Cat Bearing Gifts

18

HEADING FOR THE hospital following two blocks behind Emmylou, her old green Chevy nearly bumper to bumper with the ambulance, Vic spotted the turn-in to Emergency but went on by. He drove on half a mile farther, turning into a wooded neighborhood with big, expensive houses set back among the trees, their grounds softly lit by fancy lanterns but only a few windows showing lights, at this hour. Rolling his car window down, he heard no barking dog. There was no one on the street, no night joggers with their fancy, lighted shoes, no reflective gear of a cyclist who might prefer the empty streets of night, no late partiers headed home. Big houses, three- and four-car garages, but most of the driveways empty. He drove until he found a place with two cars parked in front, a Mercedes and a Jag, and a Toyota sitting on the street. Pulling over beside the Toyota and killing the engine, he got out, slipping a short, oversized Phillips screwdriver from his back pocket.

In less time than it would take the householder to hear some tiny sound and turn on the lights, he was driving away again with his new license plates on the seat beside him. He stopped ten blocks away and switched the plates on the Lincoln, smearing on a little of the Lincoln’s damp mud to make them match the rest of the car. Then he headed back to the hospital, following the big red signs to the emergency entrance at the mouth of the underground parking garage, easing the muddy, dented Lincoln along the first level to the back row where cops coming into the ER might not notice it.

Parking, he hit the lock button on the pendant with the key and walked back to the emergency room’s wide glass doors, thinking about somewhere secure where he could hide the Town Car later for a few hours, get it out of sight. He couldn’t take it back to the stone shed; the minute the EMTs filed their report with the PD, the cops’d be all over the place, the stone shack and Emmylou’s house, too. And, in the ER, they’d be all over Birely, wanting to know how he got hurt, asking who else was involved, asking him why he’d been staying in an empty house with only a sleeping bag and where was his friend that the other sleeping bag belonged to?

Approaching the glass doors of the emergency room, he saw an ambulance parked down at a garagelike bay, which stood open but was dark inside. He saw no activity there, no sign of any medics, no stretcher or gurney visible. He moved on up the few steps to the glass doors of the admittance room; they slid open automatically for him. He was hardly inside, moving on past the clerk at the desk hoping she wouldn’t try to stop him, when he spotted Emmylou sitting in a small glass cubicle to his left. Her back was to him, facing a desk where a young man in a white shirt and V-necked sweater was filling out papers. Turning away, he moved into the general seating area, sitting as near to Emmylou as he could, hoping to hear what she was saying. She didn’t know him, she’d never seen him that he knew of, but he picked up a magazine to hide his face. He couldn’t hear much through the glass, and their voices broken by the conversation of passing orderlies and nurses going in and out, carrying clipboards, pushing wheelchair-bound patients on into the ER. He’d catch a few words and then the meaning would be interrupted. He was pretty sure Emmylou was passing herself off as Birely’s sister, he heard her clearly when she said there were no other relatives. He waited until the clerk led Emmylou down a short hall to a set of heavy double doors and used his ID card to open them. Quickly Vic followed, slipping in behind them, moving on down the row of small glass rooms as if intent on his own business. Center of the big space was all open, with an island of counters and desks. The clerk at the nearest desk gave him a look. He nodded at her and moved on past. Maybe his stained chinos and worn-out windbreaker got her attention, and his mud-stained jogging shoes. If he had to make another trip here, he’d have to do something about clothes, find something to wear that didn’t make him stand out. Several cubicles down, he turned back to see where the clerk had led Emmylou, and nearly ran into two employees, right behind him. They were both in blue scrubs, with ID badges pinned to the pockets. They stood blocking his way, their expressions bland but businesslike. The white-haired woman’s badge said NELLIE MACKLE, RN. Short hair, thin, a small woman, maybe a hundred pounds, and no physical threat to him, but her dark eyes set him back, hard and challenging. “Are you looking for a patient?”

“My neighbor. My neighbor was brought in,” he said. “At least I think they brought him here. Birely Miller? I heard he was hurt in a car accident, all the lights went on at the house and then I heard the ambulance and I thought . . . Well, he’s kind of a loner, I wanted to know if he’s all right, if there’s anything I can do.”

