The Bum's Rush (A Leo Waterman Mystery) by G.M. Ford

Author:G.M. Ford [Ford, G.M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

It was one of those what’s-wrong-with-this-picture? moments. An instant when the general order of the universe is sufficiently askew to automatically command the eye. I was still dodging traffic when I spotted the Speaker tramping in a solitary vigil up and down the cul-de-sac that fronted Providence Hospital. The sight brought me up short. The bright overhead lights surrounding the driveway showed me that the cellular phone message was gone. He was serious today. Today, both sides of his sandwich board read the same: REHAB IS FOR QUITTERS. He’d attracted other attention as well. A trio of security guards stood just outside the automatic doors, thick arms folded over two-tone blue shirts, eyes following his solitary shuffle, desperately hoping he’d stray onto hospital property so they could clean his clock. The Speaker, however, was way too sly, staying exclusively on the public access strip between the sidewalk and the street.

I stepped up onto the curb and watched as his board-covered back marched to the far end of the building, where he executed a crisp military turn back in my direction. The sight of me waiting for him suddenly spun him again like a shooting gallery bear. He wide-eyed me over his shoulder as he hotfooted it back up the block and disappeared around the corner of the building.

The guard on the right, a balding specimen whose name tag read T. Parker, appeared at my elbow. “You know that schmuck?”

“I may have seen him around,” I hedged.

“He seemed to know you.”

“A lot of folks know me.”

Before he could reply, the black plastic radio pinned to his epaulet emitted a stream of static among which some unintelligible verbiage seemed to float. Numbers maybe. Two forty-three. Something like that. Whatever it was brought all three of them to point. Without a word they rushed in through the automatic doors and disappeared down the hallway to the left.

I stopped at the front desk. Whatever chicanery was going on hadn’t filtered down to the blue-haired volunteers at reception. According to them, Ralph was in 509. I headed for the elevators.

I was one step onto the fifth floor when I suddenly knew what was up. Each end of the long central hallway was capped with a white bench. Mary sat at one end, Earlene at the other, pretending to read magazines, just like I’d taught ’em. Lookouts. Like the Speaker, they took one look at my cherubic countenance and went scurrying out of sight, heel-and-toeing it down parallel halls toward the back of the building. I followed the signs to 509.

I stepped into the room and took inventory. The room was empty. The bed was gone. On the nightstand, a blue plastic cup with a bendable straw sat on a rumpled newspaper. An IV stand, its plastic bottle of saline solution still hooked on top, lay sprawled on the floor like a remnant pruned from some aluminum cybershrub.

I turned to leave and bumped into T. Parker, who filled the doorway.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“They told me Ralph Batista was in this room,” I said.

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