Hard as Nails

CHAPTER TWO

When Kurtz awoke in the hospital, he knew at once that he'd been shot, but he couldn't remember when or where it happened, or who did it He had the feeling that someone had been with him but he couldn't bring back any details and any attempt to do so hammered barbed spikes through his brain.

Kurtz knew the varieties and vintages of pain the way some men knew wines, but this pain in his head was already beyond the judging stage and well into the realm where screaming was the only sane response. But he didn't scream. It would hurt too much.

The hospital room was mostly dark but even the dim light from the bedside table hurt his eyes. Everything had a nimbus around it and when he attempted to focus his eyes, nausea rose up through the pain like a shark fin cutting through oily water. He solved that by closing his eyes. Now there were only the inevitable, ambient hospital sounds from beyond the closed door—intercom announcements, the squeak of rubber soles on tile, inaudible conversations in that muffled tone heard only in hospitals and betting parlors—but each and every one of these sounds, including the rasp of his own breathing, was too loud for Joe Kurtz.

He started to raise his hand to rub the right side of his head—the epicenter of this universe of pain—but his hand jarred to a halt next to the metal bedrail.

It took Kurtz two more tries and several groggy seconds of mental effort and the pain of opening his eyes again before he realized why his right arm wouldn't work; he was handcuffed to the metal frame of the hospital bed.

It took him another minute or two before he realized that his left hand and arm were free. Slowly, laboriously, Kurtz reached that hand across his face—eyes squinted to keep the nausea at bay—and touched the right side of his head, just above his ear, where the pain was broadcasting like the concentric radio-wave ripples in the beginning of one of those old RKO films.

He could feel that the right side of his head was a mass of bandages and tape. But when he saw that there were only two IV's visible punched into his body and only one monitoring machine beeping a few feet away, and no doctors or nurses huddled around with their resuscitation crash cart, he figured he wasn't on the verge of checking out yet. Either that, or they'd already given up on him, issued a Do Not Resuscitate order, and gone off for coffee to leave him to die here in the dark.

"Fuck it," said Kurtz and winced as the pain went from 7.8 to 8.6 on his own private Agony Richter Scale. He was used to pain, but this was… silly.

He dropped his hand on his chest, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to float out of the line of fire.

"Mr. Kurtz? Mr. Kurtz?"

Kurtz awoke with the same blurred vision, same nausea, but different pain. It was worse. Some fool was pulling his eyelids back and shining a light in his eyes.

"Mr. Kurtz?" The face making the sound was brown, male, middle-aged and mild-looking behind black-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a white coat. "I'm Dr. Singh, Mr. Kurtz. I dealt with your injuries in the ER and just came from surgery on your friend."

Kurtz got the face into focus. He wanted to say "What friend?" but it wasn't worth trying to speak yet. Not yet.

"You were struck in the right side of your head by a bullet, Mr. Kurtz, but it did not penetrate your skull," said Singh in his mild, singsong voice that sounded like three chainsaws roaring to Kurtz.

Superman, thought Kurtz. Fucking bullets bounce right off.

"Why?" he said.

"What, Mr. Kurtz?"

Kurtz had to close his eyes at the thought of speaking again. Forcing himself to articulate, he said, "Why… didn't… bullet… penetrate?"

Singh nodded his understanding. "It was a small caliber bullet, Mr. Kurtz. A twenty-two. Before it struck you, it had passed through the upper arm of… of the person with you… and ricocheted off the concrete pillar behind you. It was considerably flattened and much of its kinetic energy had been expended. Still, if you had been turning your head to the right rather than to the left when it struck you, we would be extracting it from your brain as we speak—probably during an autopsy."

All in all, thought Kurtz, more information than he had needed at the moment.

"As it is," continued Singh, the soft singsong voice sawing away through Kurtz's skull, "you have a moderate-to-severe concussion and a subcranial hematoma that does not require trepanning at this time, your left eye will not dilate, blood has drained down beneath your eyes and the whites of your eyes are very bloodshot—but that is not important. We'll assess motor skills and secondary effects in the morning."

