Thirteen West (27 page)

"Goddamn prison rules," Tate said. "You run this place like San Quentin."

"You should know."

"Come on—I never been inside there."

"You seen one jail, you seen them all," the tech said. "Don't try to shit me you don't know the inside of a drunk tank."

In the day room, Dolph got up from his chair.

"Where you going?" the tech inside asked.

"To the men's john."

The tech watched him go down the hall to the bathroom. Dolph went in and flushed the toilet. He waited a few minutes and flushed it again. Then he stuck his head out and looked up the hall. The next shift was coming in and the techs were laughing and talking to one another. Dolph slipped along the hall and into Laura Jean's room. He came out clutching the jacket.

David, coming on duty, noticed where he was coming from and grabbed him. "What were you doing in there?" he said. "That's not your room."

"Got lost. Looking for my room." He held up the jacket. "Got my green jacket back."

David raised his eyebrows. Damned if the guy didn't have a man's green jacket. Whether it was really his or not, odds were he hadn't swiped it from Laura Jean.

"Maybe it is yours, at that," he conceded. "You've been bleating long enough about losing one. But you don't go into rooms you don't belong in—you hear?"

"I feel dizzy," Dolph said. "They gave me a shot and I need to lay down. I was looking for my bed."

David hesitated. He could herd Dolph back into the day room, but he'd probably keep trying to sneak out and find his room which, of course, was locked.

"Okay," he told Dolph, unlocking the door to his room and ushering him in.

Dolph made a beeline for his bed, lay down and covered the upper part of his body with the green jacket.

"You stay put," David warned.

Dolph closed his eyes without replying.

After lying still for a long time—easy to do 'cause he did feel kind of dizzy—Dolph opened his eyes and looked toward the hall. No one. He turned on his side with his back to the door and slid the jacket onto the bed in front of him.

With his body concealing what he was doing, he slipped his hand inside the jacket and unzipped the inner pocket, extracting a brown bottle. He forgot a lot of things, he knew that, but he'd remembered this right. He sat up and opened it carefully. Nearly full. He tipped it up and drank greedily.

Dolph finished the bottle and stared at it solemnly. They'd be mad. Have to hide it. He fumbled the cap on and got it back into the inner jacket pocket. He lay back down on the bed, warmth flowing inside him like a molten river.

Tate sat fuming in the day room where they were keeping him as a punishment. Usually he was privileged to use his room in the evening if he wanted to. Now he'd have to find a way to talk Lew or David into letting him out of here. "Look," he said to Lew. "I wasn't doing a damn thing, just talking to my buddy outside. You know that day shift—always looking to jump on someone. All I want to do is go to my room."

Lew shrugged. Never had liked that guy on days. Smart ass, forever trying to make time with the chicks—the kind Becky went for. Thought he was King Shit, shooting off his mouth. Serve him right, getting transferred to nights 'cause Lew was replacing him on days. Sure would be a drag if he had to work the same shift with him.

"Okay," he said to Tate. "The doors are all unlocked now—you can go to your room. Only stay out of trouble."

"I don't get into trouble," Tate protested.

"That's what they all tell me."

Tate started up the hall, saw Lew wasn't watching him, doubled back and dived into Laura Jean's room.

Sally straightened, turning from Laura's Jean's bed to stare at him.

"Look, I accidentally dropped something in here," he said quickly. "I'll just grab it and clear out." He ducked behind the door, but the jacket was gone. A fast glance around the room didn't locate it. "You find a green jacket?" he demanded.

Sally shook her head "You'd better get out of here," she told him.

"You sure? Somebody must've found it."

"I'm sure. And no one's mentioned finding a jacket. You know you don't belong in here, Mr. Taterson."

He stepped into the hall. If she hadn't found it and the jacket was gone—where was it?

Tate struck his forehead with the heel of his palm.

That little guy who used to be his roommate—what was his name? Dolph. Him. The one who trailed around after him, who'd tried to take the jacket before. Dolph hadn't been in the day room, come to think of it.

Tate hurried along the hall to his old room, the one he used to share with the guy. Sure enough, there he was on the bed with the jacket spread over him. What a sneaky little bugger. He went in and yanked the jacket off Dolph, felt the zipped pocket and found the bottle still there. Dolph didn't stir. Good. Let him wonder what happened when he woke up. Tate took the jacket to his room and stashed it in the cupboard. He wouldn't risk taking a drink till after supper. Lew might just decide to check on him.

* * *

"I hear you're leaving us for days,"
Alma
said to Lew as they served supper trays in the dining room.

"Yeah, it works out better with my wife and all—she's on days."

"Glad it's nothing personal."

"In a way, I kind of hate to change—I get along good on this shift."

Alma
smiled. "I can hear you now, once you get on days, complaining about the way the evening shift does things."

