"GUESSWORK"
- Chapter Nineteen -
"Crash Cart"
House pulled the bike off the road at a wide place just before the transition to Route 85 South. He'd been riding like a maniac, taking in great draughts of air and holding them as long as he possibly could against the fiery pain in his leg … the tightness in his foot … and now the throb in his hand.
He grunted a curse and pulled the strap tighter across the gauntlet at the left wrist. It was the best he could do for now. The handfuls of paper towels he'd grabbed back at the diner's restroom were quickly becoming soaked with his own blood. It couldn't be helped.
He could still see the horrified expression on the face of the redheaded waitress as they stood face to face outside the restroom door. He'd been hopping crazily in a desperate attempt to recover his balance while clutching the wad of towels to the deep gash in the heel of his hand. His cane still lay where he'd dropped it on the floor in there.
What-the-fuck next?
"Graigg?" Her voice was full of screechy alarm, and he knew he had to get the-hell out of there. "Are y'awl all right?"
"I'm fine!" He'd snapped. "Peachy keen!" He'd lurched around then, turning his back on her purposely, and retrieved his cane from where it was wedged beside the toilet.
He'd been washing his hands, drying them on a paper towel, when the leg suddenly caught fire and buckled beneath him. He'd made a desperate grab for the counter top and the rim of the large metal waste can, trying to catch himself before he fell, but his balance was gone, and the leg would not hold him up. And something was going on again with his foot. The removable metal top of the waste can dislodged and his left hand slipped across and scraped against the inside edge like a butcher knife through raw sirloin.
He'd jerked his hand back and stared at it dumbly. His palm was already filling with blood. He pulled a thick wad of paper towels off the roll and applied them to the cut, but there was no time to examine it now. She was right outside.
Desperately he wheeled around on the cane and his sound foot, lunged out the door and around her, snagging his jacket and back pack from the seat of the booth and shouldering into them. He felt an all-consuming need to remove himself from the premises. Immediately!
"Please …" he said breathlessly, "ask your cook to bring my bike around to the back. I need to leave. Now!"
He could feel her eyes stealing furtive glances at his leg, at his bloody hand, at the ice blue hardness of his stare. He figured she probably thought he would go right through her if she didn't obey.
The girl turned away from him after a moment's hesitation, and hurried away without another word. He heard the bat-wing doors whop-whop with her passage into the kitchen. There was a murmur of voices, and the closing of the back door. He lurched along crazily, following her, already breathing in gasps and holding his breath as long as he could stand it against the intensity of this new pain. His foot felt like it was not there.
He left a $20 bill on the edge of the cash register and backed through the doors into the kitchen. He had already pulled the left driving glove over the wad of towels in his hurt hand, and was pulling it even tighter with his teeth.
Penny was standing at the door, looking into the back parking lot for the cook named BillyJoe to bring the Repsol around. He could see she was crying silently, not quite understanding what she might have done to upset him, or what might have happened in the rest room when he had injured himself. It did not take a genius to see the blood splattered in the sink …
He walked up behind her and stopped, at a loss for words. There was nothing he could say to make it right, so he said nothing. Again, his leg had made a difficult situation almost impossible.
"Here …" He said, finally. "For you … and BillyJoe …" He held out his right hand, cane hanging from his forearm. The kid was coming around the corner pushing the Honda.
She looked up at him, uncertainty clouding her already blotchy features. "What … ?"
"Take this!" He said sharply. He was already maneuvering himself around in front of her, opening the door to step out. The cane was dug into the floor again, wedged against his hip, whatever was in his hand transferred to the left, and he gestured heavily for her to open her hand. Finally she did.
He dropped two bills into her palm. "For the trouble," he said. "And the mess. I'm sorry."
He shouldered his way out the back door and hobbled painfully to the bike, grasped the handlebars from the kid's hands. He nodded once and racked the cane, then reached for the helmet, slipping it on. The kid steadied the bike firmly, watching.
He had to lift his leg clumsily over the saddle with both hands, and even then it was almost too much. The inflamed nerves screamed in protest and another fiery warning shot up his arm from the cut in his hand. Sometimes life just completely sucked … no matter what you did!
He started it up and let it idle for a few moments. He tightened the chinstrap and drew on the other glove.
Ow!
They watched him pull out and throw gravel getting onto the road. He did not look back. There was nothing he could have done to have things any different.
He caught an instant's glimpse of the guy in the big white SUV. Still sitting there. Waiting for somebody … He could have sworn they'd made eye contact for not more than half a second … and the look he'd received in return was so heartbreaking and so familiar that he could not believe he'd seen it.
Everywhere!!
Everywhere … he was seeing Wilson.
He thought suddenly of the red necktie, still stuffed in the gift bag, somewhere deep in his backpack, or in the saddlebags.
Even when he felt as though he could still have busted the man's chops, or tossed his ass over a cliff onto a busy highway … Wilson was still on his mind … in his heart.
