“We’re not Greek. I always look gift horses in the mouth. That’s what journalists do. If something sounds too good to be true, it is.”
“Dad, you could ruin a—hell, I don’t know.”
“I know it. There’s only one way this is worth it to me.”
Oh, boy. Here it comes. “How’s that?”
“You stay here and run the paper. I’m too old now. Too damn sick. You make it what it should be. If what your mother told me about this morning’s issue is true, then you’ve already made a good start. You don’t answer to me anymore. The Watchman’s yours. I’ll sign it over right now.”
My mother walks to the edge of the bed and lays her right hand on my father’s arm. “Let’s stop talking about the paper. There’ll be plenty of time for that later on.”
Will there? I wonder. Looking at Dad’s waxy yellow skin, I feel like I’m seeing a preview of what he’ll look like in death. We stand in silence for a few minutes, and his eyelids slowly fall closed. His breathing sounds shallow and irregular.
“I’m going to see if they’ll let us bring two chairs in here,” Mom says. “Jack said he’d speak to the nurses.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You stay with him. I don’t want him to wake up alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
After she tiptoes out, I stand at the foot of the bed and speak softly, voicing words I should have said years ago. Decades, even. The problem is, I didn’t realize that until I’d been drowned on a bench in the Bienville jail.
“I’ve hated you most of my life,” I tell him. “You made my last three years of high school hell. You acted as if I didn’t exist. You blamed me for Adam’s death. I blamed myself for it, okay? But I didn’t kill him. I know he got in that river to look out for me, but that wasn’t all of it. He had his own reasons. Anyway . . . I know what it means to lose a son. And you lost two children. I can’t imagine that.”
I pause, feeling short of breath, only half hoping he’s heard me. He lies there with his mouth open, his arms jerking every few seconds as his brain misfires. Stepping closer to the bed, I lay my hand on his cold arm. He doesn’t stir.
“I’ve always said you blamed me all my life,” I go on. “But the truth is, you blamed me for three years. After that, I got the hell out of here and slammed the door behind me. You never reached out to me. But if you had, I wouldn’t have listened. That’s the truth of it. I blamed you for blaming me. And now . . . it all just seems stupid. A waste. I’ve spent years trying to prove I’m better than you were at this job, and you’ve drunk yourself to death. And for what? Nothing I can see.”
The glass door slides open behind me, and Mom leads in a male nurse carrying two folding chairs, which he sets up on the opposite side of the bed.
“Y’all must rate pretty high around here,” he says. “They don’t usually let us do this for folks, but Dr. Kirby called somebody and laid down the law.”
“He’s a good man,” Mom says. “Thank you for setting these up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After he goes out, Mom says, “Did I see you talking to your father?”
“Not really. I was just letting him know he’s not alone.”
She gives me a long look, but she asks no questions. “Well, I’m glad,” she says finally. “I hope you had a good talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We sit in companionable silence for about ten minutes. Then the nurse returns to tell me I have a visitor in the ICU waiting room.
“Male or female?” I ask.
“Male. Said his name is Mr. Russo.”
Tommy Russo? Shit. Now I regret leaving Nadine’s gun in the Flex.
“Is everything all right?” Mom asks, with her preternatural perception of danger.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll just be a minute.”
I find Russo chatting up a young nurse in the ICU waiting room. He’s smiling at her, but when he sees me, he says something in a low voice and she scuttles down the hall.
“What can I do for you, Tommy?” I ask.
“I hear your father’s not doing good.”
“That why you’re here?”
Russo looks around the waiting room. “What a dump. Can you believe this is the best they can do?”
“Tommy—”
“That deal you made this morning. With Buckman and the others.”
“Yeah?”
“I can live with most of it. But you gotta tell ’em to forget that community development fund. That million-a-year bullshit.”
“Why’s that?”
“Buckman says I gotta fund that whole nut out of my new casino. I can’t do it. My partners won’t stand for it.”
At this moment the concerns of Tommy Russo’s partners don’t interest me in the slightest. “That’s your problem, Tommy, not mine.”
He shakes his head once. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. What you gonna do with that money, anyway? Repave some streets for the moolies, do some drainage projects? Their cars are for shit anyway. I should know. They fill up my parking lot night and day, while the owners gamble away their Social Security.”
“I don’t have time for this, Tommy. What’s a million to you? If that’s the price of a new casino, it’s cheap.”
“It’s a mil I don’t need to pay, Doc. I ain’t your only problem, either. Beau Holland ain’t goin’ to jail. I’m just telling you. He’ll kill you before that happens.”
My image of Russo as a snake with its fangs folded back returns, because now I sense the fangs being deployed. Tommy steps into my personal space, and I get a strong wave of his cologne mixed with sweat.
“Listen,” he says. “I feel bad about your old man. But he just got his newspaper back, right? He’s whole again. Your mother’s happy, I know. Now, that article you ran this morning, that got me in some hot water. You run another story like that, you dig deeper, you’re gonna set some things in motion.”
So much for Russo’s understated threats.
“It’s like Newton’s law, right?” he goes on. “Yeah, I went to school. Every action has an equal but opposite reaction. In other words, you fuck me this way, you get fucked right back.”
I don’t know what to say to this.
“I hope you don’t lose your old man,” he says. “But if you do, look at it this way: you still got your mother, right? God bless her.” Russo grips my shoulder like we’re old friends from the neighborhood, then walks to the open door, turns, and looks back with an altar boy’s face. “Think about that, Doc. I’ll be seein’ you.”
“I want out of here, Marshall! Get me out!”
I blink awake beside my father’s bed. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, but my left arm and leg are both asleep, and there’s a painful crick in my neck. With Dad’s limited vocal volume, there’s no telling how long he’s been trying to wake me.
“Marshall?” he rasps. “Wake up, son! I need to get out of here.”