Chapter 7 Mickey
Tex strolls back into the room carrying one coffee instead of two and drops into the chair beside my bed. He left twenty minutes ago to get us both a cup from the machine downstairs.
“Tex? Where’s my coffee?” I ask. “I thought you were getting us both a cup.”
“I gave it away,” he says and takes another sip.
“What? For heaven’s sake, Tex! Can you not be trusted five minutes by yourself?
I swear to God, I don’t know how you keep a business going or even clothes on your body the way you give every damn thing away.
Food, drinks, shoes. Let me guess. You saw someone in the elevator who you thought probably needed the coffee more than you.
Right? Because that’s always the story. Then you gave away a cup of coffee which happened to be mine. ”
“We can share,” he says, handing me the cup which is only half-full now. “Here.”
“What if you have cooties? And I catch them and spread them to everyone on this hospital floor?”
He grins at me. “Since when do you care about that? Remember the time in seventh grade when we kept a single piece of Juicy Fruit chewing gum going for a week between us?”
“We could’ve made it to two weeks if you hadn’t accidentally swallowed it while you were asleep,” I remind him. “Stop changing the subject and tell me. Who is drinking my coffee right now?”
He takes the coffee back out of my hand, drinks another sip and looks at me over the rim. “I gave the coffee to your guy.”
“My guy? Want to be more specific? I don’t have a guy. I haven’t had a guy in forever.”
“I gave it to Benji. The blonde guy that got beat to hell. He’s hanging out downstairs in the lobby, hiding behind the fish tank.”
I stare at him. My brain, which has been running on painkillers, takes a second to catch up. “Huh, that’s not what I expected you to say. He’s downstairs?”
“Sure is. Sitting in a plastic chair by himself looking pitiful in the main lobby. He’s been there at least an hour. Maybe longer. I happened to see him on my way to the elevator.”
“How did he know I was here?”
“He went to the station to give his statement. The detective told him you’d been transferred. He drove here to check on you.”
“That’s weird. Why did he do that?”
Tex shrugs. “I don’t know. Guess he wanted to know how you’re doing and there wasn’t anyone who would tell him.
Patient confidentiality is a big thing. He didn’t have my number and I guess he didn’t want to come by the Roadhouse.
Can’t blame him for that. He just drove here, walked into the lobby and sat down. ”
“Did you talk to him? Or did you just shove my coffee at him and walk away?”
“For a few minutes,” he says. “He looks bad. Rough as hell. Bruised face, split lip, dark circles under his eyes. He’s carrying this hard.”
“It’s not his fault.”
“I told him that. He didn’t believe me. I don’t think he’s going to believe it until he hears it straight from you.”
That sits heavy in the room between us while Tex drinks my coffee.
“I felt kinda bad and gave him your room number,” Tex says casually. “He didn’t ask for it.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Yeah, I figured it might be okay. He seems harmless enough.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. There’s no point in arguing.
“I told him it was up to him whether he came up to see you or not,” he says.
“And? Is he coming?”
“He was still sitting in the chair when I got in the elevator. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s not coming up today. But he’s got your room number now. He seems nice enough. To come all this way to check on you.” Tex watches me carefully over the coffee cup.
I let out a long sigh. “Alright, I’ll talk to him if he shows up. But not for long, because I’m worn out and not feeling up for any visitors except you.”
“Yeah, that would be best. Then he can go on his way. Let him say whatever he needs to and then he’ll move along.”
Tex changes the subject. He asks me about the doctors, the imaging, the timeline. I give him what I’ve got, which isn’t much. The swelling is still significant. They won’t do a full assessment until it goes down. Could be days or a week or longer.
“And your legs...” Tex starts, then stops. He’s looking at the blanket where my legs are making the shape of legs but doing nothing else.
“Still can’t feel them,” I say. “Nothing below the waist. They’re saying it could be the swelling.”
Could. There’s that damn word again.
“How was the drive?” I ask, wanting to talk about anything else.
“Which drive?”
“The one where you followed a medical transport vehicle for two hours on I-10.”
“Well, two hours is a long time to follow a vehicle with your best friend in it,” he says.
