He looked at her but she saw he understood. Understood that a memory can be heavy as an engine block and sharp as a razor. Through the thumping in her chest and the ringing in her ears she see could again what she'd loved first and best about Zamorra: all the thing didn't need to be told, all the things he just got.
'The deputies interviewed George Massati,' he said. 'George was angry because he'd been sleeping. George claimed his car wasn't stolen, that it was in the garage. Guess what? It was. But the plates were different. So our friends were thorough enough to steal one car, then slap on plates stolen from another one, figuring it might take the owner a while to notice his plates had changed.'
'Cute,' she said. Her heart was still racing and part of her felt like a hysterical dope. The other part of her felt like a ghost had just his fingers up her thigh. She took a good deep breath of air into lungs.
'What's in the bag?' Zamorra asked.
'A red shop rag. I think it was thrown into the culvert so wouldn't find it.'
He nodded, smiled slightly. 'You're better than perfect. You're good.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
Early the next morning Archie opened his eyes. In the half-light of the ICU he saw the silhouettes of the monitor and drip trolley, the crimson swoosh of someone leaving the room. He lifted his head, rising just slightly on his elbows, and backed up onto his pillow.
Gwen is dead, he thought. The huge black nothing that was now Gwen opened up to him and he felt his heart falling down into the center of it. It was still beating as it fell, but it felt reluctant. He thought it might stop. He waited for it to stop. He saw that bright flash of light in his eyes, the one that had greeted him on his walkway under the trees.
And he heard the voice again, the one that had been telling him what to do for these last forty-eight hours, now saying:
Your heart is strong. I'm above you in the sky. You will find me if you look.
Archie realized it was Gwen's voice, even though he still couldn't picture her face.
Another red rush of movement outside the door, then it came straight at him: 'Oh, Mr. Wyocraff! Mr. Wyocraff! It's so good! You be careful, you be careful with a IV.' Warm hands on his shoulder then and a dull pain that registered as a flash of lime green. 'You take it easy, Mr. Wyocraff. You our miracle. You take it easy.'
'Sure,' he heard himself say. The voice was sandy and tan and seemed to come from far away.
Four more people suddenly crowded into the room. He felt the energy they brought with them, as if their bodies contained fires. Hands on his shoulder again, and another throb of pain.
Another nurse, then: 'Archie, we're going to move you back down in the bed, then raise the head, okay? You just relax now…'
They pulled him down by his ankles. A nurse steadied his head and it felt like she wore oven mitts, and he wondered if his head was wrapped. A motor ground and the bed rose slightly, bending him the waist. His head hurt only a little. But a burning match touched the tip of his penis and he very slowly tilted down his head for a look. Catheter, he thought, and tried to say the word but it wasn't worth the syllables.
He strained his neck for a look down at his shoulder. Through the hospital smock he could see the plastic gadget with an intravenous line hooked into it. He ran his right hand across his cheek: hard stubb. He raised the hand slightly and felt the soft turban of gauze that came down to his ears. When he slipped the finger under it he realized they'd shaved his head.
He remembered that Gwen was dead and he waited for his heart to stop.
The four bodies parted. A man in a suit stopped beside the bed, looked at Archie and said, 'I'm John Stebbins. How are you feeling?'
Archie managed a nod.
Dr. Stebbins stared into his eyes like he was looking for a treasure.
'Vision blurred?'
Archie shook his head very slightly, the turban resisting the pillowcase.
'Color?'
Archie nodded.
'How many fingers am I holding up?'
'Two,' he said. It seemed like such a long word, stretching on for miles, like a beach.
'You can obviously hear me. How's your head feel?'
Archie nodded again. He watched the doctor's eyes move to the monitor, then back to him.
'Look at the ceiling, please. I'm going to touch you with a pen. When I do, just raise a finger for me. Okay?
'The nodding was wearing him out. He looked up. He felt something touch his toe. Ankle. Kneecap. Fingertip. Stomach. Thigh. Hip. Chest. Upper arm. Palm.
'Move your right foot. Good. Left. Good. Raise your right kneethat's enough. Now the left. Fine. Raise your right hand. From the shoulder now-excellent. Can you smile?'
Archie tried to smile but his lips were tight and his teeth felt huge and dry.
'Fine,' he said. 'Welcome back.'
Archie just stared at him: a pale blue man with peaceful eyes and a tight mouth.
'How much Decadron is he taking?'
A nurse said something and Stebbins nodded. 'And how much Tegretol?'
Archie heard her answer but couldn't calculate what it meant.
'Seizures?'
'A sharp decline, Doctor. None for four hours.'
Dr. Stebbins turned to one of the nurses and ordered a spiral CT scan immediately, tell Bixton it was priority and call me as soon as they're ready.
They parted and the doctor left in a comet of trailing red. All four stared at him like he was the most interesting thing they'd ever seen. A fifth person craned her neck from the doorway.
'Soup,' said Archie.
He drank three cups of broth and fell deeply asleep. Then they were trying to wake him and he was able to come up through the clear warm water and join them.
One nurse wheeled his bed from the room and the other pushed the drip trolley.
'You be very famous when you get out,' said the nurse, the one who had called him her miracle. 'Reporter all want talk to you.'
Her face was enameled yellow. Orange hair, an indigo uniform that he knew was either white or blue. He saw these colors clearly even though he knew they were wrong.
'Did they bury her?' he heard himself ask.
'I don't know. You think of life, Mr. Wyocraff. You don't think of death.'
But that was almost all Archie thought about while they ran the CT on him. Death and Gwen. Gwen and death, now together. He tried pull them apart but they wouldn't come. And he still couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her face. He knew he loved her. He knew she was gone forever. He knew that she was the largest thing in his heart, his life, his history. Why couldn't he see her?
Would she talk to him again?
The scan was painless. The doctors hovered a few yards away a talked about things inside his brain that he couldn't see. He wondered if they could see what he was thinking. Then the one called Stebbi told him all sorts of information about what might be happening to his brain, about fragmentation and edema and infection and amnesia a pain, about the thalamus and the amygdala and the pyramidal tract, and colors and confusion and the emotional components of memory.
Back in his room in the ICU he closed his eyes hard and tried burst out of his nightmare. He used to do this when he was a boy a having a bad dream-just scrunch his eyelids down hard and blast out of it and into the comfort of his bed. It was like space travel. But didn't work because this was not a dream.
So he tried to transport himself back to that night. To get himself onto the walkway under the Chinese flame
