back to the window, continued, 'I checked again with your night nurse, and she said you definitely don't have a fractured skull. You're under observation, and she figures you'll be released from the hospital into police custody in two or three days. I'm kind of hoping that means your head won't fall off if you're moved.'
'It's all well and good for you to say things like that, since it's not your head that's likely to fall off. What's so interesting out the window?'
'Mary should be here in about ten or fifteen minutes to pick us up; she told me she could sneak out in one of the Community's cars that isn't used too much and shouldn't be recognized.' He turned back to me, raised his right hand. 'How many fingers?'
I squinted my unbandaged left eye in an attempt to focus on the blurred figure across the room. 'Four,' I said.
'Be serious.'
'I
'Two,' Garth said with a sigh as he lowered his hand. 'It looks like you've got a good case of double vision, but it can't be helped. You've been hurt worse. Just divide everything you see by two.'
'Thanks a lot, Garth. There are times when I can't imagine what I'd do without your sage advice. What floor are we on?'
'The third.'
'Great. I like all your thinking and planning up to this point except for one very minor little detail. Even assuming I can walk without a serious wobble, which I don't assume at all, how the hell do you plan to spirit me out of here without us being seen? The guard may not be Wyatt Earp, but he's obviously not blind either.'
'Tsk, tsk. You've always been such a worrywart.'
'Garth? What the hell are you planning to do?' Garth smiled sweetly, always a bad sign, and walked toward me. 'You let me worry about spiriting you out of here, baby brother. It's as good as done.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Being lowered from the third story of a building by a rope of bedsheets, blankets, pillowcases, and towels knotted together and fashioned into a sling under my arms made for what I considered an ignominious exit. On the other hand, it occurred to me that a short flight in a car and a good knock on the noggin had done wonders for my sprained wrist, sore knee, and bruised left arm, since the stabbing pain in my head had made me forget all about the other injuries sustained while I was bouncing off and being bounced by Gregory Trex, the current scourge of my existence.
The window of my hospital room conveniently looked out over a wide alleyway used for deliveries and garbage pickup; Mary Tree, driving with her lights out, had backed into the alley just as I finished dressing and just as Garth was putting the finishing touches on my improvised escape route-remarking, with another of his ominously sweet smiles, that he hoped it would reach all the way to the ground.
As I continued my descent, with Mary craning her neck and peering anxiously up at me, I tried to improve on my undignified position by crossing my arms over my chest and proudly thrusting out my chin, posturing as if I were totally accustomed to this sort of royal transport. My vamping got a muffled laugh out of the woman. However, there was nothing but shock and concern in her face and eyes by the time I reached the ground and she managed to get a better look at me. She wrapped her left arm around me, used her right hand to undo the sling from under my arms.
'Mongo!' she said in a low, tense whisper. 'Oh, my God, your head-!'
'It's okay,' I said, gently pushing her arm away and taking a couple of tentative steps. I felt dizzy. 'It looks worse than it is. You know how hospitals love to waste bandages.'
I glanced up, found Garth half leaning out the window and looking down at me. I gave him a thumbs-up sign. He returned it, let loose of his end of the knotted linens, then stepped back out of sight. Mary gathered the tangle of linens and blankets together in both arms, dropped it all into a dumpster off to one side of the alley. Then she opened the back door of the car for me, supported me around the waist as I eased myself down across the back seat. She closed the door, hurried around to the other side of the car, and slid in behind the wheel. I noted with satisfaction that the interior lights had been disconnected; Garth had briefed her well. And the woman had more than her share of guts.
'What happens now, Mary?'
'Your brother said to wait here,' she replied in a low voice that was breathy with tension. She twisted around in her seat to peer out the back window, then squinted down at me over the tops of her bifocals. 'He said he's going to go down to the lobby, then try to find a way to sneak out the back without anyone seeing him. God, the way he acts and talks you'd think he does this kind of thing every day.'
'Garth's a very good man to have around in a pinch, Mary. Or any other time, for that matter. He doesn't know the meaning of panic.' I paused for a moment, then continued, 'Mary, I'm really sorry about all of this. I hope you know that I'd never have contacted you if I'd known it was going to involve you like this.'
Her response was to reach back across the seat and squeeze my thigh; the gendeness and affection in her touch were belied by the anger in her voice. 'Harry Peal never hurt a soul in his whole life. I can't believe some bastard killed him. I told you there was a death squad in Cairn, Mongo.'
'In this case, I think the murderer is Elysius Culhane's good buddy Jay Acton.'
She grunted softly. 'So your brother told me-but it wasn't that cold-blooded, preening son-of-a-bitch who ran you off the road.'
'Right.'
'Acton may be the mastermind; Pm still convinced there's a death squad operating here.'
'You could be right.'
The figure of Garth suddenly loomed out of the darkness, appearing outside the windows on the passenger's side. He opened the door, slid onto the front seat beside Mary, quickly closed the door. 'Sorry I took so long,' he said tersely as he looked back over the seat to inspect me. 'The guard wanted to chat with me after I left the room.' He paused, turned to Mary, extended his hand. 'It's nice to meet you, Miss Tree. You are one gutsy lady. Thank you for helping us get out of there.'
Mary pushed Garth's hand away, leaned across the seat, and kissed him on the lips. 'Miss Tree-who never wants you to call her that again, since, as I told Mongo, it makes me sound like a character in a nursery rhyme- thinks that it's she who should be thanking you, since it's also her life you're undoubtedly saving. It's nice to meet you too, Garth Frederickson.'
Under any other circumstances I would have half expected my brother to faint dead away after being kissed on the lips by Mary Tree, but now he was tightly focused on the matter at hand, all business. 'Let's get out of here,' he said curtly.
I sat up as Mary turned on the engine and, still leaving her lights off, eased forward out of the alley into a parking lot by the emergency room entrance, then proceeded to the street. Garth motioned for me to lie down again, which I did, and he ducked out of sight.
'Drive around awhile, Mary,' he continued, his voice muffled by the seat between us. 'We want to make sure we're not being followed.'
'Right,' Mary replied, and made a left turn. She switched on her lights, drove a block, and made another left turn, then started up a hill. I saw her shift her head to look down at Garth and heard a sharp intake of breath. 'Garth, is that a gun?' she asked tightly.
'It most certainly is.'
'Garth, do you really think it's necessary to-?'
'Mary, listen to me,' Garth said in a firm voice that had a touch of coldness in it. 'I know you're a pacifist. For the life of me, I've never understood how a person who lives on this planet could be a pacifist, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose it's a perfectly workable philosophy, just as long as some soldier in an opposing army doesn't have you lined up in his sights. Right now it looks like there are people who mean to see us dead; unfortunately they're not pacifists. I don't intend to cooperate. If I so much as get a glimpse of this Gregory Trex or Jay Acton or anybody else who means to harm you or my brother, I am going to put a bullet through that man's
