Part 6 Aftermath #3
The FBI didn’t provide a private jet to fly him home, so Bill flew Southwest back to Houston.
That afternoon, I received a phone call I wasn’t expecting.
It was Merritt Garrett.
‘Sam,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to check in on your lady. Is she okay?’
I told him Audrey’s prognosis.
‘Hey, listen,’ he added, ‘I’d hoped to call you earlier, but I’ve been run off my feet with all this media.
At first, I said yes to a few interviews, but before I knew what was happening Hooper and the FBI organised a whole bunch more for me to do.
I tried to mention you and the other detectives, but those interviewers, I mean, they just—’
‘It’s cool. I get it,’ I said.
And I did. The media loved the idea of the brave lone hero.
‘I’ve been there myself actually,’ I added.
‘Thanks for understanding,’ Garrett said. ‘I didn’t want you or the other detectives thinking I was out there trying to hog the credit like some kind of douchebag show pony.’
‘It’s all fine,’ I said. ‘And thanks for checking in on Audrey. I appreciate it.’
Later, I went out to get some lunch and found a second-hand bookstore where I bought a scuffed-up paperback of Hyperion by Dan Simmons for two bucks.
(As I mentioned earlier, I had a copy of it back home in Houston, but I hadn’t read it in a long time.
It’s a very imaginative book—‘hard’ sci-fi—although in my opinion its sequel, The Fall of Hyperion, is better.
I figured if I was in for a lengthy wait, having something to read might help pass the time.)
I also went to a nearby Walmart.
I’d only brought my backpack with me when I’d rushed to New York from Houston on the 21st and I needed a change of clothes.
I bought some underwear, socks, jeans, a long-sleeve thermal t-shirt, a scarf and a grey fleece Patagonia jacket with a zippered chest pocket—into which my notebook fitted perfectly—and a slim pocket on the left shoulder for my pen.
(I loved those pockets, even if I didn’t think, fashion-wise, Darla would have approved of the jacket. But, hey, it was cold here and it was warmer than my brown Levi’s jacket and you only have so many choices at Walmart.)
24–25 December
I spent all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the waiting room of Phelps Hospital, alone, waiting for any news about Audrey’s condition.
(I didn’t take my backpack with me. I’d run out of sultanas and didn’t need my laptop or burner phones.)
An emergency department is an interesting place to watch people and, when I wasn’t reading my book, I observed the various personalities who worked in or came to the ER.
For instance, I got to know the janitor’s mopping routine.
He was a short bespectacled grey-haired Chinese-American fellow named Kenneth Wong, and as he diligently went about mopping the floors of the emergency ward he did so in the same perfectly repeated pattern every time.
He’d start in the waiting area—I would lift my feet as he mopped under my chair—then move on to the ladies’ room and the men’s room, then the hallways. After two hours, he would return and follow the exact same order again.
He would smile at the tiny older Chinese-American lady working in the gift shop whenever he passed her and I soon discovered that they were married. They would dine together on their breaks, using chopsticks to eat noodles that they had prepared at home.
It was very sweet.
Kenneth didn’t speak much English, but as he mopped the floor under my feet, he would always smile broadly and say, ‘Thank you, sir.’
The patients who came through the emergency room were a varied bunch.
Most were classic minor cases: kids with sprained wrists from ice-skating accidents; older folks who’d had falls.
Two more serious cases involved a car accident victim and a man who’d fallen off a ladder while changing bulbs on the Christmas lights on his roof.
One set of visitors, however, caused an unpleasant incident late on Christmas Eve.
(It was very quiet. I was the only person in the waiting room. Kenneth was mopping the men’s room.)
Four inebriated twenty-something young men came in.
One of them, in his stupor, had stumbled while leaving a bar and smacked his head against the pavement. He was now bleeding from his forehead and his buddies had brought him to the hospital.
They were all dressed in expensive polos.
Rich boys.
As Nurse Narelle had taken the injured one away to get some stitches, his drunken buddies either checked their phones or stalked around the waiting room.
