“Oh brother,” Keyes said, replacing the sheet.
“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Mulcahy said to Bloodworth.
“He’s never gonna type again,” Keyes whispered.
“Ssshhhh!”
“Or bite his nails, for that matter.”
“We’ll get the best plastic surgeon in Miami,” Mulcahy vowed. He was wondering what in the world to do with a deaf reporter with no fingertips. For his suffering Ricky certainly deserved something, Mulcahy thought, something generous but safe. Perhaps a lifetime column on the food page—even Bloodworth couldn’t screw up a casserole recipe.
“Too bad he can’t tell us what happened,” Keyes said.
Ricky Bloodworth had no intention of telling anyone what had happened; even an elephant-sized dose of painkillers had not dulled his sense of survival. Maimed or not, he knew he’d be fired, perhaps even indicted, if it ever became known that he’d snatched the brown package from Sergeant Garcia’s desk. It was better to let the world think the bomb had been meant for him—better for his career, better for the story. And why should that lout Garcia get any attention, anyway?
Through a haze, Bloodworth saw Cab Mulcahy holding up a notebook. On it the editor had written: “You are going to make it okay.”
Bloodworth smiled and, with one of his nubs, gave a tremulous thumbs-up.
Keyes took the notebook and wrote: “Where did you get the package?”
Bloodworth shrugged lamely.
“I guess he doesn’t remember much,” Mulcahy said.
“Guess not.”
Next Keyes printed: “Are you strong enough to write a note for the cops?”
Bloodworth squinted at the pad, then shook his head no.
“We’d better let him rest,” Mulcahy said.
“Sure.”
“I don’t know what to tell the wolf pack downstairs,” Mulcahy fretted.
“Hell, Cab, they’re the competition. Don’t say a damn thing.”
“I can’t do that.”
‘Why not? You’re the Sun’s reporter on this one, aren’t you? So just keep your mouth shut and write the story. Write the hell out of it, too.”
Amused, Mulcahy said, “Well, why not?”
He winked at Bloodworth and turned for the door. Bloodworth grunted urgently.
“He wants to say something,” Keyes said. He laid the notebook on Ricky’s chest and fitted the pen into his gauzed claw.
Bloodworth wrote laboriously and in tall woozy letters:
“page one?”
Keyes showed the notebook to Mulcahy and said, “Can you believe this?”
A nurse came in and gave Ricky Bloodworth an enormous shot. Before drifting off, he saw Keyes and Mulcahy waving good night.
Outside the hospital, Keyes said, “It’s getting late, Cab, I’d better head back to the house.” Dismally he wondered what a nail bomb could do to Reed Shivers’ cork billiard room.
“Go on ahead,” Mulcahy said. “If our pal calls, you’ll be the first to know.”
Back in the newsroom, the other reporters and editors were surprised to see Cab Mulcahy sit down at a video-display terminal and begin to write. Before long his presence seemed to galvanize the whole staff, and the Friday night pace of the newsroom quickened into something approaching gusto.
The spell was interrupted by the city editor, who, after circling reluctantly, finally stepped forward to give Cab Mulcahy the message.
“From Wiley,” the city editor said uneasily. “He phoned while you were out.”
Mulcahy’s ulcer twinged when he saw the message.
“I say yes, you say no,” it read. “You say stop, and I say go, go, go.”
25
From the hospital Brian Keyes drove straight to Coral Gables to check on Kara Lynn. He rang the bell three times before Reed Shivers opened the door.
“Nice of you to show up,” Shivers said archly. He wore a monogrammed wine-colored robe and calfskin slippers. A walnut pipe bobbed superciliously in the corner of his mouth.
“Nice to see you, too, Mr. Hefner.”
“Don’t be a wise guy—where’ve you been? You’re getting big bucks to be a baby-sitter.”
“There’s been another bombing,” Keyes said, brushing past him. “A newspaper reporter.”
“The Nachos again?” All the Anglos in Miami had started calling Wiley’s gang the Nachos because it was so much easier to pronounce than Las Noches de Diciembre.
“Where’s Kara Lynn?” Keyes asked.
“Out in the game room working her fanny off. Try not to interrupt.”
Keyes examined Reed Shivers as he would a termite.