The Touch of Treason (37 page)

She said almost inaudibly, “Come in.” Her voice reached him as if from across water.

Her broken left arm was no longer suspended from the ceiling. Without realizing it, he had stopped halfway to her bed. She cleared her throat. “It’s not contagious.”

He came the rest of the way quickly and took her right hand. It was like someone else’s hand, without warmth, damp.

“I look terrible,” she said.

“No, you don’t.”

“The nurse let me have a mirror.”

“You look fine. It’s a miracle you weren’t smashed worse. What do the doctors say?”

“The damage wasn’t divided equally between Tilly and myself.”

“The doctors didn’t say that.”

“I said it.”

“Your father has a thing he quotes about the serenity to accept things you can’t change.”

“I can’t accept. Burt called me.”

“Who’s Burt?”

“Tilly’s husband. He said I was a reckless driver. He’s never been in a car with me. You know how carefully I usually drive. It was those men.”

“Sure it was. I saw the police report.”

“Burt screamed at me. He said he didn’t know how to take care of two little girls. He said did I want to take Harriet and Frieda since I’d murdered their mother.”

Francine was sobbing as the nurse came in, looked at them both, jumped to the wrong conclusion. “You’ll have to leave, sir. The patient can’t be upset.” The nurse was younger than Francine, a kid with a starched white cap.

“He’s not upsetting me,” Francine said between sniffles, holding tight onto Thomassy’s hand.

“I have to take her temperature,” the nurse said to Thomassy.

“There’s no point to taking her temperature right now,” Thomassy said. “You can see she’s upset. It’s likely to be elevated.”

“I have to put it down on the chart with the time.”

Thomassy put down Francine’s hand and walked toward the nurse. “Take yourself and that thermometer out of the room,” Thomassy said. “Now.”

“I’ll get my supervisor.”

Thomassy tried to lock the door behind her. There was no lock. He took one of the chairs and propped its back under the handle, doubting it would hold.

When he returned to her bedside, Francine said, “I love the way you are.” She let a suspicion of a smile show. “You don’t take shit from the world the way the rest of us mostly do.”

Francine took a tissue from the box and touched the edges of her eyes. “How’s the trial coming?”

“It’s getting interesting.”

“Oh George, you’re like my father. You’re not telling me anything. They won’t let me read newspapers because the print comes off on the bedsheets. Hospitals are terrible. What’s going to happen to the men who caused the accident?”

Thomassy let go of her hand long enough to pull his chair closer to her bedside. “Don’t strain yourself,” he said. “Whisper.”

“Who’s doing something about it? You said you’d look into it. If you love me, don’t lie to me, George. Were they charged? What’ll happen?”

“Nothing.”

Francine’s face flushed. “You can make them do something. Those men caused the accident on purpose. You believe me, don’t you?”

“You’re getting yourself worked up.”

“You’re getting me worked up. I counted on you.”

She dropped his hand. She turned her head away.

He had to tell her. “I got the names of the three men in the Cadillac from the police report. I can’t ask favors of Roberts with the trial on.”

“Favors!”

“That’s what they call it when you poke your nose into a case that doesn’t concern you.”

“
I
concern you.”

“As far as they’re concerned, I’m not your next-of-kin or anything. Just a lawyer looking to make trouble for them. I talked to an assistant prick in Roberts’s office. The line is that the three men in the car all say that you smashed into them.”

“They were drunks girl-chasing. They were reckless on purpose. They drove into our lane at an angle—”

“I know, I know. But the assistant DA said there’s the three of them, and they’ll find family and friends to swear they were with them just before and they hadn’t had too much to drink and don’t chase girls in cars. They have regular jobs. There’ll be ten, twelve witnesses on their side. They don’t like to prosecute against odds like that.”

“What about the people in the car behind me?”

Thomassy lifted his shoulders as if to say
I’m not to blame.
“They’re from Kansas. They gave a statement to the police. They said they were sticking around just for the two days it took to get their car repaired. The DA’s not going to pay for them to be brought back here.”

“But they saw what happened!
I
saw what happened!”

“Take it easy, Francine. Your best corroborative witness is dead.”

He couldn’t stop her sobbing. Someone was rattling the door from outside. A strong female voice was saying, “Open this door at once.”

Francine tried to retrieve enough control to speak. “What about the toll booth attendant?”

“You said he wouldn’t even put in a call to have their car stopped. He wouldn’t want that to come out. He’s not a witness you can count on.”

“You mean they’re not going to do
anything
?”

“The three of them were banged up. By the time someone took a blood sample in the hospital, their alcohol count was below the legal limit. The one with the cleanest count claimed he was driving.”

“What about the insurance company?”

There was loud knocking on the door.

“Your company will pay for your car, minus the deductible. They’ll go after their insurance company—if they’ve got insurance. Tilly’s husband could file a civil suit.”

“He’s glad she’s dead. He won’t have to pay her alimony.” Thomassy had to take the chair away from the door. There were three of them out there, the young nurse, the supervising nurse, and a male hospital attendant.

“We’re trying to have a private conversation,” Thomassy said. He went back over to Francine.

“That’s some justice system you work in,” she said, pulling her hand back.

“I never called it a justice system.” He meant the world. “They think of this as difficult-to-prosecute vehicular homicide. I’m glad you didn’t get hurt worse.”

“What hurts worst is Tilly. We were friends for life.”

“You’ll have to leave now,” the supervisory nurse said.

“I’ll be back,” Thomassy said to Francine.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to pay a visit to Ramirez.”

“Who is Ramirez?”

“The car was registered in his name. I’ll bet he was the one driving.”

