Stephen White - Blinded

I promised to let him know the results of our inquiries.

He thanked me as he left. Truthfully? I didn’t see a sign that he was playing along with me. He was a better actor than I was.

I helped Grace into her pajamas and told Lauren to keep playing pool, that I would happily read stories to Grace before bed. I checked the charge on my cell phone battery, stuffed the phone into the pocket of my corduroys, and settled into the big chair in Grace’s room to read. She picked the same books that she picked every night-she was in a phase where she liked the idea of cardboard characters popping up at her as she turned the pages. Her current favorite was a tall skinny book full of multicolored, pop-up monsters. We read it twice-I admit that I did most of the reading-and her delight was no more muted the second time through than it had been the first.

That’s when the phone rang in my pocket.

I kissed Grace, lowered her into her crib, opened the phone, wrapped it hastily in one of my daughter’s lilliputian T-shirts, dropped my voice an octave, took a deep breath, and said, “Yeah?”

“You don’t know me, but… but don’t hang up.”

“What?”

“How’s your sc-scrotum feeling? Your… balls?”

“What the- Who’s this?”

“Just listen to me. The doctor who did your vasectomy? She-”

“What the- How do you-”

“No, no, listen to me. She screwed up when she did it. She clipped a nerve. No, snipped, snipped a nerve. You may be… impotent. You need to get a lawyer, sue her ass. She’s… out to get you.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend. You can… trust me.”

My friend hung up.

I did, too.

While I tried to still my pulse, I kissed Grace again, told her I loved her, and made sure her favorite stuffed toys were within her sight.

I walked back out to the pool table, told Lauren that Grace was tucked in and waiting for a good-night kiss, and then plopped down on the sofa in the living room.

The lights of Boulder twinkled in the dark at my feet.

Emily waddled in, her stubby tail darting around on her butt in a parody of wagging, her paw umbrella clacking on the wood floor with each fourth step. She stood in front of me for a moment, looked me right in the eyes, and then lowered her head onto my lap. Prior to joining me in the living room she’d apparently just completed a visit to her water dish, and her long beard was dripping with enough water to wash a small car.

She was telling me that things were going to be all right.

Her instincts about such matters were usually infallible, but this time I couldn’t figure out how it was all going to turn out okay.

“Calm, Gibbs. Calm. Did you call nine-one-one?”

“Yes.”

“What did you see?”

“In the parking lot-he-he got out of his car. I saw him.”

“Sterling’s outside? Is he alone?” I said, repeating some of what Gibbs told me so that Carmen would know what I was hearing. Carmen was standing three feet away. I watched her eyebrows jump up at the news about Sterling. “You’re not sure. The lights in your room, are they on or off?”

“On.”

“Turn them off. The TV, too. Shhhh. Quiet now.”

“I’m scared.”

“The door’s locked, right? The chain, too?”

“Yes. Help me, Sam. Help me.”

“Do you hear sirens yet?”

“No, no!”

Carmen’s eyes told me she was puzzled, the kind of puzzled usually reserved for those times when you think you just heard your cat ask you for a beer.

“Shhhh,” I told Gibbs. “Quiet voice. What floor are you on?”

“Um, uh. Third. Third story.”

“Third story. Get on the floor, okay? On the far side of the bed, away from the door. Can you do that?” As soon as I told her to get on the floor, I remembered that she was on her cell phone and wished I’d sent her into the bathroom.

“Yes, yes. Help me.”

“Sirens yet?”

“Uh, no. No.”

The commercial section of Vail is a few blocks wide, a few dozen blocks long. That’s it. A cruiser in a hurry could get from one end to the other in seconds. Where were they?

“You’re on the floor, right, Gibbs?”

“Yes.”

“You’re doing good.”

“Come help me.”

“I’m in Indiana, Gibbs.”

“I know. Come help me.”

“Someone will be there any second.”

I heard pounding. Gibbs said, “He’s here, Sam. He’s here. Oh no, oh no.”

“Someone’s there?” I mimed the act of knocking so that Carmen would know what Gibbs was saying. “It might be the police, Gibbs. Stay still. If you know it’s him, run for the bathroom.”

More pounding.

This time Carmen mimed the act of knocking. Then, inexplicably, she pointed down toward the floor.

For a long moment I was confused by Carmen’s charade and then, suddenly, I got it.

Holy shit.

I lowered the phone from my ear, and my pulse rocketed as though my heart had a turbocharger on it.

I moved the phone back to my face and said, “Gibbs? Stay quiet until you’re sure who it is. Don’t open the door. Shhhh.”

With the pad of my thumb firmly over the phone’s microphone, I leaned over to Holly’s oldest sister and whispered, “Get the kids and get out of the house. Now! Front door, everybody. Got a cell?”

She nodded.

“Call nine-one-one when you get outside. Tell them cops are in the basement and guns are drawn.”

I looked at Artie.

His mouth was open. His brain wasn’t.

He was staring at the big gun that was filling my hand.

“Artie?” I said, careful not to raise the hand with the pistol. “Put the knife down on the counter and follow your sister-in-law. Go on, get out of here.”

Artie followed my directions robotically. I raised the phone back to my face.

“Gibbs, are you there?” I asked.

Nothing.

Shit.

Maybe it was something she saw in my eyes, maybe it was something else entirely, but Lauren didn’t even flinch when I told her I had to go back out on Thanksgiving night to see someone. She caressed my neck for a moment, kissed me in the lingering manner that more often than not constitutes an invitation, pulled away only an inch, and said, “Be careful. Please.” Both dogs stayed by her side as I headed out the door.

Since my errand required that I pick something up at my office, I parked the car there before I strolled the short distance over to Pearl Street. I didn’t take my usual pedestrian route, which would have led a block or more northeast in the direction of the Mall, but instead ambled westward toward the sleepy part of Pearl, the part that’s on the side of Ninth nearest the mountains. The wind was gusting from Wyoming that evening, the collar on my coat was up, and my hands were stuffed in my pockets to thwart the chill.

I walked slowly, trying to find a reason not to do what I was about to do. Whatever that reason might have been, though, I wasn’t able to walk slowly enough to find it.

My destination was a cluster of condos on the north side of Pearl that had been designed to mimic a grouping of Victorian row houses. Wedding cake trim, different on every home, was painted in colors that had aged to a palate that resembled the range of hues of an Easter basket. Lights from the waning moments of holiday celebrations brightened windows in about half of the units that I could see from the sidewalk on the far side of Pearl. From the way the numbers were running, I figured I would find the town house I was looking for at the west end of the front row.

The lights in that unit were on.

Each week, when Lauren injects a long needle full of interferon into her thigh to protect herself from a double-cross from her own immune system, she uncaps the needle and plunges it straight into her thigh. “Every second of delay makes it harder to do,” she says. “No delay.”