not sure. I’ll have to pay attention next time.”
“Next time he fights, put a few dollars down for me. Just don’t tell him.”
I laugh again.
She gives a tired yawn. “Well, I’m just glad you and Spidy are there for my munchkin. I hope he hasn’t been giving you too much trouble.”
“Not at all.”
“Good.” She hugs him and winces when he squeezes her ribs.
“Hey, Benster, take it easy on mommy.”
I turn to see Dee walking toward the bed with a large stuffed white teddy bear in her arms and a Get Well Soon balloon in one hand.
“Hi, Dee.” Penny hugs her when she bends down, and Ben moves aside to give her room.
Dee straightens and looks around the room. She goes to the other side of the bed and picks up the plastic cup from the table. It’s half filled with pale apple juice, what Penny called watered-down swill.
“Is this shit all they’ve given you to drink?” She shakes her head. “You should have called me. I’d have brought in some soda. And some of my homemade tuna casserole.”
“I would rather you’d snuck in some gin.” Penny gives her a rebellious smile. “My ribs are killing me.”
“Next time.” She sets the stuffed bear on the table and ties the balloon to the back of another chair in the corner.
“Is it true what I’ve been hearing from the guys? That Spider had one of Gary’s friend’s hands—”
Dee gives the smallest shake of her head and flicks her eyes at me. “Not in front of that one. And not in front of Ben.” She glances at Ben who’s listening with an eager attentiveness, probably hoping he’ll get to hear grown up MC stuff. “Who told you that anyway?” she growls.
Penny shrugs. “Word gets around.”
“Bullshit. Pip told you, didn’t he? That boy needs to keep his mouth shut. He’s as bad as Rat for gossip.”
“Then it’s true.”
My ears perk up, and I pretend to be reading a magazine left on the nightstand, dreading and yet morbidly needing to hear what Spider did with Gary’s friend’s hand.
“I didn’t say that,” Dee says. Penny gives her a penetrating look, and she drops her shoulders. “Yeah, it’s true. I wish he did it to Gary instead, though.”
“What’s the situation?” Penny asks, looking worried. “I haven’t been able to get news on him in here.”
“Hold that thought. I gotta use the can.”
She gets up and disappears, but I wonder if she’s doing that to avoid telling Penny bad news about the outcome of Gary’s case.
She’s not, because she comes out a few seconds later cursing up a storm.
“What the fuck is this shit? Aunt Flo decides to drop in for visit now and I’m completely unprepared!”
Penny covers Ben’s ears when she swears. I have no idea who Aunt Flo is, but Penny and Ben must get the joke, because they both start giggling again as Dee rushes out, probably for a bathroom down the hall. A phone rings in the corridor, then stops, there’s a pause, and I hear Pip say Spider’s name.
“Hold on, I can’t hear shit here. Let me find an area with better reception…”
Penny is saying something to me, but I miss it, instead hearing Pip speak as he walks a little ways down the hall.
“Nurse! Nurse! There’s a pervert in my room and he’s trying to kill me!” the woman from down the hall shrieks. A man’s voice, I guess another patient, hollers at her to shut up.
“Ignore her,” Penny says when I make a face. “She says stuff like that all the time, usually when anyone goes into her room.”
“She’s fine,” I hear Pip say, his voice faint. “Your little thief is in the room with Penny and Ben. Oh, nothing, that’s just some old bat down the hall. Did you call me just to check up on her?” The inflection in his voice tells me he’s grinning. “You got it bad, man.”
Another pause.
“Hold on, I can’t hear shit here. You’re breaking up…” I hear his footsteps drift away.
“Nurse, nurse, help…”
Penny catches my attention with a yawn and a wince. “I’m sorry,” she says when I look at her. “I’m tired a lot these days. I hope you don’t mind if I doze off…”
Her eyes close.
Ben curls up against her with his head on her lap.
“You’re not my Reginald! Who are you? Get out of my room, you pervert!”
I shudder at the unrelenting fear in the woman’s voice. How hard it must be for her family to hear her like this.
The old woman’s