Bloody River Blues Read online

  Monroe remained as pleasant and persistent as a door-to-door salesman. "We apologize for the other day. We've been under incredible pressure. You know how it is."

  Pellam waited a few seconds and said, "Come in."

  Inside, both agents sat on chairs, scooting forward to keep their posture perfect. The cuffs of their light-colored slacks were hiked high above their ankles. It was funny, Pellam thought-they didn't have the frisky presence of the city cops.

  There was something anonymous about them.

  They complimented him on the tidiness of the camper and Bracken said enviously he hoped to get a Winnebago himself one day. Drive up to Minnesota for muskie and pike.

  So far the game was good cop, good cop.

  'The fact is Maddox hasn't been cooperating with us. They don't much care for federal officers."

  Wonder why.

  "We'd really appreciate it if you could tell us whatever you can remember. You've got to understand, Mr. Pellam,

  Mr. Gaudia's death means that two years of work could be in jeopardy."

  Pellam wanted to reward them for being polite. He told them the facts one more time. In as much detail as he could remember. The beer, the Lincoln, the guy who bumped into him, bending down and looking through the window, the car pulling away, the cop. Pellam was getting pretty good at telling the story by this time.

  The agents were unemotional. No eyes were rolled, much less lapels grabbed and windows broken. They just nodded and did not complain. And they didn't call him a GFY either. They just asked questions.

  Finally Pellam realized that they had been here for an hour. He was growing bored. He felt like a hooked pike. He almost mentioned this to Bracken the fisherman.

  "Tell us again… just one more time. Promise, just one.

  "Okay. Once more." Pellam recited the story.

  Monroe wrote it down. Pellam wondered what they were getting paid and how much tax money was being spent to record an incident of car window glare.

  Then they began to ask questions that seemed to have nothing to do with the killing. Why was he going to get so much beer? Tell them about this poker game, would he? Did he know who Vincent Gaudia was? Had he ever seen the policeman before?

  "No."

  "Was it true that you gave something to the policeman just before the shooting?"

  "Well," Pellam said, "I did."

  "You seemed surprised just then. Why were you surprised?"

  "When I gave him the bag?"

  "No. Just now. When we mentioned it."

  "Well, I didn't think anybody knew I gave him anything."

  Their eyebrows perked. "And what was it?"

  "You think it was a bribe?"

  "We'd just like to know what it was."

  "It was a doughnut."

  "A doughnut?"

  "Whole wheat," Pellam offered. "It seemed healthier."

  "Yessir."

  More questions, another half hour passed.

  "Did the driver," Bracken asked, "have a cup caddy?"

  "Are you serious?" Pellam asked. He looked at his watch.

  Finally they stood up, in unison, as if his answer to their question ("Did you know Vince Gaudia before he was killed?" "No.") was the exit cue.

  He walked them to the door. They thanked him for his time then Bracken turned to him and said, "You weren't thinking of leaving town soon, were you, sir?"

  There was something in the tone. He was not a bad cop yet but he was no longer a good cop either. "I'm staying until the film's finished. But-"

  "How long will that be?"

  "A week, tops."

  "Well, you should know-we have an intelligence report that Peter Crimmins-the main suspect in the Gaudi killing-has been speaking to associates out of state. Chicago, we think."

  Pellam didn't know what to make of this news bite.

  "That often happens," Bracken continued, "when a mob boss is going to hire some muscle. They don't like to use anybody local."

  "Oh."

  "I just say that so you'll know to be careful."

  "Right. Well, I appreciate you telling me that."

  As they walked out the door, Monroe thanked him again and added, "You know, sir, we have men at all the local airports."

  "All the airports?"

  "Amtrak, too."

  And they left him to wonder if that meant they'd be looking for hit men or that Pellam himself should book a seat on Greyhound if he wanted to escape the long tentacle of the law.

  ***

  The nurse noticed his bloody thumbnail.

  "What?" she asked. "Whatsat?"

