead, though, right?" said Richie. "That's a good thing. That's good. Right, Jimmy? Now you don't gotta pay the guy the other half. You like accrued a considerable savings, know what I mean?"

"I still woulda liked to see a pitcher. And that fuck . . . that hippie, Henry . . . him. I'da liked it if he'da died."

"It went good," insisted Richie. "I talked to the lawyers. They all miserable 'cause now we ain't goin' to trial an' they ain't gonna be gettin' no fuckin' money like they thought . . . What shoes?"

"The black wedgies," said Jimmy.

"I couldn't . . . I couldn't find those before."

"So
he
can look," said Jimmy, pointing at Paulie. "Look in 'at fuckin' closet there. Pair a' black shoes, toeless."

"I ain't lookin' for no shoes," said Paulie. "Fuck that. I got calamine from the top a' my neck to the crack a' my ass, I ain't crawlin' aroun' no floor lookin' for shoes. I mean, jeez, have a fuckin' heart."

"Have a fuckin' heart?" screeched Jimmy. "Have a fuckin' HEART? I just paid for you to go down the fuckin' islands, tropical fuckin' paradise . . . an' . . . an' you don't even get the job fuckin' done right! You lucky I don't eat the fuckin' eyeballs outta yer fuckin' head, you prick! Now get down there an' find my fuckin' wedgies. You believe this?"

"I got it," said Richie, looking warily at Paulie. " 'S okay. I'll get 'em. I know what they look like. He don't know from shoes."

Jimmy stood in front of the full-length mirror next to his desk. He was in a black leather Versace, the wide buckled belt disappearing under rolls of flab. "I think I look fat. Do I look fat to you?"

"No, Jimmy, you look good," said Richie, emerging triumphant from the closet with a pair of black, open-toed shoes. "You look like Ivana Trump."

"I still don't like it, that Henry guy's alive," said Jimmy, sucking in his gut with some effort. "I don't like it they don't say nothin' inna paper."

"What? You worried the guy's gonna say somethin'? What's he gonna say?" said Richie, bending over like a prince to slip the size fourteen shoes onto Jimmy's hairy feet. "He can't say anything. He's capable. Culpable. He tried to whack the guy himself once. He's prolly a suspect. I mean, what's he doin' there inna first place? He's makin' another try. He finds out Charlie's down there, livin' next door like fuckin' Millie Helper there, an' he figures he better finish the fuckin' job."

"Maybe," said Jimmy, trying to make his cheeks look hollow by biting the insides and holding them between his teeth. "Still . . ." He looked over at Paulie, sitting morosely in his chair, saying nothing. "What's the matter with you all of a sudden?" He turned to face Richie, arching his back, hand on his hip. "I
still
think I look fat."

40

S
aint Rose Hospital in Philipsburg, on the Dutch side of the island, had been closed for over two years. A more modern, much larger facility had been built to replace it over in Cole Bay, so the ancient but picturesque sandstone structure had lain shuttered and vacant until the night of the mayhem at Charlie Wagons's house, when it reopened its doors for two very private patients.

They let Henry see her on the second day. Trung drove him over from the hotel. His fractured ribs had been repaired and bound, and the tears and abrasions in his skin had been sutured and dressed. His arms, back, chest, and feet, cut by broken glass, had been bandaged with adhesive and gauze, the worst of the cuts requiring only a few stitches. Henry's face, however, was horrifyingly swollen and discolored from the pounding he'd received. One side was puffed out twice the size of the other and splotched with reds and blues and various shades of green, one eye nearly closed still.

The whole way to the hospital not a word was exchanged. Trung, thoughtfully Henry felt, refrained from playing his usual country yodelers on the radio, and in return Henry avoided the subject of Cheryl and what had happened to her.

At the hospital gate, a French para in civilian clothes, blue eyes too wide apart and a Beretta casually tucked into a rear pants pocket, let them into the courtyard. The central fountain had been drained, and like the cobblestone drive that surrounded it, it was littered with dead leaves from the overhanging flamboyants. Geckos darted about under the leaves, making a dry, crinkly sound as they searched for overripe berries fallen from the nearby guavas.

Another unsmiling Frenchman, with the unmistakable bearing of a lifetime military man, met them at the door to what had once been a fully equipped emergency room. Bandage wrappers and bloody gauze were still strewn about the floor. Frances's blood-soaked kimono lay in a sad pile next to a rubbish pail where the doctors had discarded their rubber gloves and syringes. Two pale and bleary-eyed French doctors, no doubt dragooned into this affair by Monsieur Ribiere, sat unshaven and sweating by a broken gurney, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and playing cards. A portable television silently flickered images of soccer players from a counter clogged with leftover take-out food. They looked put out by it all, not even raising their eyes when Henry entered the room, as if the work they had done in the late hours a few nights ago had somehow diminished them.