Lew shook his head. He was going to miss most of the other techs on this shift and Ms Reynolds, too. Long as you did your work, she never bugged you. He dreaded the possibility he'd be assigned to the ECTs once he got on days. Then he'd have to take Laura Jean over there and watch while they put the electrodes on, watch her arch up against the straps when the current zapped her. Bummer.

Alma
took a deep breath. She hadn't been sure she could make it through the evening but no one seemed to notice how artificial her smiles were nor how stiff her behavior. And no one had said a word about it. Was it possible the whole horrible story wasn't all over the hospital?

The day charge had given her an odd look—she'd heard something, all right. By tomorrow the grape vine would have spread some version of it far and wide.

Charlie'd insisted she come back to
L.A.
with him but she couldn't do that, she had to give her proper notice and leave in an orderly fashion. You had to do things right. Didn't he understand? It was her career, after all, and she didn't want it on her record that she'd left without notice. Looked like Willie might make it. As her grandmother would say, took more than a knife in a lung to kill a man born to be hanged.

"I can't wake Dolph up," Sally said to
Alma
, appearing at her elbow.

"He had a shot of Thorazine just before change of shift. It's probably zonked him,"
Alma
said. "We can save his supper for later."

Sally hesitated. Dolph had looked odd to her, but maybe that was to be expected in a heavily tranquilized patient. "All right. I got Laura Jean to feed herself with some help. I could hardly believe it."

"Shock does that sometimes—brings them back in a hurry."

"Oh!" Sally exclaimed, then quickly looked away from the door, covering her mouth with her hand.

Alma
glanced at her in surprise. "What's the matter?"

"N-nothing," Sally stammered, staring down at the tray of food she held to avoid watching Frank come into the dining room. All she could do was pray he wouldn't stay on the ward very long because she wouldn't be able to function with him around.

Frank knew Sally was in the room, even if he didn't dare look directly at her. He'd dreaded this moment and it was as bad as he'd expected it to be. Apparently she hadn't told anyone. Why? In her place he would have. Like she said, he was no better than an animal.

Chapter Eighteen

Night cloaked the
Carson
Valley
. Outside, stars did their twinkling dance in the black velvet of the sky and the half moon shed its pale light earthward….a romantic setting Sarah wanted no part of. She and Frank were inside, sitting in her living room, in two identical chairs she'd bought after the divorce to replace the mama and papa chairs she'd always loathed.

The chairs were angled toward each other, a conversational grouping with an occasional table separating them. They'd brought their tea in here after supper. The empty cups still sat on the table.

Rather than address what lay simmering between them, Sarah said, "When I was outside earlier, I thought I heard the phone." She knew perfectly well if she had heard it, Frank would have let the answering machine take the call—he never answered the phone—but she'd forgotten to check the machine.

"Your daughter called to find out how you were bearing up," Frank said. "I assured her I hadn't murdered you yet."

"Frank, you didn't!"

He shrugged. "She seemed relieved."

"You actually took the call?"

"Why not? You keep telling me I should start doing things on my own. Since I can't stay here forever, I'm giving it a try. I realize now what a damn fool risk you took snatching me off that
San Diego
street." His gaze trapped hers. "You never did know what was good for you, did you, Sally?"

Sarah's heart fluttered apprehensively when she heard him say Sally—always before he'd said Sarah. "You know."

"In a way, I must have known who you were from the moment you called me by name in
San Diego
. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone with you."

She couldn't quite believe that. As dazed and sick as he'd been? "You couldn't have recognized me."

"Not by the way you look now, no. But there's more to knowing someone than appearance." He rose from the chair and leaned against the fireplace mantel. "You regretted letting me in that night at Calafia. Yet you deliberately did it again after all these years. Why, Sally?"

She swallowed, unsure of the answer. "There you are, looming over me again, damn it."

Frank took two steps and dropped onto the carpeted floor where he sat at her feet, leaning his head on the chair perilously close to her knee. "Better?"

"I'm not sure." She'd touched him many, many times while he was recovering, but that had been in a nurse/patient relationship. Frank was no longer her patient. They no longer touched.

"You always were hard to satisfy."

"You never tried!" she snapped.

"Can't argue with that." He eased down, stretching out on his back on the floor, hands behind his head. "Satisfied?"

She gave him a reluctant smile.

"Do you want to talk about it or not?" he asked her.

"What part?" she temporized.

He shook his head. "Don't give me that."

Gazing down at him, she marveled at how far he'd come from the stumblebum she'd rescued. He was a still a good looking man at what—fifty eight?—despite the abuse his body had taken over God only knew how many years.

"You had a quick enough tongue as Sarah," he said. "But now that you're Sally, you're reverting, turning inward again."

Solo ambled into the room, crawled onto Frank's chest and settled down to purr.

"You can't be all bad if cats like you," she said, still avoiding his question.

"Too bad you didn't own a cat when you were almost twenty," he shot back.

"You were all bad then," she blurted.

He half-smiled. "And I'm not now? How do you know?"

"I'm not a skinny kid any longer. I've put on a few years and a few pounds since then."