  She was Filipino, short and broad. She had kind eyes but the wispy mustache and broad purple lips made her face look dirty, which in turn gave her an impression of cruelty or, at best, indifference.

  The nurse pulled two clear plastic gloves off a roll. She put them on and lifted his hand, studying the red stain distastefully.

  "I don't have AIDS," he said miserably.

  She held his hand in a solid grip and twisted it as she examined the digit. God, she was strong. He detected a meaty smell coming from her.

  "Where you do it?

  "What do you mean?"

  "Where you stick yourself?"

  Abruptly she yanked the sheet and blanket off of him and began with his midthigh, probing her way up, turning him, pushing his numb legs. Buffett thought of dough. Bread dough, kneading it. This made him want to cry.

  "I'm all right. Could you just leave me alone, please?"

  "You make it worse. You people make it worse."

  Fingers he could not feel were searching along his skin. He closed his eyes. He made it a test- even now, in his humiliation and anguish, he tried to sense the fingers. He thought he could tell where she was probing but when he opened his eyes, her hands were not near where he had imagined her touch. He couldn't feel a thing…

  Then she saw the tissue, stuffed in his boxer shorts. She lifted it out, the wadded Kleenex, blotched with dark blood.

  Buffett's face burned. Sweat broke out on his face.

  The nurse's cruel or indifferent mouth tightened. She dropped the Kleenex into the wastebasket and bent and spread apart his pubic hair. She studied the small gash next to his penis. It wasn't long or deep but it had bled a lot. The hair was matted and there was a red stain on the catheter. The nurse sighed then took short, shiny scissors and trimmed the thick hair back.

  She washed the cut and put gauze over it, then taped the gauze to the spot with white adhesive tape. She pulled the gloves off and threw them out.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "I just…"

  Her dark lids lowered knowingly. "You wanted to see if you could feel something." Her tongue clicked. "People like you… You make it worse. You make everybody's job worse."

  Buffett watched her go. His eyes then slipped to the medical waste box, where his precious syringe had been. He looked up at the blank TV screen, hands in his lifeless lap, and stared at the ceiling, waiting for tears that never came. Finally he reached up and in fury began tugging at a jump rope, which was hung over a traction bar above his bed. After he had spent the entire morning-7:00 A.M. to noon-having tests done Buffett had asked an orderly to rig a rope over the bar so he could work on his arms. He would grip the handles hard, pulling against himself, first letting the right arm be the weak one, then the left.

  The orderly watched him with approval. "Man, I ain't gonna arm-wrestle you."

  Buffett now began the workout again. He was counting down from sixty. When he exercised, he always counted down, rather than up, because it was harder to quit if your goal was to reach zero.

  Fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six…

  If you did quit before you got to your goal, that was the worst. Something terrible would happen.

  Like, for instance, the Terror would get you.

  Forty-seven, forty-six, forty-five…

  Sweating.

  Pull, pull, pull.

  On diirty-three Wendy Weiser strolled into the room.


  "Hey, Donnie."

  "Yo, Doctor."

  "How you feeling today?"

  "Nifty." Buffett kept a nifty smile on his face.

  Phantom pain, phantom smile. Fair enough, huh?

  She pulled up the chair in that way of hers and dropped into it, like she was sitting on her boyfriends lap. He thought of it as charming. He was not quite sure if that word fit or how someone can sit charmingly but that's what he thought. He had been here two or three days now and he'd had five dreams about her already. Sometimes, when he was awake, he fantasized about her, he thought about the way she sat down, the way she kept her legs spread slightly when she sat, the way she slouched, which hid the shape of her breasts, the way her panty hose would rustle, the lab coat would fall… He did not let the fantasies get beyond that point.

  Dr. Weiser was the only thing that troubled him about killing himself. He hoped she wouldn't be the one to find his body.

  "You want something to drink?"

  "Scotch. Glenfiddich. Aged twelve years. Neat."

  Snappy Dannie, snappy jokes.

  "OJ?"

