The Wreckage

36

Awake now. Eyelids fluttering. Ruiz turns his head. Orange dials come into focus on a machine near the bed and a green blip of light slides across a liquid crystal window.

A nurse says something to him. She’s mouthing words.

“I need to make a call,” says Ruiz.

She shakes her head.

“If I don’t call Laura she won’t go out with me.”

The nurse mouths a question. “Who’s Laura?”

She presses the button above his head. “We were very worried about you.”

“Sorry?”

“Your hands. They’re going to be fine,” she says, still mouthing words.

Ruiz notices the bandages. They look like white stumps.

He points to his ears. “I can’t hear you. What’s wrong with me?”

“Ruptured eardrums,” she mouths. “You may need surgery.”

“Holly?”

The nurse laughs. “I thought you wanted Laura. Holly is down the way.”

“What?”

“Holly is OK. She’s fine.”

Ruiz tries to get out of bed, but the nurse puts a strong hand on his chest, digging her knuckles into his breastbone.

“They warned me about you. Said you’d be a difficult patient.”

He doesn’t understand.

“Your friends.” She straightens his pillow. “They’ve been waiting outside all night.”

“Luca?”

“Oh, he’s here. They pulled a bullet out of his shoulder, but he’s out of surgery.”

Ruiz shakes his head, not understanding.

The nurse uses a pad on the bedside table and writes:

He’s fine. Bullet removed. Recuperating.

The door opens. Joe O’Loughlin is wearing a cravat and looks even more like a professor than usual. He stands beside the bed and the two men communicate wordlessly in a language that only dogs and men can understand. He takes the notepad from the nurse, who tells them both to behave as she leaves.

Joe writes: You can’t hear. I can’t speak. We’re like two of the wise monkeys.

“You’re a monkey. I’m a gorilla,” says Ruiz, shouting at him. “I want to see Holly.”

Joe writes: Can you walk?

“Yeah.”

Joe helps Ruiz to sit and then stand. He’s wearing a hospital gown with ties at the back. Ruiz can’t hold it together with his bandaged hands, so Joe does it for him, clearly not enamored of the task.

“I could get used to you not talking,” says Ruiz, as they shuffle down the corridor. Joe pinches him on the arse, making him jump.

They reach Holly’s room, which is full of flowers and get-well cards. Holly is sitting on the edge of her bed while a doctor peers into her ears with a torch-like contraption. She’s chewing gum. Looking bored. There are marks on her wrists where the handcuffs tore at her skin.

“How come you get proper pajamas?” says Ruiz. “Your legs are better than mine-you should be wearing a gown.”

Her face lights up and she’s on him in a heartbeat, throwing her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips.

“This is the not the way a young lady should greet a man of my age and in my condition.”

He doesn’t hear what Holly says. Maybe she says nothing at all.