An hour after Lisbet took her leave, I announced that I was leaving the hospital and demanded my cell phone and underwear. The powers-that-be didn’t think my leaving was a good idea and decided that I should have the exercise of jumping through hoops before departing. My final act of contrition was waiting on my release papers. As I watched the billing clerk work on my file, I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her long, rainbow-colored, painted fingernails. Her talons rivaled those of Manchu royalty, but somehow she was still able to clack away on the computer keyboard.
“Dr. Fish wanted you to sign this,” she said.
Her index fingernail, about as long as a letter opener, tapped imperiously on the signature line. I glanced at the paper and saw the acronym AMA in several places.
“American Medical Association?” I asked.
With curt emphasis she said, “Against medical advice.”
I signed where she told me, but not in my usual scrawl. With very neat handwriting, I penned in the name Mary Baker Eddy.
“You’ll also need to sign this,” the clerk said.
The last time I’d had that much fine print thrust under my nose was when Jenny and I bought our house. “Am I promising my firstborn?”
Bored, she said, “You’re agreeing to be liable for payment if for any reason your health insurance doesn’t cover treatment received during your stay.”
“It’s been my experience that only two professions wear masks: bank robbers and doctors.”
She was not amused. I doubt whether an MRI could have found her smile. It had to be an oversight, but for some reason I wasn’t offered a wheelchair ride to the curb.
I sprang Sirius ten minutes later. The clerk at the animal clinic was considerably friendlier than her counterpart at the hospital. Most kids grow up wanting to work with animals. There’s a good reason for that. The alternative is to work with humans. When I signed Sirius’s paperwork, there were no notations of AMA.
When Sirius was brought out for me, I took a knee, and then I went nose to nose with my friend, giving him a hug and getting in return a tongue on my face and a whipping from his tail. His eyes were shining; mine were a little wet. They’d had to shave a few patches and sew him up where he’d sustained cuts, but he didn’t look too bad.
We weren’t more than a dozen steps out the door when Sirius paused at a fence post and lifted his leg for a long pit stop. “Save some,” I told him. “I was thinking we could do a drive-by at the hospital where I was staying.”
It was an unnecessary request, of course. I have never seen my partner run out of ammunition.
I drove in the freeway’s slow lane. My only goal was to get home in one piece. Earlier I’d taken some codeine with Tylenol, but the meds felt as if they’d worn off already. Any movement of my neck hurt and my ribs ached like hell. It didn’t help knowing my injuries would stiffen up and get worse overnight, but I wasn’t about to cancel my next day’s appointments, especially after what had happened.
The shaman-mobile was in Seth’s driveway. There was also another car, but that wasn’t unusual. Seth is the exact opposite of a hard-body LA surfer, but that doesn’t stop him from being incredibly popular with the opposite sex. I have accused him of getting into the shaman trade for the purpose of learning how to concoct aphrodisiacs. He has never denied it.
Before getting out of the car, I sent Sirius out on reconnaissance. In my old age and after almost being killed, I was getting careful. Sirius wasn’t gone long and came back wagging his tail. According to him, no bad guys were anywhere near our house.
The two of us went to Seth’s door. I tapped lightly and hoped I wasn’t intruding at a particularly bad moment. Before opening the door, Seth turned on the front light. I had hoped he wouldn’t do that.
“I’d almost given up on you,” Seth said, and then he stopped talking when he got a good look at my face.
“I’m sorry I didn’t bring Sirius earlier, but we ran into a little trouble.”
He motioned for us to come inside, but I shook my head. “Early flight,” I said, “remember?”
“I remember telling you I didn’t think much of the idea of you going north, and judging by how you look, I especially don’t think it’s a good idea now.”
Instead of commenting on what happened I said, “I appreciate your taking Sirius. As you can see, he picked up a few bumps and bruises but the vet says he’s okay. I hope to pick him up in the early afternoon.”
“We’ll manage. Will you?”
“I’ll try to keep my soul as intact as possible through tomorrow.”
I don’t think Seth knew whether I was joking or not. I don’t think I knew either.
CHAPTER 14:
The whisper of his voice played off the cold, concrete walls and sought me out even before we were in sight of one another. “But the wilderness found him out early and had taken vengeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude-and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core.”
There was a momentary pause, followed by his insinuating words: “I worry about you being a hollow man, Detective Gideon.”
I answered the voice before yet being able to see the face. “That’s nice,” I said. “Have you been rehearsing just for me?”
“You hear those whispers, don’t you, Detective? Those are Conrad’s words from
“Thanks for the Cliffs Notes.”
Ellis Haines’s cell in San Quentin was in the Adjustment Center, known as the AC, the death row that housed the worst of the worst. He had been placed in one of the six so-called quiet cells, a segregated area that had the most stringent security in the Q. Others in the Adjustment Center included Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, and Richard Allen Davis, the murderer of twelve-year-old Polly Klaas. Charlie Manson had once spent time in one of the quiet cells in AC.
We were about to meet in our usual spot, a holding cell called the Lawyer’s Room. The space was bigger than the eight-by-six-foot cells at San Quentin, but not much bigger. When Haines was in the room, it always felt too small.
San Quentin sits on over four hundred acres of land, much of it bordering San Francisco Bay. The land alone is said to be worth over a billion dollars. Because it’s the oldest prison in California and because the land is worth so much, lots of people would like to see San Quentin razed, with the proceeds going to the state. I doubt whether the inmates would object. Despite being the most valuable prison in the world, San Quentin is still a shit hole.
The Q’s exterior belies the interior. From a distance, the town of San Quentin looks charming. The homes occupied by staff are inviting and well maintained, and the grounds inside the gate are attractive, with nicely tended lawns and rose gardens.
From certain angles, San Quentin looks like a castle, with high granite walls and ancient battlements. You can even imagine the bay as its huge moat. Put lipstick on a pig, though, and it’s still a pig. The gardens and the ocean can’t disguise the fact that the Q is a prison with gun towers and razor wire. If you watch any old black- and-white films that have a prison setting, you’ll get a feel for what San Quentin is like.
Although I’d been making trips to San Quentin once a month for the past year, I was no more comfortable now than the first time I visited. On my calendar I always marked impending visits with a black
His singsong voice reached out to me again, traveling along the concrete made cold from the damp grip of
