“She coulda took him to the emergency room straight off. She coulda. But no, she wrestles with him, and makes him wait forever until the ambulance gets there.” He blubbered something that Estelle couldn’t understand. “And now he’s blind.” Romero balled his fists and took two steps away, head tilted back. “You tell her,” he shouted, turning on Gastner, “that I want some answers, by God.” By now he was openly crying. “I want some answers, by God.”
Gastner reached out a hand as if to touch the man on the shoulder, but Romero apparently misinterpreted the motion. He swung a lumbering, clumsy blow at the older man, more of a fend-off than a punch, a swing that Gastner had no trouble in ducking.
“It’s her fault.” Romero staggered backward a step. Gastner saw Estelle advancing across the lawn, and held up a hand. “If she’d just taken care of the boy…I got to talk to her. Got to find out why…” He lunged as if to pass Gastner, and Francis Guzman stepped forward, blocking the sidewalk. But Gastner was faster. He reached out a hand, triggering another wild swing from Romero. So fast that even Estelle didn’t see it coming, Gastner clamped Romero’s right wrist, twisted, and spun the man around, his left hand hard on Romero’s left shoulder, the man’s right arm behind his back.
“You need to go home, George,” he said. “It’s a bad time, and you’re drunk and upset. You don’t know what you’re saying. Keep this up and it’s only going to cause you more grief.”
Romero blubbered something incoherent, and twisted wildly in Gastner’s grip. “My boys!” he wailed.
“Yeah, I know,” Gastner said. “Let me walk you home, Georgie. Is your wife home?”
“No,” Romero whimpered. “She’s up in the city. She doesn’t know…”
“Doesn’t know what?”
“Carla said she saw the whole thing,” Romero cried. “She saw it.” He struggled and Estelle could see that this confrontation wasn’t going anywhere constructive. And as soon as George Romero turned and saw her, he would erupt again. Coming to the same conclusion, Gastner’s foot shot out and deftly jerked the man’s legs out from under him, and in a moment Romero was flat on his face in the grass. With a smooth transfer of his grip, Gastner held the man down while his right hand swept his sweater to one side, darting to the handcuffs that draped over his belt.
“You can’t…” Romero cried.
“I can until you behave yourself,” Gastner said conversationally. He put a hand through Romero’s right elbow and helped him up. The man swayed uncertainly. “Now, you can see how this is going to go,” the former sheriff continued. “You’re going to calm down, or are you going to have to spend the night in jail?”
“No,” Romero moaned. “You can’t. My wife is going to call me.”
“And you want to be home and sober for that, my friend.”
“She’s with Butch. She was going to call…”
“Well, you can’t talk to her like this,” Gastner said. “Look, let me take you home.”
“You got me all handcuffed,” Romero said. “You aren’t even sheriff any more.”
“That’s true, thank God,” Gastner chuckled. “Look, here’s what we’re going to do. Estelle and I are going to walk you home, all right?” Romero turned enough and finally saw that Estelle Guzman was standing a couple paces away. “And if you want to talk with her, maybe when you’re sober, we can arrange that. But right now you’re stinking fall-down drunk, and that doesn’t do anyone any good.”
“You…” Romero said to Estelle, and then seemed to loose track of his jumbled thoughts. He swayed, eyes closed. “I can’t sleep. I just lie there…”
“Maybe the doc can give you something,” Gastner suggested, and Francis looked briefly heavenward.
“Not with what he’s got in his system,” he said. “He just needs to lie down for a bit and let the alcohol work.”
“You hear that, Georgie?” Gastner said. “Just lie down for a little while. If Tata calls, I’ll let you know. And then in the morning, we’ll sort all this out.” It didn’t matter what he said, what promises he made. Estelle knew that George Romero wouldn’t remember a bit of the conversation in the morning. “Come on,” Gastner urged. “Let me walk you home.”
Still mumbling, George Romero allowed himself to be led across the lawn, Bill Gastner’s path a straight one, Romero’s a meander. As they reached the sidewalk, a state police cruiser swung into Twelfth Street, its tires chirping on the pavement. It slid to an abrupt halt by the curb, and Officer Rick Black stepped out of the car, hesitating by the front fender.
“We’re okay, Rick,” Gastner said. “George here is just walking home to sleep it off.” Black saw the handcuffs and then looked at Estelle questioningly.
“They’ll be all right,” she said.
“You want him charged? Public intox, anything like that?”
“No, no, no charges. That’s the last thing he needs just now,” Estelle said. “You might give Bill a hand getting Mr. Romero back inside.” She pointed at the Romero residence. “Just over there.”
The state trooper stepped to the sidewalk and slipped a hand through Romero’s left elbow. “You going to be okay with us now, sir?” he said, voice kindly and helpful. “Too nice an evening for a ruckus, don’t you think?”
Romero managed a string of unconnected syllables, and his knees wobbled.
“Just hang in there, sir,” Black coaxed as he and Gastner weaved Romero down the sidewalk to his own front door.
“Keep my lasagna warm,” Gastner said over his shoulder. “I’ll be back just as soon as Georgie passes out.”
Francis and Estelle stood on the grass, watching the odd trio-the uniformed Rick Black, nearly six feet-three and as slender as a track star, Bill Gastner a head shorter, burly, plodding, big buzz-cut head leaning close to George Romero’s right ear, whispering encouraging instructions, and George Romero in the middle, now not much more than a sack of inebriation.
“Well, that was entertaining,” Francis observed. “Padrino has done that sort of thing a time or two.”
“Half a million or so,” Estelle replied. “The world is full of drunks.” She shook her head. “Oso, it’s so sad, what’s happened to that family.” The physician put his arm around her shoulders, at the same time bending forward and looking at the Tazer in her belt.
“You were going to zap him?”
“If I had to. There’s always room for a lot of talk first. Padrino knows that. But just in case.”
“Who called the trooper?”
“I don’t know. Padrino maybe. He has my handheld. He’s very careful about not being a heroic victim himself.”
“I don’t have a clue what George was trying to say.”
“Maybe when he’s sober. Right now, in his alcoholic fog, nothing makes sense to him. He seems to think that I was wrestling his son just for the fun of it, when I should have been transporting.” She shook her head wearily. “If I was in his shoes, and I thought that…I don’t know what I’d do. Poor guy.” She slipped her arm through her husband’s. Down the street, lights came on in the Romero home, and a door slammed. “I’m glad the lasagna wasn’t finished a half hour earlier,” she added. “I can’t imagine Francisco walking over to deliver it and stepping into the middle of that.”
Back inside, Teresa stood in the foyer, braced upright with her aluminum walker.
“That’s a sad, sad man,” she said.
“Yes, he is, mamá. Maybe he’ll have a long night’s sleep. That’s what he needs.”
“He doesn’t need to add to it by being stupid.”
“I’m sure that deep in his heart he knows that,” Estelle said.
“Se me encogió el corazón, what that family’s been through,” Teresa said.
Estelle escorted her mother to the dining room. “Maybe things will get back to normal now,” she said. Both little boys watched her, their eyes big.
“I can take the lasagna over,” Francisco said.