was just about to call you. I’m coming over to see Thomas this morning.’
‘We’re at the hospital, Professor. Mr. Bayber’s had a stroke.’
***
He hadn’t been in a hospital for almost a year. It was more grim than he remembered. All the artificial brightness, meant to be reassuring—here is order and cleanliness; surgical cure and pharmaceutical consolation; schedules kept and procedures perfected—was revealed to be otherwise by the moans issued from passing beds, by the brisk, flat-footed walk of orderlies in sneakers pushing those beds, by the janitors’ high gray laundry carts and the smells of sickness and blood embedded in the linens.
Mrs. Blankenship, so capable and exacting in Thomas’s apartment, had been transformed into a weepy mass of wrinkled clothing stuffed into a plastic chair in the waiting room.
‘He was on the floor when I came in this morning,’ she said, dabbing at her pink face with the handkerchief Finch provided. ‘I called for an ambulance right away, but it took them so long to get there. I kept telling him they were on their way. I don’t know whether he heard me.’
‘I’m sure he did.’ Finch looked for a doctor, but seeing no one, patted Mrs. Blankenship on the shoulder, then ventured over to the nurses’ desk, where he found himself ignored by three different women. When repeated throat clearing proved ineffective, he picked up one of the pens with a large artificial flower attached to the end of it and in a fit of pique, stuck it behind his ear. ‘Bayber,’ he said. ‘Thomas Bayber. I need to know what room he’s in.’
The nurse nearest him gave him a withering glance and held out her hand. He returned the pen. ‘Fourth floor. Turn left,’ she said. ‘Down to the first station on your right. They’ll be taking him there from emergency. You can talk to his doctor once they get him settled.’
‘And how long will that be?’ he asked, but she’d already turned away. Finch collected Mrs. Blankenship, and the two of them followed the signs for the elevator, crowding on with the other sleep-deprived, wan-faced visitors, then expelled along with the masses onto a sterile floor that looked the same to him as the last.
It was two hours before Finch could talk with the doctor. A serious stroke; it was too soon to tell how much speech or movement Bayber might eventually recover. He was resting comfortably. They’d monitor him continuously; there was nothing more anyone could do for the time being. Finch called Cranston with an update and told Mrs. Blankenship to go home and rest.
‘Don’t come back until tomorrow,’ he ordered. ‘When they let you see him, I need you to tell him that Jameson and I are driving to the cabin, and to the Kesslers’ old house after that. Tell him even if he’s sleeping, Mrs. Blankenship. And tell him more than once. It’s important.’
The shocks on the Sentra that Finch had rented were shot. The car bounced along the freeway, and Stephen bounced along with it, his head coming perilously close to the ceiling with each bump. Finch drove too fast and gestured as he talked, causing Stephen to press himself against the seat back and stare pointedly at the speedometer. An intermittent rain drummed on the roof, drowning out the classical music station that appeared and disappeared as they passed between a series of hills. Humid air from the vents targeted Stephen’s neck. It was like being trapped in a mobile version of his office at Murchison & Dunne.
Finch raised his chin and sniffed the air. ‘Bananas really aren’t appropriate for a road trip. The fast food I can understand, but unless it’s an apple, or a prune, fruit isn’t the best choice.’ He was secretly glad to be out of his daughter’s clutches, free to enjoy a meal of fat, sodium, and limp vegetable bits with suspect nutritional value without someone chiding him about the dangers of cholesterol and high blood pressure. ‘I should have gotten a bigger trash bag. How can someone as meticulous as you appear to be about certain things travel like this?’
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