Last Call

Chapter 18

Jack took the call from Uncle Cy and picked up Trina on the way. Just after 9:00 p.m., they rushed to the emergency room at Jackson Memorial, a public hospital that was a mere hop over the interstate from Overtown and no stranger to gunshot victims. Cy was slumped in a chair in the crowded waiting room. Trina went directly to him and hugged him tightly for support. He was too emotionally drained to stand.

"How's Theo?" said Jack, breathless.

Trina wiped away a tear as she and Uncle Cy broke their embrace.

"Don't know," the old man said. "They threw me outta the ER so they could work on him."

"Did he regain consciousness?"

"Uh-uh. Not that I saw"

"How did he look when they brought him in?"

Cy's expression was less than hopeful. "Like he been shot in the head. Just so much damn blood."

Jack's gaze swept the waiting room. It was a cross-section of lower-income Miami. An old Haitian woman hung her head into a big plastic bucket that reeked of vomit. A homeless man with no legs slept in the wheelchair beside her. A single mother comforted a crying baby as her four other children played leapfrog on the floor, shouting at one another in Spanish. A drug addict in withdrawal paced back and forth across the waiting room, talking to himself. This was the world of Medicaid and no health insurance. Anything less than a bullet to the head meant a nine-hour wait. Free treatment from some of the best doctors in the world was their consolation.

The whiteboard behind the receptionist showed that Theo Knight was in treatment room number three. Jack approached the counter and snagged the attention of one of the busy nurses. "Any information on my friend in room three?"

She didn't look up from her clipboard. It might have seemed rude, had she not been doing ten things at once. "What's his name?"

Jack told her. She checked the board, grabbed an eraser, and removed his name – which gave Jack a moment of panic.

"They took him into surgery," she said. "We'll let his uncle know as soon as we know anything."

Jack went to the vending machine and bought three bottled waters. Trina remained at Uncle Cy's side, and she was holding his hand when Jack returned. Jack shared the waters and the latest news from the nurse. Through the glass entrance doors, he noticed a City of Miami squad car in the parking lot.

"Did you talk to the police yet?" he asked Cy

He nodded.

"What did you tell them?" said Jack.

"Not much. Didn't really see the shooter. Black guy is all I can say. Red ghetto car. Drive-by shooting, you know."

Trina rose, clearly edgy. "I need to walk off some nerves," she said, then headed aimlessly toward the whiteboard, as if to confirm everything Jack had just learned from the nurse.

Jack stayed with Uncle Cy. "So you see the shooting as random?"

He shook his head. "Did at first. More I think about it, more it seems like somebody from the 'hood. Maybe even an old Grove Lord. Must've gotten wind that Isaac turned to Theo for help and Theo went to the cops. This is payback."

"I could see how you might think that way," said Jack. He drank from his water bottle.

"You say that like I'm missin' somethin'."

Jack took a seat directly across from Cy, then slid forward to the edge of his chair. He lowered his voice to further convey how serious he was. "I agree that it wasn't random. But your payback theory doesn't make any sense."

"Why not?"

"If someone from the old 'hood was ticked off enough to punish Theo for not helping Isaac and for calling the cops, why didn't Isaac go to that person for help in the first place?"

Cy nodded, as if he hadn't thought of that. "So it ain't payback?"

Jack said, "I think it's bigger than that. Much bigger."

A glimmer of life returned to the old man's eyes. "Talk to me."

ANDIE HENNING WAS IN Suite 212 at Jackson Memorial Hospital, a private room for Sylvia Peters, the young waitress abducted by Isaac Reems.

Andie had been waiting since Sunday morning to speak with her. Kidnapping was Andie's primary area of responsibility at the FBI's Miami field office. Also, it was possible that Reems had told his hostage something about the prison break, so talking to Sylvia was a key part of Andie's task force review of the escape. Sylvia's parents, however, had refused all requests for interviews until their daughter regained her strength and spoke to a counselor. With Reems dead and the criminal investigation in a postmortem posture, Andie hadn't pushed it. But upon hearing that Theo had been shot, Andie renewed her request with urgency. Sylvia agreed to talk.

Andie stood at the bedrail facing Sylvia. IV fluids dripped into the patient's arm. Sylvia's parents sat in the chairs by the window, monitoring their daughter's words as closely as the bedside equipment monitored her heart rate. Andie took notes and listened to Sylvia's recount of the abduction, asking questions to fill in details. When Sylvia got to the shooting behind the restaurant, Andie slowed the discussion to the interrogator's equivalent of frame-by-frame analysis.

"I blacked out somewhere during the car ride," said Sylvia. "It was ungodly hot in that trunk."

"And you regained consciousness when?"

"I have no idea how much time passed. All I know is that the car wasn't moving anymore. I remember hearing a loud thud. I think it was the sound of the trunk slamming shut."

"So he had actually opened the trunk?"

"I think so. I'm guessing that it was the fresh air that revived me."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. I was afraid to make a noise. I knew the guy had a gun.

"So you lay there in the dark?"

"Yeah. I was still sort of out of it. It was hard to breathe in there. I just tried to listen."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Not at first."

"Did you eventually hear something?"

"Well, the gunshot, for sure. It was so loud."

Andie said, "The car wasn't far from the scene of the shooting. And I'm sure the alley amplified the sound."

"I knew it had to be nearby. That's when I lost it. This probably wasn't very smart, but I started screaming and kicking against the quarter panel."

"Did you hear anything before the gunshot?"

She nodded and drank from her cup of ice water. "I heard a man's voice."

Do you know who it was?"

It sounded like the man who abducted me."

What did he say?"

It was just one word. He shouted somebody's name, I think."

"A name?" said Andie.

"Not a common name. It was…heck, what was it, now? I remember thinking it was like one of the characters on the reruns of that old Bill Cosby show. The son."

"Theo?" her mother volunteered.

"Yeah," said Sylvia. "Theo."

"Are you sure?" said Andie.

"Positive. He yelled out the name Theo. And then I heard the gunshot. Is that helpful?"

Andie closed her notepad. "It could be," she said. "Definitely could be."