The gift shop is open, thank God. The flowers aren’t exactly very fresh-looking, though—no delivery that morning, on account of the road conditions, which are so bad I not only couldn’t get a cab, but had to walk in pretty much the center of the street in order to avoid drifts up to my knees.
Still, they have balloons of every size and description, and the helium tank is working, so I have fun making an enormous balloon bouquet. Then I have them throw in a GET WELL SOON bear for good measure, after first making sure the GET WELL SOON banner comes off, so Manuel can re-gift the bear to a girlfriend or niece. You have to think about these things when you’re giving stuffed toys to a man.
I make my way up to ICU, which is where Manuel is being held, to find him awake, but groggy, with a lot of tubes coming in and out of him. There are a lot of people in his room, including a woman who appears to be his mother, who is slumped exhaustedly in a chair near Julio, who is also dozing. While I see two cops—one posted at either entrance to the intensive care unit—I don’t see Detective Canavan anywhere. He either hasn’t made it into the city yet, or was already here and left.
There are two law enforcementy-looking guys leaning against the wall by the door to Manuel’s room, both in suits that are damp up to the knees from their walks through the snowdrifts outside. They’re holding Styrofoam cups of coffee. One is saying, as I approach, “Canavan get anything out of ’im?”
“Nothing he could make any sense of.” The younger man is wearing a tie in a festive tropical print. “Asked him if he knew why he’d been stabbed. All he did was groan.”
“Canavan ask him about the key?”
“Yep. Got about the same response. Nothing.”
“What about the girl?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe we should get the kid’s uncle to ask him,” the older one says, nodding at a dozing Julio. “Might be he’ll respond better to a face he recognizes.”
“The kid’s completely out of it,” his colleague says with a shrug. “We’re not getting shit out of him.”
Both men notice me at the same time. I’m kind of hard to miss, with my enormous balloon bouquet. Also, I’m clearly eavesdropping.
“Can we help you, miss?” the younger one asks, sounding bored.
“Oh, hi,” I say. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m here to see Manuel Juarez? I’m from the Housing Department, over at New York College, where Manuel works. They sent me to see how he’s doing.”
“You got ID?” the older detective, or whatever he is, asks, in as bored a voice as his colleague has used.
I fumble for my staff ID. I have to have the younger one hold the balloons while I do so.
“Nice bear,” he comments dryly.
“Thanks,” I say. “I thought so.”
They check the ID. Then the older one hands it back and says, “Knock yourself out,” while nodding toward Manuel’s room.
I take back my balloons and, with some difficulty, maneuver them through the door, then quietly approach Manuel’s side. He watches me the whole time, without making a sound. The only noise I can hear, as a matter of fact, is the steady breathing of his uncle and a woman I assume is his mother. And the clicking of all the machines next to his bed, doing whatever they’re doing to him.
“Well, hey, there, Manuel,” I say with a smile, showing him the balloons. “These are for you, from all of us over at Fischer Hall. We hope you feel better soon. Sorry about the bear, I know it’s a bit, you know. But they were out of flowers.”
Manuel manages a slight smile. Encouraged, I go on, “You aren’t feeling so hot, are you? I’m so sorry those guys did this to you, Manuel. It really stinks.”
Manuel opens his mouth to say something, but the only thing that comes out is a grunting noise. I see his gaze go to the brown pitcher on the table by his bed. There are some paper cups next to it.
“You want some water?” I ask. “Did anybody tell you that you weren’t supposed to have any? Because sometimes they don’t want you to drink, if you’re going to have more surgery or something.”
Manuel shakes his head. So, after letting the balloons drift to the ceiling so I don’t have to hang on to them anymore, I pour some of the water into a paper cup.
“Here you go,” I say, and hold the cup out to him.
He’s too weak to lift his hands, though—they’re weighted down by all the tubes going into them anyway—so I put the cup to his lips. He drinks thirstily.
When he finishes the first cup, he looks pointedly at the pitcher, so, figuring he wants a refill, I pour him another one. He drinks that one, too, only slower. When he’s done with that one, I ask if he wants more. Manuel shakes his head, and is finally able to speak.
“I was so thirsty,” Manuel said. “I tried to tell those guys—” He nods at the two detectives in the hallway. “But they didn’t understand me. I couldn’t talk, my throat was so dry. Thank you.”
“Oh,” I say. “No problem.”
“And thank you for what you did last night,” Manuel says. He can’t seem to speak very loudly—though Manuel, even in the peak of health, was never a loud talker—so it’s hard to hear what he’s saying. But I lean forward and am able to catch most of it. “Uncle Julio says you saved my life.”
I shake my head. “Oh, no,” I say. “Really, that was the paramedics. I was just in the right place at the right time, is all.”
“Well,” Manuel says, managing a smile, “lucky for me, then. But no one will tell me… did we win?”
“The basketball game?” I can’t help laughing. “No. We got creamed in the second half.”
“It was my fault,” Manuel says, looking pained.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I’m still laughing. “The Pansies suck, is all.”
“My fault,” Manuel says again. His voice cracks.
That’s when I stop laughing. Because I realize he’s crying. Fat tears are beading up under his eyelids, threatening to come spilling out any minute. He seems to want to lift his hands up to wipe them away, but he can’t.
“It’s not your fault, Manuel,” I say. “How can you even think such a thing? The guys on the team didn’t even know what happened to you until later. Coach Andrews didn’t tell them—”
“No,” Manuel says. The tears are sliding out from beneath his eyelids and streaming down his face. “I meant it’s my fault about Lindsay. My fault that she died.”
Whoa. “Manuel,” I say. “It isn’t your fault that someone killed Lindsay. It isn’t your fault at all.”
“I gave her the key,” Manuel insists. And he does manage to move one of his hands then. He curls his fingers into a fist and thumps the mattress, pathetically softly.
“That doesn’t mean you killed her,” I assure him.
“She wouldn’t be dead if I hadn’t given it to her. I should have said no when she asked. I should have said no. Only… she was crying.”
“Right,” I say. I glance at the two detectives outside the room. They’ve disappeared. Where did they go? I want to run out after them, tell them to get in here… but I don’t want Manuel to stop talking. “You said that last night. When did she come to you crying, Manuel? When did she ask you for the key?”
“It was right before I went home,” he says. “Monday night. After the cafeteria was closed at seven. I was pulling a double, because Fernando had to go to his grandmother’s birthday party. The holiday. You know. And she came up to me, as I was putting on my coat to go home, and said she needed to borrow the key to the cafeteria, because she’d left something in there.”
“Did she say what?” I ask, glancing at the door. Where were those guys? “What it was she left, I mean?”
Manuel shakes his head. He’s still crying.
“I should have gone with her. I should have gone and opened the door for her and waited until she got whatever it was. But I was supposed to meet someone”—from the way he says the word someone, it’s clear he means a girlfriend—“and I was running late, and she’s… well, she was Lindsay.”
“Right,” I say encouragingly. “We all knew Lindsay. We all trusted her.” Though I’m starting to think maybe we shouldn’t have.