*

The hospital attendant, a six-foot-two ham-handed neuter, had obviously been told to see him all the way out the front door. Thomassy went straight to his car, watched the attendant in the rearview mirror. The son-of-a-bitch stayed there till Thomassy drove off.

He drove four or five blocks till he saw a gas station with a phone booth. He pulled up, took out his wallet, checked the card on which he’d written the names. He dialed the hospital’s number. “Information,” he asked. When they came on, he said, “Room for Emilio Ramirez, please.” “Hold on,” the crisp voice said. The voice came back on. “Four-six-nine, I’ll connect you,” but Thomassy hung up.

He drove back to the hospital, found a space in another part of the parking lot in a section that said DOCTORS PARKING ONLY
.
In front of it was a door marked “Staff Entrance.” He walked in as if he owned the place and went straight for the stairs up to the fourth floor.

He found 469. It was a ward with six beds, three on each side. He looked for a Puerto Rican face. There were two, next to each other. The chart of the first one indicated admission two weeks earlier. The other one was admitted the same day as Francine. And the name was Ramirez, Emilio.

“You from the insurance company?” Ramirez asked.

Why not?
Thomassy thought. He nodded, pulled over a chair.

“Mr. Ramirez,” he said. “You’re in trouble. The home office report says you were the driver.”

“So? So what?”

“One of the women died.”

“I told the cops. Her car hit us. I tell you the same thing I told the other insurance man.”

Thomassy would have liked to yank the pillow from under Ramirez’s head and put it over his face. The son-of-a-bitch could have killed Francine, too.

“The story’s come out,” Thomassy said.

“What story?”

“About you fellows drinking.”

“Who said?”

“Witnesses. And another saw you nearly sideswiping the girls’ car before you came to the Hutch toll booth. They had three calls on the police special number saying your white Cadillac was parked in the right-hand lane. The car behind the girls’ had two people in it and they both swear you swerved your car in front of the girls’ on purpose to scare them.”

“That’s lies. All lies.”

“Keep your voice down, Mr. Ramirez. Remember, the company is on your side. I think you’d better get yourself a lawyer. You could get fifteen years.”

“You crazy?”

“Your lawyer ought to cop a plea and get you inside as soon as possible.”

“Inside? You nuts.”

“You know the girl that survived? Her father is the mob’s lawyer. You know what they’ll do to you if you’re walking around loose? They might even try to get you while you’re still here. They might even be able to get at you in jail. Mr. Ramirez, you’ll be lucky if all they do is cut your balls off. Take my advice.”

Thomassy got up and started toward the door of the room.

“Hey,” Ramirez called. “Insurance man, wait a minute!”

Thomassy didn’t stop.

*

From his office, he called Francine. Her room phone didn’t answer. Maybe she was getting X-rayed or something. He called back in ten minutes and she answered.

He told her what he’d done.

“Oh George, you’ll get into trouble.”

“You found trouble without looking for it. Maybe I should learn from you.”

He heard her breathing on the line. Then she said, “George, I have to get well fast. I don’t want another woman running after you unless I’m around to trip her.”

“I’m safe,” he said. “I’ve got my cruise control on.”

He was glad he’d made her laugh. She sounded alive. She’d sounded half-alive before.

She said, “Are there others like you?”

“Sure. I just hope you never find one.”

They hung on, listening to the electricity on the line.

Finally she said, “What do you think that Ramirez person will do after your visit?”

“He’ll hire a lawyer. He’ll check around. He’ll get some gray hairs. Maybe I’ll follow up with a phone call. If someone figures out it’s a hoax, who would they look for?”

“You’re on TV a lot these days. He’ll recognize you.”

“So what. Like you said, the justice system stinks. You could search the statute books for a year and you won’t find anything I did in them.”

She laughed a second time. “You know what daddy always used to say. Some day I’d find a really nice man.”

“That’s somebody else, not me. Really nice men lose. All the time. Everywhere.”

“Don’t lose me, George.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Thomassy, finally home, the rest of humanity shut out, sat in his living room, his legs up on the ottoman, a drink at his side, the evening paper spread before him.
DEFECTION BY RUSSIAN OFFICIAL DISRUPTS TRIAL.
Thomassy, a tight steel spring all day, read the story twice before his mind strayed.

He had never counted himself among the lonely of the world. He would rather listen to Mozart at home than in a crowded concert hall surrounded by strangers. If, at the beginning of some particular evening, he had a sudden appetite for companionship, there were several women he could call who, if home and alone, would be likely to say something like
Come on over, George, if you don’t mind sharing a casserole.
What any one of them would also share was a friendly kiss at the door, a bottle of good wine that Thomassy could be counted on to bring, and after dinner, the woman, energized by hope, was quick to touch, the kisses not casual now, honey stirring in the pot, the erogenous brain longing for the gentleness to become less gentle, and the welcome final nerve-end spasms that after rest brought peace.

This evening he did not reach into his jacket pocket for his phone book. His loneliness, he realized, was for a specific other person.

Was this continual longing for Francine a weakness? Once, when he was fifteen, his father, whose true love was killed by the Turks, had said to him
George boy, you think tough as nail? Nails bend. Armenian needs be tough as hammer.
Hadn’t he gone out into the fucking world as a hammer? If you were a good enough hammer, they wanted to use you. Clients, women. Why was he bending now? When he was roaring, any woman could stroke the lion’s head, but now the lion trusted a particular woman to hold his head in her arms. In the hospital, amid the instruments of intensive care, he’d found fright, a courtroom spinning out of his control, and suddenly it didn’t matter whether you were forty-five or twenty-eight, he saw it could happen any time, a brick from a building, an aneurysm, a crazy driver on the road. You just couldn’t live forever.