Andrew Gross - Eyes Wide Open

Okay, he knew he got a little jumpy now and then. I mean, he’d spent eighteen months in ’Stan, and if that didn’t make you jumpy, nothing would. But being pulled off his regular assignment and told to sit here all night by the tracks and watch over this rat trap… As what? A favor for some coroner’s detective. Not even a real cop.

All he was told to do was watch out for this car-and if he saw it, to radio in.

Not even go for the arrest!

He glanced at the two APBs on the passenger seat. One was for the car: navy Kia wagon with the license plate 657 E4G.

The other was for a woman, Susan Jane Pollack. A photo from DMV. She looked like she was around fifty. Short, light brown hair. Not pretty. So far he hadn’t seen anyone down here but two teenagers, winding their way into the woods, most likely on their way to get high.

By all means, light one up on me!

Suddenly something caught his attention. A vehicle turning into the building, into the carport.

He rolled down the window, focusing on the model and the plates. Nah, it was a Honda. A person stepped out. One motherfucking, heavyset Latino, not a woman at all, who went around the car and opened the hatch. He watched the dude head into the courtyard with an armful of groceries, climb the outside stairs to his second-floor apartment.

Hot shit, Timmy boy.

He heard Dispatch send out a call for an officer to be sent to 407 Hilltop. A domestic dispute. He was only a couple of blocks away. He could be on the scene in seconds.

Anything was better than this.

He went to ask permission to investigate when suddenly there was a rapping on his passenger window.

It was a woman. Dark glasses and a kind of baseball cap down over her eyes. Her short hair barely peeking through. She was trying to ask him something, indicating for him to lower his window.

He did, just slightly, leaning forward. “Sorry, I’m off duty, ma’am…”

She asked, “Do you know where 730 Division would be?”

That was just down the street, in the other direction, which Tim Riesdorfer was about to tell her when his eye went from her face to the photo on the seat, and he felt his whole body jolt like when his convoy was ambushed as he noticed the slightest resemblance in her eyes.

Instinctively he reached for his gun, leaning toward her, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was “ Hey…”

The initial shot burst through his jaw and out the side of his neck, blood suddenly all over his chest. No pain, no panic, just this sense that he was really, really confused, and he turned toward his lowered window in the direction of the shooter…

The second shot was only a bright yellow spark that made his world colorless forever.

I blinked.

My eyes opened.

I tried to turn, my head seemingly held in a restraint. My arms and legs were numb. My thoughts completely blurred. I ratcheted my eyes from side to side.

As I tried to get my bearings, I heard a voice:

“We’ll be arriving at the hospital in five minutes.”

How was I alive?

There was a mask pressed over my face, oxygen flowing. I stretched my eyes and saw a green-clad EMT, a woman. Red hair tied back in a ponytail. I felt an IV tube coming out of my arm. My vitals beeping back on a monitor. The EKG needle going crazy.

“You were attacked,” the med tech said. “You’re on the way to the hospital. Just hold on…”

Through the haze, I strained to recall what had happened.

I remembered running back to my room, looking frantically for something. A book? After that, everything was a complete blank. I felt a stinging pain on my neck and a throbbing on my palm. I lifted it slightly to look. It was wrapped in gauze.

Then it hit me, there was something I needed to say…

Something important.

“I just want to prepare you,” the EMT said. “When we get to the hospital, we’re going to wheel you into the ER. They may want to ask you some questions there, if you can concentrate. About what happened, who did this to you.”

I know, I said to myself. I know all this.

I suddenly remembered. I’m a doctor…

My brain was buzzing. I tried to focus. There was something I needed to tell them.

Was that it?

No, it was something much more vital, but my mind was totally clouded and whatever it was bobbed farther and farther away on a wave of unconsciousness, drifting out to sea…

I could hear by the beep that my heart rate was slow and my blood pressure was falling. You can’t let me die.

I heard the siren and the ambulance swerved into a turn. I tried to speak and latched on to the tech’s arm.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll be there in a minute. You’re a lucky man your door was left open and people found you when they did

…”

Door left open…?

I suddenly saw Dev, the knife at my throat. Saying good-bye to Kathy and the kids. Knowing I was about to die.

And then the words he had said as I slipped into darkness.

Words that jarred me all over again-my mind sliding backward; my pulse starting to dive; the beeps growing louder and louder as I conjured up Dev’s face, his chilling smile, and his knife dancing before my eyes:

“We’ve got your son.”

I woke again just as we arrived at the hospital. My head was still in a daze, and woozy.

The EMTs briefed the ER doctor and a nurse they had radioed ahead to. “Patient’s name is Erlich, Jay… Lacerations on his hand and arm. Cranial trauma. Blood pressure one sixty over eighty. Heart rate one thirty… He’s been drifting in and out of consciousness…”

“Okay, sir,” the Latino ER nurse said confidently to me, “we’re going to take care of you now…”

They eased me out of the ambulance and onto a gurney. I grabbed the ER doctor by the arm. Even my own voice was a reeling echo. “I’m a doctor. I need a policeman.”

“We’re all aware of that. You can be sure a detective will be here shortly. In the meantime we’re just gonna check you out.”

They wheeled me inside the ER, a nurse stabilizing the IV line alongside. I knew my brain was still swollen from being beaten, and most likely, I had a concussion. And multiple lacerations. Even dazed, I knew they’d be sending in an investigative team when they checked me out. That was standard procedure.

I still didn’t even know what I was doing alive.

Suddenly I flashed to what Dev had said as I blacked out.

About Max.

I had to let Kathy know.

I tried to force myself up, tugging against the binds. “Hold on there, sir.” The ER nurse restrained me. “We’ll have a room set up for you as soon as we can check you out.”

“No, no, you don’t understand…”

I was seized by an onrush of panic. My mind was still in a haze. I had no idea how much time had elapsed since Dev had attacked me. He had told me Charlie and Gabby were next. They might even be dead by now. Or any minute, as I lay there.

I grabbed the nurse’s wrist and tried to force myself up. Even words were difficult. “ My brother, I need to call him…”

“Someone from the detective’s unit is on his way,” the nurse answered me. “They’ll be here soon.”

Soon? Soon wouldn’t work. I need someone now!

I fell back, still numb, and they wheeled me into a hallway in what appeared to be the triage area. “We’re just going to leave you here for a moment while a station opens up. It’ll only be a minute. Then we’ll check you out…”

Slowly, I felt my wits beginning to come back to me. My head throbbed and my recollection of the beating was a blur, but I knew I couldn’t wait around for some detective to arrive. And then have to explain the whole thing to him. Dev had said my brother and Gabby were in danger. And I needed to find out about my son. Fear and worry seemed to cut through the haze.