"Who…" began Kurtz. He wasn't even sure what he was going to ask. Who shot me? Who was with me? Who's going to pay for this?

"The police are here, Mr. Kurtz," interrupted Dr. Singh.

"It's the reason we haven't administered any painkiller since you regained consciousness. They need to talk to you."

Kurtz didn't turn his head to look, but when the doctor moved aside he could see the two detectives, plainclothes, one male, one female, one black, one white. Kurtz didn't know the black male. He had once been in love with the white female.

The black detective, dressed nattily in tweed, vest, and school tie, stepped closer. "Joseph Kurtz, I'm Detective Paul Kemper. My partner and I are investigating the shooting of you and Parole Officer Margaret O'Toole…" began the man in an almost avuncular resonant voice.

On, shit, thought Kurtz. He closed his eyes and remembered O'Toole opening a door for him.

"… can be used against you in a court of law," the man was saying. "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights as I've just explained them to you?"

Kurtz said something through the pain.

"What?" said Detective Kemper. Kurtz changed his mind. The man's voice wasn't nearly as friendly or avuncular-sounding now.

"Didn't shoot her," repeated Kurtz.

"Did you understand your rights as I explained them to you?"

"Yeah."

"And do you wish an attorney at this time?"

I wish some Darvocet or morphine at this time, thought Kurtz. "Yeah… I mean, no. No attorney."

"You'll talk to us now?"

How many fucking times are you going to ask me? thought Kurtz. He realized that he'd spoken this aloud only when the male detective got a stern don't-fuck-with-me cop look on his face and the female detective still standing against the far wall chuckled. Kurtz knew that chuckle.

"Why were you in the garage with Officer O'Toole?" asked Kemper. The detective's voice sounded totally unavuncular this time.

"Coincidence." Kurtz had never noticed how many syllables were in that word before today. All four of them hit him like hot spikes behind the eyes. He needed shorter words.

"Did you fire her weapon?"

"I don't remember," said Kurtz, sounding like every perp he'd ever questioned.

Kemper sighed and shot a glance at his partner. Kurtz also looked at her and watched her look back at him. She obviously recognized him. She must have recognized his name before they started this interview. Is that why she wasn't speaking? She was, Kurtz was startled to realize through the pain in his head, as beautiful as ever. More beautiful.

"Did you see the assailant or assailants?" asked Kemper.

"I don't remember."

"Did you enter the garage as part of a conspiracy to shoot and kill Officer O'Toole?"

Kurtz just looked at him. He knew that he was stupid with pain and concussion at the moment, but nobody was that stupid.

Dr. Singh filled the silence. "Detectives, a concussion of this severity is often accompanied by memory loss of the accident that created it."

"Uh-huh," said Kemper, closing his notebook. "This was no accident. Doctor. And this guy remembers everything he wants to remember."

"Paul," said the female detective, "leave him alone. We have the tapes. Let Kurtz get some painkiller and sleep and we'll talk to him in the morning."

"He'll be all lawyered up in the morning," said Kemper.

The woman shook her head. "No he won't."

It'd been twenty years since Kurtz had last seen Rigby King—what was her married name? Something Arabic, he thought—but she still looked like the Rigby he'd known at Father Baker's and again in Thailand. Brown eyes, full figure, short dark hair, and a smile as quick and radiant as the gymnast she'd been named for.

Kemper left the room and Rigby came to the side of the bed and raised a hand as if she was going to squeeze Kurtz's shoulder. Instead she gripped the metal railing of the hospital bed and shook it slightly, making Kurtz's handcuffed wrist and arm sway.

"Get some sleep, Joe."

"Yeah."

When they were both gone, Singh called in a nurse and they injected something into the IV port.

"Something for the pain and a mild sedative," said the doctor. "We've kept you semi-conscious and under observation long enough to let you sleep now without worrying unduly about the concussion's effects."

"Yeah," said Kurtz.

As soon as the two left, Kurtz reached down, ripped away gauze and tape, and pulled the IV out of his left arm.

Joe Kurtz had seen what could happen to a man doped up and helpless in a hospital bed. Besides, he had a lot of thinking to do through the pain before morning came.