The second Frenchman led Henry down a long, mustard-colored hallway, open on one side to the Great Bay. Wisteria had worked its way up one side of the columns, and there were more lizards, roaming freely across the walls and floors. They passed what had once been the patients' dayroom, now populated only by rusting wheelchairs and some empty cases of Ting. Henry limped after the Frenchman, hurrying to keep up, his sandals making a flip-flop sound that counterpointed the martial sounds of the Frenchman's paratrooper's boots on the mildewed floor.

An Asian Henry recognized as a Nung, a Thai-speaking ethnic Chinese, guarded Frances's room. The Frenchman put a finger to his forehead, and he jumped back from the door to attention, boots thumping.

Inside, at least, it was cleaner. Frances was propped up against new white pillowcases, her eyes closed. The color had gone from her lips, had leeched out from her suntanned skin. A mustachioed nurse with a mole on her cheek acknowledged Henry's presence by standing up and leaving the room, her eyes on the floor the whole way.

An IV rig on a wheeled stand was next to the bed, dripping clear liquid into Frances's arm. There was a thick square of gauze over her right eye, the skin around it yellow and blue. The closed eye under it was golfball-size, but Henry had been assured that the eye itself was essentially undamaged. The dressing on her chest went completely around her back and across one shoulder. The first spots of watery blood and bright orange antiseptic had begun to ooze through.

"Sweetheart?" said Henry, unsure if she was asleep. "Baby?"

"Hey," she answered, one eye opening.

"You okay?"

Frances nodded her head and closed the eye again, keeping it closed for a moment as if gathering strength. Henry's eyes wandered over to the drip, drip of the hanging IV bottle. When he looked back at her, she was crying, tears running from the corner of her open eye and onto the pillow.

"Fucked up," said Frances. After a few more seconds, she said, "Cheryl?"

"No," said Henry, shaking his head. He took her hand in his, gently. "She died on the chopper on the way to Curasao." He didn't tell her his real thoughts on the matter. In Henry's mind, the only question was whether Trung had first pinched Cheryl's nostrils closed and stuffed a rag in her mouth, or had simply kicked her out the open hatch into the ocean. He was practiced, Henry knew well, at both. Either way she was dead, of that he had no doubt at all. She was dead, and there wasn't a damn thing to do about it.

"We did the best we could," he said instead.

"Fucked up," said Frances. "So . . . fucked up . . . I feel . . . so . . . guilty."

Henry just nodded, unable to speak. He sat down on the edge of the bed and ran a finger across an undamaged section of Frances's brow. An air conditioner, recently jerry-rigged into the window with wood planking and hurricane tape, droned monotonously, struggling with the thick, humid air.

"So," said Frances. "How bad do I look? Bad as you?"

"Better," said Henry. "Your face isn't nearly as messed up. One of the doctors, he's a plastic surgeon. He says you were lucky. He doesn't usually work on fresh wounds. Usually they call him in later. He says you'll look fine."

"Maybe I should get my tits lifted while I'm in here," joked Frances, cutting short a laugh because of the pain.

"Trung said something like that," said Henry. "He was asking about his wife. Wants the guy to make her look like Dolly Parton."

"How 'bout you?" she asked. "You ever gonna look better than this? You look like Quasimodo."

"I'm fine," said Henry. "Couple a' new dings and scratches. Once the swelling goes down, I should look pretty normal."

"Henry . . . you
never
looked normal."

"Well . . . you know what I mean."

"How about the rest of you?" she said, reaching down and cupping his balls. "Everything in working order?"

"Still intact," said Henry, smiling.

"Well," said Frances. "That's something at least. I thought I saw you limping."

"Just some cuts on my feet."

"Good . . . How's Charlie?"

"We'll talk about that later," said Henry. "Don't sweat it. He'll be fine."

"Oh, Henry," she said, starting to cry again. Stopping suddenly, she squeezed his arm and pulled him closer. "Kiss me, alright? I want to make sure you're still there."

When he leaned forward to put his mouth on hers, intending a careful kiss, she tugged him violently closer, kissing him so hard his lip split. Breathing fiercely through her nose, she fumbled frantically with his belt buckle.

"Are you
out
of your
mind}"
he said, in a loud whisper.

"I think," she said, ignoring his protest and throwing back the sheets, "I think we can just manage." She pulled up her hospital gown. Henry started to draw back, but she already had his pants open and was kneading him, guiding him toward her by his penis.

