Bloody River Blues

hell of a lot of work, Pellam. You don’t just arrest somebody.”
    “What if I had a tape recorder with me and got him to say something in it?”
    “You can tape yourself talking to somebody without a court order. That’s okay. But it’s a little risky, isn’t it?”
    “It’ll be admissible and everything?”
    “Probably.”
    Pellam shrugged. He walked to the door and stopped. “What you told them. I appreciate it.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “What you told the detectives, about believing me.”
    Buffett shrugged. Pellam noticed him rub his eyes in a resigned way. He seemed as tired as the wilting flowers that littered the radiator cover of the room. “You okay?”
    “Yeah. I guess. My wife came for a visit.” He opened his mouth and was suddenly overwhelmed by the volume of things he wanted to say; they rushed forward. But just before he spoke, the torrent dried up instantly, and he asked, “Hand me the TV Guide, would you?” Buffett motioned across the room. “Son of a bitch orderly left it on the dresser. What good’s it doing me over there? I mean, some people, they just don’t think.”

Chapter 19
    A KNOCK ON the half-open door woke Donnie Buffett. He was dozing and he awoke from a dream he could not remember but that left a residue of longing. “Yeah?” he muttered. “Hello?”
    The door pushed wider open and a blond woman’s face appeared, her head tilted sideways. The face, which he did not recognize immediately, was delicate and pretty. She stepped into the doorway. The lope of her walk, combined with the delicacy and prettiness, made her sexy. This in turn depressed Buffett even more than Pellam’s visit.
    “Hi. You’re not asleep?”
    Hearing her voice, he remembered her name. “Nina, right? Pellam’s friend?”
    As if she now had permission she entered the room. She wore a tight-fitting brown silk dress. A beige raincoat was over her arm. Donnie Buffett commanded himself to look at neither her abundant breasts nor her sleek, pale legs but only at her face.
    “You’re Donnie.”
    “You just missed him.” He smoothed his hair and stroked his two days’ growth of beard with forked fingers. “Did I?” She grimaced and Buffett wonderedwhy he had thought even momentarily that she had come to visit him. She asked, “When did he leave?”
    Buffett looked at his watch, surprised. He thought he had slept for hours. “Thirty, forty minutes ago.”
    “That’s John. Hard to pin him down. Oh hey! Nice roses. The ones I get never open up.”
    “There’s this stuff in a packet that comes with them. You put it in the water.”
    “They smell nice, too. You don’t know where he’s gone off to?”
    If you only knew, lady.
    “Sure don’t, no. Look, take some flowers. You want the roses, take them.” But she shook her head. He remembered that he’d tried this once before. Nobody liked hospital flowers. He figured people thought they were bad luck.
    “Pellam told me about what happened to you in that factory downtown. That’s a tough neighborhood. You okay?”
    She nodded but said nothing, as if the memory were too troubling; Buffett was sorry he’d brought up the attack. But he felt compelled to add, “Maybe you should, I don’t know, leave town or something, until they find who did it.”
    “I could do that. I was thinking I would.”
    What she did at the moment, though, was straighten a disordered pile of magazines on the bedside table until the corners were perfectly aligned.
    Buffett’s eyes returned to the TV. Watching sports increased his depression but he had developed a taste for bad afternoon movies, provided the sound was off. Hearing the dialogue spoiled the experience. He had fallen asleep watching a silent, bad movie about thehijacking of a ship. He wanted either to go back to sleep or to watch his movie. He was becoming irritated with her. “I thought visiting hours are over.”
    “I smiled at the cop outside and he told the nurses to let me in.”
    Buffett grunted but he tried to make it a pleasant grunt.
    She walked further into the room. He did not like her putting her raincoat over the back of the chair. This meant she intended to stay. She kept looking at him. He felt like a freak. Why wouldn’t she leave?
    “How are you feeling?” she asked.
    “Great. I’m great.” On the screen the ship hijackers were chasing the good guys around the decks. Or maybe it was the good guys who were doing the chasing.
    “You don’t sound real great.”
    He