The Big Heat

Chapter 19

There was another doctor on duty now, and he told Bannion it would be all right for him to see Debby. “You might just as well,” he said, as they walked along the silent, tile-floored corridor. “I don’t think it will make much difference.” He opened the door of Debby s room, and went on about his work.

Bannion walked to the side of her bed, and she turned her head to him and smiled. They had changed the bandage on her face, and someone, a nurse, Bannion supposed, had combed her hair. She looked desperately tired; there were purple hollows under her eyes, and her skin was transparently white.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“Oh, fine,” she said, in a low soft voice. “Sit down, Bannion. Can you stay a little while?”

“Sure, of course,” he said, and sat down in the straight-backed chair beside her bed. “You look pretty good, considering the excitement you’ve been through.”

“I feel all right,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done it, Bannion. I shouldn’t have shot her. I did it to get Stone, but it was wrong.”

“Well, let’s don’t talk about it now,” he said.

“You never want to talk,” she said, and turned her face to the wall. They were silent for a few moments. Bannion noticed a soft, early dawn light at the windows. It would go away after a few minutes, and return strongly in an hour or so, he knew.

“I felt I was doing right,” Debby said. “Stone shouldn’t have ruined my looks. It was a terrible thing for him to do. A girl with only looks to keep her from being a bum can’t afford to lose them. And it hurts worse when you don’t have anything else. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for someone with a family and kids, or an education even, but I didn’t have those things. I thought it was right to pay him back, but I shouldn’t have killed her, Bannion.”

“It’s all over now,” he said.

“Don’t do anything to Stone,” she said, looking at him, and shaking her head slowly, tiredly. He saw that she was near tears. “Don’t mess yourself up, Bannion. Let him alone. Let the police take care of him.”

“Okay, Debby,” he said.

“It’s not worth it. It’s all bad, this hating people.” She wet her lips. “Am I going to die?”

“—I don’t know, Debby. You look in good shape.”

“Oh, I’m in great shape.”

They didn’t talk much for a while. Debby turned her face aside and Bannion sat there, feeling the need for sleep in his eyes, and watched her slim, pale hands. He sat quietly, watching her hands, as the dawn slanted slowly into the room. The nurse was in and out, and came back with the doctor. They moved around her quietly, adjusting her pillow, checking her pulse. The doctor caught Bannion’s eye and shook his head slowly.

“Should I go?” Bannion said.

“No, you might as well stay.”

Debby turned her head. “Bannion, why aren’t we talking? We’re sitting here like bumps on a log.” Her voice was so low that he had to lean forward to catch what she said.

“Okay, we’ll talk then,” he said.

The nurse and doctor left quietly.

“You were mad when I asked you about your wife,” she said. “You thought I wasn’t good enough to know about her, didn’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bannion said. He tried to laugh casually.

“No, I knew what you meant.”

“You’re being silly. My wife’s name was Kate. You and she would have got along pretty well, I think.”

“Yeah? What was she like?”

Bannion swallowed the sudden dryness in his throat. “Well, she had quite a temper for one thing. She was a genuine Irish blow-top, if you know the type. Fortunately, she got over it in a hurry. She couldn’t stay mad very long. She’d raise hell with me for missing dinner, or leaving the bathroom in a mess, and five minutes later she’d bring me a drink as if nothing had happened.”

“That’s the best way to be,” Debby said. “Why hold grudges?” She smiled at him and her voice was drowsy.

Bannion picked up one of her thin hands, and wondered if he should call the doctor. “She used to get impatient with the baby, too,” he said. “I don’t think Brigid really minded though.” He wet his lips. “She was shrewd enough to work through me when she was in the dog-house with Kate. She’s just four, but she’s already got the makings of a politician.”

“You’ve got a little girl,” Debby said.

“Yes, and she’s quite a person.” He tried to put a smile in his voice. “When I worked days Kate would have her dressed up like a queen when I got home. I suppose it’s the same in most families, but that was a big moment for me, to walk in and see her looking like something that had climbed down from a birthday cake.”

“That must have been nice,” Debby said, and sighed. “I’m glad you told me about her, Bannion.” She didn’t say anything else; she turned her head to one side and closed her eyes. Bannion was still holding her hand when the doctor came in, checked her pulse and told him that she was dead.

Bannion got stiffly to his feet. “I might as well go then,” he said. “See about an undertaker, will you please? There’ll be money for it.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Thanks, Doctor.”

Bannion came out of the hospital into the cold, still, purple gray light of dawn. He stood on the sidewalk for a few moments, breathing deeply, and then he turned and walked slowly toward the center of the city.

There were garbage cans at the curb, and a rubber-tired milk wagon ahead of him in the next block. The city was coming to life.

Bannion was tired and gloomy, but something inside him had melted, something which had been frozen since Kate had died, and he now felt suddenly free and reanimated. He had found some small strength and sympathy left in him to give to Debby, and that meant he must count himself with the living instead of the dead.

The milk wagon in the next block was moving, and the clopping ring of the horses’ hooves was a pleasant and familiar sound in the stillness. “—My house being now at rest.” The lines of St. John came to Bannion unconsciously, and they seemed as fresh as the day he had first read them, and as strangely sustaining and familiar as the clattering horse in the next block.

Bannion turned onto Broad Street, and took a long, deep breath, enjoying the cold, misty air of the city. It was only his imagination, he knew, but it seemed to smell a bit cleaner this morning. Suddenly he remembered, he still had a present to buy for Brigid.

He stood for a moment or two, savoring the early-day sights and sounds of the city, and then he lit a cigarette and waved to a cruising cab. Something had ended this morning, he knew. Now he was starting over, not with hatred but only sadness.

That wasn’t too bad, he thought.