Nocturnal

Pookie Gets His Friend to the Hospital

Pookie raced down Potrero Avenue. San Francisco General Hospital loomed large on his left. He saw a parking spot, slammed on the brakes and angled in. The Buick’s front-right tire rode up on the sidewalk, but he didn’t have time to worry about that.

He jumped out, ran to the rear passenger door and opened it. Inside, a confused-looking Bryan, his hand still pressed to his shoulder with white-knuckle intensity. Bryan looked around. “Uh, Pooks? The hospital is across the street.”

“I know,” Pookie said. “We’re going, I … I just want to take a look at your shoulder first.”

He heard a siren approaching — probably an ambulance with Black Mr. Burns and Erickson.

“Your wound,” Pookie said. “Let me see it.”

Bryan seemed to think about it for a second, then let go. He unzipped his bloody sweatshirt and slid it over his right shoulder. Finally, he hooked the fingers of his left hand under his right T-shirt sleeve and pulled it up high, exposing the wound.

The bleeding had stopped. A small red circle of coagulated blood dotted his shoulder, ringed by a thin circle of pink scar tissue. Less than twenty minutes ago, Bryan Clauser had taken a .40-caliber round in the shoulder. The wound looked a week old, at least.

The ambulance scream grew louder.

They both stared at the wound.

“That cut on my head,” Bryan said. “From when I fell on the fire escape. How is it?”

Pookie looked at Bryan’s forehead. The stitches were still there, but the skin beneath showed nothing but a thin, faded scar. “It’s all healed.”

Bryan sagged into the backseat, unwelcome realization washing over him. “That door at the mansion … could a normal person have kicked that in?”

Pookie shook his head. “No. No way. I should have figured it out when you jumped up on that van with Jay Parlar, but … I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t really want to figure it out.”

Bryan looked up. His eyes were watering. He looked like a man who had lost all hope.

“I’m one of them,” he said. “Those things in the basement … I’m one of them.”

What the hell was Pookie supposed to say now? Rub some dirt on it and get back in there? Hallmark didn’t make cards for an occasion like this.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’ll figure this out.”

The siren’s scream apexed as the ambulance shot past the Buick, then turned into San Francisco General. Pookie watched as scrub-suited hospital staff rushed out of the emergency room door to meet it. The ambulance’s back doors opened. Paramedics wheeled out Erickson, an IV swinging in time to the rolling bed’s movement. John Smith hopped out as well and ran alongside Erickson and the others into the hospital. The emergency room door closed. Late-night traffic continued to pass by on Potrero Avenue, but other than that, the night’s silence descended.

Pookie again looked at Bryan’s shoulder. “Wanna go in anyway? Have them look at it?”

Bryan flexed his arm, rotated it. “No,” he said. “Call Robin.”

“What for?”

“You know what for. And call John. He’s probably got Erickson’s blood on him. Tell him to find a blood stain, a smear, whatever, and take it to Robin’s right away. Now drive me back to my apartment so I can change. I’ll just stay back here for the ride — I need a minute to myself.”

Bryan reached out, grabbed the door and slammed it shut, leaving Pookie standing out on the street. Pookie stared at the door for a moment, at Bryan inside, then pulled out his cell phone and got in the driver’s seat. Pookie dialed Robin as he pulled out into traffic.