One of them said loudly, ‘I gotta piss. Where’s the john?’
He spied the men’s room, where Kenneth’s cart was parked across the doorway, and marched to it.
‘Sorry. Um. Excuse . . .’ Kenneth said in halting English. ‘One minute, sir.’
‘Fuck you,’ the lad said. ‘If you’re gonna live in my country, learn to speak English better.’
He then swiped all the cleaning gear off the top of Kenneth’s cart: wash rags, buckets and solvents spilled everywhere.
Kenneth dropped to his knees to clean up the mess.
I went over to help him, gathering up some of the scattered items and replacing them on the cart.
‘Please, no need help,’ Kenneth said.
‘It’s okay.’
As I assisted him with the clean-up, I glanced into the men’s room and blinked at what I saw.
The drunk lad was peeing against the wall.
‘Clean this up, Chinaman,’ he snorted to himself.
He zipped up and emerged.
Kenneth was still on his knees, tidying up the mess.
The lad grunted and I saw him grin and draw his arm back to swipe all the gear off the cart again.
He swung—
—but I caught his wrist an inch from his target.
‘What the hell—?’ he said.
I glanced at his buddies.
Engrossed in their phones, they weren’t watching.
Quick as a whip, I elbowed him in the face, causing his head to bang hard against the wall behind him, knocking him out.
‘Nurse!’ I called as I laid the drunk lad on the floor. ‘Gosh, he slipped on the pee on his shoes! Hit his head against the wall.’
(I’m not proud of my actions here but, seriously, the guy was mean.)
His buddies looked up from their phones.
‘Goddamn it, Chad,’ one of them said.
As Nurse Narelle led (the now rather woozy) Chad away for some stitches of his own, Kenneth’s eyes met mine and he nodded a silent thank you.
‘Anytime,’ I whispered.
(Christmas Day was quieter: one kid with a broken forearm from crashing his new Christmas present, a sled; and an elderly woman who felt light-headed; no drunk assholes.)
I finished my novel around 9 a.m. on December 26th and was wondering if the bookstore might be open so I could get another book when Nurse Narelle and Dr Shepherd suddenly emerged from the back rooms of the ER.
I looked up hopefully—
—only for the two of them to walk right past me and greet a grey-haired older couple who were entering the waiting room behind me.
They were both perhaps seventy. The man was African-American; the woman, white.
I knew this couple.
I’d met them once, briefly, at their home in Florida.
They were Audrey’s parents.
(Audrey wasn’t really close with her parents. As I mentioned, they had not been supportive of her divorce from Trey Hooper. But after we’d been dating for a few months, she’d wanted to introduce me to them. They’d met us for coffee.)
And then my heart sank as I recognised the man guiding the grey-haired couple into the ER: Special Agent Trey Hooper himself.
‘Mr Mills, Mrs Mills,’ Dr Shepherd said. ‘Come this way.’
The doctor guided Audrey’s parents quickly toward the swinging doors leading to the back rooms.
I stood, wanting to join them, only for Hooper to intercept me.
‘Family only,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
They disappeared inside.
I didn’t see them again.
They must’ve left by another exit.
Shortly after, Nurse Narelle came out and told me that Dr Shepherd was planning to bring Audrey out of her coma on the 28th.
I thanked her for letting me know and for being so kind to me.
‘It’s okay, honey,’ the nurse said. ‘I haven’t seen anyone hang around this place for as long as you have. You’re one loyal young fella.’
‘As long as I’m not getting in the way, ma’am, I’d like to keep coming back, if that’s okay,’ I said.
‘You hang here as long as you want,’ she said.
And so I settled into my plastic seat again, preparing to wait for another two days.
Then around 10:00 a.m., I received a phone call.
It was from a number I didn’t know.
It was Yasmina Ivanova’s attorney. Calling me from Rikers Island.
He was with Yasmina and put her on the phone.
‘Mr Speedman,’ she said, ‘please, you have to believe me, I’m innocent of all of these accusations and I want to hire you to prove it.’