Joel Goldman - Shakedown

I settled in against the wall, the tarred surface of the roof rubbing hard against my knees. Fifteen minutes went by without any activity. Then a light pickup truck with a lid over the bed swept into the parking lot from Fifth Street, the driver backing it up to the rear door of the bar.

Tanja opened the door, the light catching the driver’s face. It was her brother Nick, wearing a wife-beater and a pair of jeans. He bulled past Tanja, waving his arms and shaking his head. She waved her arms in reply, giving as good as she got, and closed the door. Though I wasn’t able to hear anything they had said, I was willing to bet that the nicest thing was “fuck you.”

When the door opened again a few minutes later, they began loading cardboard boxes and bulging garbage bags into the rear of the pickup. They worked quickly, finishing in fifteen minutes. Nick loaded the last box, shoving it into the truck bed and slamming the tailgate shut.

Tanja said something to Nick. He stabbed her chest with the end of his finger. She smacked his hand away and he threw his arms into the air again, got in his truck, and drove away. She stared after him, hands on her hips, and then reached in her pocket for her cell phone, running her hand through her hair as she listened, her shoulders sagging as if the call was another burden she couldn’t bear. She locked the door to the bar, grabbed a shoulder bag from her car, and marched toward Fifth Street, turning north when she reached the sidewalk.

I looked at my watch. It was after one. I guessed that the call was from her parents and that she was going to see them, choosing to walk rather than drive either to delay the visit or give her time to cool down from the confrontation with her brother.

I followed her, taking a parallel path between the houses and buildings on Fifth and Sixth, waiting until I saw her pass in the open spaces between them so that I could match her pace. Fortunately for me, the fences I had to climb were low and any watchdogs were asleep.

A small stand of juniper bushes in the Andrijas’ backyard provided perfect cover. The kitchen was in the back of the house and the lights were on. Petar and Maja, dressed in their pajamas, sat next to each other at the table, the arms of their chairs touching, Petar’s arm around his wife. She rested her head on his shoulder while he stroked the side of her face with his other hand. From the tender way he held her and the way her chest was rising and falling, it looked like she was crying.

Tanja entered the kitchen from the front of the house. One look at her parents and she dropped her bag, raced to her mother’s side, and glared at her father as he spoke. When he finished, she took out her phone and punched in a number, resuming her wild gesturing.

She stomped around the kitchen, her parents crouching and cringing if she came too close to them. When Tanja was done, she tossed her phone onto the counter and stared past them into the yard as if they weren’t there. I knew that the light would blind her even as she looked straight at where I was hiding. After a moment, she yanked on the blinds, cutting off my view.

Watching them, I was convinced of one thing. Colby hadn’t been hiding there. He had broken in. The question was why.

Petar and Maja had probably been asleep. Maja heard something and woke Petar, telling him to take a look. Or maybe Petar got up to pee and heard a noise, turned on the lights, and?ushed Colby from the darkness, scaring him and his wife to death. They waited before they called Tanja, doubtless more afraid of her than they were of Colby. I didn’t blame them.

Kate was in recovery when I got back to KU Hospital. A nurse told me which room she had been assigned to and that I could wait there. There was a hospital version of an easy chair in the corner of the room. I collapsed into it and fell asleep without a fight.

When I woke up, morning sunlight was streaming into the room. Kate was looking at me, her eyes half dreamy with the residue of anesthetic, the room smelling faintly of disinfectant. I pushed myself out of the chair and stood next to her, her hand in mine.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself.”

“Some first date, huh?”

“Yeah. I got shot. You got conked on the head and we still spent the night together.”

“You okay?”

“Just a scrape but the ER nurse said I had a cute ass.”

“Damn, and she got to see it before I did.”

“I’m giving tours on the half hour. Let me know when you’d like to take one.”

Kate took a deep breath. “I guess I was pretty stupid.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You had me convinced that going to see Latrell was a good idea. How do you feel?”

“Like the inside of my head is under construction.”

I looked at the clock next to her bed. It was seven-thirty. “Have you talked to Dr. Benson this morning?”

“He was here a little while ago. He said that I looked better than you did and that I’d be fine. He’s going to send me home tomorrow morning if I can stand up without falling down.”

She squeezed my hand and tears ran down her cheek. I wiped them with a tissue.

“That’s good news,” I said. “It’s okay to cry for good news.”

“I know. I should be grateful but no one understands what it’s like.”

“What don’t we understand?”

“I can’t see them anymore.”

“See what?”

“Micro expressions. Not yours, not his, not the nurses’. Something happened, some brain damage, I guess. It’s like I’m half blind.”

She forced her eyes wide open, searching my face, straining to lift her head closer to mine. Exhausted by the effort, she fell back on her pillow, closed her eyes, and turned away. I smoothed her hair, uncertain what to say.

“It’s probably just the side effects from the anesthetic. You’ll be reading my mind again before you know it.”

I kissed Kate softly on the cheek. She nodded and bit her lip, letting me know that she heard me even if she didn’t believe me. I told her to get some rest and promised to come back later.

I roamed the halls, looking for Dr. Benson, but couldn’t find him. I didn’t know much about head injuries, only that football players and boxers were never quite right after they had had too many concussions. Kate, it seemed to me, had suffered more than a concussion.

When my father had a stroke, the doctor explained that it caused bleeding in his brain. Dr. Benson had said that Kate was bleeding in her brain, but I knew that didn’t mean that she had had a stroke. She didn’t look or act the way my father had, one side of his face paralyzed in a confused mask, his speech slurred, his sense of balance shattered. Yet a part of her brain had been damaged and it wouldn’t matter what label Dr. Benson put on it. Whatever the diagnosis, Kate had lost a part of herself.

I knew what would come next. The doctor would order tests to measure and define her condition. He’d prescribe treatment if there was any and apologize if there was none. Kate’s family and friends would give her advice and encouragement, cutting out newspaper and magazine articles on the latest breakthroughs, urging her to try holistic cures, acupuncture, Eastern medicine, visual imaging, meditation, and chiropractic. Through it all, she would keep asking herself one question, a silent inquiry made in private that no one could answer: Who am I now?

I needed a shower, a shave, clean clothes, and more sleep. I didn’t have time for sleep but the rest took half an hour after I got home. I found a pair of jeans that were close to being clean and a polo shirt sporting a day’s worth of wrinkles.

I saw the message light?ashing on my cell phone when I finished getting dressed. Ammara Iverson had called while I was in the shower.