“Why don’t you two settle out in back,” Nadia said. “I’ll be right out.”
Buzz nodded and started to rise from the table. He seemed to be in a fine mood, suffering no ill effects from the meal. “Take your coffee,” he said to Sweeney and led the way to the loading dock where two wooden rocking chairs had been set at the edge of the apron.
The lot behind the Harmony looked like the face of a meteor. It was a deep canyon of rocks and broken bricks and, here and there, random pieces of black metal and piles of obsolete machinery. In its day, this acreage had housed one of the region’s first industrial parks. But every mill except the Harmony had been more or less knocked down.
“That,” Buzz said, gesturing to the remains of what had once been an enormous, phallic stack, “is what’s left of the county crematorium. I always get kind of a kick out of the fact that they were neighbors, you know? The Harmony trying to piece folks back together. And the incinerator next door trying to burn ’em down to nothing.”
Sweeney stayed quiet and watched the bikers running wild over the ruins, working off their feast by playing some variant on King of the Hill. This version of the game allowed bricks and stones to be hurled like grenades at the enemy. Most of the players were stripped to the waist and were howling at each other like rabid coyotes as they tried to charge up onto the roof of what looked like an abandoned hearse.
“It’s a ’67 Miller-Meteor,” Buzz explained. “A beautiful vehicle. If you have to go with four wheels.”
He eased down into one of the rockers, tapped the arm of its companion and said, “Boys’ll be boys, huh?”
Sweeney sat down with both hands around his coffee mug.
“Most boys anyway,” Buzz said, then changed the tone of his voice. “Now listen, Sweeney, I don’t want you being pissed off at Nadia. None of this is her fault. You want to be pissed at someone, you be pissed at Buzz. You understand?”
“I’m not angry with—”
“’Course you’re angry,” Buzz said. “You’re fucking furious. Be something wrong with you if you weren’t. Someone you barely know drives you out to who knows where, you get ambushed by a bunch of fucking animals? Shit, yes, you’re angry. You start off scared, but underneath,” and here he arced a spitwad off the dock, “you’re goddamn enraged.”
“I’m not enraged,” Sweeney said.
Buzz nodded and held his cigarette so that the smoke clustered in front of his face.
“Two things, son,” he said, though he was probably younger than Sweeney. “First off, you’re either lying to me or yourself. And believe me, we should both be hoping it’s yourself. And second, I’m sitting here telling you it’s all right. You got a right to be angry. People fear the unknown more than anything else. And you, son, are in the middle of the fucking unknown.”
There was a yell and one of the bikers had a hand over an eye. Buzz stopped speaking to watch for a second, took a long drag and muttered, “Goddamn idiots.”
Nadia came out the door, moved to the railing and said, “Does the Ant need a bandage?”
“Not yet,” Buzz said. “Honey, could you get me a coffee and put a little Jack in it?”
She was looking out at the ruins a bit distractedly, but turned and went back inside.
Buzz waited till Nadia had gone, then said, “Now this is the point I’m trying to make. You look at these two out there, throwing bricks like children. They’re fucking morons’s what they are. But they’re family. And morons or not, you look out for family. I mean, you know that. Look at what you’ve done for your boy.”
The words focused Sweeney. Buzz reached across the space between them, patted and then squeezed Sweeney’s arm. “What I’m trying to say is, there’s not much difference between you and me. We do what we have to do to take care of our people. You see my point?”
Sweeney nodded and Buzz released his grip.
“Now, I don’t want you to think for a minute that we’re going to leave you hanging out there in the unknown. You take one look around, you see what I’ve made here, you know I’m not like that. You’re a smart guy. That’s obvious. You understand cause and effect. And I’m hoping that, in addition to being smart, you’re patient. I’m going to clear everything up for you. But right now, before she comes back, I want to get straight about Nadia.”
“There’s no problem with Nadia,” said Sweeney.
“And there shouldn’t be,” Buzz said. “What she done, she done for you and your boy. That’s the fucking truth, Sweeney. You’re gonna know that in time. But right now you have to take it on faith.”
Down in the ruins, the game had degenerated into a straight-out rock fight. Nadia returned to the dock with a coffee mug in one hand and a roll of gauze in the other. She crossed in front of Sweeney, her eyes on the canyon, handed the mug to Buzz and put the gauze down on the apron.
“Who started it?” she asked.
Buzz said, “Who do you think?”
“Don’t you think you should stop it?”
“We’ll let them vent a while,” Buzz said. “Fluke and the Ant’ve been hissin’ at each other all week.” He turned to Sweeney and said, “You didn’t know we had dinner theater, did you?”
Sweeney put his coffee mug down on the concrete. He stood up and looked at Nadia, then turned his eyes on Buzz and said, “You touch my son, in any way, and I’ll kill you.”
Then he walked off the dock, expecting to be tackled. Expecting Buzz to yell for his animals. But no one stopped him and no one said a word. He let himself into the Honda, kicked over the engine, and drove away.
Two miles up the road, he pulled to the shoulder, opened his door, and vomited. It took him over an hour to find his way back to the Clinic. The car spewed black smoke the whole trip.
17
Sweeney ran into room 103 to find the Pecks, father and daughter, on either side of Danny’s bed. Eyes burning, shirt stained with puke and chili, he stopped short in the doorway and looked from his son to the two doctors and back again. Alice seemed confused by his appearance and her father was about one step from appalled, but it was Sweeney who asked, “Is everything all right?”
The father let the daughter answer.
“Danny has a slight fever,” she said. “That’s not unusual. We’ve put him on an antibiotic.”
“Are you all right, Mr. Sweeney?” the father asked. He was wearing a banker’s suit and a red tie. There were figures on the tie but Sweeney couldn’t make them out. A nurse entered the room, glanced at the scene, and moved on to tend to Irene Moore.
Sweeney shook his head, put his hands on his hips. “Danny’s okay then?” he said.
“His condition is stable,” Peck said, then he shifted his eyes and asked, “What happened to your hands?”
Sweeney looked down to his palms. Alice stepped toward him, took a hand, and inspected it.
“It’s nothing,” Sweeney said. “I fell down in the parking lot.”
“In the Clinic lot?” Peck said.
“It’s just a scrape,” Sweeney said. “It’s nothing.”
“Did you put anything on this?” Alice asked.
Sweeney took his hand away. “I’m fine,” he said. “Can I ask what antibiotic you prescribed?”
In Sweeney’s experience, physicians tended to bristle when questioned by a pharmacist. Peck wouldn’t even acknowledge the question. But he forgot about the scraped palms and that was the point.
“Azithromycin,” Alice said. “It’s a low-grade fever. He’s running a hundred one. I’m not overly concerned.”
Sweeney stepped past her, leaned over the bed, and put his lips on Danny’s forehead. The boy was warm but he’d spiked much worse in the past. Sweeney pinched the elastic neck of the pajama top and found it dry.