Chapter 31: Legs, and Other Things You Miss When You Don’t Have Them

I WOKE UP WITH TUBES IN MY NOSE and other orifices and a weight on my chest that was unfamiliar. I was getting oxygen through the tubes, but my breathing was shallow.

The weight on my chest was Riley’s head.

Apparently, she’d crawled up on the bed during the night and went to sleep with her head on my chest. Boney pillow if you ask me. She was wearing a white silk blouse that in her present position gaped open showing rather more than she usually exposed.

All right. A lot more.

I could see the bandage above her right breast and under her arm, where Oksamma’s bullet had struck. The bastard. If he weren’t dead, I’d get out of this bed and go kill him. To harm that beautiful woman. She was lucky it had hit at the angle it did.

I know that you want me to say that I covered her and restored her modesty, and that is just what I did.

After about ten minutes.

I wasn’t dead yet.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her soft smooth skin until I felt tears running from them and down my cheeks. Afraid that I would sob and wake her, I gently reached over and pulled her blouse closed.

Damn.

What a lousy time to be old. I just wanted to hold her and protect her. The bruises on her cheek had changed to that horrid yellow color that, in spite of how bad it looks, signifies healing. I wanted to kiss that cheek, but settled for letting my fingers glide softly across her skin.

She fluttered her eyelids open and smiled at me. She reached for my hand and held the palm against her cheek and closed her eyes gently again. We stayed that way for several minutes.

All night I’d had dreams filled with memories. Simon and Brenda and me in college. My marriage and her betrayal. The years I’d missed with them and the different people they had become. What drove people who have it all to think they don’t have enough? Maybe it was me who changed. What was Brenda really peddling? Sex? Influence? Ways to wealth? The secret had to be on Simon’s jump-drive, if there was only a way to crack the encryption code on it.

The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the tattooed words on Simon and Angel held a key. F8ed2d1e36DB00Bs. It was suddenly looking a lot more feasible. I reached for the piece of paper on which I’d written Angel’s tattooed message and in so doing wakened Riley. She stretched luxuriously, threatening to undo the modest covering that I’d put in place a few minutes ago. A sudden wince as she reached the point of flexion where it pulled on her wound stopped the stretch with a stab of pain. Yes, that would take a while to heal.

“Good morning, partner,” she said. “Sorry I borrowed a corner of your bed last night.”

“Anytime you want, Riley,” I said.

“I’m going to count on that,” she replied.

We were interrupted by a small voice from the door. “Excuse me; is this Mr. Hamar’s room?” We looked over at the door and little Billie was sitting there in a wheelchair pushed by her mother.

“If it’s not convenient, we’ll come back some other time,” Wanda said.

“No, no,” I answered. “Come in. Billie, this is my partner, Deb Riley. Deb, this is Billie and Wanda Martin. It’s good to see you Billie.”

“Nice to meet you, Billie,” Riley said extending a hand to her.

“Wow! You’re beautiful!” was Billie’s spontaneous response.

“It’s nice to meet you Miss Riley,” Wanda said as they shook hands. “We heard Mr. Hamar was in the hospital and Billie wanted to come to see him.”

“I’ve got a new heart, Mr. Hamar.” Billie said smiling. “I’m getting better now. Have you moved into the hospital so you can get yours?”

“Yes, Billie. It’s best to be prepared, don’t you think?”

“Are you a private investigator, too?” Billie asked Riley. She nodded. “That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up. I’m going to investigate things and solve mysteries.”

“You’ve made a big impression on my daughter,” Wanda said to me. “I know we aren’t supposed to know this, but I saw you talking to the same lawyer that told us about Billie’s trust. Whatever part you played, I wanted to say thank you.”

“I don’t know that I played a very big part,” I answered. “Sometimes when there is a flood, you just need to dig a little channel and the water will flow where it belongs.”

“Thank you anyway,” she said. “And good luck.”

“Thank you,” I said, “and thank you, Billie, for being such a great inspiration to me to get my new heart and get well.”

“Honey,” Wanda said to Billie, “we don’t want to tire Mr. Hamar out. I’ll bring you back to see him tomorrow.”

“I’m going home next week,” Billie said. “I hope you get to go home soon!”

I waved and Riley and I watched them leave. We sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Riley,” I said.

“I’m not leaving,” she answered quickly.

“You can’t stay here forever, kiddo,” I replied.

“Dag, I can’t. I won’t say goodbye.” I could see tears in her eyes and I could feel them building again in my own. Billie’s visit had brought the reality of my situation home for both of us. That beeping machine next to me was a constant reminder that my life was holding on by a thread. Even the little conversation I’d had in the past few minutes was tiring.

“I’m not asking you to say good-bye, Riley,” I said. She fell on me—gently—and hugged me as well as she could. I stroked her back and patted her. This wasn’t going to get easier. “You know what I need?” I asked.

“What Dag?”

“I need a pair of legs.”

“You can have mine anytime you want them,” she said, and brought them up onto the bed beside me. So help me, I let my hand fall on the perfect smooth skin of one of her legs and just rest there. My catheter suddenly felt uncomfortable. I removed my hand and reached for the pad of paper by my bedside. I handed the paper to Riley. She looked at it and then at me.

“36DB00BS,” she said. “You are obviously not referring to me.”

“Angel told me in Atlanta that she and Simon and Bradley had gotten drunk one night and had tattoos done. All three of them. Simon’s was F8ed2d1e. Angel told me hers was 36DB00BS,” I lied just a little. She hadn’t actually told me. “I think if we had Bradley’s tattoo, we might have the final pieces to the puzzle. Simon found out Brenda was blackmailing a lot of people. He put the necessary information on his jump-drive and encrypted it. I’m betting that with the three of these together, we’d have the 24 characters of an encryption code. What we don’t have is Bradley’s tattoo.”

“You want me to go to the morgue, examine the dead body of the man who kidnapped and beat me, and copy down his tattoo?” she said to me in a threatening tone.

“Well, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” I said. “Only, I’m guessing that either the body is here where they harvested the organs, or the police have it sealed at the morgue and you won’t be allowed to see it. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Don’t tell me anything more,” Riley said. Now I was definitely seeing a vengeful glint in her eye. “I know how to get to the body. And if there is a scalpel handy when I get there, I’ll cut the tattoo off and bring it to you.”