I walked along behind him, stopping when he stopped. I could hear the soles of Ransom's shoes ticking against the sidewalks. The man in the blue car swung away from the curb and purred along the nearly empty street, tracking him like a predator.
Still hurrying along, Ransom was now only a block from the hospital, moving in and out of the circles of light on the sidewalk. The man in the blue car pulled out of an unlighted spot and rolled down the street. He surprised me by going right past Ransom. I thought he had seen me in his rearview mirror and swore at myself for not even getting his license number. Then he surprised me again and swung into the curb across the street from the hospital. I saw his head move as he found John Ransom in his side mirror.
I started walking faster.
Ransom turned into the narrow path between tall hedges that led up to the visitors' entrance at Shady Mount. The door of the blue car opened, and the driver got out. He pushed the door shut behind him and began to amble across the street. He was about my height, and he walked with a slightly tilted-back swagger. The apostrophe of gray hair jutted out from his head and fell against his back. His big shoulders swung, and the loose jacket of the suit billowed a little. I saw that his hips were surprisingly wide and that his belly was heavy and soft. The way he moved, his hips floating, made him look like he was swimming through the humid air.
I got my notebook out of my pocket and wrote down the number of his license plate. The blue car was a Lexus. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and turned into the path. He had given John Ransom enough time to get into an elevator. I walked down the block as quickly as I could, and by the time I turned into the path, he was just letting the visitors' door close behind him. I jogged up the path and came through the door while he was still floating along toward the elevator. I went across the nearly empty lobby and touched him on the shoulder.
He looked over his shoulder to see who had touched him. His face twitched with irritation, and he turned around to face me. 'Something I can help you with?' he said. His voice was unadulterated Millhaven, fiat, choppy, and slightly nasal.
'Why are you following John Ransom?' I asked.
He sneered at me—only half of his face moved. 'You must be outa your mind.'
He started to turn away, but I caught his arm. 'Who told you to follow Ransom?'
'And who the hell are you?'
I told him my name.
He looked around the lobby. Two of the clerks behind the long desk sat unnaturally still at their computer keyboards, pretending not to be eavesdropping. The man frowned and led me away from the elevators, toward the far side of the lobby and a row of empty chairs. Then he squared off in front of me and looked me up and down. He was trying to decide how to handle me.
'If you really want to help this guy Ransom, I think you should go back to wherever you came from,' he said finally.
'Is that a threat?'
'You really don't understand,' he said. 'I got nothing to do with you.' He wheeled around and started moving fast toward the visitors' entrance.
'Maybe one of these nervous clerks should call the police.'
He whirled to confront me. His face was an unhealthy red. 'You want police? Listen, you asshole, I'm with the police.'
He reached into his back pocket and came out with a fat black wallet. He flipped it open to show me one of the little gold badges given to officers' wives and contributors to police causes.
'That's impressive,' I said.
He stuck his broad forefinger into my chest, hard, and pushed his big face toward me. 'You don't know what you're messing with, you stupid fuck.'
Then he marched past me and out the door. I walked after him and watched him jam the wallet back into his pants on the way down the walk between the hedges. He moved across the street without bothering to look for other cars. He pulled open the door of the Lexus, bent down, and squeezed himself in. He slammed the door, started the car, and looked out of the open window to see me watching him. His face seemed to fill the entire space of the window. He twitched the car out into Berlin Avenue and roared off.
I walked off the sidewalk and watched his taillights diminish as he moved away. The brake lights flashed as he stopped at a traffic light two blocks down. The Lexus went another block north on Berlin Avenue and then turned left without bothering to signal. There was no other car on the street, and the night seemed huge and black.
I went back up between the hedges and into the hospital.
Before I got to the elevator, a police car pulled up into the ambulance bay outside the Emergency Room. Dazzling red and blue lights flashed like Morse code through the corridor. A few clerks leaned over the partition. A short balding man with an oversized nose got out of the car. The detective charged through the parting glass doors. A nurse skittered toward him, grinning and holding her hands clasped beneath her chin. The detective said something I couldn't hear, picked her up, and carried her along a few steps before whispering something into her ear and depositing her on the ground again just at the beginning of the corridor. Bent double, the nurse gasped and waved at his back before straightening up and smoothing out her uniform.
The detective held me with his eyes as he moved toward me.
I stopped and waited. As soon as he got into the lobby, he said, 'Go on, get the elevator, don't just stand there.' He waved me toward the buttons. The clerks who had been leaning over the partition to see what was going on smiled at him and then at each other. 'You were going to call the elevator, weren't you?'
I nodded and went to the closed doors and pushed the up button.
The detective nodded at the clerks. His heavy face seemed immobile, but his eyes gleamed.
'You didn't call us, did you?'
'No,' I said.
'We're all right, then.'
I smiled, and the gleam died theatrically from his eye. He was a real comedian, with his saggy face and his unpressed suit. 'Police should never go to hospitals.' He had the kind of face that could express subtleties of feeling without seeming to move in any way. 'Will you get inside that thing, please?' The elevator had opened up before us.
I got in and he followed me. I pushed the third floor button. The elevator ascended and stopped. He left the elevator, taking the turns that would lead him to April Ransom's room. I followed. We went past the nurses' station and rounded the bend of the circular corridor. A young uniformed officer came out of April's room.
'Well?' the detective said.
'This could actually happen,' said the uniformed policeman. His nameplate read Thompson. 'Who is this, sir?'
The detective looked back at me. 'Who's this? I don't know who this is. Who are you?'
'I'm a friend of John Ransom's,' I said.
'News gets around fast,' the detective said. He led the way into April's room.
John Ransom and a doctor who looked like a college freshman were standing on the far side of the bed. Ransom looked slightly stunned. He looked up when he saw me—his eyes moved to the unkempt detective, then back to me. 'Tim? What's going on?'
'What is going on?' asked the detective. 'We got more people in here than the Marx Brothers. Didn't you call this guy?'
'No, I didn't call him,' John said. 'We had dinner together.'
'I see,' said the detective. 'How is Mrs. Ransom doing, then?'
John looked vague and uncertain. 'Ah, well…'
'Good, incisive,' said the detective. 'Doctor?'
'Mrs. Ransom is showing definite signs of improvement,' said the doctor. His voice was a thick plank of dark brown wood.
