Chapter 2: Welcome Home

"Gordy, get my ass away from here and over to my house. You remember where it is?" Jack pled with his friend.

"Yeah, I remember where it is." Gordon answered with a half smile. "Just think a minute, what will you do over there, all by yourself? You need help to get a drink of water. Is there anyone there? You need a care giver or whatever they're called."

"Look," just get me there and call the local nurses' registry. Loan me one of your credit cards and a thousand in cash." He took a deep breath, "I also need a body guard."

"Will I do?" a very familiar looking red head asked. "I was sent home just minutes after I kicked that creep's butt. I saw them load you into a black van when I went out back and got on my bike. I followed them all the way to the downtown FBI offices. My legs were too shaky from pedaling hard when I chased after them through traffic down off the hill, so I didn't dare try to take you back."

"Who in hell are you?" Gordon asked in amazement.

"I'm Zelda Perkins and you are Gordon McReady. I called you from the VA Medical Center." She looked down at Jack's wounded arm. She ripped the pajama sleeve away from Jack's wound and removed a pre-moistened towelette from her fanny pack. Zelda wiped the wound clean and said, "The bleeding has just about stopped already. If I'm hired, let's take him someplace safe and bandage this little owee." She looked at Jack as asked, "Well?"

"Oh yes, oh hell yes you're hired." Jack turned his head toward his lawyer. "Gordy, give her the plastic and get me a thousand out of my investment account. She'll have to go shopping for me tomorrow. I'm probably out of beer." Zelda looked at her new employer as if she thought he just might be not kidding.

Gordon fished a Master Card out of his wallet and handed it to Zelda. "Be stingy, this is a debit card with a two thousand dollar total."

She nodded and placed it in her fanny pack. "What's the password?"

He smiled, "It's an easy password to remember, zero nine eleven. Every time I use it, I am reminded that not all our enemies are domestic, although it seems that way at times.

She nodded again and said, "Give me your address and I'll follow you over there."

"No way," Jack countermanded her. Leave your bike where it is. You ride with us and stay safe. If your bike is stolen I'll buy you a better one tomorrow. In fact, you might like one of the three out back in my garage, if they haven't been stolen. I rode the black and gold one in the last Iron Man tryout before I was shipped back over. It has a composite body and weighs just ounces."

"You're Whiskey Jack Daniels? No way," she protested incredulously. "I always swore if I met you I'd do my best to get my hands on you and not let go. And here I had my hands on you and never knew."

She laughed and continued, "When you gave that demonstration of marksmanship at the NEA competition ten years ago I almost swallowed my teeth. I was in the back of the crowd trying to get a better look at you. You changed my viewpoint about weapons. You've changed." She thought of her tactless remark and added in a small voice, "Oops, sorry."

One of the marshals remarked, "No one responded to a shot fired. What in hell is going on here?" He looked at his partner. His partner shrugged.

Gordon told them, "You did your job when you helped me serve the writ of habeas corpus and got Jack released. Your work is done here. Go back to your office and make a detailed report. You had better cover your own tail ends. The official story that will come out of here will be that some unknown person called down and said the 'shot' was a car backfiring and to ignore it."

Zelda cast an anxious glance back at her chained up, worn out, antique Schwinn Collegiate street bike and followed Gordon the few steps to his minivan. "Open the side door, it's unlocked," he grunted as he carried the still heavy Whiskey Jack Daniels toward the van.

She hurried ahead and slid the door open. Gordon arranged Jack in the back seat to be comfortable on the fifteen-minute ride to the house that he hadn't seen in five years.

When Gordon pulled up in front of his house Jack stared hard at the vision. The outside paint looked fresh, less than a year old. The lawn was close cropped and the rose arbor had recently been trimmed back. "What gives?" he asked.

"Jack, since the investments you made have all appreciated at a nice rate, I took it upon myself to spend a little of your money to keep your home ready for you in case you got better. If you didn't get better, it wouldn't matter. And if you did get better you would have a nice place to come home to. You got better, so there you are."

"If you're not a barrel of surprises." Jack looked at the well cared for home and smiled. Damn, but it felt good to have a place to come home to that was this nice. Jack nodded his approval.

With Zelda's help, Gordon carried Jack up the steps to the front door. "The key's taped to the bottom of the welcome mat," Gordon grunted to Zelda. She retrieved the key and opened the front door.

He carried Jack inside and dropped him in a recliner. "Good grief, man, you weigh a damned ton. I thought sick people lost weight." He stood straight and stretched, as he regained his breath.

"Take one of my bikes and go get your stuff," Jack told her.

Zelda nodded and went through the house and out the back door into the attached garage. She gasped at the sight of the three bicycles hanging from the far wall. The bright red twenty-one speed mountain bike with the extra wide tires cost well over two thousand dollars.

The black and gold competition road bike with the composite frame was so light it could be picked up easily with one finger. This was one of the seven to ten thousand dollar range of the royalty of bicycles. The third one, a blue street bike, looked almost as expensive.

Then she noticed the vintage motorcycle, a 1973 Norton 850 Commando. "Would you look at that," she said reverently. Her dead dope dealing husband had wanted one in the worst way. Because he limited his investments to real young girls and nightly parties, he never got one. She shook her head and went back into the house.

"Jack, I don't dare ride any of your bikes. They are way too expensive. I better call a cab," she told him when she came back into the living room.

"Girl, look at me. Can you see me riding one of those bikes anywhere?" He scowled at the floor. "Christ, if you wreck all three or give them to the Salvation Army, it won't make any difference to me, no difference at all." He looked out the front window at two young girls as they walked by. "I'm a damned crip."

"Why don't you shut that talk up? You have already had a breakthrough that sat a couple of the doctors back on their collective butts. First, you woke up and scared that nurses' aid half to death. She ran home screaming.

