Джеймс Паттерсон - The Black Book

Patti watches Kim walk down to the elevator and get in. Then she lets out a breath and walks into the room.

Aiden and Brendan are laughing.

“…and Patti was playing Mary, holding the baby Jesus. And you’re Joseph. All you have to do is sit there while the three Wise Men bring their gifts to the baby Jesus. I don’t even think you had a speaking part. Right?” Brendan, sitting on the right side of the bed, his hand holding Billy’s, looks across the bed at Aiden, who has the left side covered.

Aiden can’t even speak, he’s laughing so hard.

Patti feels her face warm. She remembers this all too well. She and Billy were six, in CCD, putting on a little Christmas story for the parents. All Billy was supposed to do was sit silently through the whole play.

“So right there in the middle of the play, Mrs. Ginger is sort of whispering to you guys what to do, and all the parents are sitting there in those shitty folding chairs, and all of a sudden you raise your hand and say, “Mrs. Ginger? How’d Mary have a baby if she was a virgin?”

Aiden and Brendan lose it. Patti does, too. It feels so good, the release. And it gets better.

Aiden wants to tell the next part. “So Mrs. Ginger, she’s trying to shush you, she’s like, ‘Billy, shh, Billy, shh,’ and some of the parents are already giggling, and before she can get to you, you say, ‘My pop says Mary must have had a hell of a time explaining that one to Joseph.’”

They all erupt. What a moment. Mom was mortified. Her father even more so. He wasn’t exactly a God-fearing Catholic—he said the job took all the faith out of him—but their mother was a churchgoer ’til the day she died.

Aiden has tears in his eyes. As the laughter subsides, the emotions ride the inevitable roller coaster. Brendan, the big brother, always the one trying to pick everyone else up, pats Billy’s arm. “You remember that, don’t you, buddy? You brought down the whole room.”

Aiden pushes himself away from the bed, tears falling. Such a big, muscle-bound guy with tears running down his cheeks—she remembers him crying when Mom died, but she can’t remember any other time. “It seems like just yesterday Billy was in a hospital just like this one.”

“I know,” says Brendan. “It was three freakin’ years ago. Can you believe it?”

Aiden shakes his head. “He was starting to get back on his feet, y’know? I mean, he was just recovering from all that, and this happens.”

“Well, if it isn’t the Four Stooges.” It’s Mike Goldberger—Goldie—entering the room, dusting off the nickname that everyone used for the Harney kids when they were growing up.

Her brothers greet Goldie, whom they’ve known for years, and he tells them he’ll take the next shift; they should go get something to eat.

Brendan grabs Billy’s ankle and says, “You hang in there while I’m gone, baby brother, or I’ll kick your ass.”

When they’ve left, Goldie gives Patti a once-over.

“Your pop told you about ballistics,” he says.

She nods.

“It’s bad,” he says. “And it’s about to get worse.”

Twenty-Two

“SO HOW’S our guy doing?” Goldie talking.

“Oh, you know with these doctors.” That’s Patti. “It’s all probabilities and prefacing every remark. Honestly, as much as I hate to say it—they’re saying he’s not going to make it.”

That doesn’t sound good.

“They’re saying it’s a miracle he got this far. I mean, he was actually dead for a while.”

I was?

“Yeah, I remember.”

Well, with all due respect to Mr. Twain, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Although I don’t feel alive, either. I can’t feel anything, not my arms, not my legs. I can’t see anything, either. I can hear them, though, their voices muted like I’m inside some enclosure. Floating like a fetus inside a womb.

“And they say there’s no telling how he’ll come out of it if he does.”

A drooling vegetable?

“He could have a completely different personality.”

Some people might say that’s an improvement.

“He might not have any memory.”

Well, I remember you, Patti. And Goldie. And Mark Twain.

And my badge number. And pi to ten decimal places.

But I don’t remember how I got here.

“I hear the surgeries went well,” says Goldie.

“As good as they could, yeah. You know they removed part of the back of his skull to reduce the swelling.”

Hold up—part of my skull is missing? What the fuck happened to me? Yo, Patti-Cake, you wanna do a little background for those of us who are just tuning in?

“They say the bullet didn’t hit the left hemisphere,” she says. “The part that controls speech and language.”

Ah, okay. I got shot in the brain? The right side, sounds like.

So I’ll be in a wheelchair the rest of my life, but at least I’ll have my “speech and language,” so I can coherently ask the nurse for more applesauce.

“Well, that’s good.”

Nurse! I want more applesauce! Who do I have to kill around here to get more applesauce?

“Anyway, my dad told me about ballistics. It can’t be right. It’s not right, Goldie.”

“I know, I hear you—I mean, your pop’s got ’em redoing the entire testing. But really, when is ballistics ever wrong?”

“Billy’s not the shooter,” she says.

I shot someone? Who’d I shoot? The guy who shot me, I hope.

“I’ll bet this’ll make the mayor happy,” says Goldie. “Or at least his lawyers.”

The mayor? Why would Mayor Francis Delaney care about me?

Did I shoot him?

Think back, guy. What do you remember?

I remember…a murder. A college girl. University of Chicago, I think. Then…then what?

Then—nothing. Nothing but a fuzzy screen.

I remember Stewart…

…sometimes, during the worst parts, I’d rest my hand over his, and we wouldn’t look at each other…both of us holding back tears, too proud to admit it…

…the jokes…the old man laughing so hard he sounded like a busted car engine, like he was about to expel a lung…

…laughing so we wouldn’t cry…

I remember when it was over. Feeling like…

…like I wanted to die, too.

I don’t want to remember anymore. I don’t want to remember anything.

“What was that? Did you hear something? Was that…Billy?”

“Billy! Billy, can you hear me?”

I can hear you, Patti, but I want to go away now…

“Stewart,” says Goldie. “I thought I heard ‘Stewart.’ Who’s Stewart?”

“Stewart was the old guy in the hospital, remember? Back when Billy practically lived at Children’s Memorial—”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Stewart’s grandson was hit by a car. They waited together for weeks. They got real close.”

I don’t want to remember that…

“Billy, are you there, pal?”

“Billy, it’s me. It’s your sister. Can you hear me?”

“Hey, Brendan, it’s Goldie. We think maybe we heard Billy speak. Okay, hurry.”

“Billy, you need to come back to me. Please, Billy. You can do it.”

I don’t know how…I don’t know if I want to…

“Do it for me, Billy. I need you. We love you, Billy. The family’s all here. Brendan and Aiden are here. Dad’s here. Goldie’s here. Come back to us, Billy. We need you to come back.”

I feel something.

Patti’s tear on my cheek.

And light—blinding, searing light in my eyes.

Twenty-Three

“I KNEW it.” Patti’s eyes, welled with tears. “I knew you’d come back.”

My eyes moving slowly, as if filled with sand, around the room. Brendan and Aiden. Pop. Goldie. All of them surrounding me, each of them touching me, as if they want to embrace me warmly but at the same time recognize my fragility.