Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри, Эллин Стенли
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Год: Penny Publications
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016». Краткое содержание книги:
I found her name on the information-desk directory and took an elevator to the third floor. Peg was at a desk in an open bay with a half-dozen others. She glanced up as I approached, then froze when she saw me, taken completely by surprise.
I knew the feeling. Peg looked older by a decade. Not in a bad way, just... totally grown up. When last I saw her she was fresh out of college, a newsroom intern in faded flannels and knee-holed jeans.
Now, in a blue business suit and pumps? She looked cool, competent, and in charge. Definitely not my buddy’s kid sister anymore.
She rose to meet me, but before I could even say hello, she slapped me across the face.
Hard!
The blow snapped my head halfway around, bloodied my lip. I could have ducked it. I took it instead.
She was entitled. Everyone was staring, including Peg. She was surprised, I think, at how much rage had gone into that slap.
“The prodigal son of a bitch returns,” she said coldly. “I can’t believe you’d show your face here.”
“Nice to see you too,” I said, grabbing her wrist before she could slap me again. “That first one was free, Peg, but one’s all you get. Can we talk somewhere? In private?”
She nodded without speaking, visibly trying to control her temper. I followed her into a small snack bar, with vending machines along the wall. A coffee maker. There were small tables but neither of us sat. She turned to face me.
“How’s Brian doing?” I asked.
“Why would you care? You promised you’d look out for him, Jax, all that blather about never leaving a brother behind? And he comes home blown to pieces, and here you are, months later, standing tall. Not a mark on you. What happened to my brother, Jax?”
“What does Brian say?”
“He doesn’t say anything! Not to me. But he mutters in his sleep, Jax, pleading with you not to leave him in — wherever it was.”
I looked away, considering that.
She was staring at me. “Dear God,” she murmured. “In spite of everything, a part of me couldn’t quite believe it. But it’s true, isn’t it? You left him.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s true.”
“To die?”
“I left him,” I said. “I need to talk to him.”
“What’s the rush? He’s been home for months. And not a word from you to him. Or to me.”
“I’ve been... traveling. On business for the Company.”
“And a business trip was more important than checking on your best friend?”
“It wasn’t like that, Peg. And I do need to see him.”
“He doesn’t want to see you.”
“He has a right to be angry. After we talk, if he still wants to punch me out—”
“Punch you out?” she scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief. “You know what, Jax? You’re right. You really should have a talk with him. Right now. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”
I followed her down to the newspaper’s parking garage. The Peg I used to know drove a purple V-dub convertible. The little car suited her then. Cute as a Bug.
The grown-up Peg climbed into a full-sized van, a GMC 350, battleship gray, with a raised roof. I climbed in the shotgun side. There were no backseats; the rear was tricked out with a bulky hydraulic lift for transporting a wheelchair.
And there was something about seeing the brutal mechanics of that machinery...
I’ve been blown off a road by a mortar round, had a bayonet jammed against my carotid, and I once walked into a walled compound filled with corpses, some of them children.
I don’t spook easily anymore, but I was getting a very bad feeling about seeing Brian.
Peg drove with grim competence, her lips a thin, angry line.
We didn’t talk, and I was sorry for that. We’d been good friends once.
Back then, Peg and a roommate had shared a cold-water flat furnished in early Salvation Army.
Now, she lived in a brand-new brownstone, in an upscale suburb. McMansions with three-car garages. As alike as peas in a pod. But Peg’s home had a major difference. A long aluminum wheelchair ramp that stretched from the front door down to the curb.
It looked sturdy enough to support a tank. I found out why the moment I stepped through the double doors.
The house wasn’t a home at all, it was a freaking hospital wing. There was no furniture in the living room other than the movable bed. There was only medical gear, oxygen tanks, a respirator, some kind of a heart beeper. Other bulky, space-age equipment I didn’t recognize.
All for a single patient. Brian Baylor was strapped into a massive motorized wheelchair amidst the equipment, with enough wiring plugged into his chest to jump-start a GTO.
Or roughly half of him was. The left side of his body had been crudely sheared away. There was nothing surgical about his injuries. The damage was so savage, so total, I couldn’t imagine how he’d survived at all. If you could call it that.
His left leg and arm were gone, and the left side of his face was distorted into a permanent scowl, pulled further down by a transparent drainage tube dangling from the corner of his jaw. His shaved head and shrunken features reduced his boyish face to a skull, or a death-camp inmate.
He looked like he was poised on the edge of forever, ready to drop into darkness in the next heartbeat.
I’ve seen some terrible things in my life, and I’ve done a few myself. But seeing Brian like this? The shock of it was more than I could bear. Instinctively, I flinched and started to back away, but he stopped me. With his eyes.
In that terrible wreck of a body, Brian’s eyes were intensely alive. His carcass was scarcely recognizable as human, but his spirit was still present.
And in a rage.
Instinctively, I reached for his hand—
“Don’t touch him!” Peg snapped. I froze.
“He can’t feel anything, Jax. His nervous system is barely functional. You could injure him and he wouldn’t know it. He only has partial use of his right hand. Just enough to operate the joystick on his chair.”
“Can he talk?”
“I can talk some,” Brian coughed. “Just don’t ask me to sing.”
“Not likely,” I said, kneeling beside his chair, meeting those intense eyes. “I’ve heard you sing.”
“I remember those days. Back when I thought we were friends. What the hell happened, Jax? If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it. You freakin’ bailed on us, man. Broke your promise.”
“I thought you were gone, Brian.”
“No. You didn’t. You looked me in the eyes, you bastard. I saw you. And you saw me. You knew damn well I was still alive.”
I didn’t say anything to that. Couldn’t. Because it was true.
“You didn’t even check to see if I was done. You ran like a scalded dog instead. And left me. Like this.”
“I, um...” I broke off. I rose, looking down at him. “Coming here was a mistake. I should go.”
“No! Not till we get things straight, Jax. Why did you ditch us? What the hell happened?”
“The ambush happened. Do you remember that?”
“Only the blast. Then... coming to in a ditch. Looking up at you.”
“A mortar round blew our Hummer crossways,” I said. “We all bailed out, all three of us ducking for cover in the ditch. But the next round airburst directly over us and...”
I swallowed, remembering that split second. Looking down at my best friend, half of him blown to a bloody mist. Doc, our medic, crouching over him, his forefingers jammed against Brian’s femoral artery, screaming into his collar mike for a rescue chopper.
I read the shock and horror in Brian’s eyes as he looked down, and realized what had happened to him. And then he looked up at me, and our eyes met, and I knew exactly what he expected me to do, what we’d all promised each other.
Never to leave a brother behind—