Troubleshooter

Chapter 55

Squeeze, Dray. C'mon. Give a squeeze."

Tim finally slid his index finger from his wife's limp fist. Her hand fell open to the sheet. He walked around the bed and tried her other hand, but to no avail. Someone shouted from a nearby room, and he heard the tapping of running feet in the hospital hall, the clatter of gurney wheels. He sat for a few minutes in perfect silence.

Then he retrieved Dray's brush from the bag he'd brought and ran it through her hair, working out the tangles. He wet one of her wash-cloths in the sink and cleaned her face. He traced her hairline, circled her eyes, rode the bridge of her nose. Then he stopped to feel the warmth of her curved belly. Gently, he pulled up her eyelid so he could see her iris. Her eyes were emerald-true emerald-an arresting shade that had depth and layers like the infinite refractions of the gem itself.

But now they seemed flat and vacant, devoid of inner light. No longer did he hear her voice in his head. He wondered if that meant he'd lost her already, if she'd drifted beyond the pale of recovery.

"I could've killed Den Laurey," he said. "And I didn't."

But if he was looking for approval or absolution, he'd have to look elsewhere. He let go, and the eyelid pulled back into place.

Night crowded the hospital window. From his place by the bed, Tim could see neither stars nor streetlights, just the black square of glass, the opaque end of a corridor of darkness. The hospital might have been the last outpost of civilization; it might have been perched on the edge of a cliff or drifting through outer space.

He rose wearily and stretched Dray's legs, her arms. Her face, slack now for four days, no longer retained the lines and shapes that made her unique, that made her Dray. In another few days, the muscle tone would start to weaken. And her chances of recovery would weaken with it.

He was massaging her jasmine lotion into her hands when a noise at the door made him look up.

Malane came in an awkward half step, one arm still clutching the doorframe as if to indicate his willingness to extract himself from the intimate scene should Tim desire it. Tim nodded, and Malane entered and sat in the opposing chair, facing Tim across Dray's body.

"I'm sorry to bust in on you… Bear told me you were here."

Tim continued rubbing Dray's hands.

Malane flared a few fingers at Dray, a small, awkward gesture. "I, uh, I hadn't realized…"

"That's the job. For better or worse, it's part of the job." Tim blinked a few times, then said, "But that's not why you're here."

Malane took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, "The good news is, Den Laurey stopped again up the road, used a different pay phone to place a call to Babe Donovan."

"He addressed her by name?"

"Yeah. He calls her Dunny. We got him on the parabola mike. He told her to drop the car tomorrow in the Taco Bell parking lot at Pico and Bundy."

Tim rotated Dray's foot, the cranky ankle tendons putting up resistance. "And the bad news?"

"We lost him."

Malane watched him closely, but Tim merely continued with Dray's hands, lost in the smell of jasmine.

"We were closing in, and he dropped into a ravine and disappeared. Trails. The cars couldn't…" Malane's hands flew up, clapped to his knees. "We have a line on the drugs, Rackley. That's most important. We'll pick Den up again tomorrow."

Tim looked at him, expressionless.

Malane's eyes jogged back and forth, and then his voice softened. "I'm sorry. I promised something to you, and I didn't deliver. I, uh, I at least wanted to tell you myself."

Tim said, "I appreciate that."

"You cut us in on your operation, now I'd like to cut you in on ours. You want to work with us on this thing tomorrow morning?"

Tim set Dray's hand by her side, smoothed her fingers flat. He rose and pulled on his jacket. "Yes."

Malane nodded. "Let's have us a takedown."