بخش 02 - فصل 20

20

Hodges drives back across town, fiddling with the radio, looking for some good hard rock and roll. He finds The Knack on BAM-100, singing “My Sharona,” and cranks the volume. When the song ends, the deejay comes on, talking about a big storm moving east out of the Rockies.

Hodges pays no attention. He’s thinking about Brady, and about the first time he saw one of those Zappit game consoles. Library Al handed them out. What was Al’s last name? He can’t remember. If he ever knew it at all, that is.

When he arrives at the watering hole with the amusing name, he finds Norma Wilmer seated at a table in back, far from the madding crowd of businessmen at the bar, who are bellowing and backslapping as they jockey for drinks. Norma has ditched her nurse’s uniform in favor of a dark green pantsuit and low heels. There’s already a drink in front of her.

“I was supposed to buy that,” Hodges says, sitting down across from her.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m running a tab, which you will pay.”

“Indeed I will.”

“Babineau couldn’t get me fired or even transferred if someone saw me talking to you here and reported back to him, but he could make my life difficult. Of course, I could make his a bit difficult, too.”

“Really?”

“Really. I think he’s been experimenting on your old friend Brady Hartsfield. Feeding him pills that contain God knows what. Giving him shots, as well. Vitamins, he says.”

Hodges stares at her in surprise. “How long has this been going on?”

“Years. It’s one of the reasons Becky Helmington transferred. She didn’t want to be the whitecap on ground zero if Babineau gave him the wrong vitamin and killed him.”

The waitress comes. Hodges orders a Coke with a cherry in it.

Norma snorts. “A Coke? Really? Put on your big boy pants, why don’t you?”

“When it comes to booze, I spilled more than you’ll ever drink, honeypie,” Hodges says. “What the hell is Babineau up to?”

She shrugs. “No idea. But he wouldn’t be the first doc to experiment on someone the world doesn’t give shit one about. Ever hear of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment? The US government used four hundred black men like lab rats. It went on for forty years, and so far as I know, not a single one of them ran a car into a bunch of defenseless people.” She gives Hodges a crooked smile. “Investigate Babineau. Get him in trouble. I dare you.”

“It’s Hartsfield I’m interested in, but based on what you’re saying, I wouldn’t be surprised if Babineau turned out to be collateral damage.”

“Then hooray for collateral damage.” It comes out clatteral dammish, and Hodges deduces she’s not on her first drink. He is, after all, a trained investigator.

When the waitress brings his Coke, Norma drains her glass and holds it up. “I’ll have another, and since the gentleman’s paying, you might as well make it a double.” The waitress takes her glass and leaves. Norma turns her attention back to Hodges. “You said you have questions. Go ahead and ask while I can still answer. My mouth is a trifle numb, and will soon be number.”

“Who is on Brady Hartsfield’s visitors list?”

Norma frowns at him. “Visitors list? Are you kidding? Who told you he had a visitors list?”

“The late Ruth Scapelli. This was just after she replaced Becky as head nurse. I offered her fifty bucks for any rumors she heard about him—which was the going rate with Becky—and she acted like I’d just pissed on her shoes. Then she said, ‘You’re not even on his visitors list.’”

“Huh.”

“Then, just today, Babineau said—”

“Some bullshit about the DA’s office. I heard it, Bill, I was there.”

The waitress sets Norma’s new drink in front of her, and Hodges knows he’d better finish up fast, before Norma starts to bend his ear about everything from being underappreciated at work to her sad and loveless love life. When nurses drink, they have a tendency to go all in. They’re like cops that way.

“You’ve been working the Bucket for as long as I’ve been coming there—”

“A lot longer. Twelve years.” Yearsh. She raises her glass in a toast and swallows half of her drink. “And now I have been promoted to head nurse, at least temporarily. Twice the responsibility at the same old salary, no doubt.”

“Seen anybody from the DA’s office lately?”

“Nope. There was a whole briefcase brigade at first, along with pet doctors just itching to declare the son of a bitch competent, but they went away discouraged once they saw him drooling and trying to pick up a spoon. Came back a few times just to double-check, fewer briefcase boys every time, but nothing lately. ’S’far’s they’re concerned, he’s a total gork. Badda-boop, badda-bang, over and out.”

“So they don’t care.” And why would they? Except for the occasional retrospective on slow news days, interest in Brady Hartsfield has died down. There’s always fresh roadkill to pick over.

“You know they don’t.” A lock of hair has fallen in her eyes. She blows it back. “Did anyone try to stop you, all the times you were in to visit him?”

No, Hodges thinks, but it’s been a year and a half since I dropped by. “If there is a visitors list—”

“It’d be Babineau’s, not the DA’s. When it comes to the Mercedes Killer, DA is like honeybadger, Bill. He don’t give a shit.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

“Could you check and see if there is such a list? Now that you’ve been promoted to head nurse?”

She considers, then says, “It wouldn’t be on the computer, that would be too easy to check, but Scapelli kept a couple of file folders in a locked drawer at the duty desk. She was a great one for keeping track of who’s naughty and who’s nice. If I found something, would it be worth twenty to you?”

“Fifty, if you could call me tomorrow.” Hodges isn’t sure she’ll even remember this conversation tomorrow. “Time is of the essence.”

“If such a list exists, it’s probably just power-tripping bullshit, you know. Babineau likes to keep Hartsfield to his little old self.”

“But you’ll check?”

“Yeah, why not? I know where she hides the key to her locked drawer. Shit, most of the nurses on the floor know. Hard to get used to the idea old Nurse Ratched’s dead.”

Hodges nods.

“He can move things, you know. Without touching them.” Norma’s not looking at him; she’s making rings on the table with the bottom of her glass. It looks like she’s trying to replicate the Olympic logo.

“Hartsfield?”

“Who are we talking about? Yeah. He does it to freak out the nurses.” She raises her head. “I’m drunk, so I’ll tell you something I’d never say sober. I wish Babineau would kill him. Just give him a hot shot of something really toxic and boot him out the door. Because he scares me.” She pauses, then adds, “He scares all of us.”