“Okay, what do we do?”
Jeannie outlined her plan, which involved me getting Solange to the side door, where Jeannie would be waiting with her van. Out in the hallway, I set about stealing a wheelchair. I headed for Mrs. Johnson’s room first and got lucky.
Jeannie had already pulled out the IV and was sticking a Band-Aid on the girl’s arm when I wheeled the empty chair into the room. She gave me a brown bag with clothing in it. “We’ll dress her and then put the hospital gown back on over her street clothes.”
It was like dressing a doll. Her head rolled around as we lifted her frail body, pushing her feet into the legs of the shorts and her arms into the T-shirt sleeves. We slipped yellow Big Bird slippers on her feet. “I know these aren’t exactly inconspicuous, but they’re the only kid slippers I’ve got. Andrew loved Big Bird, had to have everything Big Bird for a while there.”
“Jeannie, are you sure she’s okay? Maybe she needs to stay here in the hospital.”
“Some kids are like this, Sey. They sleep the sleep of the dead. You could set a bomb off next to my boys and it wouldn’t wake them. She’s going to be fine.”
“How are we going to get her past him?” I pointed to the doorway.
“There’s another set of elevators if you go left and follow the yellow line down the corridor and around to the right. Take the hospital gown off her just before you get into the elevator, in a room if you have to, and then carry her like she’s just a sleeping child visiting someone. When you exit the elevators, go right and find the east parking lot exit. I’ll be out there in the van. Don’t leave the room until you hear me calling for the police.”
She took her car keys and then handed me her purse. “I’m about to get mugged,” she said.
Solange was propped up in the wheelchair, the basket of toys on her lap helping to keep her upright. I was afraid that some nurse or orderly would show up at any minute to take her blood pressure, change her IV, or bring her another hospital meal. I saw Jeannie get on the elevator and disappear behind the closed doors. It seemed to be taking forever. Every time the elevator doors opened, I strained my ears, listening for some indication of Jeannie’s distraction. When it came, I realized there was no way I could have missed it.
“Help! Police!” she bellowed. I heard the chair in front of the door scrape across the linoleum as the officer leapt to his feet. “Help! My purse! He took my purse!”
When I wheeled Solange out the door, all the women in the nursing station were leaning over the counter, staring at the floor of the open elevator. The policeman was bent over, his hand on the back of his neck in a gesture of misery as he contemplated what I assumed was Jeannie flat on her back. It would take some time to get her upright. We scooted down the hall, and no one paid us the slightest attention. Good thing, too, since hanging from my shoulder was the very purse Jeannie was claiming had been stolen.
As I rounded the corner, I saw a group of people at the far end of the corridor waiting for the elevator. No privacy there. I glanced in the rooms on either side of the hall and turned into the first one that had an empty bed. I ignored the moans from behind the other bed’s curtain, parked the wheelchair, took the basket of toys off the kid’s lap, and slid the hospital gown to the floor. The rigging knife from my shoulder bag cut through the plastic ID bracelet on her wrist. I hoisted her onto my hip, rested her head on my shoulder, and grabbed the basket of toys in my free hand.
I joined the crowd waiting for the elevator and when one arrived I squeezed in.
A little man with a white bushy mustache and a porkpie hat looked up at me. “She looks pretty tired,” he said.
I hate it when people want to talk in an elevator. “Yeah,” I said, “we were visiting her mom, and the excitement wore her out.” The elevator stopped at the next floor down, and two more people squeezed in.
“What’s wrong with her mother?”
Geez, what’s wrong with these people? “She was in a car accident. Internal injuries, broken pelvis, may be paralyzed.” That ought to get him, I thought. Nothing will silence people like saying someone’s paralyzed.
“Oh, but you got on at the fourth floor. She’s not on the fourth floor, is she?”
The doors slid open at that point, and I nearly fell out the opening. The lobby. Finally. I nodded at the little old guy and headed off down the corridor. For such a skinny kid, Solange sure was getting heavy. I’m a strong woman, but my left arm felt like cooked spaghetti. I saw the sunlight through the glass double doors that led out to the side parking lot, and I picked up my pace.
“Miss, hello, miss...” A voice and footsteps were coming up behind me. I tried taking longer strides, but I felt Solange slipping, my arms giving out.
“Miss! Please, stop.”
I heard heavy breathing right behind me, and the plaintive note in the voice made me turn. It was Mr. Porkpie Hat. He was leaning over, his hands on his knees, his face so red he looked like a heart attack in the making. He was holding a bright yellow fuzzy Big Bird slipper. “You... dropped ... a shoe,” he said, gasping for air.
I took the shoe from his extended hand. “Uh, thanks. Sorry.” I fast-walked the remaining twenty feet and was glad to see the doors were self-opening. I wouldn’t be required to lift one hand.
Just as I got to the curb, Jeannie’s van came around the corner from the north-side parking lot, doing well over thirty miles per hour. At least if she hit someone, it would be a short trip to the emergency room. I threw the basket of toys in through the open passenger-side window and slid the van’s side door open. Solange flopped down on the bench seat and, for the first time in our whole ordeal, her eyes opened, but they remained unfocused.
“It’s okay,” I said as I jumped in and slid the door closed. “We’re taking you to Jeannie’s house. You’re going to live with her for a little while.” Jeannie took off a little hotter than was necessary, but she seemed to be enjoying her role as getaway driver. I made sure Solange was comfortable on the seat and buckled her in, then I climbed into the front seat. “How’d you get out of there so fast? Last I saw, you were on your back in the elevator.”
“I let that nice young officer lift me to my feet.”
That, I would’ve liked to see.
“And then I said I would go down to the front lobby security desk to report my missing purse. I think he was rather glad, actually. He seemed to be in a bit of pain.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road, but her body shook as she laughed to herself. “I’d left the van parked in the No Parking area right by the front door.”
That explained what had taken her so long to stage her mugging. I jerked my thumb toward the back of the van. “She’s awake, but she’s just staring. Still not talking.”
“Give her time.”
Jeannie circled back and dropped me off a block from the hospital so that I could pick up my Jeep. I said good-bye to Solange but got just a blank stare in return.
XI
I was disappointed to find my cottage empty when I returned home. I’d been hoping Pit would be there, lounging on my couch after his afternoon of windsurfing off the MacArthur Causeway, waiting to regale me with stories about his travels and his quest for the perfect combination of wind and wave.
I have two brothers, and they could not be more different. Our parents had this crazy idea of naming all their children after islands, and sometimes it was a struggle as we were growing up, being saddled with these weird names. Pitcairn’s name fits him, as he’s spent his life roaming from island to island. Pit is the brother I get along with best, the brother I adore. Madagascar, the oldest, is, well, Maddy. When we were kids, if we were eating cookies and I had finished mine first, Pit would share his last cookie with me. Maddy, on the other hand, would snatch the halves out of both our hands and laugh. In school, Pit was the athlete; Maddy was the fat kid. The girls were all crazy about Pit even though he was more interested in the daily surf report. Maddy tried to bully the weaker kids to get the girls’ attention. Pit seemed to glide through life effortlessly, while Maddy was always suffering from demons—most recently his addiction to gambling. I love both my brothers, but even when you’re related, some people are more difficult to like than others.