Authors: John F. Nardizzi
Chapter 35
The ambulance arrived, men and women in medical
blues. The technicians hunched over Tania. They made brisk movements with the
shiny steel gadgetry of emergencies. Tubes, beeping machines, oxygen tanks, and
old fashioned stuff as well—towels, rubber gloves and blankets. Ray heard Tania
moan.
One technician walked over to Moon. He checked her
pulse, and wrapped her in the blanket. She had lost a lot of blood.
Cops filled the room. A detective in a gray suit
stood with a pen in hand, interviewing Antonio. He glanced at the women,
nodding grimly.
Ray spoke for forty-five minutes to two
detectives. Then a technician approached, a dark man with short hair, Indian
maybe, neat and cool. “They’re gonna be OK, sir.” He nodded toward Tania. “She
took a bullet in the back. She is in some pain, but she’s OK.” Ray nodded
dimly.
“You know the other girl had burn marks on her?”
Ray shook his head no. “How recent?”
“A few days or so. Her arms are real bad.” The EMT
moved away. “We’ll take care of your friends.”
“Thank you.”
He hated hospitals. He thought again of Diana and
the ambulances that rushed to the apartment after the bombing. There had been
no need to take anyone to a hospital that day. Everyone was dead. He tried to
relax, but his lungs felt heavy and compressed. He sat on the edge of a chair
and tried to breathe deeply.
Antonio by his side. “Jesus, what a couple of days
for you.”
Ray sat mutely. So many deserved a payback. He
ground his palm into his knuckles, feeling the bone.
Later that night, he sat in the hospital room, his
heavy brown leather jacket across his lap. The windows were open. Stars
speckled the black sky. The sad, steady bleating of the monitors the only
sound. Tania’s upper back was wrapped in a bandage. She had slept all evening.
He looked at her fine brown hand, now marred with tubes running in her veins.
She looked peaceful as she slept.
Her eyes opened. Her hands tapped the sheet as if
she wasn’t sure where she was.
“Tania, how do you feel?”
“Thirsty.” Her voice was faint. “Can I have
water?” She fingered the bandages at her back.
“The doctors said you can’t drink or eat for a
while. The tubes have to do it for you.”
“Moon brought those men accidentally,” Tania said.
“Her phone—they tampered with it.”
Ray nodded. “GPS.”
“What happened?” Tania asked.
He hesitated.
“Where is Moon?” Tania looked up. Her eyes, brown
as fallen oak leaves, searched his face.
“She’s here, Tania. But she was hit.”
“Where?”
“Her neck. They have her in intensive care too.”
Tania sank into the bed, her back arching, sending the monitors crazy. Ray held
on to her hand. Tania’s eyes closed and she grimaced. She turned her back
toward him, sobbing. After a few minutes, she lay still, a small lump in the
sheets.
“I just want to go. It’s never going to end, is
it?” she said.
“I’m sorry Tania for what happened. But even these
people tire of the chase. They will move on when they see new threats to their
businesses.” He sat there looking at the stars, listening to the television
drone. Footsteps in the hallway. Voices at the nurses’ station.
Tania kept her back to him, hunched into her
pillow. Ray sat there, a shape in the darkness. He put his hand on her shoulder.
She didn’t pull away. Eventually Tania fell asleep.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
The next morning he left the hospital before Tania
awoke. He walked to the lobby and called Dominique. He asked her to meet him at
Coit Tower. Then he hailed a cab and headed east toward Telegraph Hill. A
morning fog drifted inland and everything looked dingy, smeared with gray. He
got out at the statue honoring Christopher Columbus in Pioneer Park, just below
the elegant gray tower.
A few minutes later, Dominique stepped out of a
cab. She walked up the steps to where Ray sat on a cement wall, and they
embraced, holding each other.
“I heard what happened,” she said. "Both her
and Lucas."
"Lucas found out how gangs lay off middle
managers." Ray stared into the mist. “Someone got to Moon. They tortured
her. Burn marks all over her arms. They put software on her phone that
activated her GPS. Took them right to Tania.” He shook his head.
“You couldn’t know that,” said Dominique.
"I should have anticipated it.” Ray shook his
head. “This hill, right now, I hate it." He pulled his leather coat
closed. “It’s just like before.” Dominique started to say something but stopped
short.
“How is Tania?” she asked.
“OK,” Ray said. “Moon is in bad shape though.
Tania was distraught when she heard.”
“Of course.”
“There’s so much unfinished business here,” said
Ray.
“I know.”
“You and I also,” Ray said. “It meant a lot being
back here with you.”
She smiled, moved into him. “Thanks for saying
that.”
“I mean that.” He looked out across the bay. “I’m
going to stay a while, try to make sure that Tania gets some help. Put her in a
place where they can’t find her.”
“Where’s that?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to find a way to get
her out of here. I know someone who remakes people, helps them disappear. Gangs
focus on clear dangers. We need to make them come to the end of caring. Like
they did with Lucas.”
“How did it go with the other case?”
“OK.” Ray set his face into the wind. “Got some
good information. But I wanted this kid Cherry to be the guy. I felt it.”
“Was he what you expected?”
“He admitted he delivered the bomb. Says others
organized it. A group out of San Diego. He didn’t want to tell me. But what I
took from him—” Ray paused. “It didn’t feel like I thought it would.”
“How so?”
“Dreaming of revenge. Thinking it would fill the
pit. Then you look around and you’re just digging to bury yourself right beside
the first hole.”
Ray put his arm around Dominique and pulled her
into him. They looked across the cold sea. The sun rose, and the wind swirled
orange swaths above boats rising and falling on the currents.
* * * * *
THE END