Black Hornet

up till you look like Mickey Mouse. However …”

The great medical however.

“… you have three cracked ribs. I don’t think there’s any danger, but we’d like you to stay here overnight for observation.”

I shook my head. “Tape them.”

“Mr. Griffin-”

I stopped him. “Doctor. I appreciate your concern, believe me. But I’ve been through this before.”

“You don’t understand. With injuries of this kind there’s always the possibility of-”

“Lung puncture, pneumothorax, atalectasis, pneumonia. I do understand. As I said, this isn’t exactly new territory for me. First time, I went to bed the way I was told and I got so sore it took me two months to get over it all. Next time, because someone was stalking me, I didn’t have a choice, I had to keep moving. By the end of the week I’d almost forgotten it ever happened.”

“Well … you have a point. All right, Mr. Griffin. We’ll do it your way, on a couple of conditions. One: you let me write a prescription for you in case the pain gets too bad, so you’ll at least be able to rest.”

“Second?”

“You come back day after tomorrow and let me take a look at you.”

“Agreed.” Though I knew there was little chance I’d come back. He probably knew it too.

“I’m still not clear on this thing with Davis,” Walsh said as the doctor began wrapping me.

I looked beneath one raised arm.

“When all hell started breaking loose, I had to wonder if it might be a set-up. If the whole thing, the speaker trouble, the ensuing riot, all of it, hadn’t started out just as a way to provide distraction.”

“Making it easy for anyone who wanted to take Corene Davis down.”

I nodded. “Hold still, Mr. Griffin,” the doctor said.

“There wasn’t anything I could do out on the edge like that. Man could have been standing in moonlight on the roof with a cannon and I wouldn’t have seen him. So I pushed into the crowd. Thinking all the time that if I got in closer to the center, there was at least a chance I’d see something-assuming there was something to see.

“About this time they brought Corene Davis out a side door, trying to get her away from danger. They came out of the church itself, not the community center, and I just happened to be in the right position and looking that way. Four men pressed close to her, and they were making for a black Lincoln parked in the alley behind.

“I caught a glimpse, just a flash of motion, from a doorway back there. I wasn’t even sure, afterward, that I really saw it. But I went over the low stone wall between the buildings and along it, crouched as low as I could and still keep my speed up, and just as they reached the car, Corene and her escorts, this guy stepped out of the doorway.”

“You broke his arm in two places, Lew. Witnesses said it looked like you were trying to tear it off. Then you started in on the rest of him.”

“I don’t know. I was concentrating on the gun. Funny how fast it came swiveling away from the others and toward me. All I wanted to do once he was down was make sure he stayed down. Man had one hell of a kick to him.”

“Well, you took him down, all right. Hard. Be a while before he gets back up.”

“Who is he?”

“We don’t have much yet. His name’s Titus Kyle, appears to be local. We’ve got his picture and prints on the wire, and feds are running a check for affiliations with subversive organizations, known activist groups and the like.”

“He’s an old man.”

Walsh nodded. “Late fifties, anyway.”

“Not the shooter.”

“Nope.”

“How does that feel, Mr. Griffin?” the doctor said.

I lowered my arms, twisted about, took a deep breath. “Like someone’s sitting on me.”

“Perfect.” He may even have smiled. “See you day after tomorrow.” He scribbled on a pad, tore off the sheet and gave it to me. “Every four hours if you need it.”

Walsh handed me my shirt. I managed to get it on without gasping.

“There’s a line forming outside the ER door, you know. People taking numbers. Your dance card’s filled. Five or six reporters, someone from the mayor’s office. Man from SeCure Corps wants to offer you a full-time position. And Miss Davis is waiting to thank you personally.”

I tucked the shirt in, put on my coat. “There a back way out of here?”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. Yeah, there is. And a car waiting in the alley.”

We made it along narrow corridors smelling of chlorine and through a steel fire door without getting spotted. Walsh started the engine and sat there a moment looking ahead.

“You know, you probably saved more than one life out there tonight, Lew,” he said.

Then he slipped the Corvair into gear and headed for Jefferson Highway.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It takes a while for us to realize that our lives have no plot. At first we imagine ourselves into great struggles of darkness and light, heroes in our Levi’s or pajamas, impervious to the gravity that pulls down all others. Later on we contrive scenes in which the world’s events circle like moons about us-like moths about our porch lights. Then at last, painfully, we begin to understand that the world doesn’t even acknowledge our existence. We are the things that happen to us, the people we’ve known, nothing more.

Once reporters had dispersed, the mayor’s office lost interest in me. Walsh helped convince police and media to conceal my name and identify me only as an employee of SeCure Corps. From Corene Davis, a citizen whose own privacy was fatally compromised and who must therefore have come to cherish that of others, I received three days later a handwritten note of thanks.

SeCure wasn’t so easy.

A telegram waited for me, lodged between front door and frame. Please contact us ASAP, it said. When I went in, I found an envelope pushed under the door. Engraved letterhead inside. SeCure Corps wanted me to come to work for them as a field supervisor, overseeing all part-time and contract employees. Stock options were mentioned.

Good folks, those people down at SeCure. Stuff America’s made of. Excellent management, careful planning, fine strategies. Deserve their $1.5 million net.

Except that when I got to sleep, one of them came crawling in to drag me out.

Thuds at the door-like the drums the natives use before the great doors in King Kong. Mystery. Ritual. Wonder. Oh my.

I was dreaming of drums in Congo Square. I was a child, with no comprehension of the languages rolling about me. I pressed close to my father, afraid. So much to be afraid of. I could feel the strange words gathering like coughs in his chest. Then I was in church humming along (since I didn’t know the words) “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” looking up at stained-glass panels, parable of the prodigal son. The drums went on. At last I surfaced and slouched, not towards Bethlehem, but only the door.

“You hit that door again, I’ll take your arm off,” I said. Damn it’s bright out there.

She looked sharply at me, opened her hand, lowered her arm. Then on impulse held the hand out. Slim fingers, narrow wrist. I took it. The world ached anew with possibilities.

“We’ve been trying to contact you, Mr. Griffin.”

“We?”

“SeCure Corps. I’m Bonnie Bitler, executive vice president. Veep, as they say, to make me feel like one of the boys.”

So much for a world awaft with possibilities. Just business as usual. But she’d have a hell of a time ever