Dale Brown - Puppet Master

Blue and red, blue and red — what did any of it mean?

Legs? Where are my legs?

There.

Arms?

Present.

Johnny’s heart floated above his head. He could see it pumping, pumping, and pumping. It started to move slowly around the room.

This is what it felt like to be alive: surrounded by pain and a world gone alien.

It occurred to Jenkins that he was closer to Johnny Givens than anyone else at the Bureau, which very possibly meant that Jenkins was the closest person to Johnny in the Northeast and maybe the world. Johnny wasn’t married or involved in a relationship: the girlfriend he’d broken up with had moved to Chicago some months before, something the young agent spent much time grousing about. He was an only child and had no relatives in Massachusetts or the Northeast, for that matter. His mother was dead; his father was in Florida somewhere. He’d listed his father as his next of kin, but the number had been out of service for six months, according to the phone company.

Jenkins wasn’t sure what else he could do, aside from stalking up and down the hospital hallway, a reminder to the staff that he was here, damn it, and that someone cared, and that they better do the best they could to save the kid’s life. He was angry and he was sad and he was tired, all at the same time, and when his wife, Joyce, called to ask where he was, he didn’t even bother to guard his feelings, either from her or anyone nearby.

“I’m in the hospital with Johnny Givens,” he told her, his voice a notch too high. “I’m waiting — I don’t know what they’re doing. He was hit by a car.”

“Oh, God,” said Joyce. “Are you all right?”

“I wasn’t even there. I sent him on an errand, just to fetch someone, and he got — God, I don’t know.”

“What hospital are you at?”

“Brigham — no, Boston Med.” Brigham was where his brother had died.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“No, listen, Joyce, there’s no—”

Jenkins stopped, realizing she’d already hung up. Folding his arms but still holding his phone in his hand, he walked outside the hospital, circling around in the area where the ambulances waited. It was moments like this, thankfully few and far between, that he wished he smoked; it would have given him an excuse to be here, where he was so obviously out of place.

He thought of calling Joyce back and telling her not to come, claiming that he was on his way home. That would have been a very obvious lie, however, and he decided not to bother.

He wanted her here, in fact. He glanced at his cell phone, mentally calculating how long it would actually take her — twenty minutes, at least — then started patrolling up and down the sidewalk, trying to avoid the temptation of talking to himself. When he calculated fifteen minutes had passed since Joyce hung up, he moved closer to the door, positioning himself so he could see her as she came up the driveway.

Even though he was primed, it was Joyce who spotted him first, approaching from the other side of the street. He saw her as he turned back, just in time to open his arms to meet her hug.

It lasted long enough that it would have embarrassed him under other circumstances.

“Any word?” she asked when finally he eased her back.

“No.”

“It reminds you of James, right?”

“Not really.”

The fleeting look of disappointment in her grimace told him Joyce hadn’t been fooled, but she said nothing. His brother’s death was still a difficult subject, even between them.

“There was a girl with him,” said Jenkins, eager to change the subject.

“Girlfriend?”

“No, she — she’s helping us with the job. She works for Smart Metal, Mr. Massina’s company. There was a problem with the computer. She’s a techie, and I asked him to get her.”

“So it was a car accident?”

Jenkins sighed, then explained the circumstances as he knew them.

“It’s not your fault,” said Joyce. “I hope you’re not blaming yourself. But I know you are.”

“I’m not.”

“Where’s this young woman? Maybe she needs something.”

Chelsea was in the same chair where he’d left her; she seemed not to have breathed, let alone moved, in the time since Jenkins had left her. When Jenkins introduced his wife, Chelsea stared at him blankly.

“They said you could go home,” Jenkins told her. “Should we call someone?”

Chelsea didn’t answer.

“Is your car at your office?” he asked.

“My house is a few blocks away. I don’t have a car.”

“You want me to drive you?” Jenkins volunteered.

Chelsea rose without speaking.

“I’ll take her,” said Joyce. “You stay here with Johnny.”

“OK — all right with you, Chelsea?”

“I can get Uber.”

“It’ll be easier and quicker if I drive,” said Joyce.

Jenkins went back to his pacing, adding a loop inside near the nurse’s station. The first few times, he stopped and asked whoever was there how Johnny was doing; after that he simply nodded and gave the best smile he could manage.

He was just going out the door when his supervisor strode up. Jenkins was shocked; Perse Lambdin was a tall black man who always dressed impeccably, often in a throwback three-piece suit. Tonight he had on a gray sweatshirt and faded, sagging jeans.

His manner, though, was as imperious as ever.

“What’s going on?” Lambdin asked.

“Touch and go,” said Jenkins. “I was just coming out for air.”

Inside, Lambdin demanded to see the doctor in charge, even after the nursing supervisor explained that he was busy trying to save Givens’s life. When it finally became clear to the nurse that Lambdin wasn’t budging, she called a resident to talk to him. Jenkins knew that the doctor wasn’t directly involved in the case, and he guessed that Lambdin probably knew, too, but the resident was the perfect audience, looking thoughtful and worried and respectful all at the same time. He assured both men that everything was being done for their agent; the head of surgery herself had been called in, and the trauma team was one of the best in the nation.

“Don’t bullshit me,” said Lambdin. “Just get the job done.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do.”

“Good. Good.”

The resident clamped his lips together and nodded his head before retreating.

“Now how the hell did this happen?” Lambdin asked Jenkins.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” said Jenkins. He repeated what he knew about the incident. They thought the driver of the truck was the ATM thief or an accomplice, but he was still at large.

If the police car hadn’t sped down the block…

“I want the bastard who hit him caught,” said Lambdin.

“The cop car hit him and did most of the damage.”

“The other one — the truck,” said Lambdin. “I want that bastard hung.”

Chelsea pushed her head back against the headrest of Joyce Jenkins’s car. No matter how tight she cinched the seat belt, it still felt loose.

“Turn right on Beacon Street?” Joyce asked.

“Yes.” Chelsea couldn’t remember telling her where she lived, but the GPS was open, moving an arrow along the map.

“Are you from Boston?” Joyce asked.

“San Diego. I came out for school. MIT and then I stayed.”

“You’re a computer scientist? There aren’t too many women in that field.”

“No.”

“It’s kind of funny to hear Trevor talk about computers,” said Joyce. “He can barely get his phone to work. And forget about programming the TV.”