Better Late Than Never: Chapter 7
Johnny Bruno had had enough. He didn't care what Tex said, he was going stir crazy and the stolen money was burning a hole in his pocket. He had a drug deal to make and he was tired of waiting.
"I'm sick of this dump. You heard the news report. The police don't have any leads in the case. Nobody can ID us…"
Tex cut him off. "You forgetting about that cop? He could have seen something before I whacked him."
"You should have killed that cop when you had the chance. You could have shot him with his own gun and they would've never found us," Johnny ranted for the umpteenth time since he and his two cousins had gone on their crime spree three days ago. The Golden Moon hold up had been sandwiched between robberies of a movie theater before and two liquor stores after, all three of which were accomplished without firing a shot from either Johnny's 9mm or the Colt .45 they stole from the unconscious cop.
"Maybe you'd be OK with killing a cop, but I ain't gonna end up on a gurney with death juice being pumped through my veins," Tex shot back.
Towering over his six-foot cousin by at least six inches and outweighing him by 80 pounds, Tex Hooper could easily have been mistaken for the leader of their little cabal, but it was really Johnny who called the shots most of the time. Tex had gotten Johnny to defer to him just this once on the issue of laying low for a few days until their trail got a little colder.
"Geez, there for a minute I thought you were goin' soft on me," Johnny countered. "I mean that was you that raped that China doll, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, but in the office in the back, not on the kitchen floor where you were gonna do it right in front of Marty. You about scared the hell out of him. And, by the way, if you hadn't been so keen on getting your jollies with her, we'd have been out the door and gone before that cop even showed up!"
"Why should you get to have all the fun? I'm taking the same risk as you and Marty," Johnny snapped. After a beat, he added, "Speaking of your baby brother, where is he anyway?"
Johnny stopped complaining long enough to look around the small efficiency motel room where the three of them had been staying. The motel was located in a rundown section of Dallas off I-20 and was managed by the family of a former teammate of Tex's from his high school football days. It was the kind of place where an extra twenty dollars silenced any questions and non-cooperation with the authorities was all part of the friendly service.
"It's Tuesday. He went to school," Tex stated matter-of-factly, adding, "I think he had a test today."
"He went to…how did he get there?" Johnny ran to the window to see if Marty's car was still parked in front of the room. The blue Camaro was right where they had left it the night before. Johnny turned back to Tex with a confused look on his face.
"I drove him. I knew you'd go crazy if we were stuck here all day with no wheels, so I took him to school while you were getting your beauty sleep," Tex said, almost apologetically. Tex was bigger and stronger than Johnny, but over the years he'd come to learn that his older cousin had a mean streak a mile wide and the only thing he was afraid of was missing out on whatever "action", as Johnny called it, was going down.
"Well, you just better hope he keeps his whiny mouth shut. How's he getting back here? Are you going to risk pulling up in front of Liberty High in the getaway car again?"
"No, and he's not coming back here. He's going home after school. He should never have gotten mixed up in this in the first place, Johnny. He's no criminal. He's still got a chance to have a future in the real world. That is, if we didn't completely screw that up Saturday night," Tex lamented.
Johnny knew Tex would do anything to protect Marty, including rat his sorry ass out if they ever did get caught. He hadn't intended to shoot the old man; the gun was just supposed to scare him. But then Tex got a look at the girl and when the old man tried to stop him from taking her, Johnny stuck the gun against his chest to push him back. No one, except maybe the old man himself, was more surprised than Johnny when the gun went off, blowing a hole in the old man's chest.
Thinking back on it made him recall that they still had the cop's gun in the glove compartment of Marty's car. For now, that was probably the best place for it. Thank God that scaredy-cat kid hadn't taken the damn car to school.
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Gage sat at his desk in Company B headquarters, having made it through the first three hours of his first day back at work without feeling like either a total idiot or a lost child. Everyone had been very helpful and understanding. He'd had to learn the names of a few people who had been hired recently and the new paint jobs in the mens bathroom and the locker room were a surprise, but everything else was pretty much as he remembered it. He hoped that it wouldn't take more than a day or two for the pity to disappear from everyone's eyes when they looked at him. After all, it wasn't like he was dying or anything.
He reached across his desk and picked up the one thing he hadn't recognized when he had arrived this morning. It was a set of fake vampire teeth, not the plastic ones kids get at Halloween, but a 'real' set. When he had asked why they were on his desk, Sydney told him he had actually worn them while he performed several stunts during the filming of a low-budget vampire flick called, "13 Coffins."
"I was a stunt double for a vampire?" he had asked, incredulously. "Who talked me into that?"
"Lily Jenner, the hot, hot, hot actress who played the vampire princess might have had something to do with it," piped up Trivette from his desk.
"Now there's a memory you can do without," Sydney had carped, realizing too late that she had said it out loud.
"How come, Syd?" Gage wondered, truly curious about her reaction to Trivette's comment. She had been acting kind of odd around him ever since she picked him up at the hospital on Monday. Didn't she know that he hated not remembering things, especially things that had to do with her? But maybe this time it wasn't about her. Was that what made her mad?
