Night Kills

25

Breakfast was a bacon-cheese-green pepper omelette accompanied by two pieces of wheat toast, a glass of orange juice, and a small container of skim milk.

The meal was served in the living room, on the couch, where Denise had been lying since finding herself in the alley and staggering back into the house.

Greg had kept her awake for two hours, trying to make sure that she looked, sounded, and felt all right. He was afraid she might have a concussion. She was convinced that her biggest problem was her stiff neck, where the guy had hit her. And her damaged ego. Denise liked to think of herself as self-sufficient-even with a lot of evidence to the contrary-and letting somebody sneak up on you the way he'd snuck up on her… well, she wasn't feeling really good about herself this morning.

Around dawn she'd fallen asleep despite the three cups of coffee Greg had given her and despite the fact that MTV, which she'd asked him to turn on, was playing some very good but very loud heavy metal (Greg was kind enough to pretend that he didn't exactly, uh, well, hate heavy metal).

He'd watched her sleep.

Just watched her.

Pulled his wheelchair up across from the couch after sliding in a Buster Crabbe jungle movie on the VCR and turning it low… and sipped hot chocolate and watched the movie (there was actually some rather good jungle footage in it) and every so often let his attention drift over to her.

She looked so young sleeping. Not innocent, because while she was naive, she wasn't innocent. But young. And definitely sweet. He felt a desire to protect her. That was the only way he could think of it. Protect her. Make her life better, help her forget all the things she'd suffered as so young a girl.

At one point he put Buster Crabbe on hold and wheeled over to her and put his hand against her cheek. Her sweet, tender cheek. And then he'd taken her young hand and held it as she slept… held it for a long and sombre time. And once more the desire to protect her came to him. And he resolved then that she would stay. That he would make arrangements with whomever required arrangements… and she would stay.

Around ten-thirty, as she struggled up from the fathoms of her sleep, and as he was immersed in a really crazy movie called Gorilla at Large with Raymond Burr and Cameron Mitchell and a beautiful and voluptuous Anne Bancroft (who had been, unlikely as it seemed, not only a babe in 1953 but a very sexy babe)… around ten-thirty he went into the kitchen and started fixing her breakfast, trying to time it so that by the time she emerged showered and fresh for the day, the breakfast would be there waiting for her.

Which it was.

He sat across from her in the living room-MTV back on the tube with Cyndi Lauper's new video, which he actually liked a great deal-and Denise shovelling it in. No pretence at delicacy. This kid knew how to eat and obviously loved to eat, and man, was she happy to eat.

He, of course, wanted to be complimented (who doesn't?), and she obliged every couple minutes by saying (with her mouth full usually), "Greg, I can't believe how good this tastes!" And then she'd sort of roll her eyes and shake her head in pure unadulterated appreciation and go back to scooping it up and shovelling it in.

Toward the end, when she was working on the toast and orange juice, he started playing Dr. Ben Casey (he always wondered what had happened to the guy who'd played Casey anyway), asking his questions.

"So, how's the old bean?"

"Old bean?"

"Your head."

"Oh. Fine."

"No headache?"

"Huh-uh."

"How's the neck?"

"Great."

"Not even stiff?"

"Well, a little, I guess. But not bad."

"You seeing everything all right?"

She looked over at him and crossed her eyes and said, "I think so, doctor."

"Smart-ass."

"Really, Greg, I feel fine."

"Up to shovelling a walk?"

"Huh?" She paused with her last piece of toast held halfway to her mouth.

"It probably wouldn't hurt you, and it needs to be done. Usually I have the kid down the block do it but-"

She looked at him kind of funny, and for a terrible moment he wondered if he'd made her mad. Maybe she expected to be treated like a princess, the way she would've in one of those old 1930's comedy romances where the pauper gets used to indolent luxury.

She said, "God, Greg."

"'God, Greg' what?"

"I can't believe you asked me to do that."

"You can't?"

"No. And it's-" And she put down her toast and kind of half jumped across the coffee table and threw her arms around him and hugged him, and he could feel warm tears on her soft cheeks, and she was apparently laughing and crying at the same time and saying, "God, it makes me feel like I really belong here; like you really care about me."

"Well, that's good, because I do care about you."

And then she sat back on her haunches, holding her hands in his lap, and she said, "I'd really be honoured to shovel your walk. Really."

"Boy," Greg said, "I've got to remember this for future reference."

"Remember what?"

"That whenever I want to make you happy I don't have to buy you anything or give you compliments. All I've got to do is ask you to shovel the walk."

She laughed. "Now who's being the smart-ass?"

So, while she got bundled up and grabbed the shovel from the back porch, Greg got on the phone to call Brolan and tell him all about the mysterious visitor they'd had in the middle of the night, and how said mysterious visitor was desperate enough to knock unconscious a sixteen-year-old girl-