Nurse Mackle glanced back down the hall, where Emmylou stood in the doorway of one of the glass cubicles, number 12, then stepped behind a desk to a computer. She looked at the screen for a moment, returned to Vic, but said nothing. The man, whose hospital badge had no name, looked down at Vic from a healthy six foot four. Dark skin, dark brown eyes that looked soft and understanding, but with a gleam of challenge. Big hands loose at his sides, his fingers twitching just a little.

“Only family is allowed,” Nurse Mackle said. “If you’ll give us your name, we’ll pass it on to his sister, she can let you know his condition.”

Vic said his name was Allen James, that he lived four blocks down from Birely. He made up a phone number. She wrote down his information, nodded, and looked meaningfully toward the big double doors. Her dark friend’s look, too, implied serious consequences if Vic didn’t do as she suggested.

He left the two, feeling like a felon, turned away knowing their eyes followed him. He moved on behind another nurse who was headed for the big, closed doors just beside a unisex bathroom. Most California bathrooms were unisex like this one, the door marked with both his and hers symbols and, in this case, a picture indicating wheelchair access. When he glanced back, the two inquisitors had moved on away, but as he passed the last little room and was about to go on out through the big doors, voices made him turn back to a brightly lit cubicle.

Its glass doors and canvas curtain were open. The patient filled the whole bed, his broad shoulders crowded against the side bars, his feet pressed against the bottom rail. Beside the bed a small woman, round and wrinkle faced, fuzzy hair the color of old newspapers, stood talking with a dark-haired, white-coated doctor. “You might want to go on home, Mrs. Emory, and get some rest. In a little while I’ll be moving Michael to ICU, I want to run some more tests, and watch him for a few days. That was a bad fall he took.”

When he glanced up, Vic turned away, facing the door to the bathroom as if he were waiting his turn. “He can have one or two visitors at a time, Mrs. Emory, but they’re not to stay long, you understand.”

Vic turned his back to them, trying not to smile. With the patient’s name, he had all he needed to get back into the ER without being interrogated. When the door to the bathroom opened and a woman stepped out, Vic stepped on in. He used the facilities, ignored the sign that said wASH YOUR HANDS, and left. Keeping his back to Michael Emory’s room, he pressed his hand to the mark on the wall as he’d seen the nurse do, watched the big double doors swing open. He moved quickly out through the waiting room to the dim parking garage; he still had things to do. He needed a change of clothes, and a haircut. Maybe a barbershop cut, not just him snipping around his ears with a pair of rusty scissors, making a mess. A haircut could go a long way toward keeping the cops off your back.

He’d gone through the packages in the Lincoln again, there was some expensive stuff there, all right. Maybe he could add a few things to it, unload the whole lot with that fence. Them bolts of heavy cloth for covering a chair or sofa, fancier, for sure, than the kind of upholstery goods they used in prison industries to cover the cheap office chairs they turned out. He’d found the old folks’ two suitcases in the trunk under all the other packages, and had gone through them. Maybe he could sell the clothes, the woman’s stuff had labels so well known even he recognized the value. But among the old man’s stuff there was nothing for him to wear, even if it would fit. Two dress suits, white shirts and ties, the kind of clothes that would call attention to himself in just the opposite way from his own stained jeans and mended windbreaker.

Maybe when he returned to the hospital he could lift a pair of blue scrubs like everyone wore in there. He’d blend right in, except for the badge. Everyone he saw, nurses, orderlies, was wearing a badge. Did these people wear their scrubs to work, or put them on here? Maybe they got them from a supply closet, same as they’d get clean towels and sheets? And did they keep the closets locked?

He could think of a dozen ways to get tripped up, though, stealing hospital clothes. He kicked himself again for not snuffing Birely when they were alone and he’d had the chance. If he’d done him then, he’d be long gone by now, and wouldn’t have all these details in his way.

But maybe Birely was so bad he wouldn’t have to help him along, maybe before the night was over, the hand of fate would end the poor wimp’s misery.

