I was on my butt, then, sitting with my head in my hands, vaguely aware that Davis was lumbering out of bed and toward the door; from the sound of it, he was moving fast, and awkwardly. I glanced up and my eyes focused and saw him go out, hospital gown flapping, slamming the door behind him, only it closed hospital soft.
I tried to yell out, but my throat hurt; there was no sound there to come out. I pushed up, got onto my feet and went to the door myself, to warn John
But John didn’t need warning.
Halfway down the hall, on his way to the elevators, Davis had been met by John, and the two faced each other in crouches; John’s crouch spoke of martial arts training-Davis’s spoke of single-minded brute force.
I wanted to come up behind Davis and put an end to this-who the hell needed a fair fight when a lummox like him was involved? — only my head was whirling and when I went to move fast, I stumbled and fell to my knees. Those two punches I’d taken from Davis-and the choke-hold-had done a number on me.
In a way, though, that was enough to help John.
Because Davis heard me, and turned his head to see what it was, and John karate-kicked him in the stomach, sending Davis backward and sitting him down hard on the cold corridor floor.
It had been a quiet fight so far; no doctors or nurses, and certainly no patients, had come running.
That was about to change.
Davis got up and ran barreling toward John, making a sound like a wounded, pissed-off buffalo, and even karate couldn’t stop that beast, in that confined a space. He plowed a block-like shoulder and head into John, and John went skidding down the floor into some of the furniture in the reception area by the elevators.
Before John could get up, backed up against a sofa by a window, Davis was bending over him, pummeling him with rocklike fists, and I was finally stumbling down toward them, so I could get into this, and I hoped to put a quick stop to it. That doctor I’d seen earlier was coming up behind me-I could hear his voice: “Stop this! Stop it!”-and some nurses were bringing up the rear, though that I couldn’t see at the moment.
And then before I or the doctor or anybody else could put a stop to it, John did.
He’d taken half a dozen vicious fists in the body and face when he thrust a leg up, straight up into Davis’s belly and hurled Davis up and over and toward the window just behind that sofa John was backed against.
And whether it was what John had in mind or not, I can’t say-and he never told me, because I never asked-but Davis went sailing through that window, taking a curtain and venetian blinds with him, and the shattering glass rained down on John and he shielded his eyes as it did.
Davis didn’t scream, but he made a thud, three stories down.
I helped John up-his eyes were wide but not wild-and he rushed to the window, putting a hand less carefully than he should on the jagged teeth of glass as he looked out.
Davis was sprawled on his stomach, tangled in the curtain and blinds; a motionless white splotch against the dark ground.
“Let’s get down there,” John said.
The doctor was just reaching the window as John and I got on the elevator; we went down alone, and were out to Davis before any of the hospital staff.
John leaned over him, felt for his pulse on his neck; but we both knew the man was gone-his blood-flecked face had its eyes open in the stare of the dead.
John stood up and walked across the hospital lawn and stood and stared at nothing in particular; I followed. Both of us were bleeding a little, from the punishment Davis had dished out on us. Behind us the doctor and a couple of orderlies rushed to the body.
I stood there with him; put a hand on his shoulder.
He turned and smiled at me. Not his dazzler: a tight-lipped, sad smile.
“See, Mal?” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“Where you go,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You sure don’t need to go to Vietnam.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to go there to find it,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
He looked older to me then than anybody that young ever looked, except maybe for Janet Taber.
“What are you talking about?” I repeated.
“Killing,” he said. “Death.”
Pretty soon Brennan showed with some local cops and we gave him our statements while the emergency room doctor looked us over and cleaned and dressed the places where we bled.
TWENTY-TWO
I got back to my trailer around four-thirty and found Rita up, stirring around in the kitchenette. She was wearing a stretched out old Iowa sweat shirt of mine that hit her mid-thigh like a miniskirt, and normally I’d have spent some time wondering what she had on under there, only I was too burned out to really care. I had called her from the hospital an hour or so ago, to warn her I’d be late-and to tell her about Davis’s fall. As I walked across the living room I tripped over the empty beer bottle I’d tossed at Davis and the bottle seemed an apt metaphor for how I felt: empty, useless, nonreturnable.
Rita said, “I couldn’t sleep.”
“I haven’t been up this late since junior-senior prom.”
“No offense, but you look like shit, honey.”
“Guess how I feel.”
“Like you look.”
“Like I look,” I confirmed, stumbling over to the couch where I flopped down on my stomach. My nose sniffed the air: something nice cooking. I said, “What smells good?”
Rita said, “I found a coffee cake mix in your cupboard. I’m making it. Is that okay?”
“That’s not okay. That’s wonderful. What else do I smell?”
“Coffee to go with it, stupid.”
“How long till the coffee cake?”
“Few minutes.”
“How long till the coffee?”
“Right now.”
“Hot damn.” I rolled over on my back-the dying dog’s last trick. I pulled the flesh away from my eyes with the flats of my hands, then got started on a series of overlapping yawns.
Rita came over bearing coffee. Good hot steam rose off the liquid in the cup and I inhaled it, then sipped. She nudged herself room next to me on the couch. Her big brown eyes were open wide as she said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know how John’s doing, though.”
“Why?”
“I think it disturbed him, having this sort of thing happen in… the civilian world.”
“Oh.”
“Too bad it went the way it did. Davis is no great loss to humanity, I suppose, but he took a lot of information with him.” I sipped the coffee. “You know, Brennan came out and admitted he’s been sweeping the case under the carpet for the Normans.”
“No shit?”
“None at all. I’ll say this much for him: it took a certain quota of guts just to admit it.”
She made a face. “Oh, please.”
“He’s an SOB, all right, I won’t argue with you there. But even a belated stand against the Normans could cost the sheriff his job. I just hope he doesn’t go overboard trying to make up for lost time. You know, going into a gestapo number.”
“Coffee cake.”
“Huh?”
“The coffee cake should be done.”
“But I got some brilliant deductions to share with you.”
“If I don’t take it out it’ll burn.” And she rose and bounded toward the kitchenette.
I said, “I know who killed Janet Taber.”
“Tell me over the coffee cake,” she said, opening the oven door.
“Sheesh,” I said. “I solve the mystery and nobody gives a damn.”
The coffee cake was very good, moist and yellow and rich with crunchy cinnamon topping and my mouth surrounded a piece as Rita said, “Well, don’t pout. Spill!”
I spoke with my mouth full. “I don’t have any of the details figured out, understand. I mean, the pieces don’t form a picture yet or anything.”
“So who did it, already?”