She started sobbing then. It was noiseless. Other than the tears and a slight heaving in her chest, I wouldn't have been able to tell she was crying. It got so quiet. As I watched, my stomach tightened into knots. I felt sick about what I was doing. I found myself wanting to comfort her. I leaned forward and tried to take hold of her hands, but she pulled them away from me.
"This is no big deal,' I tried to explain. 'You've done it before, you can do it one more time. And trust me, Manny Vassey is the most rotten sonofabitch you'll ever meet. He's not worth wasting any tears over. If anything, it's a shame you'll be putting him out of his misery.'
Through her sobbing, she forced out, 'You lied to me.'
'What are you talking about?'
"The only reason you wanted to see me was because of this.'
The knots in my stomach pulled tighter. 'Maybe at first,' I admitted. 'But Charlotte, I'm being honest now, most of what I've told you has been the truth. I have felt good being with you, better than I've felt in years. I don't know if you'll ever want to see me again after this, but if we can get past this, I think we could be good for each other. When this is all over, I'd like to keep seeing you. I promise you, everything I'm telling you now is the truth.'
'How am I supposed to get the morphine? The hospital doesn't leave narcotics lying around. You have to sign them out.'
'I figure you can siphon morphine from other patients.'
From the look that flashed across her face, I knew that's what she had done in Montreal. Then her eyes and mouth opened and her hands went to the sides of her face, and for a moment she was a spitting image of Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream. She sat frozen like that for a horrible few seconds, and then she started sobbing again. Still noiseless, but more violent than before. Her whole body convulsed with it. Her face seemed to fold up into a mass of creases, her mouth now nothing more than a large gaping black hole.
'Don't make me do this,' she pleaded through her sobs. 'Don't make me do this.'
Her hands clenched again into tiny fists and she started punching her legs.
I got up and held her, trying to keep her from hitting herself. She didn't pull away or try to fight me this time. Instead, her head buried itself hard in my stomach while her tears and saliva soaked my shirt. Still she begged me, her voice muffled by my body.
'What's the big deal?' I tried asking her. 'He's going to be dead in a few weeks anyway.'
But I knew what the big deal was. For years I had promised myself that when I got out of jail I'd never cause any more harm. Somehow I knew she had made the same promise to herself. That when she left Montreal, she'd never do anything like that again. In my case, it didn't take me long to break my promise, but I was forced to. I had no other choice. And now I was doing the same to her.
Her body felt so warm and moist as I held her. I tried holding her harder. I tried to slow down her sobbing. At that moment I felt so empty inside. So rotten. As I looked at her, I realized I had no choice either. I told her I wasn't going to make her overdose Manny.
'I'll figure something else out,' I said.
Her sobbing slowly subsided. I held her and ran my hand through her hair and kissed the top of her head, and told her not to worry about anything. After awhile she pulled away from me – not in a harsh way, but so she could look up at me.
'You're not going to make me do it?' she asked
'No, I won't. I'm sorry that I put you through this.' I took one of her linen napkins and used it to wipe her tears. 1 didn't think it would be that big a deal to you,' I lied.
'I never did what Dr Bouchaire told you I did. I don't know why he has to tell people I did those things.'
It was her turn to lie, but that was okay. I smiled and told her I believed her.
'I don't want you going to prison, but I can't do something like that."
'Don't worry about me. I'm not going to prison. I'll think of something.'
'Maybe he won't say anything about you.’
‘Maybe.'
She took hold of my hand and kissed it, and then held my hand against the side of her face. I stood there feeling a mix of relief and panic. I had no idea what I was going to do next.
'Look at me,' she said, showing a sad clown's smile. 'I must be a mess.'
That was putting it mildly. Her crying had left black smudges under her eyes and streaks of makeup running down her face. Somehow, even strands of her hair had gotten drenched, and were now knotted up and looking like something that might've been pulled out of a drain.
I reached down and kissed her. Awkwardly, she tried to kiss back.
'I'm sorry all this happened,' I said. 'Why don't you go get yourself cleaned up.'
'Will you stay and wait for me?' she asked.
I shook my head. 'I better get going.'
'You don't have to. You can stay if you'd like.'
'I'd like to, but I got to get some rest and figure stuff out.'
'Will I see you again?'
'Of course you will. As soon as this is over, we'll get together.'
I turned to leave and I heard her call out to me. When I looked back, she was blushing. 'Joe, if you go to prison we could still marry.'
I had to bite my tongue to keep from bursting out laughing. It was so damn funny and sad at the same time. There was no question she wasn't all there, but I smiled as sweetly as I could and told her that was exactly what we would do. And the saddest part was knowing everything that I did about her, I still found myself attracted to her.
When I got out to the parking lot, I saw that Hal Wheely was gone. I guess he decided I wasn't worth losing sleep over.
Chapter 16
I drove aimlessly. At first I was numb, no thoughts, nothing, and then a raw, cold panic overtook me. I knew Dan was serious about his ultimatum, and I knew if I was still alive by Wednesday it wouldn't much matter anyway. After Manny signed his deal and gave his deathbed confession, it would be as good as over for me.
I tried to think of some way out, but all I could come up with were nutty ideas; like sneaking into the hospital and overdosing Manny myself, or using the sixty-three hundred dollars I had left to bribe an orderly to do the job for me. As I said, they were nutty ideas, and they would've sent me straight to prison, but that was all I could come up with. After a while I started thinking of Phil, of whether there was a chance I could get away with hiding somewhere near his front door with a hunting rifle.
The panic hit me hard, harder than the other day at Kelley's. It got to the point where I could barely breathe. As I drove, a numbness spread through my legs and arms. I felt as if my limbs were dead and no longer a part of me. And the coldness, Jesus; it was like ice cubes were being pushed into my skull. Then all at once I knew I was going to black out. The world started tilting sideways on me and it was all I could do to pull over, crawl out of my car, and curl up on the side of the road.
I didn't black out. I came close, but I was able to fight through it. After a while I pushed myself up into a sitting position, grabbed my knees, and rocked back and forth until I felt I could stand. Then I got to my feet.
My clothes were drenched through with sweat. It took about all the strength I had, but I hobbled to the trunk, opened it, and pulled out my duffel bag. I found some clean clothes and changed there by the side of the road. I had to rest for a while, and then after dumping the duffel bag back into the trunk, I got into the driver's seat, and just sort of collapsed.
For a long time all I could do was hold my head in my hands. I felt so lousy. I started to think how a few lines of coke would make me feel so much better, how it would help clear out the cobwebs clouding my head. After a while that was all I could think of. It got to the point where I could almost taste cocaine in the back of my throat.