Chapter Four: Friendly Visits

 

Chapter Four: Friendly Visits

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Urgh…Amazing how so much can be summed up in just one little guttural sound. I felt like s**t. Felt like I looked like s**t. Hell, everything was pretty s****y at this point. Especially that annoying bright light on the other side of my eyelids. Oh. I guess time to open said membranes and figure out what the hell was going on.

“Oh damn!” Opening the eyes proved more aggravating to my mood as the bright overhead light seared my retinas. As my eyes adjusted, I took in the plain white ceiling tiles. Those were definitely not my apartment ceiling last time I checked. At this point, movement of the neck seemed my best choice of action. I moved my head to the left, and once I saw the hospital equipment next to the bed I was in, and felt the pain in my neck, I immediately realized what happened.

“Holy hell… I was in a wreck,” I whispered to myself in disbelief.

“Damn right you were, Leo. And a helluva wreck that was!”

I turned to my right and sitting in the chair was my normal driver, Steve. I almost didn’t recognize him in his street clothes, but I’ve ridden in the cab with him enough to know his voice from any others.

He looked me up and down as if making sure I wasn’t amputated or something. Oh hell. Quick limb recall! Arms? Lefty and righty present. Legs? I can feel myself wriggling my toes, so that will do. Don’t particularly feel like moving my neck any more than necessary. Steve began in again. He liked to talk quite a bit.

“Yeah man… I happened to be watching the news and I’d be damned if I didn’t see your old Explorer out there all topsy-turvy like. So I took the back roads and got my a*s down here as soon as possible. I heard that some eighteen-wheeler was merging back onto the Parkway from an access road and passed you right by while you were merging and apparently not looking right beside you. He clipped you good on your front right side and sent ya spinning like a bottle. Then you just had to hit a small van and somehow jumped into the air spinning. Frankly, Leo, I’m damned surprised you aren’t hurt.” At my glare he held up his hands defensively.

“Hey, I mean more than you are. You got away with just a real bad case of whiplash and a couple of contusions in random places. They figured you would have internal bleeding at least, but they can’t seem to find anything, but they’re keeping ya here overnight just to make sure. You’re damned lucky, my friend. Either you made a deal with the Devil, or you got yourself your own guardian angel. Either way, you’re a lucky sonuvabitch. Luckier than that kid we picked up last night, at least. Anyway, now that I see you’re good enough to at least gimme that evil eye you do so well, I’m going to head on outta here. Left my girl just kinda hanging at the house. I’ll see you around, buddy.”

            And with that, he got out of the chair and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. But his words still lingered in my mind.

            Why was I so lucky? I should have either died, or close to dead from that wreck. People don’t just wake up from s**t like that just feeling sore. If only that kid had been as lucky. In fact, he should have been as lucky. I wondered what he was doing when he got hit. Was he heading to meet a girlfriend? Maybe he just got off work and was heading to his apartment. Maybe he was heading to a club to blow off steam. Poor guy should have made it to wherever he was heading. But he didn’t. Instead, I made it through. Poor kid…Who am I to take his place?

            Just who was Frank Derahno to have died last night for no reason?

8:49 p.m. Saturday, July 1

            The bad thing about being stuck in a hospital bed, that unless you have the mentality of a juvenile that can be eternally amused by the television, you had nothing to do to keep your mind off of things. I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on with this messed up sense of logic that God or whatever higher being deemed fit for how to handle things like life and death. It just wasn’t fair!

            Yeah, the visits from the nurses, even some of the cuter ones, only interrupted my musings for a few minutes as they checked up on me. They came in, checked my vitals, then the machines, and then asked if there was anything I needed. Then they left as if they had never come in.

            But I did need something. But it wasn’t anything they could help me with. I needed understanding. I needed to know why I was alive and Frank Derahno was dead. Why I have to continue picking up dead bodies that should have lived another seventy years off of the streets. I wanted to know who Frank Derahno was. But I had never really cared about the identity of the people we placed in body bags besides what their name was and their organ donor status.

             “Just who the hell were you, Frank Derahno?” I say aloud, not expecting what came next.

            “I believe I may be able to help you with that, Mr. Garcia.”
            I spun my head around to the right towards the door. Once the white spots in my vision from the resulting pain cleared, I took a look at the owner of the voice who answered my question.

            It was a young lady of average height. Russet colored hair, freckles, sparkling green eyes. Irish girl through and through it seemed. Heritage wise, at least. She was leaning against the doorway as if she owned it. She looked no older than twenty, but she seemed to exude nothing but confidence. Not the usual just-outta-high-school cockiness either. Just like she knew what was going on. The only bad thing was the reason why her green eyes were so sparkly at the moment. There were drops of moisture in them from unshed tears.

            “Um, excuse me, miss…” I fumble around lamely.

            “Ah…My name is Janelle Deans.  I am…Was a friend of Frank’s. Man, I’m never going to get used to that…” She said, ending her introduction with a sad chuckle.

            So I had the Who at least. Now it was time for the How.

            “So, Janelle… Just how did you get to my room past the nurses? Also, why are you here?”

            She gave a smirk, like she had a secret that was willing to divulge because it amused her. It likely did on some level.

            “It was pretty easy actually. I asked where the paramedic who got hit was in this hospital. I told them I was your little sister and looked all sad, and they practically laid down the red carpet for me on the way here. People are fairly easy to predict like that.”

            “Alright then, Miss Deans. Why are you stalking me then?”