Heading upstairs to the main level, he glanced at his watch. Nearly four A.M. He found a phone, got the information he wanted. He was back down on the dim parking deck by four-thirty, easing the Lincoln out of the covered garage, turning down toward the freeway. Taking the on-ramp south, back toward the village, he wanted to get cleaned up, change his looks if he could, and get into some clothes that didn’t make people stare at him.

He had the Lincoln’s registration in his pocket giving the address, and now he had the phone number. One of the keys on the ring had to be the key to the Greenlaws’ house, where the old man would have plenty of clothes. Let them two old folks give him a helping hand, it was their fault his truck was wrecked. If they’d been traveling at a decent speed he’d have been past the slide when the rocks fell, would have been well away from the damn delivery truck and would have never crashed into it.

Leaving the ER, he had wandered the main floor of the hospital until he found the courtesy phone on a little table in one of the seating areas. A nice amenity so patients’ families like him, he thought smiling, could make local calls. Sitting down on the couch, he’d punched in 411, hoping Santa Cruz was in the same area code, because the phone sure as hell wouldn’t reach long distance. Even these free spenders weren’t going to let you call all over the country, at the expense of Peninsula Hospital.

But he’d lucked out, it was all the same code. He’d found the hospital pen he’d put in his pocket, jotted the names and numbers on a magazine, of the two Santa Cruz hospitals. He’d called Dominican first, asked for the room of Pedric Greenlaw, and he hit it right. The guy was there, secure in a hospital bed, maybe an hour away from Molena Point, and no way he’d be home tonight. He was advised that the patient was sleeping and that he should call back in the morning.

“And Lucinda Greenlaw?” he’d said, repeating her name from the car registration.

The operator would not disturb Mrs. Greenlaw, either, at this hour. “Try around eight in the morning, when the patients are awake,” she’d said shortly.

Hanging up, he’d called local information again, for the Molena Point residence of Pedric Greenlaw. It was listed, all right—as if the Greenlaws had no idea someone would want their information for less than a friendly social call. When he was automatically connected, the phone rang twelve times before he hung up. He waited a few minutes and then called twice more, let each call ring a long time, but still there was no answer. Jingling the Greenlaws’ keys, he’d headed back through the hospital and down the stairs, out through ER to the parking garage.

Before he pulled out, he’d gone through the glove compartment of the Lincoln again, found the local map stuffed in with a handful of Northern California maps, this one a colorful tourist edition meant for out-of-town visitors. He’d found the Greenlaws’ street, and now he headed there, down the freeway and off into the hills above the village.

The neighborhood was wooded with scattered oaks, and dark as hell with no streetlights. He saw no light in any window. No house numbers in the village, either. But higher up on the hill there were numbers on the curbs, in reflective paint. Driving slowly, he found the Greenlaws’ place and pulled up in front.

The drive and garden were lit by low lamps at ground level, real fancy. The driveway and walk were of stone, a huge oak tree overhanging the garage. He could see a tree house up among the branches, as if maybe these people had grandkids. He sat looking and listening. There was no sound, no lights, no window open with curtains blowing, all was dead still.

He looked for a button on the car’s overhead that would open the garage door. How much noise would that make, to alert the neighbors? Some of them doors were as loud as a stump grinder. At last he decided to risk it. If there was no other car in there, that was one more good indication he was alone.

He finally found the button in the visor. The door slid up with hardly a sound. He smiled at the empty two-car space, pulled on in, and killed the engine. Hitting the button to slide the door closed behind him, he fished his flashlight from his pocket and stepped out of the Town Car.

He tried three keys before he had the inner door open. Shielding the flashlight, he moved in through a hall that opened to a laundry and bath, and then on into a big, raftered living room, high ceiling, windows all along two sides. The drapes were open and through the tall glass he could see the lights of the village down below, all pretty damn fancy. Garden lights at the back, too, a level lower, picking out a narrow deck that probably opened to a daylight basement. No light shone from that level out onto the deck or bushes, but in case anyone was sleeping down there, he took off his shoes. Still shielding the flashlight, he checked out the living room.