  "I'll pass." She opened his chart. "I see we've got you lined up for more tests over the next couple days. There still isn't much to report. Spinal shock is slowly subsiding."

  Weiser then did some poking and probing of her own and went through the same neuro exams that Gould had done a few days before. When he touched his nose she said, "Good," the same way Gould had, and though he wished her version meant something more than His, it clearly didn't. She made a notation on his chart, sat back, then lit a cigarette.

  "You cut yourself," she said.

  He nodded, avoiding her eyes. He pushed a dangling handle of the jump rope out of the way.

  "I…" His words stopped.

  "I know how anxious you are to find out about your recovery," she said kindly. "But until the shock subsides, all you can do is hurt yourself doing something like that. You could get a bad infection. Hospitals are filthy. They're full of bacteria."

  "Sepsis," Donnie whispered desperately.

  "Sepsis." She studied him for a moment then said, "You want to know about sex."

  "I want to…" He nodded, then confessed, "I wanted to see if I could feel anything. Down there."

  She told him it was too early to know much. But she agreed to tell him a few things. Weiser added, "I don't have much time now. I'm going away for a couple days."

  His heart choked. She was leaving him.

  The Terror at least was pleased at this news and pawed Buffett mercilessly as he sweated and clung to the gingham jump rope.

  "Where you going?" he asked, to take his mind off the Terror's maul.

  "I have place at Lake of the Ozarks."

  "You married?"

  "I'm divorced."

  He remembered she had mentioned that.

  Weiser added, "I have a boyfriend."

  "I go down there some. Horses. A lot of horses, I remember… And trees." A vague memory came to him, then vanished.

  "Unfortunately, Donnie, there are no short answers to the sexual aspects of SCI."

  " 'Aspect'… You doctors use funny words." For an instant his facade cracked. She paused as she noticed the blip of anger in his face. His smile returned.

  "You worry about it a lot?"

  "What the hell else is there to do?" He grinned. "I stare at Vanna White's tits all day long."

  Weiser laughed. "We know from the location and nature of the trauma that you won't be able to walk again, Donnie. At least not with the state of the technology now. But sexual dysfunction is still an open question in this stage of your recovery."

  Dis function, dis function…

  Buffett was hugely disappointed in her. She was bull-shiting him. Partnership? A good team? Crap.

  "Even in the worst case there's a lot we can do."

  As she talked his thoughts wandered. Down at her summer place, how often would she fuck her boyfriend? Would she tell him about Buffett? Would she lie underneath him and whisper to him that she had spent the morning talking about pricks and come to a eunuch? Would that make her boyfriend hump her harder?

  "… two concerns. The act of intercourse. And second, siring children… Now, a man …"

  She probably made love to her boyfriend four, five times a week. She probably had shuddering orgasms, she probably took him into her mouth…

  "… two types of erections. Reflexogenic and psychogenic. Reflexogenic are caused by some stimuli to the genitals, the penis, of course, primarily, but also to the prostate or bladder. You don't need your brain to participate in order to have this kind of erection."

  Ping. Sweat sprang to Buffett s skin.

  The Terror was having a ball.

  Buffetts armpits itched. He felt sweat appearing where it never had before-his cheek, his ears, the backs of his hands. Jesus God Almighty, his wrists were sweating! As if the moisture were crawling out of his flawed body, escaping.

  "You wake up in the morning with an erection, that's reflexogenic. Psychogenic is the type of erection in response to fantasies, visual stimuli-thoughts that turn us on."

  Weiser paused to ask, "Are you okay?"

  "Hot in here."

  She stood up and opened the window. She turned her back to him, and the silk skirt was taut against her butt. He saw the outline of her panties. Donnie swallowed.

  She sat down again. Lit a cigarette, drew on it deeply three times, then crushed it out.

  "I'll give you an exam. We'll find out if your lesion is upper-motor neuron or lower-motor neuron. If it's upper, you'll be able to have reflexogenic erections…" What is she talking about?

