‘Exactly what I thought. She was a nice girl.’
‘Will you be on the floor today?’
‘No. I’m upstate, at my sister’s. We’re spending the weekend.’ Becky paused. ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about transferring to ICU in the main hospital when I get back. There’s an opening, and I’m tired of Dr Babineau. It’s true what they say – sometimes the neuros are crazier than the patients.’ She paused, then added: ‘I’d say I’m tired of Hartsfield, too, but that wouldn’t be exactly right. The truth is, I’m a little scared of him. The way I used to be scared of the local haunted house when I was a girl.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Uh-huh. I knew there were no ghosts in there, but on the other hand, what if there were?’
Hodges arrives at the hospital shortly after two P.M. and on this pre-holiday afternoon, the Brain Injury Clinic is as close to deserted as it ever gets. In the daytime, at least.
The nurse on duty – Norma Wilmer, according to her badge – gives him a visitor’s pass. As he clips it to his shirt, Hodges says, just passing the time, ‘I understand you had a tragedy on the ward yesterday.’
‘I can’t talk about that,’ Nurse Wilmer says.
‘Were you on duty?’
‘No.’ She goes back to her paperwork and her monitors.
That’s okay; he may learn more from Becky, once she gets back and has time to tap her sources. If she goes through with her plan to transfer (in Hodges’s mind, that’s the best sign yet that something real may be going on here), he will find someone else to help him out a little. Some of the nurses are dedicated smokers, in spite of all they know about the habit, and these are always happy to earn butt-money.
Hodges ambles down to Room 217, aware that his heart is beating harder and faster than normal. Another sign that he has begun to take this seriously. The news story in the morning paper shook him up more than a little.
He meets Library Al on the way, pushing his little trolley, and gives his usual greeting: ‘Hi, guy. How you doin?’
Al doesn’t reply at first. Doesn’t even seem to see him. The bruised-looking circles under his eyes are more prominent than ever, and his hair – usually neatly combed – is in disarray. Also, his damn badge is on upside-down. Hodges wonders again if Al is starting to lose the plot.
‘Everything all right, Al?’
‘Sure,’ Al says emptily. ‘Never so good as what you don’t see, right?’
Hodges has no idea how to reply to this non sequitur, and Al has continued on his way before he can think of one. Hodges looks after him, puzzled, then moves on.
Brady is sitting in his usual place by the window, wearing his usual outfit: jeans and a checked shirt. Someone has given him a haircut. It’s a bad one, a real butch job. Hodges doubts if his boy cares. It’s not like he’s going out boot scootin’ anytime soon.
‘Hello, Brady. Long time no see, as the ship’s chaplain said to the Mother Superior.’
Brady just looks out the window, and the same old questions join hands and play ring-a-rosie in Hodges’s head. Is Brady seeing anything out there? Does he know he has company? If so, does he know it’s Hodges? Is he thinking at all? Sometimes he thinks – enough to speak a few simple sentences, anyway – and in the physio center he’s able to shamble along the seventy feet or so the patients call Torture Avenue, but what does that really mean? Fish swim in an aquarium, but that doesn’t mean they think.
Hodges thinks, Never so good as what you don’t see.
Whatever that means.
He picks up the silver-framed photo of Brady and his mother with their arms around each other, smiling to beat the band. If the bastard ever loved anyone, it was dear old mommy. Hodges looks to see if there’s any reaction to his visitor having Deborah Ann’s picture in his hands. There doesn’t seem to be.
‘She looks hot, Brady. Was she hot? Was she a real hoochie-mama?’
No response.
‘I only ask because when we broke into your computer, we found some cheesecake pix of her. You know, negligees, nylons, bras and panties, that kind of thing. She looked hot to me, dressed like that. To the other cops, too, when I passed them around.’
Although he tells this lie with his usual panache, there’s still no reaction. Nada.
‘Did you fuck her, Brady? I bet you wanted to.’
Was that the barest twitch of an eyebrow? The slightest downward jerk of a lip?
Maybe, but Hodges knows it could just be his imagination, because he wants Brady to hear him. Nobody in America deserves to have more salt rubbed in more wounds than this murderous motherfucker.
‘Maybe you killed her and then fucked her. No need to be polite then, right?’
Nothing.
Hodges sits in the visitor’s chair and puts the picture back on the table next to one of the Zappit e-readers Al hands out to patients who want them. He folds his hands and looks at Brady, who should never have awakened from his coma but did.
Well.
Sort of.