CHAPTER FIVE

Myra died on Tuesday at 11:43 A.M. The hospital called him, right there in his office. It was Dr. Hilton. Nick just said, “Yeah, oh, okay. I should have been there.”

“Nick, she wasn’t conscious. Okay? Don’t hold that against yourself.”

“Yeah, but I should have been there.”

They’d said it would probably come at the end of the week. The vital signs were very low and she hadn’t come out of the coma for nearly ten days. So it was not unexpected, but when these things happen, they carry a sort of devastation with them that is impossible to imagine. Nick was stupefied at how hard it hit him, sitting there in his office, listening to the chatter and hum of life going on about him. He remembered that on one of her last clear days she herself had told him to be strong, to get himself ready, that her time was near.

And, of course, she told him not to feel bad. He’d done as much as any man could do, he’d paid all his debts, oh, lord, he’d paid them. It was worth it, she said. There’d never have been a Nick for her any way except the way it happened, and she was glad that it had happened the way it had happened. Now he was to go have some fun.

That was Myra. Never asked for much, and certainly didn’t get much, but somehow made her way through it, never picking up the bitterness some people who have far more seem to acquire. He wished she were with him now, because over the years he’d come to rely on her in special ways, almost as much as she’d had to rely on him. But that was stupid; he wished his wife were here to help him get through the death of his wife!

Instead, Nick got up and found Hap Fencl, and told him he had to go out for a little while. And that maybe he was going to take some time off now.

“Myra?”

“Yeah, finally. Boy, she fought.”

“You want a Valium or anything, Nick, old son?”

“Nah, I’m okay.”

“What you got ticking? Anything hot I can look over for you while you’re gone? Got a bust or two coming up? I love the hairy stuff, you know me. A commando type.”

This was a joke; Hap stood five feet eight and weighed about 150 pounds, while Nick was a wide man, thick and strong and a judo champ, black belt, and still the best shot in the office. But Nick didn’t laugh, because he’d sort of phased out there for a second. He blinked, and pulled himself back.

“Oh? Uh, nothing, no. The usual. Following Colombians all over the town with Mickey Sontag, that’s all. Mickey’s out at the cop range today on that SWAT qualification. I was just going to push some paper, more or less, until he comes back.”

Hap was the supervisory agent in charge here in the New Orleans office, and a very good guy, easy to work with. He specialized in organized crime, while Nick worked drugs, usually in liaison with the DEA, mainly because he had a diplomatic touch and got along well with what most of the other men called the DOA boys.

So it was no problem for Nick to drive out to the hospital. He got there in fifteen minutes, on a drive so blank it could have lasted for fifteen hours and taken him from Omaha to Tallahassee.

They hadn’t moved her.

“Do you mind? Could I be alone with her for just a minute?” he said to the nurse.

“Sure. But we’ll have to take her to the mortuary soon enough.”

“Yeah. I know.”

They scurried out. Nick looked around, hating the goddamned room. It was like all the rooms he’d spent his life in, anonymous, personalityless, some fake paintings on the wall, the smell of plastic and disinfectant heavy in the air. Yet, hating it, he knew Myra wouldn’t have minded it. It was never her way to mind such things.

“I was meant to die that day,” she once told him, “like the other two girls, and that man. But your bullet saved me. It delivered me. It gave me you, Nick Memphis, it made me Mrs. Nick Memphis, and so what I’ve got is all gravy. It’s dessert. Six years of dessert.”

Well, dammit, now he was crying, wasn’t he? She’d forbidden that. When it became clear that her collapse was accelerating and Dr. Hilton said there was almost no chance at all, she’d told him she couldn’t have him crying.

You should be happy. No more lady in a wheelchair. You’re still a young man. Go out, get drunk, throw a party.

He went to the bed where she lay under a sheet. He’d seen corpses, of course, at crime scenes, in morgues, and when his mother had died in 1977, while he was at Quantico. And of course he’d seen them in the Tulsa street that day. But still he found himself shuddering and had to make himself pull the sheet back, wondering if he should. But he wanted to. He wanted to see her once more.

Of course the coma had drained the flesh from her face, and her eyes, those hot, bright, fascinating eyes, were closed, and some time ago they’d cut her red hair short, almost as a boy’s. But it was Myra.

She looked like a little bird. Her skin was pale, and her bones were as fragile and precise as doilies. But the pain was gone. Myra had pretty much lived in pain for six years. No arms, no legs, plenty of pain. So her face had a kind of repose it never quite achieved in life.

Oh boy, he thought, honey I am really fucking up. You said not to cry and I’ve just lost it, lost it, lost it.

“Nick?”

It was the doctor.

“Nick, you want us to get you anything?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“We have to take her now.”

“All right.”

He stood back and let them have his wife.

Nick went out into the sun, blinked, reached for a cigarette before he remembered he’d quit. He put on his sunglasses, because he felt his eyes swollen and pouchy. He tried to think. Then he remembered there wasn’t much to think about. They’d made plans, he knew where she was going, and when the funeral would be. It would be in two days, which would make it, let’s see, Thursday. Between now and then, it was all automatic, all of it.

He supposed he ought to go home, maybe some people would come by or something, some guys from the office, maybe their wives. He’d taken Myra to some of the parties over the years, and once they’d gotten over their clumsiness about The Tragedy, as he knew it was called, they got to like her, and some of the wives grew close to Myra and had the habit of dropping in.

But he shook the image out of his head, feeling the temptation to slide back into the good old days. He knew that way was craziness, he’d end up in another crying jag. He tried to get hold of himself, thought the best thing might be to go for a long drive, just point the car toward Biloxi and go, maybe spend a couple of days lying at the beach. Jesus, maybe find a girl, like Myra said, get laid, for crying out loud.

But he knew he couldn’t and he wouldn’t do that. He didn’t know what to do. That was the hardest part. He just didn’t know what to do. Then he thought about going to the movies or something, anything to just take his head out of here for a few hours. But movies were usually filled with people getting killed or maimed and he didn’t feel up to it.

At last he hit on the lake. He’d just drive over there down by the water where it would be calm and cool and he could sit there and enjoy the scenery and let the sun melt on his face for a couple of hours, and just chill out, flatten out, drift a bit. But he figured he ought to call in, what the hell, just in case.

He found a pay phone and dropped the quarter.

Fencl answered.

“Hey, Hap, I think I’m shorted out for the day. I’m going to fade, okay?”

“That’s cool, big guy. Hey, the guys want to take up a collection.”

“No flowers. She didn’t want flowers. And don’t break any arms, okay? They want to give, fine. If not, that’s fine, too. And give it in her name to some charity. That would be very, very nice, I’d like that a lot.”

“Great, no problem. By the way, you got a snitch named Eduardo?”