Pale Kings and Princes

Susan had a new car, a bullet-shaped red Japanese sports car with a turbo-charged engine that would go from 0 to 5 million in 2.5 seconds. She blazed around in it like Chuck Yeager, but it scared me half to death and whenever I could I drove it with the cruise control set to fifty-five so it wouldn’t creep up to the speed of light on me when I glanced at the road. I nursed it away from the curb and went out Main Street toward the Wheaton Union Hospital. I picked up the Wheaton cruiser in my rearview mirror almost at once. They had their open tail on me again. I was supposed to pick them up in the rearview mirror.

About a quarter of a mile farther I picked up another tail, behind the cops, a silver Ford Escort. I love a parade.

Wheaton Union was a square two-story yellow-brick building with some glass brickwork around the entrance. A sign pointed around back to the emergency room and outpatient clinic. I parked and went in.

There was a waiting room with three people in it, and beyond a glassed-in reception area with two white-coated women, and beyond that the corridor and examining rooms.

I went to the reception room and spoke with one of the women.

“I understand a man was brought in Friday night around six o’clock with a gunshot wound in the left thigh,” I said.

Behind me a Wheaton cop, no one I’d seen before, strolled into the reception area and sat down in one of the spring-back wheeled chairs behind the desk next to the one I stood before. He was eating an apple.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” the woman at the desk said.

The other woman said, “Hello, Dave,” to the cop with the apple.

I said, “The guy that got shot Friday night, I wondered how he was.”

The cop swallowed his apple and said to my receptionist, “Hey, Jenny, you and Kevin coming to the softball banquet?”

She nodded at the cop and looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, sir, I have no record of anybody with a gunshot wound.”

“Without even checking?” I said.

“A gunshot wound would be news, sir. There’s been no one brought in here shot.”

The cop took another bite of his apple.

My receptionist looked at him and then the other receptionist.

“You don’t know anything about a gunshot victim, do you, Marge?”

Marge pushed her lower lip out and shook her head slowly. To my right a small black-haired woman came into the waiting room and sat down.

The cop was short and round-faced and wore his cap on the back of his head. He took a last bite out of the apple and looked around for the wastebasket. Didn’t see it and put the core in an ashtray.

My receptionist picked it up with a wrinkled nose and dropped it in the basket under her desk.

“Really, Dave,” she said. “Did you grow up in a barnyard?”

He grinned at her and then looked at me for the first time. He had been elaborately not looking at me up until now.

“Guess there’s no gunshot wound here, mister,” he said.

“Silly me,” I said and turned and went back out into the waiting room. The small black-haired woman was careful not to look at me. I went on out into the parking lot and got in my car and pulled out of my parking slot. The cop ambled out and got in his cruiser and turned around the curve of the emergency room drive and fell in behind me again. As I reached the top of the drive the small black-haired woman came out of the emergency room door and headed for her car. Two hundred yards down the road I checked the rear-view mirror again and the little Ford Escort was back in line behind the cops. Maybe she wasn’t following me, maybe she was following Dave. I didn’t want to be egocentric. I drove straight back through town and on out Quabbin Road to my motel. I parked in the lot and walked toward the lobby. The Wheaton cruiser moseyed on by me and turned back toward town. The Ford Escort drove on past me and parked at the end of the lot. I went on into the lobby and turned and watched through the glass doors as the small black-haired woman got out of the Escort and walked slowly toward the motel. As she walked she kept looking off in the direction the cruiser had taken. When she got to the hotel lobby, I was standing by the entry to the bar.

“Care for a cocktail?” I said.

She looked at me for a moment and said, “Yes,” and walked past me into the bar and sat at a small table against the far wall. I followed her and sat down across. The lunch crowd was starting to drift into the restaurant. Virgie was behind the bar.

“What would you like,” I said.

“Perrier,” she said. “Wedge of lime.”

I stood and went to the bar. “Perrier, Virgie,” I said. “And a bottle of Sam Adams.”

“Lime?” Virgie said.

“In the Perrier,” I said.

“I’ll bring them over,” Virgie said.

I went back and sat down. The dark-haired woman had lit a cigarette and as I sat down she exhaled some smoke.

“You mind,” she said.

I shook my head.

Virgie came around the bar with a tray and set the drinks down and went back to the bar.