CHAPTER 26
WE RODE IN SILENCE ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE first real clump of civilization, a housing development and a row of strip malls on the right, a few miles past the toll booth. Then Chutsky sat up and stared out at the lights and the buildings. “I have to use a phone,” he said.
“You can use my phone, if you’ll pay the roaming charges,” I said.
“I need a land line,” he said. “A pay phone.”
“You’re out of touch with the times,” I said. “A pay phone might be a little hard to find. Nobody uses them anymore.”
“Take this exit here,” he said, and although it was not getting me any closer to my well-earned good night’s sleep, I drove down the off-ramp. Within a mile we found a mini-mart that still had a pay phone stuck to the wall beside the front door. I helped Chutsky hop over to the phone and he leaned up against the shield around it and lifted the receiver. He glanced at me and said, “Wait over there,” which seemed a little bit bossy for somebody who couldn’t even walk unassisted, but I went back to my car and sat on the hood while Chutsky chatted.
An ancient Buick chugged into the parking spot next to me. A group of short, dark-skinned men in dirty clothes got out and walked toward the store. They stared at Chutsky standing there on one leg with his head so very shaved, but they were too polite to say anything. They went in and the glass door whooshed behind them and I felt the long day rolling over me; I was tired, my neck muscles felt stiff, and I hadn’t gotten to kill anything. I felt very cranky, and I wanted to go home and go to bed.
I wondered where Dr. Danco had taken Doakes. It didn’t really seem important, just idle curiosity. But as I thought about the fact that he had indeed taken him somewhere and would soon begin doing rather permanent things to the sergeant, I realized that this was the first good news I’d had in a long time, and I felt a warm glow spread through me. I was free. Doakes was gone. One small piece at a time he was leaving my life and releasing me from the involuntary servitude of Rita’s couch. I could live again.
“Hey, buddy,” Chutsky called. He waved the stump of his left arm at me and I stood up and walked over to him. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get going.”
“Of course,” I said. “Going where?”
He looked off in the distance and I could see the muscles along the side of his jaw tighten. The security lights of the mini-mart’s parking lot lit up his coveralls and gleamed off his head. It’s amazing how different a face looks if you shave off the eyebrows. There’s something freakish to it, like the makeup in a low-budget science-fiction movie, and so even though Chutsky should have looked tough and decisive as he stared at the horizon and clenched his jaw, he instead looked like he was waiting for a blood-curdling command from Ming the Merciless. But he just said, “Take me back to my hotel, buddy. I got work to do.”
“What about a hospital?” I asked, thinking that he couldn’t be expected to cut a walking stick from a sturdy yew tree and stump on down the trail. But he shook his head.
“I’m okay,” he said. “I’ll be okay.”
I looked pointedly at the two patches of white gauze where his arm and leg used to be and raised an eyebrow. After all, the wounds were still fresh enough to be bandaged, and at the very least Chutsky had to be feeling somewhat weak.
He looked down at his two stumps, and he did seem to slump just a little and become slightly smaller for a moment. “I’ll be fine,” he said, and he straightened up a bit. “Let’s get going.” And he seemed so tired and sad that I didn’t have the heart to say anything except, “All right.”
He hopped back to the passenger door of my car, leaning on my shoulder, and as I helped ease him into the seat the passengers of the old Buick trooped out carrying beer and pork rinds. The driver smiled and nodded at me. I smiled back and closed the door. “Crocodilios,” I said, nodding at Chutsky.
“Ah,” the driver said back. “Lo siento.” He got behind the wheel of his car, and I walked around to get into mine.
Chutsky had nothing at all to say for most of the drive. Right after the interchange onto I-95, however, he began to tremble badly. “Oh fuck,” he said. I looked over at him. “The drugs,” he said. “Wearing off.” His teeth began to chatter and he snapped them shut. His breath hissed out and I could see sweat begin to form on his bald face.
“Would you like to reconsider the hospital?” I asked.
“Do you have anything to drink?” he asked, a rather abrupt change of subject, I thought.
“I think there’s a bottle of water in the backseat,” I said helpfully.
“Drink,” he repeated. “Some vodka, or whiskey.”
“I don’t generally keep any in the car,” I said.
“Fuck,” he said. “Just get me to my hotel.”
I did that. For reasons known only to Chutsky, he was staying at the Mutiny in Coconut Grove. It had been one of the first luxury high-rise hotels in the area and had once been frequented by models, directors, drug runners, and other celebrities. It was still very nice, but it had lost a little bit of its cachet as the once-rustic Grove became overrun with luxury high-rises. Perhaps Chutsky had known it in its heyday and stayed there now for sentimental reasons. You really had to be deeply suspicious of sentimentality in a man who had worn a pinkie ring.
We came down off 95 onto Dixie Highway, and I turned left on Unity and rolled on down to Bayshore. The Mutiny was a little ways ahead on the right, and I pulled up in front of the hotel. “Just drop me here,” Chutsky said.
I stared at him. Perhaps the drugs had affected his mind. “Don’t you want me to help you up to your room?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. That may have been his new mantra, but he didn’t look fine. He was sweating heavily now and I could not imagine how he thought he would get up to his room. But I am not the kind of person who would ever intrude with unwanted help, so I simply said, “All right,” and watched as he opened the door and got out. He held on to the roof of the car and stood unsteadily on his one leg for a minute before the bell captain saw him swaying there. The captain frowned at this apparition with the orange jumpsuit and the gleaming skull. “Hey, Benny,” Chutsky said. “Gimme a hand, buddy.”
“Mr. Chutsky?” he said dubiously, and then his jaw dropped as he noticed the missing parts. “Oh, Lord,” he said. He clapped his hands three times and a bellboy ran out.
Chutsky looked back at me. “I’ll be fine,” he said.
And really, when you’re not wanted there’s not much you can do except leave, which is what I did. The last I saw of Chutsky he was leaning on the bell captain as the bellboy pushed a wheelchair toward them out the front door of the hotel.
It was still a little bit shy of midnight as I drove down Main Highway and headed for home, which was hard to believe considering all that had happened tonight. Vince’s party seemed like several weeks ago, and yet he probably hadn’t even unplugged his fruit-punch fountain yet. Between my Trial by Stripper and rescuing Chutsky from the gator farm, I had earned my rest tonight, and I admit that I was thinking of little else except crawling into my bed and pulling the covers over my head.
But of course, there’s no rest for the wicked, which I certainly am. My cell phone rang as I turned left on Douglas. Very few people call me, especially this late at night. I glanced at the phone; it was Deborah.
“Greetings, sister dear,” I said.
“You asshole, you said you’d call!” she said.
“It seemed a little late,” I said.
“Did you really think I could fucking SLEEP?!” she yelled, loud enough to cause pain to people in passing cars. “What happened?”