“Two months.”
“Really? I’ve often thought I should call you and suggest we meet, but there’s been so damn much going on at work. Anyway, I’m out driving and actually not too far away from you, if you feel like a visit?”
Pause.
“Now?”
“Yes?”
“This is not a good time. Some other time, maybe.”
“Of course. Anyway, nice to hear your voice, Beatrice. Later then.”
“Tuesday next week is good.”
“Okay. I’ll check how that’s looking for me and I’ll get back to you.”
“Okay.”
Bob closed his eyes and hit the steering wheel. Ants everywhere, under his skin, soap bubbles in his head, prick, prick, shit, shit! The phone rang. That B something, she must have changed her mind. But no, it was from the Homicide Unit.
“Yes?”
“Good evening, Aaa-ss. Your esteemed colleague Hanson here. Are you far from the office?”
“What’s this about, Hanson?”
“You’ve got a visitor. Seems like something important that can’t wait.”
“Who is it and what’s it about?”
“I guess you better come here and find that out for yourself. What I can tell you is that the information from the person concerned appears to be valid and important.”
Bob checked the time. Seven. His working day was over, he could head home now. Home to an apartment stinking of loneliness, dirty laundry, old masturbation tissues and leftover slices of pizza.
“There in twenty,” he said and turned on the ignition.
—
I stood at the reception desk of Regency Hospital. I didn’t yet know whether this was where he was, but there are two hospitals in Minneapolis where they bring people with bullet wounds. My city was not regarded as especially violent in this country, but it has two hospitals with specialists in removing bullets. Of the two, this one was closest to Jordan.
“I’m visiting my cousin,” I said. “But I don’t know which ward he’s in.”
I spelled out the name Marco Dante and the woman behind the counter typed it into a computer. Reflected in the lenses of herglasses I could see the screen flickering. Saw her study for a few moments the page that came up before she answered.
“We don’t have any record of a patient of that name being admitted,” she said.
But her hesitation and the vagueness of her answer told me all I needed to know. She probably had a note saying no information was to be given to anyone asking about Marco Dante. Which could mean he had some kind of protection. I thanked her, told her I must have got the wrong hospital, and turned away. I headed toward the elevators and stood waiting among people carrying flowers, their shoulders hunched, anxious looks on their faces. There were no checks on visitors, no barriers, maybe because it wasn’t a private hospital and they couldn’t afford that type of security. No one asked to see my ID, or what I was carrying under my jacket that made it bulge. I entered and exited the elevator on a couple of floors, peered down long corridors but didn’t see anything that might have given me a clue. So when a man wearing white with a hospital ID card on his breast pocket got into the elevator I told him I’d been asked to deliver a set of keys to an Officer Smith who was on guard duty here but that someone must have directed me to the wrong floor.
“Ah, that must be the man sitting outside531,” he replied, and without my asking pushed the button for 5.
I got out on the fifth floor. Read the numbers off the doors as I passed along the busy corridor. Took a right turn and there, on a chair against the wall, sat a uniformed policeman. He was staring straight ahead, probably had something on his mind—don’t we all? I slowed down. Fewer people here. My plan was to reconnoiter first and work out the best time to act, maybe when the guard had to use the bathroom or went to get himself a coffee. But as a plan I saw now that it was weak, too vague, it called for improvisation, and I hadn’t reckoned on that. I’d thought of my mainplan, my big idea, as being so watertight that Dante ought to be dead by now, so that improvisation wouldn’t be necessary.
And in that same instant I realized that this improvised plan was dead too, that I had to get out of there. Because suddenly the police officer turned and was now staring directly at me. Head motionless, neck tensed, like a deer sensing or hearing the presence of danger. The risk involved in going ahead with my plan was too great. I wasn’t afraid on my own account, only that the bigger plan would be compromised. So I kept walking. I could feel the policeman’s gaze following me. As I was about to walk past him the door opened and two men appeared, both wearing suits; one was unusually tall and slender. He made me think of a Maasai warrior. They exchanged a few words with the guard. Police officers.
At the next intersection in the corridor I took a right and soon found myself close to the elevators again. I could see the backs of the two police officers as they stood waiting. I could’ve taken the stairs. Of course. Instead I stood behind them and waited too. Listened.
“It doesn’t feel right,” one of them whispered.
