Part 57 (2/2)

I asked, ”This person who ran away after the shooting, could you guess whether it was a man or a woman?”

”Man,” they said simultaneously.

That was all they had. It was too foggy to waste any more time there. Stick and I left our cars in the parking lot and headed for the hospital with Dutch. The lights in the back of the bank were out when we left.

There were a couple of blue and whites parked at the hospital emergency entrance and one car that could have been an unmarked police vehicle. The long, beige hallway inside the emergency doors was empty, as was the emergency operating room. Raines was in ICU, which was on the second floor.

Four uniformed cops and two plainclothes detectives held the unit captive.

”You taking this one on?” one of them asked Dutch.

”It's personal” was all the big Dutchman said in return.

The chief surgeon and the resident were there but noncommunicative. They were waiting for Raines' personal physician. An intern with the trauma unit, however, confirmed what we already knew and added a few details: that Harry Raines had been shot once in the left forehead by a large-caliber weapon, that it had been held close enough to cause heavy powder burning, that he was beyond critical and, as far as the intern was concerned, was moribund.

”He's a lot more dead than alive,” the young doctor said. ”If he lives another hour, the Catholics probably sanctify the whole wing.”

”How's that?” Dutch asked.

”Because it would be a miracle,” the young doctor said.

”Any idea what kind of gun did it?” I asked.

”I don't know about things like that,” he said. ”That's police work. ”

The intensive care unit was a fairly small room with curtained cubicles around its perimeter for patients and a control bank of machines and monitors at its core. Every cubicle was monitored by closed-circuit TV. There were three nurses on duty, all of whom seemed very busy. The two doctors retired to an empty cubicle and pulled the curtain behind them.

I could see Raines, in the tiny black-and-white TV screen, half his face bound up in bandages, muttering to himself.

”Do you have a tape recorder in that war wagon of yours?” I asked the Stick.

”Yeah, minicorder. A Pearl with a voice activator.”

”Get it fast,” I whispered, and he was gone, returning in less than five minutes with a recorder no bigger than the palm of my hand.

”Fresh batteries and a fresh tape,” he said. ”You gonna try and tape Raines?”

”Yeah. Keep the jokers at the door busy for a minute or two.”

When I could, I slipped behind the curtain into Raines' cubicle and hung the tape recorder over the retaining bar by his head. His lips were moving but his words were jumbled. He was the color of clay, his unbandaged eye partially open and rolling crazily under the lid.

As I came back out of the cubicle, a small whirlwind of a woman in a dark gray business suit burst into the room. She was about five one, on the good side of forty, could have dropped ten or fifteen pounds without missing it, looked colder than a nun's kiss, and was meaner than Attila the Hun. She took over like the storm-troopers in Paris, snapping orders in a voice an octave deeper than nature had intended, punctuating every word with a thin, manicured spear of a finger. I could hear the arctic air whistling through her veins as she snapped orders to the four men with her. I stood back and watched the performance.

”You two get into hospital blues,” she said. ”You, get on the door. n.o.body gets in unless I say so. And you, sit by that control desk. ”

Then she saw me.

”Who are you?” she snapped icily, jabbing the spear under my nose.

”I could be the doctor,” I snapped back.

She looked me up and down. ”Not a chance,” she said.

”The name's Kilmer. Federal Racket Squad.”

”Out,” she barked, tossing her thumb over her shoulder like an umpire at home plate. ”He's mine.”

”And who the h.e.l.l are you?” I demanded.

She stuck her tiny, bulldog face as close to mine as she could get it without standing on her toes and said, ”Galavanti. Honoree Galavanti, G-a-l-a-v-a-n-t-i. Oglethorpe County DA. I've got my own people with me. I don't need you, so out.”

”Not so fast,” I challenged.

”Listen, here, uh, what was your name again?”

An act. This was a tough lady, but then she would have to be. It would take a tough lady to get elected DA in Stonewall t.i.tan's macho court.

”Kilmer. K-i-l-m-e-r.”

”Oh, yeah. Scram.”

”Aren't you pus.h.i.+ng this DA thing a little far?” I said.

She glared at me for several moments and said, ”They told me you'd be trouble.”

”Who's they?” I asked.

”Everybody that's met you,” she snapped back.

Then she saw the tape recorder on the retaining bar beside Raines' head.

”What's that?” she demanded, spearing the air with her finger again.

”That is a tape recorder.”

”Listen to me-”

I pulled her to one corner, away from the nurses, who were trying not to listen, and said, ”Won't you step into my private office? I think maybe we should talk.”

I led her into another empty cubicle and sat her down on the bed.

”Leave the recorder where it is. Anything that's on it is yours. All I want to do is hear it. If he says anything before he checks out, we share.”

”You sound like his checking out is a fait accompli,” she said.

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