“Three-Eleven,” the dispatcher said.
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve had a report by a citizen that a red Triumph has been seen westbound on Driscoll Boulevard at a high rate of speed.”
Raphael quickly opened his city map.
“It must be a different car,” Three-Eleven said. “There’s no way to get across the river between here and there, is there?”
But Raphael saw a way, and so did the dispatcher. “Yes, sir, there is. He could have gone down through the junior-college campus and across the Fort Wright Bridge.”
“Do we have any cars up there?”
“This is District Nine,” another voice came in. “I’m at Francis and Maple. I’ll try to intercept.”
Raphael looked at the map intently. The Triumph was very fast, and Flood was clever-assuming the fight and the shooting had not completely scrambled his brains. To the north of Driscoll there was a rabbit warren of winding streets where he might drop out of sight. But if he stuck with Driscoll after it turned into Nine Mile Road, he would be out of the city with no side streets to dodge into. After that the only alternative would be flight-full-out, pedal-to-the-floorboards flight.
“District Nine, what’s your location?” the dispatcher said after several minutes.
“This is Nine. I have a late-model red Triumph with Michigan plates northbound at a high rate of speed on Nine Mile Road. Am in pursuit.” The voice that came back was excited, and the siren wailed in the background.
“What is your location, District Nine?”
“Just passing Seven Mile. Subject vehicle is going in excess of one hundred miles an hour.”
“All units,” the dispatcher said, “be advised that District Nine is in pursuit of a late-model red Triumph with Michigan license plates northbound on Nine Mile Road. Subject vehicle possibly involved in a shooting incident at People’s Park within the past few minutes.”
“See if Stevens County sheriff can get a unit down there to block him off,” Three-Eleven said.
“Yes, sir.”
Raphael sat tensely, his map clutched in his hands. “Come on, Flood! Get off that goddamn highway!”
The scanner tracked in silence, the tiny flickering red lights reaching out, looking for voices.
“He lost it!” District Nine said. “He missed the S-curve at Nine Mile.
“Is he in the river?” Three-Eleven demanded.
“No, Sir. He hit the rock face on the right-hand side and then bounced across and hit a tree. You’d better respond an ambulance out here-and a fire-department unit. It looks like we’re going to have to cut him out of that car.”
The tiny red lights continued to wink, fingering the air, searching the night for misery and violence and despair, and Raphael sat listening alone.
viii
He sat tensely in a chair in the waiting room, a loungelike place just off the emergency admitting area at Sacred Heart Hospital. The night was long and filled with confusion. Much of the human wreckage of the city passed through the wide doors of Sacred Heart emergency, and their cries and moans made the night hellish. The families and beloved of the wounded and the slain hunched in gray-faced shock in the waiting room, wearing mismatched clothes thrown on in moments of crisis.
Raphael did not know Flood’s father, and the family telephone number in Grosse Pointe was unlisted. In desperation he finally tried to call Isabel Drake. Her phone rang three times, and then the recording came on. “I’m not at home just now,” her voice told him. “Please leave a message at the tone.”
He was not really ready when the insistent beep came over the wire. “Uh-‘Bel-this is Raphael. Damon Flood-junior-has been in an accident. He’s at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane. I’m here, too. You’d better call me.”
After he had hung up the telephone, he realized that he hadn’t given her a phone number or much of anything else. He thought of calling back to add more detail, but could not bring himself to talk to a machine again.
And then he waited, and because he was tired and emotionally wrung, he dozed fitfully in his chair. At four in the morning a crisply starched nurse came into the waiting room and woke him. “Mr. Taylor, you have a phone call-long distance.” There was no hesitation in her voice. She knew who he was. He was marked as one of their own-deserving that special kind of courtesy the medical profession gives to those who have survived its most radical ministrations.
“Of course,” he said, shaking off the sleep instantly. He rose and followed the nurse through the now-quiet admissions area.
It was Isabel. “Raphael,” she said, “I just got in and found your message on my answering machine. What happened?” It was, strange to hear her voice again.
“It was an automobile accident,” he told her. “He’s in critical condition. I tried to get hold of his family, but I can’t get through.”
“I’ll call his father. How bad is it?”
“They’re not talking about it. I think you’d better hurry.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No. I understand that he isn’t conscious. Please hurry, ‘Bel. I know quite a bit about hospitals, and the signs aren’t too good.”
“Oh, dear God! I’ll call his father right now.”
Raphael held the phone in his hand for a long time after ‘Bel hung up, then, on an impulse, he called Denise.
“Hello?” Her voice was warm and sleepy.
“It’s me.” He felt a bit foolish for having awakened her for no reason.
“Did he . . . ?” She left it hanging.
“No. I just wanted to hear your voice. Hospitals scare me a little: I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was almost contented. “I’ve never had anybody wake me up in the middle of the night before. It’s kind of nice.”
“Nice?”
“You know what I mean.”
They talked for a while, and then Raphael went back to the waiting room.
At ten in the morning ‘Bel arrived. She was dressed in a dark suit and carried a small overnight case. She stopped hesitantly just inside the wide glass doors to emergency, and Raphael went out to meet her.
“How-” she started, and then broke off.
“No change,” Raphael replied.
In a single glance she took in the crutches and the vacant space where his left leg should have been. She half reached out to touch him, but let her hand drop. “Is there someplace where we can get some coffee?” she asked to cover the moment.
“The hospital cafeteria.”
“Can we leave word here?”
“I’ll take care of it.” He turned and went smoothly to the desk. He spoke briefly with the nurse and then led ‘Bel to the elevators.
“J.D.’s on his way,” she told him in the elevator. It was a moment before he realized that she meant Flood’s father.
“I’m a little surprised,” Raphael said. “From the way Damon talked-talks-I get the impression that he and his father are barely on speaking terms.”
“That’s nonsense. You should never believe anything junior says.”
“I’ve noticed.”
They had coffee and looked out through the huge windows in the cafeteria at Spokane, spread out in the valley below them in the morning sun.
“Pretty little town,” she said.
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Don’t be cryptic, Raphael. That can develop into a very annoying habit.”
He smiled then. The tone was so familiar that it seemed as if the time that had intervened since their last meeting had simply dropped away. He was surprised to discover that he was not uncomfortable with her. He smiled at her familiarly then, knowing all the lush, creamy opulence that lay beneath her trimly tailored suit.
“You’ve matured, Raphael,” she said, catching the look and arching one eyebrow at him.
Later, back in the waiting room again, because his reserve was worn down by exhaustion, because he needed to talk with someone, and because ‘Bel of all people would understand, Raphael began to talk-randomly at first, and then more and more to the point. “I suppose it’s my fault, really,” he admitted finally. “Damon asked me a dozen times to leave here. If I’d gone-if we’d gone to San Francisco or Denver or Seattle the way he wanted to in the middle of the summer, none of this would have happened.”
“Don’t beat yourself over the head with it, Raphael,” she told him. “You can’t go back and change things, and this-or something like it has been waiting for junior all his life. You could almost smell it on him.”
A sudden thought occurred to him. ” ‘Bel, who is Gabriel?”
She gave him a startled look. “He actually mentioned Gabriel to you?”
Raphael shook his head. “He lets it slip from time to time. I don’t think he was even aware that he said it, but several times he’s called me Gabriel. For some reason I get the feeling that if I can find out just exactly who this Gabriel is, I’ll be able to understand Damon a lot better.”