until Hilroy appears through a door on the opposite side of the room. He does a double-take when he spots me, then gives the orderly the okay to leave.
“What on earth are you wearing?” he asks as he briskly pats me down.
“I’m trying to go incognito. Is my dad okay?”
“He’s alive. Follow me.”
We make our way through a series of twisting corridors to a bank of elevators. I start to sweat when we step inside the antiseptic-smelling car, and clutch the handrail for balance.
We get out on the fifth floor, the corridor empty except for two armed guards flanking a nearby door. The walls are a yellowed cinderblock, the floors cheap cork marred with pockmarks. It smells like bleach and medicine and my stomach lurches. When Alex was ten he had his appendix removed here, and spent three days in a private room on the twentieth floor taking pictures of his glamorous new scar. He had a view of the park, cable television, and a private chef. Now the armed guards remain remarkably impassive as I follow Hilroy to the door. They scrutinize me, then shift aside to let us enter.
I stumble to a halt. My father always had the biggest office, the nicest car, the most expensive suit. He was larger than life, the center of the universe. And now oxygen tubes feed into his nose, an IV drips into his arm, and machines beep and hum in a nauseatingly steady rhythm. A thin blanket is pulled up over his waist, and beneath it I see a large bandage bulge around his stomach. But it’s not any of these details that hit me hardest. It’s how small he is in his papery blue gown. How diminished.
I cover my mouth and go to him, grasping the side of the bed and taking in his pale face, the dark circles under his eyes so much worse than my own.
“What happened?” I glance at Hilroy.
“He got shanked in the shower.”
My mouth falls open. “Shanked? My father got shanked? At Wakeman?” Every single part of that sentence sounds like it’s wrong, a line from a cheesy TV script.
“It’s rare, but it happens.” Hilroy’s cheeks are pink, telling me this is the party line, not his own level of indifference. He’s shaken, too.
I see the tears fall before I feel them, watch them soak into the edge of the off-white sheet. I cover my father’s hand with my own, squeezing his fingers gently, feeling his bones, his skin, his frailty. I feel hopeless and guilty. And angry.
His eyes flutter open and take a second to focus, flitting from me to Hilroy, then the door. He tries to smile but it doesn’t really work. “Hi,” he says, his voice raspy.
“Hi, dad. I’m...” I don’t know how to finish the sentence. I’m here? I’m sorry? I’m going to fix this?
I feel the slightest pressure on my fingers, either a reassurance or a warning. The look in his eye tells me it’s the latter. I’d seen the same look when I visited him at the precinct following his arrest. Whatever’s happened to his body, his mind is unchanged. Always whirling, always plotting.
I glance at Hilroy. “Can you give us a minute?”
He hesitates, then nods and leaves. I hear him confer with the guards, then it’s quiet.
“You got shanked? Dad... Why... How...”
He shudders. “It’s bad, Reese.”
“Obviously!”
“I thought they’d be happy with what they had, but they’re not. They want the rest.” I don’t ask who “they” are. I’m pretty sure we’ve met.
“How much?” I ask. “I have some savings. If somebody’s threatening you, I can—”
“No, Reese. That’s not going to cut it.”
I think about Angela’s estimate. A million dollars would wipe out everything in my bank account, all my dreams and escape plans. Never mind her exorbitant interest rate.
I picture Hilroy and the guards. I picture a bug under the bed, in the lamp on the nightstand, behind the heart monitor. I picture everybody listening to every word, just as they always have, the same question on their mind: Where’s the money, Reese?
I want my dad to be different. But he’s not.
“I told you to get it,” he rasps. “I told you where it was.”
“I went,” I tell him, wiping at the tears dripping off my chin. “I told you I went to get it and it was gone.”
“Reese.”
“You shouldn’t have asked me. I didn’t want to know.”
“I couldn’t ask Alex. You were the only one.”
“It was too late. I went where you told me. I searched everywhere,