Wilson, Paul - The Tomb (Repairman Jack)

"Thank you," Jack said with a smile and a slight bow. "I hope that won't be necessary. I think: I'll be heading home now."

"Yes. You look tired."

But as Kusum studied him, he sensed more than mere physical fatigue. There was an inner pain that hadn't been present this morning...a spiritual exhaustion. Was something fragmenting this man? He hoped not. That would be tragic. He wished he could ask, but did not feel he had the right.

"Rest well."

He watched until the American had been swallowed by the elevator, then he returned to the room. The private duty nurse met him at the door.

"She seems to be rallying, Mr. Bahkti! Respirations are deeper, and her blood pressure's up!"

"Excellent!" Nearly twenty-four hours of constant tension began to unravel within him. She would live. He was sure of it now. "Have you a safety pin?"

The nurse looked at him quizzically but went to her purse on the windowsill and produced one. Kusum used it as a clasp for the necklace, then turned to the nurse.

"This necklace is not to be removed for any reason whatsoever. Is that clear?"

The nurse nodded timidly. "Yes, sir. Quite clear."

"I will be elsewhere in the hospital for a while," he said, starting for the door. "If you should need me, have me paged.”

Kusum took the elevator down to the first floor and followed signs to the emergency room. He had learned that this was the only hospital serving the midtown West Side. Jack had hinted that he had injured the mugger's hands. If he should seek medical care, it would be here.

He took a seat in the crowded waiting area of the emergency department. People of all sizes and colors brushed against him on their way in and out of the examining rooms, back and forth to the receptionist counter. He found the odors and the company distasteful, but intended to wait a few hours here. He was vaguely aware of the attention he drew but was used to it. A one-armed man dressing as he did in the company of westerners soon became immune to curious stares. He ignored them. They were not worthy of his concern.

Less than half an hour later an injured man entered and grabbed Kusum's attention. His left eye was patched and both his hands were swollen to twice their normal size.

No doubt. This was the one! Kusum barely restrained himself from leaping up and attacking the man. He seethed as he sat and watched a secretary in the reception booth begin to help him fill out the standard questionaire his useless hands could not.

A man who broke people with his hands had had his hands broken. Kusum relished the poetry of it.

He walked over and stood next to the man. As he leaned against the counter, looking as if he wished to ask the secretary a question, he glanced down at the form. Daniels, Ronald, 359 W. 53rd St.

Kusum stared at Ronald Daniels, who was too intent on hurrying the completion of the form to notice him. Between answers to the secretary's questions, he whined about the pain in his hands. When asked about the circumstances of the injury, he said a jack had slipped while he had been changing a tire and his car had fallen on him.

Smiling, Kusum went back to his seat and waited. He saw Daniels led into an examining room, saw him wheeled out to x-ray in a chair, and then back to the examining room. After a long wait, Daniels was wheeled out again, this time with casts from the middle of his fingers up to his elbows. Kusum listened to him whining about the pain.

Another stroll over to the reception booth and Kusum learned that Mr. Daniels was being admitted overnight for observation. Kusum hid his annoyance. That would complicate matters. He had been hoping to catch up with him outside and deal with him personally. But he knew another way to settle his score with Ronald Daniels.

He returned to the private room and received a very favorable update from the amazed nurse.

"She's doing wonderfully—even spoke to me a moment ago! Such spirit!"

"Thank you for your help, Miss Wiles," Kusum said. "I don't think we'll be requiring your services any longer."

"But—"

"Have no fear: You shall be paid for the entire eight-hour shift." He went to the windowsill, took her purse and handed it to her. "You've done a wonderful job. Thank you."

Ignoring her confused protests, he guided her out the door and into the hall. As soon as he was sure she would not be returning out of some misguided sense of duty, he went to the bedside phone and dialed hospital information.

"I'd like to know the room number of a patient," he said when operator picked up. "His name is Ronald Daniels. He was just admitted through the emergency room."

There was a pause, then: "Ronald Daniels is in 547C, North Wing."

Kusum hung up and leaned back in the chair. How to go about this? He had seen where the doctors' lounge was located. Perhaps he could find a scrub suit there that would enable him to move more freely about the hospital.

As he considered his options, he pulled a tiny glass vial from his pocket and removed the stopper. He sniffed the familiar herbal odor of the green liquid within, then resealed it.

Mr. Ronald Daniels was in pain. He had suffered for his transgression. But not enough. No, not nearly enough.

21

"Help me!"

Ron jerked awake. He’d just been drifting off into sleep.

Goddamn that old bastard!

Every time he started to fall asleep, the old fart yelled.

Just my luck to get stuck in ward with three geezers. He elbowed the call button. Where was that fucking nurse? He needed a shot.

The pain was a living thing, grinding Ron's hands in its teeth and gnawing his arms all the way up to the shoulders. All he wanted to do was sleep, but the pain kept him awake. The pain and the oldest of his three ancient roommates, the one over by the window, the one the nurses called Tommy. Every so often, in between his foghorn snores, he'd let out a yell that would rattle the windows.

Ron hit the call button again with his elbow. Because both his arms was resting in slings suspended from an overhead bar, the nurses had fastened the button to one of the side rails. He’d asked them over and over for another pain shot, but they kept giving him the same old shit: "Sorry, Mr. Daniels, but the doctor left orders for a shot every four hours and no more. You'll have to wait."

Mr. Daniels …he could almost smile at that. His real name was Ronald Daniel Symes. Ron to his friends. He’d given the receptionist a phony name, a phony address, and told them his Blue Cross/Blue Shield card was at home in his wallet. And when they'd wanted to send him home, he'd told them how he lived alone and had no one to feed him or even help him open his apartment door.

They'd bought the whole package. So now he had a place to stay, three meals a day, air conditioning, and when it was all over, he'd skip out and they could take their bill and shove it.

Everything would be great if it wasn't for the pain.

"Help me!"

The pain and Tommy.

He hit the button again. Four hours had to be up. He needed that shot.

The door to the room swung open and someone carne in. Not a nurse. It was a guy. But he was dressed in white. Maybe a male nurse. Shit! He didn’t need no faggot trying to give him a bed bath in the middle of the night.

But the guy only leaned over the bed and held out one of those tiny plastic medicine cups. Half an inch of colored liquid swirled in the bottom.

"What's this?"

"For the pain." The guy was dark and had some sort of accent.

"I want a shot, clown!"

"Not time yet for a shot. This will hold you until then."

"It better!"

Ron let him tip the cup up to his lips. Funny tasting stuff. As he swallowed it, he noticed the guy's left arm was missing. He pulled his head away.

"And listen," he said, feeling a sudden urge to throw his weight around—after all, he was a patient here. "Tell them out there I don't want no more cripples coming in here."