“I don’t think Wolfgang intended this place to become anything formal. He just took in people who asked him for help.”
“Well, he’ll have to learn to say no,” Moser said, “unless he goes through the authorization procedure. But even if he gets personal clearance, his chances of being approved for one big open-plan room...”
“He means well,” I said. “I can’t say more than that.”
Moser gave me a card. “Have him get in touch with me if he wants to talk about his options.”
I took the card.
But my lack of enthusiasm for bureaucracy’s facility for stifling generosity must have shown because Moser said, “I’m not one of the bad guys, Mr. Samson.”
“I worked that out before,” I said.
“It’s just the way things are.”
15.
I didn’t return to the hospital until the morning. The heavy rain had stopped at last. Impenetrably gray skies were dropping no more than a drizzle.
Sam met me there, curious to see the guy who was at the center of the action. And I was pleased to see that Nurse Matty was on duty again. Or was it still? “Don’t you ever get time off?” I asked her.
“I volunteered for a double,” she said, “which tells you something about my private life.”
“It tells me you’re a wonderful, caring person who’s probably stockpiling her money in order to open a charitable foundation.”
“Me and Bill Gates.” She eyed Sam up. “So, who’s your friend? Or is this a non-friend too?”
“She is, indeed, a friend. As well as being my daughter.”
“The cop?”
“Yes.”
“And she’s your daughter?” Matty tilted her head. “Her mother must be very very beautiful.”
I declined to respond. “How’s the patient?” I asked.
“He’s making me a little uncomfortable, to tell the truth.”
“Because of his endless demands for attention and enhanced comforts?”
“Cut up like he is, he should be restless and trying to get more pain relief out of us. But instead he just lies there.”
“And that’s a problem for you?”
“He watches everyone come and go, and then he smiles a little smile whenever someone takes his blood pressure or fluffs up his pillows.”
“And says thank you, I bet.”
“Every time. It’s creeping me out. I’ll be glad when we get a normal patient back in that bed.”
“Matty, have you had a personal chat with him?”
“Personal? Is that man code for something I don’t understand?”
“Asked him about himself, his family?”
“No.” She peered at me. “Why?”
“Well, don’t, if what you like is normal.”
“Okay, now you’re creeping me out too.” She shook her head. “You know where he is.”
“Yeah.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said to Sam and went about her business.
I led Sam to my non-friend.
Wolfgang was not asleep. He gave us a little smile when we came in. “Albert,” he said. “And a stranger.” He peered at Sam. “Are you two related? Daughter?”
“Thanks for acknowledging my genes,” I said. “This is Sam.”
“How do you do, Sam.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr.... Mozart?”
“Just call me Wolfgang.” He turned to me. “I thought you told me your daughter is a police officer.”
“She is.”
He stared at her. “Okay, I can see it now. But there’s something... more. You’re an unusual person, Ms. Samson.”
“Is that unusual-good or just unusual-different?” Sam asked.
“Good. Definitely good. You will do things in your life.”
“No need to butter her up. She’s not here to arrest you,” I said.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Sam said. “No promises.”
I said, “They’re complaining about you out there. They say you should be trying to get more morphine out of them.”
“It’s only pain,” Wolfgang said.
“There have been developments since I was here yesterday.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not, but there will be consequences for you.” I sat beside Sam to tell the story of the previous evening. As it went on, Wolfgang looked increasingly weary. Weary and unbelieving.
“Elaine is responsible for what happened?”
“I don’t know how the law will interpret it, but hers was the big bang from which the rest of yesterday’s universe followed.”
“But why? I took her in. I fed her. Her and her child.”
“It was about her, Wolfgang, not you.”
He absorbed this. “Okay. I can see that. I’m thinking narrowly.”
“She was desperate to get rid of her boyfriend. She never intended for anyone to get hurt. And, like yourself, she hasn’t had a good experience with the police.”
He glanced at Sam, who said, “So she went to her best friend. She got the friend to ask Harvey, the boyfriend, what it would take to get him to leave Elaine alone once and for all. Harvey said money.”
Wolfgang shook his head slowly, sad about the way human nature plays out. Maybe he was wishing his dad had taken him along to Planet Other.
“So Elaine and the friend hatched up a plan,” I said. “The friend told Harvey that you keep a lot of money around the house. Elaine thought he’d go to your place alone and that between you and the women there you’d subdue him and he’d be arrested.”
I paused while Wolfgang revisited what had happened in his house the previous day. “When I saw the four masked men,” he said, “I shouted for all the women to get out. Everyone ran out the back door.”
Except for Nicole. I said, “Maybe Harvey smelled some kind of rat when Elaine’s friend became cooperative. But for whatever reason he recruited some friends of his own for the visit to your house. Friends willing to rough you up for some easy money.”
“All wearing those terrorists’ masks.” Wolfgang shook his head, looking wearier and wearier.
Sam said, “We have Harvey in custody, Mr. Mozart. I hear that he gave up the rest of the ‘terrorists’ in about five seconds.”
“They’re sad, silly men,” Wolfgang said. “I’ve been thinking about how they acted when they had me in their car. They were childish and squabbly. And if they needed money so badly, they should just have asked. I’d have given them some.”
“That’s not how things are expected to work on Planet Earth,” I said. “And chances are it was greed rather than need anyway. For which they’ll all go down, for assault with deadly weapons.”
“I won’t press charges.”
“What?”
“I won’t testify against them. I should have talked more with Elaine. I should have learned more about her problems. I should have worked out some way to help her. I could have talked with this Harvey.”
“Had him hold your stone and let it make him see the light?”
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
“I’d say you are otherworldly, but you’d just agree with me,” I said.
Sam said, “Your refusal to testify won’t keep them from being charged, Mr. Mozart. They’ll testify against each other. The medical records here will establish the injuries. They’ll plead out. And they will go to jail. They’re dangerous and they need to be prevented from hurting more innocent people.”
I said, “Why wouldn’t you help punish idiots who are willing to stab people to get a few bucks?”
“Because jail is not the answer. We have a higher percentage of our population in jail than any other country in the world and things like this still happen.”