  "If it's lower-motor neuron, that will mean your sexual activity will be what we call areflexic…"

  "Psychogenic?" Buffett tried to concentrate. He hated words like that, big words, Doctor words. The Terror ate them up.

  They gave the Terror strength-ha, a hard-on! It stirred and stepped over his pain, the phantom pain, the betraying pain, and slid into his gut. Then the Terror moved through his chest. Buffett clenched his teeth and tightened his stomach muscles to keep it from oozing into his heart, where he knew it would kill him.

  He kept his eyes locked on to hers and he pulled at the jump rope hard. Arm wrestling with the Terror.

  "There are four possibilities. You could be complete or incomplete reflex, or complete or incomplete areflex. The most severe is complete areflex-that means no reflex activity and no brain involvement."

  Here is Donnie Buffett, six feet away from a beautiful woman, with sparkling green eyes, talking to him about hard dicks…

  He glances down at the small, motionless bump at his groin and feels the Terror dig an inch closer to his heart.

  "Usually, in the case of gunshots, the lesion isn't complete. In the case of areflexic patients with incomplete lesions, three-fourths of them have intercourse, and more than half have ejaculations and orgasms."

  But I'm not going to be one of them. A girl in a tight leather skirt talks to me about coming and I can't feel a thing…

  "It may not be necessary-it probably won't be-but you might want to consider a prosthetic."

  Buffett thought that meant artificial leg.

  "… There are a couple different kinds of penile implants."

  The Terror was really up for this, carousing, squirming, swimming on its fucking back. The sweat poured. Buffett swallowed.

  "Now, on the question of siring children, spinal injury generally results in a decreased sperm count, but many people without SCI have problems conceiving, and there are a number of techniques…"

  A son? What about a son?

  And, that was it-bang, the Terror got him.

  Donnie Buffett shook like an antelope in a lion's jaws.

  Her eyes were narrowing a little, squinting, as he wiped the sweat off his face. "Donnie- "

  He looked at her and swallowed. "I'm sorry." He tapped his shoulder. "I've still got a hell of a lot of pain. You know, where


  I got shot here. It's really a bitch sometimes."

  "Do you want something for it?"

  "No, I just get these twinges. Makes me sweat like a pig. Keep going." A smile. "Please."

  He could say that only because he was dead. The Terrors fangs had shredded his heart. He was gone. He was as polite as a corpse at the wake.

  She continued for a few minutes then offered some conclusion. Something cheerful, something snappy. He nodded and had no idea what she had said. She said she was sorry she had to leave. They'd talk again soon. He thanked her. Looked her right in the eye and said, "This's been real, you know, reassuring. I appreciate it." They shook hands. Buffett told her to have a nice weekend.

  When she was gone he picked up the phone and called Bob Gianno at the Maddox police station. They talked about nothing for a while and when Buffett could wait no longer he asked the detective for a phone number. There was silence for a moment and then Buffett heard the numbers. He memorized them. He asked Gianno, "This is one of those cellular phones, right?"

  "Yeah, it's in his Winnebago."

  "And I just call it like a regular number?"

  'That's all you have to do."

  TWELVE

  Through his closed eyes, Donnie Buffett was aware of a shadow over him. He hoped it was not Penny.

  He particularly hoped it wasn't her parents.

  The nurse changing the urine bag would have been okay.

  The nurse changing the Foley's wouldn't have been.

  He was pleased to see that it was John Pellam.

  BufFett said, "Hey, chief, it's you."

  Pellam nodded and walked into the room.

  "You got more flowers. Looks like a nursery."

  "Yeah. I don't like flowers so much, you know. She said she didn't want them, that girl of yours. But you ought to take some to her. What's her name? Tell her you bought 'em."

  "I'm glad you called. I was going to stop by."

  Buffett waved to the chair. "Why? You in the mood for more abuse?"

  Pellam laughed.

  "I was feeling bad, you know. I was a real shit."

  "No problem," Pellam said.

  "I kind of go crazy. I didn't-"

  "I understand. You doing okay?"