A Body to die for

(and unconscious), Max booked over the Brooklyn Bridge to the marriage license bureau in the City Hall building in lower Manhattan. He made it with nanoseconds to spare. He gave a secretary on her way home a hundred bucks to stand in for me to get the license. (In New York, you don’t need a blood test.) By the time he got back to the hospital, I’d been revived. The hospital staff rabbi married us. Max alerted his insurance company immediately, and he signed all the paperwork to have me admitted to a room upstairs. Have I mentioned that I had no health insurance? Not that I married Max for his coverage, but four thousand dollars a day for a couple months was a whole lot of money. I could have only hoped to get that much in wedding presents.
    Alex said, “I think she’s slipped into another one of those Percodan comas.”
    I spoke up. “When am I going to get a ring?”
    Max laughed. “By the time your fingers have returned to their normal size, you probably won’t even want one.”
    “Oh, I’ll want one, darling. And I expect you to wear one, too,” I warned him. To Alex, I said, “And you’ve got three hundred sixty-four days left to get me a very expensive gift.”
    Alex kissed the back of my head. “Consider it done.” He smiled his big smile—with teeth—and raked the brown hair from his eyes.

    Here’s how the case wrapped up: As soon as we got to the hospital, Max called the cops. He told them about Larry and Molly. The police didn’t believe Max at first. They already had Ameleth Bergen and Janey Johnson in for questioning. Max had to explain over and over again what he’d heard at the Bossert. Finally, the cops agreed to put out an APB for Larry Black and Molly Mahoney. They were caught at La Guardia Airport when the murder knife set off the metal detectors at the gate. A large bag of speed was also found in their suitcase. Once surrounded by security guards, Molly cracked. She told them everything. But she still didn’t know how the murder weapon found its way into her suitcase’s outside pocket.
    Alex helped out with the Falcone bust. While in the emergency room, I begged him to find the towel boy who’d saved my life and get him to talk to the cops. He witnessed Falcone put me in there. Alex didn’t want to leave Leeza’s side. Apparently, there was some trouble with getting her a room. (I later wondered if the molesting ER doctor had anything to do with that.) Anyway, Alex found the towel boy at the gym, peeping. That kid never gave it a rest. After some convincing and some blackmailing, the homy dork agreed to go to the Brooklyn Heights precinct and tell the cops what he’d seen. After he did, Falcone had attempted murder (mine, that is) added to her list of offenses. When convicted, she’d be gone for a long, long time. I wondered if conspiring to lose ten pounds was worth losing ten years of her life. Falcone was caught by the cops soon after the towel boy gave his statement. She was spotted throwing an unidentified pearl-handled .22 caliber revolver into the East River. I cried when I heard that. I guess it was time for me to put away childish things. My next gun would be a .45.
    Jack Watson was released from the Detention Center after paying a five-thousand-dollar fine for his claustrophobic seizures stunt and pulling Officer Martinez’s hair. He came to visit me eight weeks after the busts, my second-to-last week at the hospital. He’d recovered from his experiences at the Brooklyn Detention Center extremely well. “I’ve decided to divorce Ameleth,” he announced. “And I’m going back on the tennis circuit.”
    “Bull,” I said, by now resting on the bed comfortably. “You love her. Even if she set you up. And you’re afraid to play. You can’t even lob balls with a five-year-old.”
    He sat at the foot of my bed and shook his blond head vigorously. “I’ve changed, Wanda,” he announced. “After all that I’ve been through in the last few weeks—Ameleth’s betrayal, mainly—I realized that my entire relationship with her only served— served, I’m even using tennis words again—anyway, she served to perpetuate my self-doubt. She wasn’t exactly a nurturing partner. Now that I’ve found someone who is more supportive, I can’t not try. I’m only twenty-five years old. Jimmy Connors made it to the U.S. Open Finals when he was practically a grandfather at thirty-five. I even hit the ball a few times with my new girlfriend. She was an aerobics