The Black Witch of Mexico (18 page)

He crumpled the coaster in his fist.

They started to walk toward him. For a brief moment he panicked, thinking they might come into the pub, but they walked straight past on the other side of the street. She had her arm around the man’s waist. She looked happy.

But his eyes were on him, not on her.
Hardly George Clooney
, he thought. He didn’t have personal bodyguards or a Rolex or perfect hair. Just another guy.

They were leaning into each other with that casual intimacy of lovers, and they were both laughing. She used to walk hand in hand with Adam like that once.

He left his Guinness on the table and walked out. He shouldn’t have come here. What was he thinking?

I just wanted to see her again
, he told himself.
This was just a test. If I knew I could see her again and not feel anything, I would know I was finally over her.

Well if it was a test, he had blown it. He thought about what Jamie had told him about the Aztecs, how they could rip your heart out while you were still alive. “It’s just a pump,” he had said, ‘a piece of muscle.”

Just a pump.

* * *

The sheets had tangled around his feet and he kicked them off. He lay awake for a long while, got hard just thinking about her, imagining her there beside him. He needed relief and found it alone, crying as he came. Afterwards he got up and went to the kitchen and looked through his liquor selection and took down a bottle of Black Jack.

He had a headache he couldn’t shake. He swallowed a couple of Advil, chased it with the bourbon. He wanted her back--no matter what it took, he wanted her back. He couldn’t go on living like this. He thought about the Crow.
Do your worst
, he thought.
Show me your stuff. Work your magic.

Bring her back!

Chapter 45

He dialled her number and held his breath.
This is what it must be like
, he thought,
when you get hooked on junk or the blackjack tables, this same cold dread, at the same time you feel like you’re just so alive, like only one thing matters and everything else is just a blur.

He heard her pick up. He tried to make it light: “Hi, Elena, how’s things? It’s Adam.”

There was a long pause, then a tentative: “Hi, Adam.”

“I just got back from Mexico.”

“Yeah, thanks for the photos you sent me. Looks amazing.”

“Yeah, it was really something. I guess we don’t realise how lucky we are, the health care we have here.”

There was silence, as they both waited for him to get to the point.

“I wondered if we could catch up for a coffee or a drink or something.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“You said we could still be friends. I haven’t seen you for over six months. It would be good just to talk to you again.”

He held the phone in a death grip and waited.

“Maybe lunch tomorrow then. I don’t have long; we’re really busy at the moment, we’re pitching for a big account.”

They arranged to meet in the Irish pub across the road, where he had spied on her that afternoon. He hung up before she had the chance to change her mind.

Chapter 46 

She looked glorious; perfectly tanned, she was wearing a white power suit with a powder blue blouse. She could turn heads like no woman he ever knew.

As she walked in she looked around the bar, then saw him and gave a little wave. As she came over he saw the ring on her finger and couldn’t take his eyes off it.

“Hi, Adam, you’re looking good.”

“Not as good as you.”

She sat down and immediately started fidgeting with her coaster, tearing it into little pieces. He’d already ordered her drink.

He tried not to look at the ring.

“You bought me a drink,” she said.

“Stoli and lemon, right?”

“can you get me something non-alcoholic?”

It took several moments for that to register. He got up to go to the bar and spilled his beer on his jeans. This was all going to hell and they hadn’t even started.

He got her a soda and sat back down. He couldn’t take his eyes off the rock on her finger. “When are you getting married?”

She put her hands under the table. “couple of months.”

“So soon?”

They looked at each other.

“If you need an usher or anything...”

It was meant to be a joke. She didn’t laugh. She looked at him with such a sad expression. He realised she felt sorry for him.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea, Adam.”

“I’m just curious. What does he do?”

“He’s a movie star, all right? He makes fifty million dollars a year and he owns three Ferraris and he’s best friends with the President. How does that sound?”

“Like you’re aiming too low.”

She smiled. She could still laugh at his jokes, that was one good thing. “This is a bad idea--we both know it. I was going to ring you this morning and call it off. I should go.”

“You haven’t asked me about Mexico yet.”

She put her bag down. “How was Mexico?”

He shook his head. She was right, this was a bad idea. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“What is it you wanted, Adam?”

“I wanted to know whether it’s better with him than it was with me.”

“Don’t.”

He caught her wrist. “Did you sleep with him while you were still sleeping with me?”

She practically ran out of the door. Heads turned, first at the door swinging shut behind her, then at him. He stayed and finished his beer, in turmoil.

There were three guys standing at the bar, drinking too fast, talking too loud. As he walked out he thought he heard one of them say something, about him, perhaps about her. Or perhaps he imagined it. But they were staring at him and he didn’t like the way they laughed.

He rounded on them.

“What’s your problem?” one of them said.

“What did you just say?”

The guy spread his arms and looked at his buddies, all mock innocence. “Didn’t say nothing, pal.”

He didn’t believe him. Or perhaps he was just looking for a fight.

He turned away from the door and went in, swinging.

Chapter 47

Adam slept through his alarm. When he finally stumbled into the bathroom he caught his reflection in the mirror and reeled back.