"Then while I did bodily damage to that skinny creep you almost sat up all by yourself. With me at your side you will be back up and going strong in no time at all. Trust me."

In spite of himself Jack had to chuckle. "Now do you believe that crap you just dished out?"

"Well, I don't dis-believe it," she told him in a firm voice, then added, "Look, I'll run over to my apartment and get my stuff and put it in my truck and be right back. I'll get a pizza on the way back. You like anchovies?"

"Some," he answered. "There is one problem right now. I got to take a leak." He looked nervously at her. It embarrassed him to ask her to help him piss.

"Oh," she said blank faced, She thought a moment and asked, "You have any juice bottles?"

"Hey, I don't know. I won this place in a poker game and never opened much of anything but the fridge to put the beer away or pull out a fresh one. This was where I goofed off when I was on leave." Then he remembered, "There are some brandy snifters in one of the kitchen cabinets. Bring me one of those, please.

She brought him one and helped him unzip. Red faced, she told him between embarrassed stammers, "Jack, I only held one man's penis in my life, my dead ex's. I am not experienced at this sort of thing."

"Well, I'm not so experienced at this sort of thing either. I had a male nurse help me after they took that catheter out. I guess we both better learn together not to be too embarrassed at what happens next." She nodded in reluctant agreement. She felt clumsy while she helped him get extracted from his pajama bottom. They were both relieved when the ordeal was over and she neatly tucked his penis back inside his pajamas.

She emptied the brandy snifter into the toilet and placed the ill used glass goblet in the dishwasher. She turned the machine on and left the kitchen. "I'll be back soon as I can."

"Wait," Jack ordered. "There's a derringer in my computer desk. It's a little two shot baby. Get it for me before you leave, please. I've had enough adventures for the day." Zelda glanced at his stony face and nodded.

She found it, and handed it to him. "I'll be back in about an hour." She headed out the back door and lifted the red street bike down from its hanger in the garage. Zelda marveled at its lightness. She dropped the seat down to its lowest position and was able to mount and ride with ease.

Just as she neared her apartment house, she saw a familiar figure sitting in his car with the door open. She hopped off the bike, strode up to James Lytle and said, "You are a glutton for punishment. I saw that was you that shot Jack."

"You're not going to be so lucky this time. I'm facing you now. I have waited here for over an hour for you to show up. You were lucky back at the hospital. You try any of that stuff again and I'll destroy you."

He slipped out of the car and stood at an angle to Zelda. He assumed a classic White Crane stance and kicked out at her head. She blocked the kick with her left forearm and kicked upward into his crotch. James Lytle went down and curled up in a tight ball of pain.

"You clumsy creep," she told him. "On my worst day when I was twelve years old you couldn't beat me with those amateurish moves." Zelda left him lying in a heap as she pushed the bicycle around to the back of the apartment building and hooked it into a bike rack built onto the top of her old Chevy half-ton pickup built in the early seventies.

Zelda hurried up the back stairs, opened her apartment and tossed her little bit of clothing and her few personal belongings into a trash bag, took her two uniform changes off the hangers in the closet and left. She dropped everything onto the passenger's seat and drove away. She never looked back.

Zelda bought a case of beer and two combination pizzas, one for the evening meal and decided the other one was for their breakfast the next morning. "All the necessary vitamins and minerals," she murmured to herself.

She glanced up and saw the young guy behind the counter give her a funny look. "The pizza is good for you too," she told him. She ran the card through the machine and accepted the receipt.

Minutes later, Zelda was back at the house. She carried the pizza and beer in first and set Jack up with a slice. "Think you can handle a beer can?"

He nodded, "I'll try." She opened a beer and placed it in the drink holder on his recliner.

She hurried out and returned in seconds with her meager belongings. "Where do I sleep?" she asked.

He nodded toward the door next to his bedroom. "There." He looked at her small load. "You going to get the rest of your stuff tomorrow?"

Zelda felt ashamed, as she told him, "This is it. I lost everything when my husband went to prison. One of his friends tried to take me over and when I kicked him out he came back while I was at work and burned me out." She frowned at the memory and added, "I chased him down and put him in the hospital. That didn't get my things back, though. What with government cutbacks and all, I only got thirty hours a week at work. I have barely been able to make ends meet."

"Well, I guess tomorrow we'll take care of a few odds and ends and get you some proper clothing. The main thing is to get me set up. I want a hospital bed brought in here, a good one. Then I also need a power chair. Call a medical supply company and see what they can do. There should still be one open. Get on the phone and order right now. Tell them we'll want first thing in the morning delivery. I want their best power chair. Then, later on I want to talk to their mechanic. I'll order a second one with a few modifications. I've got an idea of sorts I want to try out."

She nodded and got on the phone. The second company she called had everything they needed.

"Jack, it's hard to eat pizza and make phone calls. Let me eat, please. I'm hungry."

Jack all at once realized she had demolished almost the whole pizza by herself. "Good grief, when did you eat last?" he asked her.

She sighed, "Last night. It's two days before payday and I ran out of money. I've been eating one meal a day lately, just salted pinto beans." Her eyes pled with him to understand.

The doorbell rang. Zelda looked at Jack. He grasped the derringer stashed beside him in the chair. "Answer it," he ordered. "Stay to one side of the door when you answer it. I want a clear line of fire.

She opened the door and Gordon walked in carrying a large brown envelope. "Here's your financial statement as of the first of the month. Hey, that pizza looks good. That beer looks even gooder."

He stopped talking long enough to grab a slice and open a beer. He handed Zelda a smaller envelope. "Here's five thousand dollars. Right now, Jack has no idea at all how much cash it's going to take to get this place set up for you all. I took this from the rental account."