Big, flat-screen TV hidden in a cabinet, that should bring a nice sum but would be a bitch to haul around, there wasn’t room in the Lincoln unless he dumped what he already had in there. CD and DVD players and music system were small enough to tuck in the car. Nothing else of much value in that room, a wall full of old, worn-looking books along the back, cracked leather bindings, nothing worth taking. In the dining room they’d cut a cat door in the window, at table height, he supposed for that cat they’d had with them. People were weird about their pets. There was a kind of study in one corner of the living room, desk and computer and more books, floor-to-ceiling books, all of them old. The money these people had, why didn’t they buy some new ones, buy some of them fancy bestsellers with bright covers?

There was just the one bedroom, but it was nearly as big as the living room, with a bath and two closets, his and hers. In the old guy’s closet he tried on several pairs of pants and sport coats, looking at himself in the full-length mirror. Everything fit pretty good. He settled on a tweed sport coat, tan chinos, and a brown cotton turtleneck, a pair of soft leather Rockports that were stretched enough to fit his larger feet.

In the bathroom he dared a light, closing the shutters first, pushing their louvers tight together. Rooting through the drawers, he abandoned the idea of a barber, he didn’t want to wait until one opened, and he didn’t want some guy to ID him later. Small town, cops poking around, in and out of places, asking questions. He found a pair of scissors and set about trimming off his long hair, and that took him a while. Felt strange as his hair dropped away, made him feel naked. Belatedly he spread out a towel to catch the mess, sweeping what had fallen onto it with his hand, trying not to leave evidence. When he’d done as good as he could, he found a razor and shaved the back of his neck, holding a hand mirror he’d found on the woman’s side of the cabinets, twisting awkwardly to see.

He shaved off his short scraggly beard, which never would grow thick the way he wanted. He took a shower, using a big thick towel on the rack. He slapped on the old guy’s aftershave, which had a lime smell. He found clean shorts and socks in a dresser drawer, and pulled on the brown turtleneck. Posing in the full-length mirror, he thought he looked pretty good. Except for his white, newly shaven cheeks and chin and the back of his neck. He rooted around among the woman’s things, looking in the medicine cabinet and in drawers, but couldn’t find any bottle of colored makeup to disguise the pale marks.

It took him a while, in the kitchen, working by flashlight, to figure out the fancy microwave. In the freezer he found a package of spaghetti, read the directions, opened it, and shoved it in. While he waited, he put his own clothes in the washer, threw his canvas jogging shoes in, too. While the washer rumbled away, and with the spaghetti smelling good, he opened a cold beer from the refrigerator door.

Retrieving his supper, he found a plate to put it on, and sat down at the table where he could look down at the village lights. He even found a paper napkin, tucked it in the high turtleneck to keep it clean. How would it be to live like this, in a fancy house? Well, hell, with the money he’d stashed in the Lincoln, and maybe twenty thousand more when he unloaded the car itself, he could live any way he wanted.

But not in a house like this. Not in a tame village like this where he’d be bored out of his mind. The kind of money he had now would put him in Vegas or some Caribbean island with plenty of action. Party all night, poker and roulette tables to help him double or triple what he had, and a choice of showgirls offering anything he could pay for.

Finished eating, he dumped his dish in the sink. He’d meant to make his way back to the hospital tonight, what was left of the night. Walk right on in, with his new, respectable look, take care of Birely and be done with it. But when he thought of going back there so soon, and maybe with those same goons on duty, he decided to hide the Lincoln first, maybe around Debbie Kraft’s place, empty houses on the streets around her. He couldn’t think of a better neighborhood. That woman contractor was around there some, but he could avoid her. Meantime, tonight, he wouldn’t turn down a few hours’ sleep, he thought, yawning.

Moving into the bedroom again, he undressed, folded his new clothes all neat on the upholstered bedroom chair, and climbed naked into the old folks’ bed, sliding down under the thick quilt. Before he switched off the flashlight, its beam on the pillow picked out a couple of dark cat hairs. He flicked them off with disgust, turned the pillow over, got himself comfortable, and dropped into a deep, untroubled sleep.