As soon as he was out of sight, I touched Raymond’s arm. “I think I’ll look for a ladies’ room, okay?”
The nurse returned. “It’ll be a few minutes. The neurologist just left, but I think he’s still in the hospital. Would you like to have him paged?”
“Uh, yeah. Could you do that?”
“Of course. You can have a seat, if you like,” she said, indicating the waiting room.
“She going to be okay?”
“I really couldn’t say,” the nurse said. “I can have Dr. Cherbak talk to you about her condition as soon as he gets here. Your name is?”
“Raymond. I’ll just wait. I don’t want to interrupt nobody. …”
“There’s a vending machine if you want to have some coffee.”
“Can you tell me where the restrooms are?” I asked. God, couldn’t I think of any more imaginative way of getting away from these guys?
The nurse pointed toward the corridor. “First door.”
I went into the waiting room with Raymond. As soon as he sat down on the couch, I said, “I’ll be right back.”
He could hardly pay attention, he was so uneasy by then. I walked away from him, trying to control myself, trying not to break into a run. I passed the restroom and kept going, looking for a place I could have a little privacy and the use of a telephone.
Two-South segued back into 2-Main without any noticeable shift in floor covering or the wall colors, which were pale blue and pale beige, with a pattern of cattails or full-foliage trees in silhouette. I became aware that I had moved from near death to near birth, the signs on the wall pointing to Labor, Delivery, the Newborn Nursery, and the Fathers’ Waiting Room. I was looking for a pay phone, fumbling aside the gun in my bag for loose change, feeling panic mount as the seconds ticked away. Once I got the relevant information back to Dolan, I was out of there.
I passed the desk on 2-Main. There was a counter to my left with wall-mounted monitors that showed green lines I assumed were vital signs.
A black nurse coming out of a room marked “Staff Lounge” nearly bumped into me. She was wearing an ankle-length white gown that tied in the back, a mask pushed up on the middle of her forehead like a pale green hump. She was in her forties, slim, with dark eyes and a clear, unlined face. “Can I help you?”
“I sincerely hope so,” I said. ‘This is my situation and you just have to trust me on this. I’m a private investigator from Santa Teresa. I’m working undercover on an auto insurance fraud case and I’m here in the company of a thug who’s going to start looking for me any minute. I have to get a call through to Lieutenant Dolan up in Santa Teresa. Do you have a telephone I could use? I swear it won’t take long and it could save my life.”
She looked at me with the blank contemplation of somebody assessing information. It must have been something in the tone I used, pure desperation overlaid with “earnest.”
It certainly wasn’t anything in the way I looked. For once, I was telling the truth, using every cell in my being to convey my sincerity. She listened, brown eyes intent on my face as I spoke. It’s possible the tale I told was so preposterous she just didn’t think me capable of making it up. Without a word, she pointed toward a telephone on the desk behind the counter.
23
I WENT THROUGH the hospital operator, placing a person-to-person call to Dolan at the number he’d given me. While I waited for the call to be patched through, I read the bulletin board, which seemed devoted in equal parts to medical cartoons, notices of classes coming up, and menus for neighborhood fast-food restaurants offering free delivery. I was starving to death.
When I heard Dolan’s voice, I closed my eyes and put a hand on my chest, patting myself with relief. “Lieutenant Dolan, this is Kinsey Millhone. I’m calling from St. John’s Hospital and I don’t have long.”
“What’s up?”
I started talking, my mind racing ahead, trying to organize the information as I spoke. “First of all, Bibianna Diaz is in ICU down here. She was run off the road last night – “
“I heard,” Dolan interjected.
“You know about that?”
“One of Santos’s men called me the minute the report came through. Hospital has orders to be polite to Raymond without letting him get anywhere near her hospital bed. They know what to do.”
“Well, thank God for that.” I filled him in quickly on the situation to date, including the file I’d seen at Buddy’s Auto Body Shop. “I think I’ve figured out who the leak is up there.” I told him about Dr. Howard, the chiropractor, and the photo of his daughter. I had no idea what her married name was, but I gave him an accurate (though acid) description of her. As a civilian clerk working for the county sheriff’s department, she was in a perfect position to funnel information to her father, and through him to Raymond. The minute Bibianna was first arrested in Santa Teresa, Raymond would have known her whereabouts. A sudden thought occurred to me. “Lieutenant, do you know anything about the gun Parnell was murdered with? Raymond’s got a thirty-caliber broomhandle Mauser. I saw it in his dresser drawer.”
Dolan cut in. “Forget Parnell for now and do me a favor. I want you to hang up and get the hell out of there.”
“Why, what’s happening?”
“Tate’s probably already on the premises. Hospital notified him late last night and he took off, heading south. If Raymond finds out he’s there, they’ll have a showdown for sure.”
“Oh, shit.”
Behind me, a woman doctor came into the nurses’ station, wearing surgical greens. She pulled off her cap and shook her hair out wearily. She paused to study me, hair rumpled, lines of exhaustion weighting down her face. I couldn’t tell if she wanted the telephone or the chair.
Dolan was saying, “I got somebody down there who can help you out. Hold on. I got a call coming in. …”
I saw Raymond pass the desk, heading toward the elevators, probably in search of me. I couldn’t wait for Dolan. “I gotta go,” I said into dead air, and hung up. Every brain cell in my head was screaming at me to get out, but I couldn’t leave Jimmy Tate here without backup. I left the nurses’ station and trotted down the hall behind Raymond, finally catching up with him.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Hi, where did you go?”
He turned and looked at me irritably. “Where the hell have you been? I’m off lookin’ for you.”
“I went over to the nursery to see the newborns,” I said.
“What for?”
“I like babies. I might want to have one of my own someday, you know? They’re really cute, all tiny and puckery. They look like Cornish game hens -”
“We ain’t here for that,” he said gruffly, though he seemed mollified by my explanation. He grabbed my arm and turned me, walking us back down the corridor toward ICU.
“Why don’t we take a break and get some coffee,” I said.
“Forget that. I’m jumpy enough as it is.” We reached the ICU waiting room and Raymond sat down again. He took a magazine from a nearby stack and flipped through it with an air of distraction. The pages made little snapping sounds in the quiet of the room. Two women seated at the other end of the room stared at him, frankly curious about his tics.
Raymond glanced up, catching them in the act, and stared back at them until they broke off eye contact. “Jesus, I hate it when people stare at me. They think I like doing this?” He gave me an exaggerated jerk, glaring darkly at the two women, who were stirring with selfconsciousness.
I said, “How’s Bibianna doing? Has anybody said?”
He shifted restlessly. “Doctor’s supposed to show up any minute and talk to us.”
I had to get him out of there. A color television in the corner, sound off, was tuned to one of those nature films where they show half of one species being eaten by another.
Raymond leaned forward. “Jeez, what’s taking them so long?”
“You want some lunch? Why don’t we go down to the coffee shop and find Luis. I’m starving.”
He hung his head, shaking it, and then looked over at me, his expression bleak. “What if she doesn’t make it?”
I bit back a retort. I couldn’t think of an answer that didn’t seem quarrelsome. I revised my reaction. On reflection, it seemed perfectly in keeping with the depth of his denial that he’d now be worried sick about a woman he’d tried to have assassinated less than twenty-four hours before. If Raymond found out Jimmy Tate was here, he’d bring the whole place down.