            “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Garcia. You’re way too old for me, and I have a boyfriend. But I do believe you can help me, and if you are interested, I believe I can help you.”

            Now my interest was piqued. Just what did she mean by all of this? I guess she saw the confusion evident on my face and answered my unspoken question.

            “You may be the only one who can answer a very important question for me, and maybe even more.”
            “Oh? And what could that possibly be?”

            Her demeanor instantly went from playful to sorrowful and business like.

            “I know Frank always carried an item on him that was important in the event of his death. He wasn’t picky about who got it, but he probably told me the most details about it. It wasn’t a subject he talked about often.”
            My eyebrows arched in surprise. I started to piece the pieces together in my head as she kept on talking.
            “Frank liked to plan things out…He even wanted certain things to happen a certain way once he was dead. So, he always carried around a plastic baggie with…”

            “…A set of papers containing instructions,” I finished for her.

            Her expression went from sad, to surprised, and then to hopeful.

            “Yes! That’s exactly right! But wait… That means you’ve opened the bag and read the note, doesn’t it?” She now looked suspicious. “Why haven’t you talked to me before now then?”

            Whoa. She seemed to be getting mad now. It was time to head this off before things got out of hand.

            “Um, I’m sorry, Miss. I only read the first bit of the note and replaced it in its bag because it was weirding me out. I didn’t know part of the instructions were to even call you.”

            She took a deep breath, held it in for a moment, and then let it out. What a little spitfire I had visiting me, it seemed. She began again, this time much calmer.

            “Sorry about that, Mr. Garcia…”
            “Please, call me Leonard or Leo.”
            “Only if you call me Janelle. But anyway… I’m sorry. I am sure you would understand that I might as well have just lost my brother. I’m sad, confused, and angry at a lot of things right now. But here’s the lowdown. Frank told me the first step in his instructions was to contact me. He said he would always update my contact information in case it changed. He figured either I can be a lot of help to whoever were following his last will, or take the mantle myself. I see you’re quite laid up here, so if you would just hand over the note, I can be on my way. I live about thirty miles south of here, and it was hell getting a cab ride out here, and it will be hell getting back. I need to get back as soon as possible.”

            I looked around and saw my regular clothes folded up on one of the spare chairs in the room. I nodded in that direction as much as I could, thanking God that I could at least do that much without it hurting like hell.

            “The note should still be in my jacket pocket over there. I was wearing it last night at the wreck scene. Check the left pocket.”

            She nodded and made her way from the door to the chair and rummaged through the left pocket. Frowning, she pulled out her empty hand and stuck it in the right pocket. She looked the jacket over for anymore pockets and then looked back at me with a frown on her face.

            “It’s not here. If this is your idea of a cruel joke, I’m going to show you what a pissed off woman can truly do to a man who can barely move his head,” she said, menacingly.

            I sighed. Things were never that simple, were they?

            “Sorry, it must have followed onto the floor at my apartment. I kinda just tossed my jacket on the couch when I got off last night,” I said, sheepishly.

            She sniffed, and said haughtily, “Just like you men. Pigs no matter what age you are. Someone should have at least taught you to hang up your jacket like a civilized person. Then we wouldn’t have been in this current predicament.”
            “Well, Janelle, what do you propose we do?”

            She took out a pen and paper from her jeans pocket and wrote something down, using the chair arm as an impromptu desk. She then set it on the bedside table.

            “There’s my address and phone number, just in case Frank slipped up. If you could, please bring the note by my place tomorrow. I have a family I can’t really leave for too long, and I’ve already stayed long enough,” she said, obviously disappointed.

            I nod. I couldn’t relate, but I knew that it was kind of my fault anyway.

            “Alright. I will come by tomorrow as soon as I can. They are just keeping me here overnight for…”

            “For observation for internal bleeding. I already know the details, Mr. Garcia.”

            I frowned. “And just how do you know all of that?”

            She chuckled a bit at that and smirked at me.

            “Really now,” she started. “Do you have to ask that? I went to high school. I wanted to know something, and any details that were important enough to know I know now. Peace…”

            And with that, Janelle Deans left my hospital room to leave me alone with my thoughts, now even more rampant and confused than before. I needed to sleep, but my busy mind would not let me rest with this crap inside of it. And I certainly couldn’t get my bottle of whiskey up here. So there wasn’t any other choice. I weakly reached over and hit the page button.

            As the nurse came in two minutes later, she saw me with quite the pained expression on my face.

            “Nurse, could you please give me some heavy duty pain killers? Everywhere aches and I just can’t stand it anymore.”
            It was half bullshit and half truth. I could deal with the pain, but the injuries from the wreck and the pain from reaching for the page button easily added credibility to my pained expression.

            “Oh sure, Mr. Garcia! I will right back,” she said, and briskly walked out of the room.

            Twelve minute and a heavy dose of morphine later, I was smiling and enjoy the view of the nurse’s swaying backside as she walked out of my room. Thirty seconds later, I was easily falling into the blissful embrace of sleep. I heard nothing. No shooting. No noisy neighbors. And no traffic!

            God, how I hate South Huntsville traffic.

Reviews

Oh, wow, this is getting so interesting! I just have to know what's written in that note D: Write more!

I love how you take the story from the every-day thoughts of Leo to a kind of mystery story! I look forward to reading more!

[Emily In Disguise]

I like the addition of the over-confident Irish girl. :)