Before Sydney could answer Gage's question, Walker had called her into his office and when she came out, she said she and Walker were going to the hospital to interview Mr. Chen and Mai Lee.
Gage had started to ask if he could go along, but decided against it. Walker had said he would be riding a desk for the rest of the week until his doctor cleared him for full duty. No sense rocking the boat, especially since Walker was kind of bending the rules in letting him come back this week at all.
He spent the rest of the morning catching up on recent cases, familiarizing himself with the details by reading case files and court transcripts until he thought his head would explode.
One report he came across was left unfinished in mid-sentence. It was dated the day before his injury, and as he read through it, he could have sworn he caught a whiff of the flowery aroma of Sydney's shampoo. Where had that come from? Gage chalked it up as just another in the dozens of impressions he had gotten over the past few days that left him wondering what was a real memory and what was just wishful thinking.
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Marty Hooper unzipped his black nylon backpack and peeked inside; telling himself it was the last time. He couldn't afford to get caught gawking into his backpack during class and have Mr. Fiorelli ask him to show the class what was so fascinating.
The gun was still there, of course, right where he'd put it after sneaking it out of the glove compartment while Tex was pumping gas this morning on the way to school. With its dull gray barrel and black handle grips, it looked like a toy gun he'd once owned that came as part of a 'cops and robbers' play set. The real weapon was much bigger and heavier than Marty had expected. Johnny said it was a Colt .45, which meant it was bigger and deadlier than the 9mm pistol Johnny was so proud of. Maybe if he kept the thing Johnny would be scared of him for once instead of the other way around.
No, he thought, better stick to the original plan.
Just as he zipped the backpack shut again, the bell rang and everyone began filing out of the classroom on the way to their next class. Marty hoisted the backpack onto his shoulder and shuffled along with everyone else, until someone tugged on his elbow.
"Psssst, hey Marty, what's in the backpack, man?" asked his friend, Jeff, in a conspiratorial whisper.
"Just books, man," Marty answered in the same tone.
"Right. That why you had to keep looking in there every ten seconds, to check on your books?"
"Whatever, man. I'm late for chemistry," Marty huffed, slipping past the boy and sprinting down the hall.
Sliding into his seat at the lab table just as the next bell rang, Marty turned to the boy on his right and whispered, "Hey man, I need to talk to you after class, OK?"
"Sure, Marty, what's up?" Mark responded.
"I'll tell you later," he answered, leaving Mark to wonder what kind of trouble his lab partner might have gotten into this time.
He didn't mind helping Marty out of the occasional scrape, but his own butt was in a big enough sling since that Ranger had driven him home after he caught him and Juliet in the bathroom at the Sweet 16 party. Not only was he grounded for three weeks, but his dad had also confiscated his cell phone and assigned his younger sister as his personal chauffeur. But, torture though it was, it wasn't Marty's fault and Marty was a good friend, so as long as whatever he needed didn't require private transportation or wireless communication, Mark would be happy to help his buddy out.
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On the way to the hospital, Sydney stared silently out the window of Walker's truck. Walker didn't have to be a genius to know what she was thinking about.
"I was pretty scared that night myself," he confessed to her.
"I'm glad you didn't show it. I was barely holding it together. I couldn't have gotten through it if you hadn't been so strong, all of you," Sydney said, turning to look at her boss.
"We'll always be here for you, Sydney, for both of you," he assured her.
"I know that and I really appreciate it," she answered quietly.
"Is something else bothering you?"
"Do you think Gage came back to work too soon? I told him he should take another couple of days off, but he insisted on coming back today even if he is stuck at his desk."
"I can understand him wanting to get back as soon as possible, Syd. He may have lost some memories, but he is still Gage and the only thing he loves more than being a Texas Ranger is you," Walker affirmed.
"I know things are…well, strange…right now, but are you really OK with Gage and I being a couple and still being partners?" Sydney wasn't quite sure where she had found the nerve to ask him that, but now that it was out there, she really needed to know.
"Sydney, I wouldn't have it any other way. You two were partners long before you were anything else and your working relationship is one of the best I have ever seen. You understand each others' thoughts as easily as your own; it's almost like you are two halves of the same spirit, the same soul. I'd be crazy to mess with that," he said, turning to look at her only to find tears running down her face.
"Then how could he forget me?" she cried. "How could he forget us?" She thought about the past three days and all the times she'd had to stop herself from telling Gage all about their night at the governor's mansion, all the times she had wanted to hold him, all the times she wished he would kiss her again like he had that night.
They had spent the entire day together on Monday doing all the things they always did -- working out, having lunch, even going to a movie – but somehow instead of being fun, it felt empty to her. It had been hard to keep smiling and not let on that anything was different. Now that she had let herself move forward into a committed relationship with him, she didn't know if she could go back to being 'just partners' with him. Then again, she couldn't stand the idea of losing him as a partner either. Somehow, she had to help him remember their love, but how?
"Sydney, remember what the doctor said?" Walker broke in to her thoughts. "The memories are still in there; he's just having trouble retrieving them. You two have shared so much in a relatively short time. Your feelings for each other are so true and so deep that there must be a way to tap into that."
Now all she had to do was figure out what that was. Sure. No problem.
End Chapter 7.