Yes, he is. Is the priest doing extreme unction?
No, Officer Davenport is in surgery, but we thought a priest should be notified; its purely routine in these cases…
Ill be right there.
If you will check with the information desk at the front entrance, not the emergency entrance, you will be directed to the surgical waiting area.
And the nun dropped the phone on the hook.
AUDREY BRACED HERSELF AGAINST THE WALL. IF THE nun came out the main entrance, the entrance closest to the parking lot, and headed straight toward the lot, shed pass Audrey at little more than an arms length. Audrey would have only a moment to determine if she was alone. If she wasnt, Audrey would follow her to Midway Hospital and try therethe nun would have to walk some distance to the main entrance, and would probably be dropped off.
She was rehearsing it all in her mind when she heard the main door open. No voices, just the clank of the push bar on the door, and the door opening. Three seconds later, a woman in a black habit swept by, and down the walk. Audrey instinctively knew she was alone: she was moving too quickly, with too much focus, to be with another person. Audrey swung out from behind the junipers, her heart gone to stone in her chest, a step and a half behind the nun.
And she struck, like an axman taking a head.
The heavy rod hit the nun on the side of the head, glanced off, hit the nuns shoulder; the woman sagged, her knees buckling, one hand going to the ground. She started to turn.
And Audrey struck her again, this time full on the head, and the nun pitched forward on her face… Audrey lifted the dowel rod, her teeth bared, her breathing heavy, andstruck at the nuns head again, but from a bad angle: the rod this time bounced off the side of the nuns head and into her shoulder.
With building fury, with the memory of all these decades of slights and slurs against her, with the thought of all the people whod held her back and down, with her father, her mother, with all the others, Audrey struck again and again, hitting the nuns neck and back and shoulder…
And heard the clank of the door again, froze, looked wildly aroundnowhere to run, not at this instant, this was the very worst moment for an interruptionand stepped back in the shadow of the junipers. The girl came around the corner no more than a second later, saw the nun, said, Sister! and bent over her.
And Audrey struck at her, hitting the girl on the back of the head. Like the nun, the girl pitched forward, onto her face. Audrey hit her again, and again, breathing hard now. Stopped, hovered over the two motionless women for an instant, jabbed at the nuns leg with the end of the dowel rod, got no response, then scuttled away. Around the corner, onto the sidewalk, down the sidewalk to the car. Nobody on the sidewalk. Inside the car, dowel rod on the floora sudden touch of panic: she felt her pocket. Yes! The phone was thereand the car started and she eased away from the curb.
This was always the hardest part, staying cool after an attack. With her heart beating an impossible rhythm, Audrey drove slowly off the campus, to the Mississippi, left to the bridge and across to Minneapolis.
She stopped once, on a dark street, to throw the dowel rod down a sewer. She went on, dropped the cotton gloves one at a time out the window. She hadnt seen any blood from either of the women, but it had been dark: she should burn these clothes, or get rid of them, anyway.
That would have to waitshe could wash them tonight, immediatelyand throw them out tomorrow.
But now, there was more to do.
Twenty minutes later, headlights on, she pulled into herdriveway, and into the darkened garage. She dropped the garage door, groped to the kitchen entrance, went inside and flipped on the light.
Upstairs, she took off her clothes, inspected them closely. Nothing she could see. Still, theyd go in the washing machine. She picked up the phone: no messages. Good.
She dialed, got Helen: Hello?
Helen… I just… cant sleep, she said, her voice crumbling. I hate to bother you, have you come over here, but Im just so blue, Im just lying here thinking about Wilson. She began to weep, a bubbling, pathetic wail. Help me.
Oh God, hang on, Audrey, Ill be right there.
And H-Helen… b-b-bring a few of those Prozacs. Maybe they would help. Ive got to trysomething.
Ill be right there. Hang on.
She hung up, satisfied. Cleared her face, gathered her clothes for the wash. She might not ever need the Prozac, she might not ever need Helen coming up the drive with her lights on, to muddy any witness statementsbut who knew what the future might hold? Better to work all the possibilities now, than to regret it later.
She thought about the nun, lying on the sidewalk.
Wonder if shes dead?
She never thought about the other woman at all; the other woman was irrelevant.
TWENTY-TWO
SHERRILL HAD BROUGHT WITH HER A VOTIVE CANDLE scented faintly with vanilla, and a crystal candleholder, and their second night together took on the feel of college days, making love in the yellow flickering candlelight. And Sherrill said, as they lay comfortably warm under a sheet, Do you think you could go for somebody like Candy La-Chaise? Sherrill had put four. 357 slugs through Candy LaChaises chest during an abortive holdup at a credit union.
I dont think so, Lucas said. He was lying on his back, hands behind his head. I think shed smell pretty bad by now.
Sherrill made a quick move toward his groin and he flinched and said, Dont do that, I almost killed you with my karate reflexes.
And she said, Yeah, right. Answer the question.
He didnt have to think about it: Nope. She was pretty, but she was missing a couple of links. You know those kinds of peoplebasically, theyre a little stupid. Maybe they dont get bad grades in school, or maybe they even get good grades, but somewhere, down at the bottom, theyre fuckin morons. They dont connect with the world.
You remember Johnny Portland?
Yeah. Asshole.
She got up on one elbow, looking down at him. I went out with him a couple of times.
Lucas turned his head to look at her: Jesus. Did he know you were a cop?
I wasnt. This was like my sophomore year in college, I met him at this Springsteen concert. He liked younger girls, I was like twenty; he picked me up at my moms house in a Rolls-Royce.
That will turn a girls head, Lucas said.
He never touched me. I wasnt gonna sleep with him anyway, he was too old for me, but he never made a move. I thought maybe, you know, he couldnt.
There were some stories around that he sorta liked wrestling with guys…
That occurred to me tooyou know, not like I was Miss Queen of the May and everybodys drooling over me, but he was showing me off to the guys, like, Look what I got. But he never seemed much interested in really getting me. Just showing.
Yeah… Listen, dont tell anyone else you went out with John Portland. Hewasan asshole.
I think he mightve been missing a couple links too, she said. And all these other missing-linkers would come around, acting like they were Robert De Niro or something, like wise guys, but they were really like bartenders and tire salesmen.
De Niros old man was a famous artist and De Niro grew up with the intellectual artsy crowd on the East Coast, Lucas said. Somebody told me that.
Really? He seems pretty real to me. Like he grew up on the streets, and I thought
The phone rang, and Lucas rolled out of bed.
Every goddamned time, she said, eyes following him. Youcouldskip it.
