White Sister

Chapter 63.

Like theLone Ranger, John Bodine didn't stick around to be thanked. He snuck away before he could be arrested for starting a fire in the hospice basement. The correspondents on the Six O'Clock News called it a miracle. Chooch and I could barely believe she was back. It was too good to comprehend. We immediately transferred her back to UCLA, where she was again placed under Luther's care and began a long, torturous recovery. Weeks went by with little progress, but then suddenly, she'd take a small baby step forward. After a month she began to say words. At first, they didn't come in recognizable sentences, but as she looked up at me in frustration, it was clear she had thoughts she was trying to communicate. Delfina came back a week early from her summer in Mexico. She'd been in a small mountain village near Cuernavaca with no phones, so she and Chooch had only talked three times. When she heard about Alexa, she wanted to come home early and did. Immediately, she started pitching in. She sat for hours after school helping with Alexa's speech and physical therapy. I learned that head trauma wasn't at all like it was portrayed on television or in the movies. The recovery process was lengthy and tedious. Luther met with Chooch, Delfina, and me one afternoon in late October and gave us some long-awaited good news. He had just completed a battery of neurological and spinal column tests that indicated all the lobes of Alexa's brain were functioning and her nervous system was slowly regenerating.

"I'm not promising a full recovery yet, but that's definitely something we can start to anticipate," Luther said, smiling. "Right now our prognosis is wait and see."

He was proud of his skill as a surgeon, proud of his patient.

"I think that last surgery was pivotal," he said. "We restored blood flow, debrided the dead tissue. Got the intracranial pressure up."

"I can't thank you enough," I said. But underneath, I suspected that it wasn't so much Luther as it was John Bodine, or Chief O, or some crazy African mojo that was responsible for waking her up and bringing her back. Later that week I met with Tony Filosiani in his office at Parker Center. Great White Mike had cleared his things out and retreated, to the routine and safety of the Operations Division. Tony looked thin. The weight loss didn't agree with him. He was one of those guys who needed to be cherubic.

"When you coming back on the job full time?" he asked. "I'm bringing Alexa home in a few weeks. Maybe once she can do things for herself, I'll think about it."

"Her doctor says she should make a full recovery." He smiled. "Her job is waiting, too."

