I had to find and provide Sandy’s health insurance info, IDmyself over the phone in some way they could check — I ended up using mymaybe-legit State Police badge number, after which the dispatch lady got polite— and then the ambulance crew had to coordinate with city cop cruisers forbackup before they’d head into combat.
I found out later that emergency services had a long string offalse calls from that group of apartments, including one that ended with armedrobbery and the ambulance stripped down to the paint. I’d known it looked likea bad neighborhood, but I didn’t have the history on just how bad. Calling froma cell phone didn’t help their justified paranoia even a little bit, especiallysince Sandy had used a different name getting the phone, the name that showedup on caller ID, a name I hadn’t known.
Anyway, that all took a while, with Sandy dying on the kitchenfloor, gasping away and nearly not-gasping ever again every minute or two.Waiting for the ambulance crew took a while longer. That gave me time to catchup on my regrets. I’d gone into that place with a set of ideas in my head, onesthat looked pretty shaky in the cold glare of hindsight.
No plan. I hadn’t had time for a plan. I’d had thispie-in-the-sky notion that I could work something out on the fly, that I wouldn’thave to kill Sandy. You’d think after all these years I’d have lost such naïveoptimism. Hey, I keep telling youthat I’m not that bright. Just persistent. Bulldogs aren’t too smart, either,but they know one thing — bite and don’t let go. That’s me.
Even after I’d found out what she’d taken from John Doe, IliasBycheck, I’d switched to the silly-ass notion that she’d give it to me. I’ddestroy it, and she could vanish. All’s well that ends well, except for thecorpses and Cash crippled for life. I could live with that. I already livedwith worse.
You’ve seen how that turned out. In spite of being certifiablyinsane, Sandy had this strange notion that somehow you could trust humans to bedecent. To not use the thing. Yeah, a lot of people are decent, maybe most.Drop your wallet on the sidewalk or leave it in a store, you have a chance ofseeing it again, or at least the non-cash contents. Even folks who won’t wastethe hour or two you’d need to take it to the local precinct and wait in lineand answer a bunch of nosy questions and fill out three different forms willleave it lying there for you to come back and pick it up.
But I wouldn’t recommend making the experiment. And I couldn’tthink of any institution I’d trustwith the power of that relic. Individual men, yes, but Sandy would have givenit to an institution, no matter what man fronted for it. Even if you picked outa good man like Father Joseph or Rabbi Meyers, the relic had outlived a hundredgenerations of individual men and women. Sooner or later, probably sooner, itwould end up in bad hands.
That’s where Sandy and I couldn’t see eye to eye. Deep downinside, Sandy still had Faith. I’m not talking about faith in God. She stillbelieved in the innate goodness of human beings and their religiousinstitutions. Me, I know that men lie. Men have psychotic delusions, hearingvoices. I know these things, and I look at history. Time after time, men haveturned religion to evil.
Some times it’s delusion. Some times it’s a cold calculatedgrab for wealth and power. Men choose shadings of translation, one word overanother to support one belief over another, add commas to ancient scribes’copies of still older documents that lacked punctuation, to make a killingpoint in theological pogroms. . . .
I’m not trying to tell you what to believe or disbelieve. Butfor me, what it comes down to is this — religions are men. I may trust God, butafter a lifetime of hunting down the worst examples, I’ve learned that you can’ttrust men. And all religions passthrough men.
About that point in my internal sermon, the sirens pulled up outside,at least three of them. I couldn’t check on the street, because Sandy’s hideoutoverlooked that wild ravine out back. I was still on the cell phone, though,911 folks like to keep the line open until the cavalry is on the scene. So Icould track the cops, buzz the cops through the entry door, follow them up thestairs third-hand through the phone.
I opened the apartment door and waited, in plain sight in thecorridor, both my hands in view and the badge case open in my right. The copchecked both ways before exposing his body out of the stairwell, nervous,weapon still in his holster but his hand close to it. Bad neighborhood.
I didn’t know him, or the EMT squad, or the other copsdownstairs. Two cars had responded, with two officers each — one pair to go inand watch each other’s back, one pair to guard the ambulance and cruisersoutside. Seriously bad neighborhood.Sandy could really pick ’em.
I told the first EMT that Sandy had made a noise, grabbed herhead, and slipped out of her chair. He asked how long ago. I told him I didn’tknow, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, I’d tried first aid, I’d had to find herphone and figure out how to use it, there’d been the hassle with dispatch.
I got out of the way. They did the vital signs, thestabilization dance and emergency injections, CPR and portable oxygen. Theyloaded her on a litter basket and strapped her down. They grunted and heavedand swore their way down tight stairs, tilting the litter nearly on end to goaround corners. Not fun, any of it — Sandy weighed nearly as much as I do. Thecops didn’t ask many questions. They thought they were protecting Good Guysdealing with a medical emergency, rather than investigating a crime.
I used Sandy’s bathroom, turned off and unplugged stuff,locked up, and wrote the place off. Like,
