“There we go, then,” she said, cheerful. “And …”
This time it went quicker.
“Hold on just a moment before you go dancing,” she said. I heard things rustling around and felt a cool sensation back there; two bandages were gently placed on, and she helped me off the table.
“You’re done, then, Mr. Cole.”
“No follow-up?”
She shook her head. “No, dearie. I put a couple of butterfly bandages back there. Give yourself a week, and you should heal up pretty well.” Molly went over to the medical terminal and started typing. “You must be one happy man,” she said.
“Some days, I guess. Why did you say that?”
“Oh,” she said. “I see here that your biopsy results came back yesterday. Benign.”
Felix helped me out of the doctor’s office, and when we got back into his Mercedes convertible, I said, “Please indulge me.”
“Sure.”
“Take me over to the Exonia Hospital.”
“What, you didn’t get enough health care today?”
“No, I want to see Paula Quinn.”
“You got it.” He started up the car and said, “Oh, how could I forget this? Hold on for a second.”
Felix reached back and grabbed a Shaw’s plastic shopping bag, plopping it in my lap. I reached inside and took out my recently stolen John Keegan book.
I flipped it open, saw the inscription, “To Lewis Cole, with all best wishes. John Keegan.”
I closed the book cover, rubbed it once.
“Good job,” I said.
“That’s what we do.”
Then we left.
At the hospital the day was sunny and perfect, and just outside the main entrance we stopped in a little oval park with wide granite benches. I said to Felix, “Being that I’m still in recovery, I’m going to sit out here and catch some sun. Be a dear boy and go inside and find out what room Paula’s in.”
“You need to go to the bathroom first, in case your bum needs to be wiped?”
“Thanks for the offer,” I said. “I’m going to try to hold it in.”
He helped me over to the bench, his uncle’s cane still in my hand, even with part of it exposed. I already felt lighter and walked better, without the harness back there and the tubes running out of my skin. I sat on the stone bench, stretched my legs, and let the sun warm my face and hands.
Felix came back about five minutes later. “She’s been discharged,” he said. “About a half hour ago.”
“Then you’re going to take me to her house,” I said, getting up.
“That’s not going to work.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s not home. And she’s not at the Chronicle. Looks like she’s … gone.”
I sat and thought and sat some more, and Felix said, “How about a ride home?”
“How about,” I said.
When we got to the parking lot of the Lafayette House, I asked him to stop for a moment, and he found a parking spot that overlooked the ocean. If you leaned forward some and turned your head, you could make out the very top of my old and battered house.
Old and battered. What a coincidence.
Felix said, “Over the years, I’ve been in a tight spot or two with a woman friend who had been there either by accident or on purpose. Sometimes they were injured along the way. And when it was over, my friend, I usually never saw them, ever again. Just to let you know.”
I sat there, the old and now silly-looking cane in my hands. I kept quiet.
“Not that they necessarily blamed me, you understand. But they couldn’t be with me anymore. No matter my charm, my skills, anything else, when they were with me, the first and only thought that came to their mind was remembering the time they were with me, hurt and terrified. And they never wanted to relive that experience, ever again. And that’s how it would end, and you’d just have to accept it and move on.”
“You thinking that about Paula?”
“Hell, no,” he said. “I hardly know anything about her, except that she’s not too fond of me. I was just speaking randomly, to fill up the empty space.”
“All right,” I said. “Bring me down, will you?”
He backed his Mercedes out and with some careful driving, maneuvering, and one muttered Italian oath, he got me down the driveway and to my house without once bottoming out. “I’ll check in with you later,” he said.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said. “And for getting my book back.”
“Thanks for the silver. I think I’m going to hold on to it for a while.”
“Good idea.”
I got out and he moved up and around, and when I went up to the steps, the door opened, and there was Paula Quinn, waiting for me.
I just stood there, looking up at her. Her face was pale but smiling, and there was a little square bandage on the side of her forehead. She looked comfortable, and wonderful, in tight jeans and a black pullover sweater with the sleeves rolled up.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Pretty good,” she said, briefly touching the bandage. “It looks like when I took a tumble to the floor, I scraped it on a bookcase.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t worse.”
“Me, too,” she said. “And … I have a couple of bruised ribs, too. From some gallant man who covered me with his body to protect me.”
“Gallant’s my middle name.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said. “Where have you been?”
“The doctor’s office,” I said. “Getting my tubes out. I’m no longer carrying plastic bladders back there, filled with blood and fluid.”
“Good news,” she said. “I hear chicks dig the non-bladder look for spring.”
“I also hear they dig the non-malignant look as well.”
It was like a flash of light flickered in her eyes, and she brought her hand to her face for a moment. Then she took something out of her jeans pocket. “Recognize this?”
“Sure,” I said. “My cell phone.”
She wiggled it in her hand. “In this interconnected world of ours, it’s customary to carry it around so people can contact you.”
“But I did try to call you,” I said.
“No
