“My…friend.”
It’s weird to think of ‘Evan’ as a real person to begin with, but it’s even weirder to think of him as Cross Carlson, friend of high-rolling Marchant Radcliffe. Luckily, we’re bumping down on the roof, so my thoughts are directed elsewhere.
As soon as Cross’s cot is hauled out of the helicopter, we are whisked down in an elevator to what I can only assume is an operating room. When the army of doctors and nurses leaves me in a pale blue plastic chair just outside the stainless steel doors, I take a deep breath and go in search of a free phone.
I find one, as well as a computer accessible only if you pay it quarters. A kind-looking nurse slips me four of them as I sit down. I mutter, “thank you” and look up the brothel’s phone number.
As I dial, I consider asking for an old friend, an escort named Geneese Loveless, but when the polite receptionist answers, I ask for Marchant and I tell her it’s an emergency. That his friend Cross Carlson is in one of the ORs at the University Medical Center in El Paso with a gunshot wound.
I hang up before she has time to go find the pimp himself.
29
Cross
I OPEN MY eyes to a blaze of white light, and within seconds I’m choked by panic. I can see arms, torsos, and faces moving over me and I know where I am. In a hospital. I thought I was out of the hospital…but maybe I’m not. Oh God. Oh fuck. What happened?
The voices around me get harsher, more urgent. I can feel someone holding my legs down. Someone else tries to hold my head still, and I can hear a soothing voice telling me I’m okay, but I know I’m not.
I’m not okay.
“Sir, you need to try to calm down. We’re re-sewing your wound. You pulled the stitches out in recovery so we had to bring you back to the OR.”
My heart trips over itself. I open my mouth, and it’s hard to get words out. When I do, they sound thick and clumsy. “Did you give me…any sedatives?”
“We did,” says the disembodied voice. “You had general anesthesia.”
I attempt to shake my head, causing the hands on my temples to tighten. I shut my eyes and try to fight the tears building behind them. After several deep breaths, I remember something—someone. I remember red hair, and the memory makes me feel good.
Meredith.
I can feel myself trembling again. That’s how much I want her. With effort, I focus my eyes on the head above me and manage to rasp a question: “Where is Merri?”
“Mr. Carlson, please calm down. We’ll be finished with this soon and you’ll be settled in the ICU.”
The ICU. I shake my head. I can’t go to the ICU.
“I need Merri.” Some part of me, some lucid part, knows how pathetic it is that my voice is cracking, but most of me just doesn’t care. Using all my strength, I raise my right arm and grip the first white sleeve I find.
“I need Merri!”
The only answer I get is a tsking sound, followed by the sound of plastic crinkling.
“Get some rest,” a male voice says. Black fuzz swallows everything.
Merri
I’M IN A closet near the OR recovery room. I know it’s crazy, but as soon as I hung up the phone, a couple of cops walked past me, in the direction of the OR. Last time I checked, Jesus owned a lot of cops in El Paso.
Coming here—turning back and getting in the helicopter with Cross Carlson—was a mistake. I don’t know what story he cooked up, so I’m not sure how to convincingly play the role of his wife, especially if the cops get suspicious and start really grilling me.
For the last year and a half, I’ve tried not to lie except when necessary to protect myself. And at the clinic, it was almost never necessary. So it bothers me that I’m sitting on a box in a closet full of paint and mops, contemplating how best to deceive the police.
Actually…everything about this situation bothers me.
I don’t want to pretend to be Cross Carlson’s wife, but in the last few hours, I’ve also decided that I don’t want to leave without talking to him. I feel like I owe him that. I’ve remembered the shoot-out at the clinic, the one at Jesus’s hideaway, and the one at the border checkpoint. I’ve remembered his kindness and humor.
I also remember what his mouth felt