get away!
MMM! MMMM! MMMM!
And in the next minute, she heard it. Sirens! Far away. Getting closer? Yes! They were coming! Cops! The Lexus shot away in response. They were going to have to chase him. He wasn’t going down without a fight, not with her in here. Mary kept kicking. Still kicking. Trying to yell. Trying to stop crying.
The sirens blared louder and the Lexus hit top speed, barreling down the expressway. She rammed her heel into the back of the trunk and got stuck. The Lexus careened left and right. HONK! HONK! It was the Lexus, honking. She couldn’t hear anything but road noise and sirens. Fresh air swept into the trunk through the hole. Mary kept trying to wedge her foot out of the taillight well so she could keep kicking.
There were more sirens, louder now. They were chasing the Lexus, full court press. She could imagine it like it was on TV.
Sirens were all around them now. Left. Right. Directly in back. They were racing ahead together, careening this way and that. The cops had to be surrounding him, at warp speed. Would they shoot her? Would they
Everything went crazy. The Lexus pinwheeled around and round. Wheels squealed. Sirens blared. Mary screamed. Cried. The Lexus spun out of control, then it spun slower and slower. Mary hiccupped. Vomited. It filled up her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Help! Help! God!
The Lexus was slowing its spinning.
CRAK! CRAK! CRAK!
Forty-Four
The examining room was white, ringed with institutional cabinets in regulation beige, and barely large enough to accommodate The Flying DiNunzios, two uniformed cops, Detective Gomez, his partner, a nurse, and the doctor.
Dr. Steven Weaver was an incredibly handsome, blond plastic surgeon, and the little rainbow pin under his red-embroidered name was the only indication he was gay. It took him an hour to carefully tweeze the glass from Mary’s forehead and seventeen stitches to close the wound, and he was just finishing up. Mary hardly felt his touch, much less any pain, owing to the miracle of Percocet and her sheer happiness at being alive, tempered only by the fact that the Lexus driver had been shot to death during the police shootout, when he’d returned fire.
Mary wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Shaken. Upset. Surprisingly, not that good. Any death was awful, and the man had died taking valuable information with him. How would the cops link him to Justin Saracone now? They’d have had a chance if he’d been taken alive. On the other hand, part of her wasn’t completely unhappy. He was evidently a hired killer, and he’d have gone on to kill other people. Not to mention that he
“Okay, let me take one last look.” Dr. Weaver stepped back, eyeing his handiwork with a smile. “The stitches are at the hairline. When they heal, you won’t even be able to see the scar.”
“Thanks a lot,” Mary said, though she could hardly hear over the background noise of her mother praying. A novena was in progress. The hospital had called her parents because she’d been stupid enough to list them in her wallet In Case of Emergency. They stuck together at the edge of her bed like conjoined twins, fused at their brown car coats. They wept, prayed, and felt faint in a continuous loop. They needed comfort, help, and medical attention. As touched as Mary was by their love, they were honestly the worst people to have around in an emergency. Thank God Judy was on the way.
“HE’S ALL DONE, MARE!” her father shouted. Of course, he’d rushed to the hospital without his hearing aid. Daughter-in-emergency-room was his best excuse yet. “YOU DID GREAT, KID! JUST GREAT!”
“Your father’s right. You’re a trouper, Mary.” Dr. Weaver gathered his leftover sutures, flesh-toned curlicues, and shiny little scissors with the flat edge. “The nurse will be in with release papers for you to sign and directions for care of the wound.”
“How was the X-ray on my right hand?” Mary asked. No need to tell the world she had slugged Justin Saracone. She had grandfathered the injury into the car trunk thing, like some insurance scam.
“Fine, it’s not broken, just a soft tissue injury. I’ll see you back in my office in two weeks. My address is on the form.”
“SHE GONNA BE OKAY, DOC?” her father asked, and her mother paused in prayer, keeping God himself waiting.
“She’ll be fine,” Dr. Weaver answered, turning. “Her MRIs were fine. She needs to rest tonight and follow the directions for wound care, and she’ll be good as new.”
“NO PROBLEM! SHE’S COMIN’ HOME WITH HER MOTHER AND ME! WE’LL TAKE GOOD CARE OF HER!”
The very thought evaporated Mary’s cloud of Percocet, setting her thinking. She had to get to work, but if she went home, her parents wouldn’t let her out of their sight. The whole block of Mercer Street would spy backup. Not to mention the reporters outside the hospital, many of whom she’d called on the way back from Justin’s. The rest had picked up the sensational car chase down the expressway on their police scanners.
“Okay, champ,” Dr. Weaver said, with a sympathetic smile, now that she was an Official Crime Victim. Even the detectives seemed to have found a new respect for her, standing stolid and waiting their turn to interrogate her. The doctor patted her arm. “It’s all over now. Take care of yourself. Nurse’ll be back in a minute, then you can go.”
“Thanks again, doctor,” Mary said, just as her mother sniffled loudly. “By the way, you got any Percocet for my parents?”
The doctor laughed and turned to shake her father’s hand. “Mr. DiNunzio, it was a pleasure -”
“SEVENTY-FIVE!” her father yelled, inexplicably, throwing his burly arms open, and in the next second the startled doctor was group-hugged by her weepy parents. Mary should have warned him. She had never seen her father shake anyone’s hand. Even with complete strangers, he had two speeds – hug and bear-hug. “THANK YOU SO MUCH, DOC! LIKE I SAID, YOU’RE WELCOME IN OUR HOUSE ANYTIME! COME FOR DINNER! YOU AND YOUR WIFE!”
“Thanks, Mr. DiNunzio, but I’m not married.”
“YOU HEAR THAT, MARE? HE’S NOT MARRIED!” Her father poked his head around Dr. Weaver, who laughed.
“Gotcha, Pop!” Mary fought a smile. She’d explain to him about the rainbow flag when he was ready, in about twenty years. And right after that, she’d tell him how she’d really met up with Mr. Lexus. When she was first brought into the emergency room, she’d been in no state to tell her parents or anyone else the full story, and Detectives Gomez and Wahlberg were waiting for her medical treatment to end so they could interview her.
“See you all later,” Dr. Weaver said, with a wave, and on the way out almost bumped into Judy, who was barging through the curtain in gray sweats.
“Mary!” she shouted, her voice a crack of pain. She rushed to the bed and threw her arms around Mary,