“You know what you think about for two hours on I-10 with nothing but swamps and religious billboards to look at? Everything. Every single thing I could’ve done or should’ve done.
By the time I hit Tallahassee I’d run every scenario ten different ways and none of them ended up here with you in a hospital bed. ”
“You could’ve just listened to the radio.”
“I tried,” he says. “None of the stations pick up. That stretch of highway is a godforsaken dead zone. I hate that fucking I-10. Plus, I made the mistake of bringing a gallon of sweet tea with me to drink. Which I did. I was nervous and drank almost the whole thing. And then I had to pee for an hour and couldn’t stop because I was afraid of losing the ambulance with my best friend in it. ”
“You knew where they were bringing me. You didn’t need to stay right behind me the whole time.”
“Yeah, I did. No way was I losing sight of those taillights even if I had to pee in the gallon jug with the sweet tea.”
“Jesus, Tex. I don’t need that image in my head.”
“Other than that, the drive was fine to answer your original question.”
“Before you leave, I need you to do something for me,” I say. “Even if you don’t want to.”
“Anything. Let’s hear it.”
“Can you tell me exactly what happened? I need to hear your side of it.”
“You sure you’re up to that right now?” he asks. “It’ll wait. We’ve got plenty of time to talk about that.”
“I’m a cop. I need to hear it.”
He leans back, crosses his arms and stretches his long legs out.
“I heard the ruckus from the kitchen,” he says.
“Not the words. Just the sound. A fist hitting a body. You hear that sound once and you know it forever. It’s not like the movies.
It’s wet. Heavy. And then the sound of someone going down.
A body hitting the floor, and then boots. ”
He sighs and shakes his head.
“I came around the corner and the first thing I saw was the four of them. All standing. The hallway’s not wide, Mickey.
You know that hallway. It’s maybe five feet across and these four guys were filling it, shoulder to shoulder, and they were all looking down at the floor.
All four of those bastards looking down at the same spot like they were standing around a campfire. And then I looked down.”
He takes a breath.
“The guy, Benji, was on the ground. Curled up on his side with his arms over his head. I know you probably don’t remember him.
He’s maybe five-eight? Maybe a hundred fifty pounds soaking wet.
And these four guys, the smallest one’s got sixty pounds on him easy.
The big one, the one doing most of the work, he’s bigger than you.
And he was kicking the shit out of him. Not shoving or pushing him around.
Kicking. Full swings. The leg going all the way back first. He was kicking him in the ribs and his body was jerking with every hit and he wasn’t screaming.
That’s the part I keep coming back to. He wasn’t making a sound.
Almost as if he knew it was coming. He expected it and there it was.
He had his arms over his face and he was taking it and not making a sound. ”
“Goddamn them,” I say.
“The surveillance cameras caught parts of it that I didn’t see.
After what happened with Ron and Stormy, I put them everywhere except inside the restrooms. Seven cameras.
I told the installer I wanted to see every angle and he said ‘Tex, the Pentagon doesn’t have this many cameras’ and I said ‘the Pentagon doesn’t serve alcohol to bikers on a Saturday night, install the fucking cameras.
’ Cost me five thousand dollars. Best money I ever spent because those cameras caught everything those four bastards did and every frame of it is now evidence. ”
“I’m glad you did. What else happened?”
He’s gripping his knee now, his knuckles white.
“And his shirt was ripped,” Tex says. “Torn right down the back. I don’t know if they were trying to rip his clothes off or if it just got torn in the ruckus.
I keep coming back to that though. What if they’d jumped him outside in the lot?
In the dark? What would they have done to him outside if they were willing to do what they did inside a bar? ”
“Why didn’t he yell for help? Sheila or someone might’ve heard him.”
“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t have a chance.
There were four of them and one of him. He’s half their size and they had him on the ground and they weren’t going to stop.
That’s what I understood immediately when I came around that corner.
They weren’t going to stop. This wasn’t a fight.
This was four grown men beating a man half their size because he was gay and they didn’t like him. In my fucking bar of all places.”
“They picked a helluva place to pull that shit,” I say.