"Right now I'm just happy to have her back." Inside, I was still numb. I couldn't escape the terror of how close it had been. "I know you think I let you down," Tony said, "but I couldn't talk about Slade being an undercover. I had a deal with the sheriff to protect Sergeant Wayne." "I understand. No hard feelings." But even as I said it, I knew things would probably never be the same between us. When he thought Alexa was dead, or dying, he had been willing to let her reputation and her memory be destroyed. There should have been better options. On the other hand, I never understood how things got done in the political environs above the fifth floor, so I tried hard not to judge him. Football season was almost over. Chooch had returned to school and ended up quarterbacking the scout team as a red shirt. He seemed bigger and stronger. Delfina was halfway through her senior year, getting A's and narrowing down her college application list. We brought Alexa home the second week of December. She moved carefully around our Venice house, a little rickety, with headaches and fingertip numbness. Big parts of her memory were gone. She seemed solemn and distant much of the time, as if the universe had shifted and she was having trouble fitting it all back together. One night, just before Christmas, we sat in our backyard, holding hands. Franco, our cat, sat right at Alexa's feet, looking up, watching, guarding her from harm. It was chilly, so I went inside and returned with a blanket to put around her knees. She had wanted to be outside because a family of ducks had arrived and she enjoyed watching them swim with their babies. "I feel so bad about David Slade," she finally said. She spoke very slowly, forming her words one at a time, laying them out methodically, as if each one was hooked carefully to the one before. In the past month, this slow speech had been worrisome to me, but Luther told me to give it time. "What about David Slade?" I asked as Franco finally jumped up into her lap, turned around three times, and then plopped down. She looked over at me and said, "I used to date him." "I know." "It was never really serious. He was… he was fun and he had so much potential. He had come so far from where he started. He was a remarkable man." "It's okay," I said. "You don't have to go through it. I had relationships before I met you." I didn't want to hear any of this. "It wasn't like that," she persisted. "We went out. And we were friends, not lovers. But Shane, I feel so responsible for what happened to him." "You didn't put him undercover," I reminded her. "But I knew it was getting dangerous. I should have pulled him out. I got greedy. I wanted what he was bringing. I gambled with his life, and lost." "It's not an easy job you've got," I told her. "It was the same thing I'd said to Elijah Mustafa." She squeezed my hand. The ducks swam into view. A mother, a father, and four ducklings. Alexa tore a piece of bread she had brought out with her and tossed it into the canal. The mother duck swerved and grabbed it, never slowing her progress. If you're going to survive in L. A. it was a fast-lane experience, even for ducks. I changed the subject and somehow we got to talking about the horrible month when she was in the coma. I told her about Jonathan Bodine. How I'd hit him with the car that night after the training day, and how he stole her computer with the e-mails. I also told her how I thought he had saved her life by stealing her bed and doing a fire dance in the basement of the hospice. I hadn't gone into too much of this before, because I still didn't know how much of his crazy mojo I was ready to buy into. "You believe all that?" she finally asked, when I had finished. "You think he talks to dead people?" She was watching me carefully and her face glowed in the moonlight. I could now begin to see her again the way she'd been six months ago, before all of this had happened. I knew one day soon she would be completely restored. It was a miracle. "I don't know what I believe," I finally said, but then I suddenly changed my mind. "Yes, yes I do," I corrected myself. "I think John had something to do with it. I know this is nuts, but I think God sent him to us. Maybe it was not an accident that I ran him over. Maybe it was God's will." She sat quietly, petting Franco. "On cold nights like this, I worry about John," I continued. "He's out there alone. Nobody on the Nickel likes him. He's not very healthy. No meat on him. Street people beat him up because he steals their stuff." "You want to see if we can find him?" Alexa asked. That was one of the things I loved about her. She knew how to indulge me without ridiculing me. "Yes. I want to find him. He's probably hungry. He never eats a regular meal unless I buy it." "Then let's go," she said, standing up. We got into the Acura and I bundled the blanket around her. Then I went back into the house and pulled my new thick parka with the fur collar and pair of sweatpants out of the closet. Both presents for John Bodine if I could find him. Last, I grabbed some fifty-dollar bills. We set off looking. I drove to the Nickel and talked to Horizontal Joe. "That guy?" the sleeping man grumbled. "If he ain't already dead, somebody oughta kill the prick." I talked to a hooker with brown teeth who shot heroin and turned her tricks inside the Alices. Her street name was Connect-the-Dots because of all the needle scabs on her arms. "Nobody keeps track a that nigga," she said. I checked the Weingart Center and most of the SRO hotels. Nobody had seen him recently, nor really wanted to. I even drove over to the Pacific Electric tunnel and asked some old men who were walking out. "Man's a sorry waste a skin and groceries," one of them grumbled. It was getting late, and I saw that Alexa was getting cold and tired. So I put the car in gear and headed home. On our way, I happened to drive past the L. A. Library on Fifth Street. It's an imposing architectural structure that bears Byzantine, Roman, and Egyptian influences with some Spanish and modern themes. The building has survived earthquakes, fire, and one ill-advised attempt at civic improvement. It has been beautifully restored and now houses millions of volumes. I'd always been amazed that John had quoted Tonio Kroger. It had surprised me when he'd mentioned a Dantean nightmare. When I'd hit him, all those months ago, we were just one block from here. I pulled the car to the curb and told Alexa that I would be right back. Then I ran up the steps of the library and went inside. "Do you have a guy who comes in here, got a terrible haircut with chopped off dreads? Skinny, homeless black guy who smells bad?" "Classic literature, second floor," the librarian said without even looking up. That's where I found him. He was still wearing Chooch's sweatshirt. The blood had been washed off, but the knife holes were still there. "John?" I said. He turned, a book of Shakespearian plays in his grimy hands. "How ya doin', half-stepper?" More or less his standard greeting. "I've been looking all over for you. It's cold outside. I was thinkin' you could come home with me, get a hot meal, stay a few days till this cold snap passes." "You wanna invite me to stay in your dumb-ass garage, then throw me out 'fore I can even get a good night's sleep? I'm onto you. I got your ways. You won't be foolin' no more with the Crown Prince of Cameroon. On the Nickel I may not be popular, but at least they understand me." "John, I'm pretty sure you saved Alexa's life," I finally admitted. "I don't know how to square that. It's the greatest gift anybody has ever given me." He closed the book and set it on the shelf, then pulled another down. He didn't seem to care. "She wants to meet you. She's outside waiting. I brought some warm clothes for you. A new parka and some warm sweatpants, some money for a hot meal." His eyes got bright with mischief. "Now you finally talkin'." We left the library, but not before one of the security guards thoroughly searched John. Apparently he'd been caught stealing books and pawning them at Jungle Jack's. "I ain't never coming back here. Gonna go to another city," he promised the guard. "This town don't know how ta treat a royal personage." I led him to the Acura and Alexa rolled down the window and looked at my scruffy friend. "You're John Bodine?" she said, smiling up at him. "I'm Samik Mampuna, Crown Prince of the Bassaland," he corrected her. "Shane tells me you saved my life. I wanted to thank you." He seemed embarrassed, then said, "I didn't do shit." He turned to me. "Is zat enough? Do I gotta say any more? How 'bout them warm clothes and what-alls?" I went to the trunk, got them out, and handed them to him along with four fifties. I watched as he put the clothes on over what he was wearing. "Things are way too big. Why n't cha get me stuff that fits?" he complained. "You a complete piece a shit, you know that? You ain't worth yer weight in vomit. Still gonna go get me a smart street lawyer. Your junk's all gonna be mine 'fore long." "I'll be here if you ever need me, John," I told him gently. "Who needs some run-me-down-lie-like-a-junkie popcorn fart like you?" He turned and, shaking his head in disgust, started up the street wearing my new parka with the fur collar turned up. He didn't have his shopping cart tonight. Somebody had probably taken it from him. He looked small and alone, and I was still worried for his safety. I got behind the wheel, but before I could start the engine, John came back and knocked on Alexa's window. She rolled it down and he looked in at her for a long time. His expression was puzzled, as if he couldn't remember what he wanted to say. "Yes?" she finally asked. Then he held up one of the fifties and showed it to her. "This the only muthafucka ever feeds me," he told her solemnly. Then he turned and walked slowly up the street, finally disappearing in the dark. It was the last time I ever saw him.