peppers-a southwestern decor. Inside, the place was dark, somber. Low light. Chairs and tables dark brown. Solitary drinkers alone with their beers. Travelers passing through.
Weiss moved to the bar rail. He hoisted his butt onto one of the stools. A waitress stepped up to him, wiping his little piece of bar top with a cloth. She was forty or so. She had even features and long blond hair. Her face was lined and tired but still pretty. Her figure was good. Weiss let his eyes go up and down her. She was wearing a tight black top that showed off her breasts and her firm waist.
It was funny, he thought, how, when the subject came up, you realized how much you didn't want to die.
'Gimme a Rock, willya,' he said.
She brought him the beer in a bottle. Poured it into a glass in front of him. He watched her face while she did it. She knew he was doing it. She liked it. She smiled.
'Thanks,' he said.
'Sure. Can I get you anything else?'
He lifted his chin to one of the television sets hanging above the bar mirror. 'Could you see if there's some local news on?'
He watched the back of her short skirt as she turned to pick up the remote. She switched the picture on the TV from a Diamondbacks game to the news. The sound was turned off but there were subtitles. He sipped his beer and watched the pictures, read the words. The beer made his stomach feel better.
The shootout at the Saguaro Hotel was the lead story. They had already covered it at the start of the program, but they returned to it at the end. Weiss was distracted, thinking about the Shadowman, trying to get rid of the images in his mind.
I want her to see what I do to you… You think it'll be clean? It will not be clean.
The pictures on the TV snapped him out of it. They showed the hotel and the broken window through which Bishop had fallen. The camera panned down from that to the swimming pool, to show how long a fall it was. There were still traces of blood in the water, or what looked like blood. The camera zoomed in on it.
The newsman didn't know the name of the man who had been shot. The police hadn't identified him yet. But Weiss suspected it was Bishop from the first. Then, when the newsman said the victim had been wearing a leather jacket, Weiss knew for sure.
He was not prepared for what he felt, for the weight of it. It was the end of something and he knew it. There would be no more second chances. He set his beer down on the bar, his hand trembling. He set some money down. His vision was blurred.
'Hey,' said the waitress. 'Are you okay?'
Weiss waved her off. He lumbered out of the bar with his head down, his back bent. He looked like a sick old man.
38.
He was there, at Bishop's bedside, when Sissy and I walked into the hospital room. We had come through Vegas on the last plane out. It was nearly 3 A.M. when we finally arrived.
The hospital room was a double, two beds. The bed nearer the door was empty. Bishop was in the other bed, the one nearer the window. Weiss was sitting in a chair pressed right up against the bed's side. His big form was hunched over Bishop where he lay. For a moment, right after we first walked in, we could hear him murmuring to the fallen man, a steady stream of words, indistinguishable. Then he must've sensed we were there, because he fell silent.
We waited. Without turning around, he said aloud, 'I'm glad you came.'
I hung back by the door. I felt I had no business being there with the three of them. I had only come because Sissy was such a wreck, in no condition to travel alone. Now I let her move to the bed without me.
'The hospital called,' she said softly. 'I was the only number they could reach.'
Weiss nodded. 'I guess I've been out of touch.'
He turned. Glanced at me over his shoulder, then looked steadily up at her. He was an awful sight. Old and exhausted and pale. After a night of crying, Sissy didn't look much better. They gazed at each other a long, long moment, appalled, I think, at the pitiful spectacle they made. They were always very fond of each other, these two.
Sissy said, 'How is he?'
They both turned to look down at the man on the bed.
Bishop lay on his back in an unconsciousness so deep he seemed almost inanimate. The handsome tough ironic face was drained of every expression. It was drained of color. It seemed made of stone. A white sheet covered him to his waist. A white patient's gown covered his torso. There was a tube full of something running into one of his arms, another in the other, a counter of some kind clicking off the doses, a monitor running his numbers with an occasional beep. He didn't even look like himself. He didn't even look like a man. He looked like part of the machinery, pulsing but lifeless.
'He's bad,' said Weiss in a voice infinitely weary. 'The doctor said he's lucky to still be alive. But he's very bad.' He rubbed his chin as if he was thinking. His cheeks were dark with stubble. 'The bullets… I've seen this before. Bullets are strange things. They do strange stuff inside you. Like they go into you and they have a mind of their own. It's-crazy. Anyway, they had to…' His shoulders lifted as he took a deep breath through his nose. 'They had to take out his spleen. Then there was some vein-I forgot what she called it. Ill… Illy…'
'Iliac.'
'Yeah, the iliac vein. This big vein. One of the bullets sliced it. He lost a lot of blood. She-the doctor-she said his heart stopped beating three times on the table.'
'Oh Christ,' said Sissy. 'Oh Christ.'
Weiss laughed miserably. 'Yeah. Yeah.'
She took a breath. 'Well-I mean: is he gonna make it?'
Weiss lifted his hand by way of a shrug. 'His chances aren't so good, she said, the doctor said. You know, he's fighting. He's a tough guy but… It's not so good.'
Sissy lifted both her hands to massage her eyes. 'Does he have any family? Do we know? Does he have parents or anything?'
'No, I don't know,' said Weiss. 'His father's dead, I think. I don't know.'
They were both silent then, hanging over the injured man. As if they had nothing else to say about him but didn't feel right talking about anything else.
After a while Sissy seemed to remember I was there. She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled briefly.
'You don't have to stay.'
I was about to protest, but then I realized: she didn't want me there. Neither of them wanted me there. I was just passing through their lives on the way to a life of my own. This was too real to them for me to stand by watching, making a story of it in my head.
'You can go get yourself a hotel room, put it on the Agency,' Sissy said. 'You can fly out in the morning. I'll get home all right.'
I nodded. 'Okay.'
'Thank you-for negotiating the planes and everything, getting us here. I appreciate it.'
I nodded again. I nodded at Bishop. 'Good luck,' I said.
I left.
For another long time after I was gone, Weiss sat stoop-shouldered over Bishop. Sissy stood over him. He lifted his eyes to her.
'You look like crap, Sis,' he said. He moved his head to- ward the door through which I'd gone. 'What happened? He dump you?'
She gave a sniffling laugh. She rolled her eyes, fighting tears. 'It has been a really, really, really bad night,' she said. 'It ought to win some sort of bad-night award.'
