make yourself comfortable, just turn around and…”
Boom, I was out like a light. The next thing I knew, Detective Friday was shaking my shoulder and I opened my eyes to find the dimly lit room spinning around me.
“Oh, no, you’re not going to hurl again, are you?” He moved away.
“No, I don’t think so,” I croaked.I put my hand up to feel a large egg on the back of my head.
“Damn, what happened?” I asked him. “Somebody hit me on the head.”
“Me too,” he said. “Quite a coincidence. Looks like a lot of your stuff is gone.”
I tried to move my head but almost blacked out with the effort.
“Can you help me get up?” I asked him. “Did you call for back-up or anything?”
“Yeah, about a half hour ago,” he said, shaking his walkie-talkie. “I probably should go down to the car and call from there. It looks like the reception is bad in here. Do you think you need an ambulance or something?”
He pulled me up on one of the covered chairs.
“Can you focus your eyes on me?” he asked.
I tried to stop my eyes from spinning in my head, but it was difficult, and I wasn’t really motivated: although I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out—and truthfully, I was a little put out by the blow—I thought it might be helpful to give the gang some getaway time, so I decided to play up my infirmity.
“I might have a head injury, I really can’t see straight and things keep blacking out. In fact, there’s a loud ringing in my head right now,” I said.
“That’s the elevator alarm,” he said. “Looks like we might have caught a live one in there.”
He grinned.
“Mind if I leave you alone for a minute?”
He stood up and I grabbed his arm.
“Please, don’t leave me here all alone,” I said. “What if they come back? Maybe they’ll kill me, too. Or I could have a seizure or die while you’re gone. I’d really rather you stay here until someone else arrives. Please, officer. What did you say your name was again?”
“You know damned well my name is Friday, so don’t play games with me,” he said. “I have to go and pursue the perp, ma’am, and I can’t even call for help from in here, so my staying here with you is not going to help your situation at all. You just sit tight here and I’ll be right back.”
“But what if they come back and find out that I’m still alive, and they kill me?”
“I’ll catch ‘em before they get here, don’t worry,” he said, trying to pry my fingers off his forearm.
“But, but what if I die before you get here? What if there’s a giant hematoma in my brain that’s about to explode, or something like that?”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said as he got the last finger off. “And believe me, I would be of no use to you if it does. The only thing I could do is watch it happen, and neither one of us wants that. So just let me run down to the car, call for help, and I’ll be right back.”
He was gone before I could launch another offensive, and I collapsed against the chair as soon as I heard his footsteps down the corridor.
“Ouch,” I said as my head hit the cushion.
That really hurt, Phil, I thought. I hope they got the other unit locked down before Friday regained consciousness, but it seemed like they had gotten away cleanly. I stayed in my seat, uncertain if Friday wasn’t waiting to spring a trap on me right outside the door.
I must have drifted off again. There were paramedics and cops swarming the room when I came to again, and soon I was on my way to Bellevue for a head CT.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked Friday when I passed him in the hallway.
He was holding a cold pack over his temple.
“Nah, I been hit harder than this before,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you later, so you can tell me what’s missing.”
“I can tell you right now,” I said. “It’s all the files of papers for my dissertation research, and I have no idea why anyone would want to steal that stuff. There’s absolutely nothing of value there to anyone but me. It’s all just paper!” I yelled as the gurney rolled down the hall.
I don’t think he believed me, but I would do my damnedest to make him.
Five
It turned out I did have a concussion, a fact I was going to discuss with Phil later, and the ER was unwilling to release me unless I had someone who would stay with me. As I started dialing Michael, Detective Friday blustered into my curtained space and removed the phone from my hands.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said.
He squinted at the screen trying to read the number I was entering.
“Who’re you calling?” he asked.
“A friend to come and get me,” I said. “You should go and get your head examined, too. I’m going home and you can’t stop me.”
“I can and I will. Let’s just say that it’s for your own good. Your life was threatened, and you could be in danger. So, it’s protective custody for you. Plus we should have these fine doctors keep an eye on that pretty little head of yours to make sure your brains didn’t get too scrambled when the bad man knocked you out.”
I groaned. “Can he do that?” I asked the resident, who was occupied with note-taking.
He nodded, never raising his eyes.
Friday smiled.
“Well, I think you should have to stay, too,” I said. “The same terms apply to you.”
“Yeah, but I have a gun,” he said.
“No guns in the hospital,” the resident said, holding out a hand. “Hand it over. We’ll give it to security, and you’ll get it back when you sign out.”
“I don’t think so…Let me talk to someone in charge out there.” And he was gone.
I slept on and off, and eventually I was moved into a semi-private room, where I spent a long night being awakened hourly by someone intent on shining a bright light into my eyes and asking me who was president. The only thing that made this adventure tolerable was the fact that my roommate, Detective Friday, had to endure the same treatment. However, his expression of displeasure was not very respectful of the responsibility of the staff to monitor our conditions.
“Give them a break, will you please?” I said after the third occasion of abusive language.
“Dammit, why should I?” he grumbled. “If they had let me keep my gun, I’d