"How?" he spluttered. "I mean . . . look." He gestured to the IV rig, her chest wound. He could have cited the Nung, just outside the door, the nurse, who could reappear at any moment, not to mention his own wounds, already beginning to spot through his ill-chosen white sailcloth shirt.

"Just shut up and give me a hand here, okay?" she hissed, unclenching her teeth from his lower lip with a brief lick. "I'm fine below the waist. But this is gonna take some cooperation." She put her knees up, legs apart. "Just watch where you put your hands . . . and try not to pull my plug. Okay?"

Too far gone by now, excited by the familiar sights and scents of his wife, Henry moved his head down between her thighs and laid the relatively undamaged side of his face against her pubic bone. She was already wet, beginning to move rhythmically against him. "Sorry. You're going to have to do most of the work." She took hold of his hair and pressed his mouth onto herself.

Henry could feel his sutures straining as he twisted on the narrow hospital bed, trying to get his tongue into her. She spread her legs wider, moaning quietly now, her heels grazing his back, the shirt starting to feel sticky against his skin.

"Good," she said. "Now . . . get up here."

He crawled up the middle of the bed, the unchocked wheels beneath them beginning to protest. The whole bed began to move away from the wall with his first thrust, the IV rig rolling after it. But he was inside her now. There was no stopping. "Good," she was saying. "Good. Gently . . . gently . . ."

She was squeezing him so hard around the neck, he thought for a moment he'd black out. They forgot about any pretense of discretion, the bed bouncing loudly on its squeaking wheels. He saw the clear contents of the IV bottle go suddenly pink, a red flower erupting into its base. Frances's blood, running back through the tube from her hand, which was now wrapped in a choke hold around his neck. He had to keep slapping her arm down to reverse the flow as they hurried to finish.

"Keep your fucking arm down, you idiot!" he said, wanting to cry.

"Shut up and fuck!" she yelled back. "I know what I'm doing."

"Christ," he muttered, seeing the red stain expanding on her chest bandage. More blood, his, hers, he didn't know, made a rain-drop pattern on her gown and bedsheets.

But he was lost now. Oblivious to the pain, the blood, the approaching footsteps.

When it was over, the IV had popped completely out of Frances's wrist, the contents of the bottle spewing across the floor. The mustachioed nurse was slapping Henry on the injured side of his face, screaming,
"Salaud!"
Then she was running about the room, reconnecting a new bottle, taking in the blood, the mess.
"Quels
affreux!"
she barked. "You want she is to die?
Animaux!"

Frances was laughing. Henry's shirt was a connect-the-dots game of red, rapidly becoming a solid color. His facial wounds flowing freely, blood droplets falling from his chin. As he put a hand up to touch his cheek, he realized his pants were still open, his wet prick hanging at half-mast. Frances, still giggling as the nurse fussed with her dressings, wiped some errant spermatozoa off her belly with her fingers, then pulled the sheets up around her chin, a glazed, satisfied expression on her face. This infuriated the nurse, who tore the sheets off of her with one motion and threw them on the floor so the doctors could get more easily to her dressings.

Henry stood, duncelike, in the corner, buttoning up his jeans while the nurse took inventory of the damage.

"He was just taking my temperature," explained Frances through tears of pain and laughter. "Really. We . . . we just couldn't find the thermometer. Feel better now." The nurse, unamused, produced a corpsman's Syrette and jammed it rudely into Frances's arm before tossing it into the corner. Frances's open eye fluttered back into her head, and she fell asleep. The nurse, like a vicious border collie, herded Henry out of the room. The Nung guard, smiling with embarrassment, covered his mouth with his hand and turned away as the two card-playing doctors pushed past Henry without a glance.

They redressed Frances's wounds and then got to Henry, waiting for them under guard in the former emergency room. He thought they restitched his wounds less gently than they had the first time, pissed off no doubt at how cavalierly he had treated their earlier work.

When, finally, they let him see Frances again, it was out of the room, under the watchful glare of an even more imposing nurse, this one with the shoulders of a linebacker. They met in the overgrown garden that looked out on the Great Bay, Frances in hospital slippers, pulling the wheeled IV rig with her as they strolled down the flagstone path. In the distance, pelicans groomed themselves atop the pilings and terns flew overhead, racing to meet the incoming cruise ships. Two of the floating cities were already out in the bay, the ever-present chum of Cheez Doodles, soggy pretzels, Fig Newtons, and Pringle's chips attracting birds from all over. Henry could see the big boats disgorging water taxis full of chubby, bargain-hungry tourists who'd soon choke the streets of Philipsburg.