House of the Rising Sun (Hackberry Holland 4)

He looked at Maggie uncertainly, as though she held answers to questions he couldn’t formulate. He took a pill from a vial and broke it between his teeth and drank from a glass on the nightstand. “Sometimes I feel like a balloon bumping along the ceiling.”

“Your mother was here last week. She left to go back to her job in New Mexico.”

“I remember. That’s true. Tell me again why we’re going to San Antonio.”

“You have an executive position waiting for you. Whenever you’re able to start work. It’s stuffy in here.” She tugged open a window, hitting the frame with the heel of her hand, her jaw flexing. “There. Someone is burning leaves. Smell the chrysanthemums and the snow up in the hills. Don’t you want to be outside again?”

“Did you talk to my mother?”

“I think she bears me a grudge. I don’t blame her.”

He sat up and hung his legs off the side of the bed. He picked up two walking canes that were hooked on the nightstand. “I can walk by myself to the bathroom now. I’ve tried to ease off the pink lady, too.”

“What’s the pink lady?”

He rattled the vial of pills. “The orderly is named Mike. He’s a good fellow. The physicians can be hard-nosed. Did you bring another fruit basket?”

“No. Do you feel tension or nausea at all?” she said.

“Not now. I wake up at night. It passes, though.”

“What passes?”

“The dreams. I read awhile and maybe crush a half pill in water, and then I’m all right. There’s a man in the ward who has to wear a plastic face. He drinks absinthe. I’ve heard it’s made from wormwood and destroys the brain.”

“Don’t talk about these things. You’ll be throwing away all your medications soon.”

“Watch this.” He got to his feet and walked slowly toward the bathroom, his upper arms ridging. His back was tapered like an inverted triangle, his waist narrow, his buttocks small. She felt her nipples harden, a flush prickle her throat.

“Hurry up. We have things to do,” she said.

“I’ll have to be in the bathroom a while. Then we’ll talk about my mother. You’re going a little fast for me.”

“Your mother is going to be fine. If you want, I’ll get in touch with her. Everything is taken care of.”

She heard him clatter his walking canes against the bathtub, then sit heavily on the toilet.

“Close the door for me. Don’t look, either,” he said.

“I’m going to take good care of you,” she said, pulling the door shut, averting her eyes.

For a moment she actually meant it. No, it went deeper than that. She did want to take care of him. There was no doubt about the way she felt when she widened her knees and placed him inside her, like a wand that electrified her and made her go weak all over. His body was a massive sculpture carved from rose-colored alabaster, his chest flat, his nipples small, his breath sweet. When she came, she had to fight to suppress the sound that rose from her throat.

Why was he taking so long? She looked around the room. The fruit, she thought. Get rid of the fruit.

She dumped the basket into the trash can by the bed, then glanced outside and saw a skinned-up motorcar canted on its frame, driving through the parking area, the back bumper wired in place, a side window that looked like it had two bullet holes in it. The driver wore a slug cap and had the tight face of a boxer or someone who had been worked over with a slapjack or a sock full of sand. The woman in the passenger seat wore a lavender and yellow dress and a bandana over her hair. She seemed to look straight at Maggie, although the sun was obviously in her eyes. Maggie stepped back from the window. She could not believe her bad luck. It didn’t matter if she had been recognized or not. Within minutes, Ruby Dansen would be inside the hospital.

Maggie’s head was spinning, her heart rising into her throat. Do not be at the mercy of fate. Passivity and mediocrity ensure failure and belong on the same daisy chain. When challenged, there is no such thing as excess. Turn their viscera into a tangle of oily snakes.

The Gospel according to Maggie Bassett.

As though her thoughts could redirect her destiny, she caught a break. Ruby’s driver had driven through the parking area twice, drawing the attention of a uniformed policeman, a fat Irish dolt with a florid face and a mustache like rope who had cloves and whiskey on his breath by ten A.M. He had stopped Ruby’s driver and apparently told him to get out of the motorcar and explain the pocked holes in the side window, tapping it with his nightstick, his mustache flattening in the wind, his lips moving rapidly, the driver probably sassing him, fists balled.

Little miracles have a way of happening, don’t they, you German cunt or whatever you are.

Maggie found the orderly in the hall. “Come with me,” she said.

“And do what?” he replied, half smiling.