Glitz

Teddy said, “I want to be looking in your eyes as I pull the trigger.”

“Why, Ted?”

“I’m not Ted, I’m Teddy.”

Shit. “Okay. Would you tell me-see, I don’t understand-why you want to do that?”

“You don’t know what I feel or anything about me. You think you do.”

“I give you that impression?”

“Cut the bullshit. Time you busted me seven and a half years ago, I could tell. Like you thought you could see inside me. Well, you can’t.”

“No, I’d be the first to admit that. I think what we have here is a misunderstanding…” Jesus Christ, did they.

Vincent was about to stumble on, think of something, anything, when he saw a figure in white, beyond Teddy’s right shoulder, run from the building entrance to the cars parked in the courtyard, and he said, “What we should do is clear it up.”

“What else you go

The figure was beyond Teddy’s left shoulder now, among the cars, coming out toward them. Linda, Jesus, in her skimpy white robe.

“You don’t want to be in the position, get brought up for murder-you know, that’s pretty serious-and find out you were wrong. I don’t mean wrong, I mean you misinterpreted, made an honest mistake of what you thought I was thinking.”

Hearing himself but seeing Linda, Jesus, holding his police gun out in front of her in both hands, sneaking up hunched over, maybe twenty feet away and closing in. Teddy was saying “Bullshit!” repeating it with feeling, with everything he had, working himself up. Teddy saying, “Look at me! Look at me in the eye, goddamn it!” Vincent wanted to. He raised his eyebrows to stretch his eyes open wide, felt like an idiot and didn’t care, wanting with all his heart to tell Linda about the safety at the back end of the slide on a Smith & Wesson Model 39 parabellum. If it was on and she tried to fire and Teddy heard her… Wait. Or if it was off and she did fire a steel-jacketed nine-millimeter round right at Teddy right in front of him…

Teddy was saying, “Open ’em wide! Come on, wider!” Showing the whites of his own wild eyes, Teddy right at the edge…

As Linda stretched both arms all the way out, braced herself and fired.

And Vincent closed and opened his eyes, saw her juggle the gun and drop it as Teddy slammed into him and Teddy’s gun went off between them into the grocery sack of bottles, went off again and went off again, the bottles gone now as Vincent tried to grab hold of Teddy clinging to him and put him down, step on his gun. But something was wrong. Shit, he knew what it was. It wasn’t pain, not yet, it was his strength going. He had been shot somewhere and the rug-burn pain would come once his adrenaline drained off. He had learned that the other time. He had to find Teddy’s gunhand right now, Teddy holding on like dead weight. He got hold of Teddy’s arm and took a step and threw him as hard as he could, but it wasn’t enough. Teddy reeled off, staggering, but stayed on his feet. Vincent started after him and his legs lost their purpose, wouldn’t work. It was Vincent who went down and had to crawl in the dark toward Linda’s white bare feet on the pavement-where his gun was supposed to be and wasn’t-Linda saying something, mad or urgent. He couldn’t tell or stop to look up at her and listen, not now, or explain what he had in mind. But she knew. She came down to him on her knees holding the Smith and put it in his hand, grip into the palm. She knew. He turned with one hand on the ground, gun extended in the other and put it on Teddy. Vincent paused to say “Drop it.” Gave him that option.

Teddy looked wobbly, drunk, weaving as he aimed the bright-metal piece right at them, at one or the other, from less than twenty feet. So Vincent shot him. Put one dead center through Teddy’s solar plexus and killed the poor wimp who thought he was magic and couldn’t be scared.

29

VINCENT MADE A TRIP through the Ashford Medical Center from Emergency to Surgery to Intensive Care without seeing much of it. In the morning they moved him to a private room on the second floor of the old hospital’s newer wing. Through the window at an angle he could see the high-rise top of Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge against blue sky. A good sign.

He believed he was on safe ground legally. Even after the guy had shot him, attempting to commit murder, he had offered the guy the option of staying alive, for an indeterminate period of time, or dying then and there. He had not read the fine print to him, but that was what “Drop it” amounted to.

He believed he was reasonably okay physically, though his chart would indicate some kind of trauma inside, an insulted organ maybe; he did have a couple of tubes in him and a key question to ask somebody. He knew the pain he felt could be relieved. If his condition were serious he’d be in a room full of monitors and not looking at Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge.

They had given him good dope. He opened his eyes to see Linda in the hall talking to DeLeon and Lorendo Paz, Linda the one he wanted to see.

When she came to him she looked so sad and then felt so good, close, and smelled so good, kissing him, touching his face, asking him if he was all right, if he needed anything. He asked her if she would go close the door.

She smiled-he was all right-closed it, came back to him and he asked her where he was shot, touching the sheet below his waist, close to his groin.

“I think it’s right here. But what I don’t know-did I lose anything important?”

“About six inches of bowel. You can’t eat Puerto Rican food anymore. The bullet lodged in your gluteus maximus,” Linda said, “your ass.”

“I know where my gluteus maximus is.”

“Can I look?”

“You want to?”

She pulled the sheet down carefully, lifted his gray hospital gown. “You’ve got stitches in your groin, like you had your appendix out.”

“Nothing’s missing?”

“No, it’s there. Awww, look at it. Poor little guy.”

He said, “Linda? Pull the catheter out, will you? I don’t need it.”

“Should I?”

He could tell she wanted to and he would love her forever if she did. She knew what was good for him, how to make him happy. She pulled the tube out so gently, slowly. What a touch. His eyes filled. He wanted to tell her how much he needed her and wanted to be with her…

But she was kissing him again, brushing his mouth with her lips, murmuring then, close to him, “Vincent, there’s something I have to tell you.” He waited and she said, “You know the bullet they took out of your butt?”

He said, “Oh no, you better not tell me.”

“I have to,” Linda said. “It was from your gun, not Teddy’s. I guess it went right through him.”

He took a moment, breathed in and out, settled. “It will do that.”

“I shot you, Vincent.”

“You didn’t mean to.”

“No, but I shot you. I want you to understand, it wasn’t to get you to stay.”

Vincent said, “Oh.” He said, “Are you sure?”