Dan Simmons: Hard as Nails

"When did he leave?" asked Kurtz. Sitting propped up against the pillows, he found it was easier to focus his eyes this morning. The pain in his head continued like a heavy sleet-storm against a metal roof, but that was better than the steel spikes being driven into his skull the night before. Red and yellow circles of pain from the penlight exercise still danced in his vision.

"I wasn't on duty," said Singh, "but I believe around midnight."

Before Wheelchair and Bruce Lee showed up , thought Kurtz. He said, "Any chance of getting these cuffs off? I wasn't able to eat my breakfast left-handed."

Singh looked physically pained, his brown eyes sad behind the glasses. "I'm truly sorry, Mr. Kurtz. I believe that one of the detectives is already downstairs. I'm sure they will release you."

She was and she did.

Ten minutes after Singh bustled out into the now-busy hospital corridor, Rigby King showed up. She was wearing a blue linen blazer, white t-shirt, new jeans, and running shoes. She carried a 9-mm dock on her belt on the right side, concealed under the blazer until she leaned forward. She said nothing while she unlocked his cuffs, snapping them onto the back of her belt like the veteran cop she was. Kurtz didn't want to speak first, but he needed information.

"I had visitors during the night," he said. "After you pulled your uniform off hallway guard."

Rigby folded her arms and frowned slightly. "Who?"

"You tell me," said Kurtz. "Old guy in a wheelchair and a tall Asian."

Rigby nodded but said nothing.

"You going to tell me who they are?" asked Kurtz. "The old man in the wheelchair slapped me up the side of the head. Considering the circumstances, I should know who's mad at me."

"The man in the wheelchair must have been Major O'Toole, retired," said Rigby King. "The Vietnamese man is probably his business colleague, Vinh or Trinh or something."

"Major O'Toole," said Kurtz. "The parole officer's father?"

"Uncle. The famous Big John O'Toole's older brother, Michael."

"Big John?" said Kurtz.

"Peg O'Toole's old man was a hero cop in this city, Joe. He died in the line of duty about four years ago, not long before he would've retired. I guess you didn't hear about it up in Attica."

"I guess not."

"You say he hit you?"

"Slapped," said Kurtz.

"He must think you had something to do with his niece getting shot in the head."

"I didn't."

"So you remember things now?"

Her voice still did strange things to him—that mixture of softness and rasp. Or maybe it was the concussion acting on him.

"No," said Kurtz. "I don't remember anything clearly after leaving the P.O.'s office after the interview. But I know that whatever happened to O'Toole in the garage, I didn't make it happen."

"How do you know that?"

Kurtz held up his freed right hand.

Rigby smiled ever so slightly at that and he remembered why they'd nicknamed her Rigby. Her smile was like sunlight.

"Did you have any problems with Agent Peg O'Toole?" she asked.

Kurtz shook his head and then had to hold it with both hands.

"You in a lot of pain, Joe?" Her tone was neutral enough, but seemed to carry a slight subtext of concern.

"Remember that guy you had to use your baton on in Patpong in the alley behind Pussies Galore?" he said.

"Bangkok?" said Rigby. "You mean the guy who stole the sex performer's razor blades and tried to use them on me?"

"Yeah."

He could see her remembering. "I got written up for that by that REMF loot… whatshisname, the asshole…"

"Sheridan."

"Yeah," said Rigby. "Excessive force. Just because the guy I brought in had a little tiny bit of brains leaking out his ear."

"Well, that guy had nothing on how I feel today," said Kurtz.

"Tough situation," said Rigby. There was no undercurrent of concern audible now. Kurtz knew that the words could be abbreviated "T.S." She walked to the door. "If you can remember Lieutenant Sheridan, you can remember yesterday, Joe."

He shrugged.

"When you do, you call us. Kemper or me. Got it?"

"I want to go home and take an aspirin," said Kurtz. Trying to put just a bit of whine in his voice.

"Sorry. The docs want to keep you here another day. Your clothes and wallet have been… stored… until you're ready to travel." She started to leave.

"Rig?" he said.

She paused, but frowned, as if not pleased to hear him use the diminutive of her old nickname.

"I didn't shoot O'Toole and I don't know who did."

"All right, Joe," she said. "But you know, don't you, that Kemper and I are going on the assumption that she wasn't the target That someone was trying to kill you in that garage and poor O'Toole just got in the way."

"Yeah," Kurtz said wearily. "I know."

She left without another word. Kurtz waited a few minutes, got laboriously out of bed—hanging onto the metal railing a minute to get his balance—and then padded around the room and bathroom looking for his clothes, even though he knew they wouldn't be there. Since he'd ignored Nurse Ratchet's bedpan jar, he paused in the toilet long enough to take a leak. Even that hurt his head.

Then Kurtz got the IV stand on wheels and pushed it out ahead of him into the hallway. Nothing in the universe looked so pathetic and harmless as a man in a hospital gown, ass showing through the opening in the back, shuffling along shoving an IV stand. One nurse, not his, stopped to ask him where he was going.

"X ray," said Kurtz. "They said to take the elevator."

"Heavens, you shouldn't be walking," said the nurse, a young blonde. "I'll get an orderly and a gurney. You go back to your room and lie down."

"Sure," said Kurtz.

The first room he looked in had two old ladies in the two beds. The second had a young boy. The father, sitting in a chair next to the bed, obviously awaiting the doctor's early rounds, looked up at Kurtz with the gaze of a deer in a hunter's flashlight beam—alarmed, hopeful, resigned, waiting for the shot.

"Sorry," said Kurtz and shuffled off to the next room.

The old man in the third room was obviously dying. The curtain was pulled as far out as it could be, he was the only occupant of the double room, and the chart on the foot of his bed had a small blue slip of paper with the letters DNR on it. The old man's breathing, even on a respirator, was very close to a Cheyne-Stokes death rattle.

Kurtz found the clothes folded and stored neatly on the bottom shelf of the small closet—an old man's outfit—corded trousers that were only a little too small, plaid shirt, socks, scuffed Florsheims that were slightly too large for Kurtz, and a raincoat that looked like a castoff from Peter Falk's closet. Luckily, the old guy had also brought a hat—a Bogey fedora with authentic sweat stains and the brim already snapped down in a perfect crease. Kurtz wondered what relative would be cleaning this closet out in a day or so and if they'd miss the hat.

He walked to the elevators with much more spring in his stride than he was really capable of, glancing neither left nor right. Rather than stopping at the lobby, he took the elevator all the way to the parking garage and then followed the open ramp up and out into brisk air and sunlight.

There was a cab near the emergency entrance and Kurtz got the door opened before the cabbie saw him coming and then collapsed into the back seat He gave the driver his home address.

The cabbie turned, squinted, and said around his toothpick. "I was supposed to pick up Mr. Goldstein and his daughter."

"I'm Goldstein," said Kurtz. "My daughter's visiting someone else in the hospital for a while. Go on."

"Mr. Goldstein's supposed to be an old man in his eighties. Only one leg."

"The miracles of modern medicine," said Kurtz. He looked the cabbie in the eye. "Drive."