“christ, I can’t go into work looking like this.”

He chanced a second look. He had had the damage fixed up by Mike, a friend of his at the Massachusetts ER, but it was still obvious that he’d been in a fight. He was supposed to be on duty in half an hour. He’d better get dressed and get in a cab. Bill was sure to hear about this. He’d better get his story straight.

He looked worse than he did yesterday. He gingerly touched his eyebrow and the three butterfly stitches Mike had used to close the wound. He had a bruise the size of a baseball on his cheekbone and there was a large red scab over the bridge of his nose. Nothing broken, Mike had said. It sure didn’t feel it. What a mess. But if you insist on going three on one in an Irish pub, what do you expect?

He’d better get to work.

* * *

He saw two of the interns staring at him from the nurse’s station as he walked in. Jackie and Fiona saw him as well. No one said anything. He went to change into his scrubs.

He was still trying to remember more about the fight. It had broken off before it had really gotten started. One of the barmen, a big strong Irish boy, had pulled them off him before they could do any real damage, got them all to leave. Adam remembered thanking him but the lad was in no mood for gratitude and just told him to get himself cleaned up in the restrooms. When he came back out the manager was waiting for him. He said he had heard what had happened and told him to never come back.

It was the first time in his life he’d ever been banned from a bar.

“A late achiever,” he said to himself and forced a smile.

But Bill wasn’t smiling when he stalked into the ER a few minutes later. Someone must have rung upstairs and warned him. “In my office,” he said. “Now.”

Chapter 48

“What the hell’s going on?” he said. “What happened to your face?”

“I was out having a drink with friends. Some guys were hassling one of the women at the bar, I stepped in to help out. Some punches were thrown.”

“Looks like they were all thrown at you.”

“Do I get a finder’s fee from the ER?”

Bill didn’t think that was funny. “This is not acceptable, Adam.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Bill. I was doing the right thing.”

“I will not have my staff brawling in public, and you can’t work in the ER looking like that. You’ll scare the life out of the patients. Go home. Get some rest. Come back when you don’t look like the Elephant Man.”

“Sorry, Bill.”

“Just go home.” He turned and was about to walk off. “I’ll have to get Jay in on his day off to cover for you. Make this the last time.I’m giving you your sabbatical. This is the last time I’m cutting you slack. Are you reading me?”

“Loud and clear,” Adam said.

* * *

A pick-up ran a red light on Malcolm X and Tremont, the paramedic said as he rushed the gurney into Trauma 1. He t-boned their patient on the passenger side and pushed her vehicle into a light pole on the other side of the road.

“Her blood pressure’s crashing,” he said, “I couldn’t get a vein.”

They had followed spinal protocol, strapped her to a backboard with a cervical collar, her head held still with Velcro straps. She was in her late twenties by the look of it. Nurses cut off her blood-drenched clothes while another took over ventilation. Her colour was bad. She was losing blood from somewhere.

The rest of the trauma team arrived. An intern was checking pulses in her arm, neck and feet. She had an avulsion to the scalp but he ignored it, that wasn’t her critical problem. Her blood pressure was sixty over zip. He guessed a belly bleed or pelvic fracture.

They had only just finished placing the leads to the ECG when she went into fibrillation. Jackie started chest compressions. Adam took the paddles and waited till everyone was clear. After two shocks the heart returned to sinus rhythm. “We need a line,” he said, and Jay started searching for a vein.

He took the laryngoscope and stared down at his patient’s body. He thought:
I think this is Elena
, but it could just be his mind playing tricks again and he wasn’t going to repeat that fiasco. No more fumbles in trauma rooms.

And then he saw the birthmark on her left hip.

“Doctor Prescott?”

He made sure both lungs were properly ventilating then handed the bag mask to Fiona. Jay had managed to find a vein.

“We need X-rays, now. What’s the blood pressure?”

“Up slightly. Eighty over forty.”

“Good, let’s get her into X-ray now! Have we got a name?”

“Elena Jones,” one of the nurses said.

There was a man standing at the doors, staring at the gurney as the nurses wheeled it past him. He was white.

“Who’s that?”

“That’s her boyfriend,” Jay said. “He was on the phone with her when the accident happened. He just walked up to the desk five minutes ago, he knew the car’s tags, it’s a match. That’s how we ID’d her.”

So this was his rival. One of the nurses brushed him with her shoulder as she rushed past. The man staggered back as if he’d been hit.

The janitor came in to mop the blood off the floor. Adam peeled off the gown and gloves and walked out to the parking bay. There were two interns out there and a security guard, a group of nurses on the other side, smoking cigarettes.

He leaned against the wall, staring at the sky. Her new boyfriend came out of the ER. He leaned back against the wall, slowly slid down to his haunches and put his head in his hands. Adam went over to the nurses, bummed a lighter and two cigarettes and went over to him. “Here,” he said.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Neither do I.” He lit both cigarettes and gave him one.

He took it. “Is she going to die?”

“I don’t know. She’s stable for now. She’s gone to X-ray, then they’ll take her up to surgery. There’s extensive internal bleeding and there may be some brain trauma.”