House sat at the side of the road and stared at the left driving glove. Tightening the strap across the tendons at the underside of the wrist did little to stop the bleeding. It had hardly slowed. He wondered about his clotting factors … there was a telltale stain slowly spreading across the thick leather of the palm. And the damn thing hurt!
He revved the engine, shifted gears and repositioned his left foot on the peg. The transition to Route 85 went smoothly, and he knew he was within shoutin' distance of Raleigh and the Paramar Clinic.
He felt like he might be riding straight through the gates to Hell …
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Kip Bernoski held his cell phone away from his face for a second and stared at it. Behind him, Earl Keirkgaard looked at him with a frown. Shanikqua Tolliver almost never got this rattled, and Kip was getting a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach that the shit was about to hit the fan …
He turned on his heel and raced out of there at an awkward run, calling back over his shoulder: "I think our boy has arrived, man … call out the troops and meet me at the front ramp!"
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Gregg came down off the exit from 85 cautiously, holding the Repsol in tight control. At the stop sign he turned right, looking ahead at the Raleigh skyline as it unfolded like a travelogue film before him. Tall, glass skyscrapers, intermingled with older buildings and artistic, geometric shapes, blended into the panorama with pleasing results. Like he gave a shit right now!
As he rode along, House kept a close watch to either side of him while motorists of a busy population and cultural center swarmed like bees around him. Traffic was intense, even for a late Sunday afternoon, and even though he knew that he was very close to his destination, he must not for a moment let his guard down. The area he was riding through was a maze of strip malls, rental furniture places, quickie-loan offices, bail bondsmen's offices and fast food joints that gave off odors that he found nauseating.
House knew he was fast approaching the limits of his endurance. His left hand throbbed mightily, and he was gradually losing control of the fingers. He needed them desperately for the bike's gears, which meant he had to locate Paramar Clinic quickly and get himself off the road before he did something disastrous and ended up killing somebody … somebody like himself!
At the next stop sign he turned left and into an area with less traffic, little in the way of tourist traps, and surprisingly, little excess noise. The road back here was almost, but not quite, an industrial park. "Farmington Road", the sign at the intersection said, and he knew he was very close. A few hundred yards further on, he could see a huge, flat, white building, a single story tall, and laid out like the letter "E". There was a very sturdy, elongated construction in the back with many windows, strategically spaced entry doors that opened into the parking lot with no steps or ramps. It had vertical blinds at all the windows, which made him snort with ironic laughter.
At both ends of the long structure, he could see what appeared to be residential wings that poked out into and surrounded a very large paved parking lot with many handicapped stalls in front. There were vertical blinds on these windows also, but behind them he detected draperies and what looked like actual furniture that one might see in a private residence.
In the middle, exactly halfway between the two end wings, another, shorter projection jutted outward. In front of it was a simple wooden sign with the legend: Paramar, and nothing else. In front was a cement porch under roof, closed in by a sculpted wrought iron railing. Still more elaborate wrought iron flanked steps and wheelchair ramps on either side.
House pulled up in front and brought the Repsol to a halt in front of the porch. He scoffed softly to himself at the irony of repetition he'd amassed throughout this journey. He wondered how someone like himself, with a leg which didn't work, but who did not use a wheelchair, managed to get up the steps or up the ramps, whose gradual inclines were just as difficult … if not more so. And it occurred to him to wonder if the south might have a corner on the market when it came to wought iron …
He shut off the Honda's engine and sat resting for a moment until his body … and the bike … stopped pinging. Vehicles parked in front were mostly in the "handicap" stalls. He searched for some indication of activity around the place that might tell him there were actual living beings somewhere around …
He pulled off the helmet and parked it, as usual on the right handlebar. He yanked the right glove off with his teeth, but decided against removing the left one, not knowing for sure what the hell he would find if he did so.
His leg was an ongoing misery, and he sat still and let it get used to no more potholes and no more vibration. Alas, it didn't like sitting still any better. He balanced himself cautiously, then tricked up with his left foot and extended the kickstand. He let the bike lean over and placed his weight on the healthy side while the buzzing and worm-like crawlies screwed around in his thigh and gradually began to slow down.
Gregory House was three miles past exhausted and moving quickly into half dead. His foot was hurting again, worse now, as were his hands, the left one even more so. His vision was fading in and out, with little white spots in the peripherals and blackish blotches in the middle.
Goddamn useless meds! Christ! Am I gonna pass out?
He sat still, holding onto consciousness by the skin of his teeth, wondering if his pathetic situation was being monitored by anyone inside. Even if it was, would they reach him in time to keep him from landing on the asphalt with the freakin' heavy bike on top of him? He hit the horn button and the thing brayed like a burro that had been kicked in the ass.
The last thing he remembered was the door at the top of the wheelchair ramp bursting open, and a crowd of bizarre-looking people streaming toward him. One of them was riding a mechanical wheelchair and shouting … and there was a huge-ass, white, three-legged dog, jumping around and barking his fool head off right there beside his only goddamn healthy leg, which was buckling under him as the world faded away …
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