Robert Browne - Down Among the Dead Men

She fussed with some of the machinery again, checked the tube in his hand, then turned and reached for the curtain.

“I’ll let the police know you’re awake. They’ll want to see you as soon as the doctor is finished.”

Vargas’s stomach dropped. “Police?”

“They’ve been waiting to talk to you. We have to report all gunshot wounds.”

“What do they look like?”

She frowned at him. A question she hadn’t anticipated. “Look like?”

“Black, white, Hispanic?”

“They look like a couple of bored cops in uniform. What difference does it make?”

Vargas shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”

She studied him a moment, uncertainty in her eyes, then said, “I’ll get the doctor,” as she disappeared behind the curtain.

When she was gone, Vargas sat up, looking around the cubicle for his shirt and shoes. He didn’t know if the cops out there were the same ones who had shot at him, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Besides, even if they weren’t, how could he know who to trust anymore? La Santa Muerte might very well have tentacles that reached far and wide.

He felt a stab of pain as he yanked the IV free, then stood up, surveying the small space again, looking for his clothes and backpack.

He found them under the gurney, his shirt neatly folded inside a plastic bag but torn and covered with blood, his shoes and backpack lying next to it.

The shirt would make him a target, but so be it. It was all he had. He pulled it from the bag and slipped it on, felt the damp liquid against his shoulder as he buttoned it up.

Then he slipped into his shoes, checked to make sure he still had his wallet and keys and cell phone, then slung his backpack over his good shoulder and moved to the curtain, peeking out into what looked like every other emergency room he’d ever seen: a cluster of computers at the center, people in scrubs moving about in a deliberate but hurried pace, shouting code words to one another, a row of curtained cubicles on either side.

A clock on the wall read: 4:00 A.M.

Vargas looked to his left and saw a short hallway that led to a set of double doors. Above them was a standard-issue green exit sign.

His immediate destination.

Checking to make sure his nurse was nowhere around, he quickly slipped out of his cubicle and beelined it for the doors.

If anyone noticed him, they didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to stop him. And the next thing he knew he was through the doors and moving down a longer corridor past a row of vending machines.

He found another set of doors marked exit and pushed through them into the ambulance bay, which was pretty quiet at this time of morning.

There were a couple of LAPD patrol cars parked among the ambulances but no cops visible, so Vargas kept moving, heading straight for the driveway and on into the street.

There was a thrift-store on Magnolia that opened at 6:00 A.M. He’d grown up wearing thrift-store clothes, and he knew it would be a good place to buy a shirt for little cash.

So his first priority was to find an ATM, then call a cab.

She had another bad night.

One of the nurses found her wandering the halls, claiming she’d just been mugged by a man in a Meat Without Feet T-shirt.

She’d thought the nurse was a Mexican police officer but then slowly came to her senses-doing it on her own this time, remembering where she was without having to be slapped back into reality.

Which, she supposed, was a good sign.

But the realization that Jen was nearly a year gone hurt just as much as ever. She didn’t have the benefit of time to dampen her grief, because time would remain at a standstill until her brain healed and her memory returned.

Assuming it ever would.

She hadn’t been able to sleep the rest of the night. She lay in bed, her head pounding, not wanting to close her eyes for fear that she’d wake up in Mexico again.

Not that sleep had anything to do with the problem. It just seemed safer somehow to stay awake.

She watched the sun rise in her window. Then, at breakfast time, she climbed out of bed, shuffled to the dining room, and sat alone, a plate of fruit and a soft-boiled egg in front of her.

But she didn’t eat. Didn’t have much of an appetite. Spent the next half hour pushing the food around the plate, listening to the murmur of voices in the room-other patients, eating and talking, new bonds formed out of shared pain.

But Beth kept to herself. Was even less interested in making friends than she was in eating. She’d always been something of a loner anyway.

Her physical therapist came around shortly after breakfast and took her for a walk. As they moved around the field, she looked again at the street, wondering if the dusty Lincoln Town Car was still out there.

But she saw no sign of it.

She spent most of the morning in the dayroom, leafing through magazines, reading about troubled celebrities, and thinking what a bunch of whiny spoiled brats they were.

Try living my life for a few days and see how you like it.

But maybe she was a whiny spoiled brat herself.

The good news was that she stayed lucid for the entire morning. No sudden trips to the past. No conversations with Jen or Rafael or Marta.

So maybe she was getting better.

Dr. Stanley would be pleased.

As the clock rolled closer toward noon, visiting hour came and the dayroom began to fill with friends and family. Not Beth’s friends and family, of course. She had none. But she enjoyed watching the other patients’ faces light up when a mother or father or husband or child came into the room. Hugs and kisses. Warm smiles.

Some of those patients had no idea who they were hugging and kissing, but it didn’t much matter. It felt good to be loved. To know, even if only for that brief moment, that someone in this world cared about you.

Beth watched them all from behind a magazine. Every once in a while, a visitor would glance in her direction and she’d avert her gaze. Didn’t want to be caught invading their special moment.

At one point, she felt herself being stared at and saw a small boy sitting quietly in a chair, a ragged stuffed animal in his lap. He looked at her, unsmiling, a bit bewildered by his surroundings. He couldn’t have been much more than a year old. And for some reason Beth didn’t look away this time.

She had no idea who he belonged to, but the sight of him made her heart break. He had somehow summoned up one of her buried memories, one that was too deep to grab hold of but was painful nevertheless, and before she knew it tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Embarrassed, she got up and went to the restroom and grabbed a tissue, staring at herself in the mirror as she wiped her eyes, not exactly pleased by what she saw.

Too thin. Too frightened. Too sad.

Was the old Beth in there somewhere?

Did it really matter anymore?

At least her hair was growing back. She could still see the scar, but it was mostly covered by fresh new growth, and before long it would be completely hidden.

Maybe she’d have her memory back by then.

She almost laughed at that one.

“Elizabeth?”

Beth turned and saw one of the nurses standing in the doorway. A slender redhead with a face full of professional concern. Her name was Mary.

Marion?

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Beth frowned, not happy with the interruption. She was beginning to feel like a prisoner in this place.

“Can’t I even go to the bathroom in peace?”

The words came out harsher than she’d meant them to be, but Mary/Marion didn’t seem to notice.

“Better make yourself presentable. You have a visitor.”