Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

seventeen

WHERE LARRY’S ONLY visitors had been law enforcement officials, Silas had a stream. Not long after Larry asked to change rooms, a pretty black girl in a paramedic outfit came in, smiled quickly at Larry then went to Silas’s bed, her fragrance settling over Larry like a whiff of honeysuckle bush. He’d requested that a nurse draw the curtain between the beds, so now he heard but didn’t see.

“Baby,” she said, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” Silas said. He cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “bout the way I been.”

“You ain’t been no way,” he said, “but right.”

Rustling, sheets moving.

“Look at your arm.”

“It’s a mess ain’t it.”

“They gone put you on disability?”

“Say they are.”

“Full pay, 32?”

“Say so.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

They talked about the dog, the girl telling him she was glad she hadn’t been the first responder. She didn’t know what she’d have done, something happened to him. He kept assuring her he was fine. She said she knew a great rehab tech, she’d make sure 32 hooked up with him, he’d get his arm back, wait and see. Then their voices lowered and Larry figured they were talking about him. He had the television on overhead, not too loud. Though Silas had a remote control on his bed, too, and though they shared the set, Larry maintained control. There were other sounds and he knew they were kissing.

A moment later she stuck her head around the curtain. She had a high pretty forehead and big eyes, a little smile.

“Larry?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m Angie Baker.” She came forward and touched the back of his hand where it lay in its leather belt. Her nails weren’t painted; he could tell she bit them. She looked into his eyes so frankly he glanced away. “I’m 32’s girlfriend,” she said, bending to get back into his sightline.

“You the one who found me,” he said.

“32 sent us.”

“I thank you,” Larry said.

“I just wanted to say,” the girl said, “that I’m sorry for all you been through. Silas told me. And I wanted to tell you if you ever wanted to come to a church, the Fulsom Third Baptist on Union Avenue would welcome you.”

Larry didn’t know how to answer. It was a black church. Finally he said, “Does Silas go there?”

“You ain’t got to worry about Silas,” she said. “You can’t get his black ass anywhere near a church. Less you shoot somebody in one.”

She stayed much of the night, was there when Larry drifted off.

Next morning she was gone, replaced by a heavy woman with a bouquet of daisies, nodding to Larry as she got water for the flowers and tidied the room. Silas called her Voncille and thanked her for sending the deputies after him. And for the flowers.

Then a man Larry recognized as the mayor of Chabot came and joked could Silas still wave cars with that cast on? And could he learn to use his right arm to aim the radar gun and his right hand to fill out his reports? But all joking aside, the mayor said, they sure were proud of him.

Later a couple of other deputies came in and talked with Silas. They’d taken Wallace’s snakes for evidence, and there’d been a moment of dark comedy when a heretofore unseen boa constrictor slid across the kitchen floor and was shot to death. They’d also found an aquarium of rats, food for the snakes, in a back bedroom. A debate had ensued over what to do with them. Let them go? Flush them? They’d decided to turn them over to a local pet store, the bunch of them currently in the back of Deputy Parvin’s Bronco.

Leaving, the deputies both nodded to Larry.

French came by around nine, looking spiffy and wearing, for the first time, to Larry’s knowledge, a shirt with buttons on it and khaki pants. He looked rested and ruddy as he stood at the end of the curtain between them, where he could see them both.

“Gentlemen,” he said.

Silas said, “You must got more TV today.”

“So do you,” the chief said. “On your way out. That pretty anchor wants to talk to you.”

“First,” Silas said, “can you undo Larry?”

“I can,” said French, coming down Larry’s side of the divider, undoing the right restraint and then rounding the bed to do the left. “I apologize for that,” he said.

Larry rubbed his wrists and looked past the chief at the television, a cat food commercial.

“Well.” French moved around the curtain to Silas’s side. “We got a fellow doing your traffic.”

“Thanks.”

French reached past him and pulled the curtain aside, Larry swept into view, his eyes on the TV.

“I’m gone talk to yall both a minute,” French said. “Mr. Ott, will you turn that thing off.”

Larry clicked it off.

French said aside from the Rutherford girl’s wallet, they’d recovered eleven firearms at Wallace’s place, pistols, rifles, shotguns, and ammo. Also, most of an eight ball of cocaine, pills, an eighth of marijuana and a pipe and a one-hitter.

That sounded about like Wallace, Larry thought.

French went on. The zombie mask had a spot of blood on it that matched Larry’s blood, which, bolstered by Larry’s testimony, left little doubt that Stringfellow had pulled the trigger. Also, because of the information from Larry, Stringfellow had been linked to M &M, so they could now investigate that case in light of this new evidence. French’s guess? Wallace had shot M &M, too.

“Now you fellows,” French said, looking one to the other, “have got some history. But what else we got is a whole shebang of reporters and cameras, even CNN, and now Fox News. They all want the story, when each of you gets out, and I don’t see no reason to hold things back now. The parents have been told, and they send their apologies to Mr. Ott,” nodding to Larry. “And their thanks to you, 32. But I warn you both against getting too personal. They’ll sink their teeth into anything you give em, try to make this a damn human interest story. I don’t know about yall, but I don’t want no humans interested in me.”

Not long after, Silas was taken away in a wheelchair, discharged, saying as the nurse rolled him out the door, “I’ll come see you, Larry.”

Now the nurse appeared with another wheelchair, this one for Larry.

“Your room’s ready,” she said.

“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll stay here.”