Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

because I’ve been through hell. It’s important that I see her right away.”
    “I’m sorry, unless you’re here to see a patient – “
    I moved around the counter, starting toward the bank of elevators behind it. The receptionist stood up fast, as much indignant as surprised. She was an authoritarian whose authority was slipping. “Excuse me, you can’t enter without a pass.”
    I ignored her and headed toward the elevators. I didn’t have the time or patience for this. Still, I moved slowly, in no real hurry, careful not to seem threatening or appear too crazy. Never run, never run. I had learned this a long time ago. From the corner of my eye I saw the receptionist reaching for her phone. She picked it up fast and called for security. Before she even hung up the phone a large uniformed black man emerged from the gift shop on the other end of the small lobby and moved casually toward us. I stopped and waited for him. He moved as slowly as I did, his eyes fixed on mine. The elevators were ten paces away.
    The guard reached the desk and I recognized him then. He looked at the receptionist, then at me, then at the receptionist again and asked in a Georgia accent, “What’s the problem here, Carol?” Her hand was still on the phone, poised, I knew, to dial 911 if necessary.
    “This man refuses to register,” she explained. “He would like to visit a nurse on duty and I told him she was busy now.”
    The guard looked at me. There was smile at the corner of his lips, as if he was trying to suppress the expression of his delight.
    “Why do you want to do that, Mac? Not sign in.”
    I nodded and said, simply, “It’s good to see you, Reggie.” A few years ago he had been a bouncer at the Hansom House for a summer. I had once pulled a drunk couple, punching man and clawing woman, off his back as he pinned their boozed-out, bottle-wielding friend to the hardwood dance floor. Reggie was a big man, easily two hundred and eighty pounds, and could all by himself lift the front end of a car and turn it so it was facing the other direction. His hair was short, a few weeks shy of bald, and he would have been in the marines a long time ago if he wasn’t on lithium for his mood swings.
    That night I had pulled that couple off his back we sat at the bar after closing and drank till sunup. He was well read and knew more about Albert Camus than anyone I had ever met. He had always on him a tattered copy of The Stranger . We had talked for hours about Meursault and his way of living and taste for things – salt water, chocolates, Marie. When the summer ended and Reggie left for school I was sorry to hear that he had gone. That was maybe three years ago. I looked at him now and wondered if somewhere nearby lay something written by Camus.
    “Someone you know laid up in here?” Reggie said.
    “No. I’m looking for Gale.”
    “Hell, she’s up on the second floor, where she always is. Go on up and see her. I’ll sign you in.”
    “Thanks, Reg.”
    “How’s Augie Doggie doing?”
    “He’s okay,” I lied. I decided then not to wait for the elevator. I headed instead for the stairs at the far end of the corridor. I didn’t look back at the receptionist, but I could imagine the sour look on her face. As I walked toward the door I heard Reggie say to her in a plain but accusing voice, “Don’t you know who that is? That’s the guy you go to when you got trouble.” I cringed.
    It wasn’t easy being in this place. I don’t know if it was the smells or the general, deadly silence, but I felt uneasy in hospitals. There is something almost supernatural about that place – men and women in white coats and green scrubs speaking a secret language all their own, colored pills, the assuring but vaguely ominous half promise of recovery and the ever-present threat of not recovering. It still seemed so medieval to me, polished on the surface but barbaric just beneath it, as much religion as science, as much faith as fact.
    Augie recovered when no one said he would. A world-famous artist in for an appendectomy died on the operating table, fifteen minutes into the operation. A while back I had gotten shot in the shoulder when I tried to find the missing daughter of an old girlfriend. I spent almost two months in this hospital, observing as I lay and waited to heal. I learned not to trust hospitals, not to be lulled into the silence or distracted by the clean smells.
    During both of these times, my recovery and