Chapter 38
The two were even more disreputable-looking than Jeff had expected them to be. Their natural raw-boned appearances were embellished by bruises, bandages, and the external rods holding one’s broken jaw in place.
They were reclined in side-by-side hospital beds, their swollen and bloodshot eyes fixed on the TV mounted on the wall from which blasted the inane dialogue of a sitcom rerun.
As he strolled into the room, he smiled at them pleasantly. “Hello. My name is Jeff Surrey.”
Norman looked him up and down. “So?”
“You’re Norman, correct?” Jeff moved to the foot of his bed. “I’d heard it was Will who’d suffered the more serious injury.” He looked toward Will with a moue of sympathy.
“You heard right,” Norman said. “And my brother likes to do his suffering in private. You ain’t a nurse. If you’re a doctor, we got enough already. If you’re from the billing department, we get all this for free on account of we’re out of work and on welfare.”
“I’m not affiliated with the hospital.”
“Then what the fuck you want?”
“Hayes Bannock.”
“What’s that?”
“Not a what. A who. I’m Emory Charbonneau’s husband.”
The name struck a chord. Apparently they had been watching news broadcasts as well as sitcom reruns. Norman looked over at his brother and ordered, “Shut that off.”
Will, who’d been in charge of the control for the TV, fumbled with it and muted the audio. Jeff had won their undivided attention.
“May I sit down?”
Norman made a gesture of consent. Jeff dragged a chair from beneath the window, positioned it between the two beds, sat down, and casually crossed one leg over the other. “I was told about the unusual circumstances under which you met my wife.”
“She went by Dr. Smith.”
“She lied about her name. She’s been lying a lot recently. Ever since she was abducted by your neighbor.”
“Bannock, you say? He was stingy with his name. We never knowed it.”
“With good reason, as it turns out. He’s wanted by the FBI.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Norman looked over at Will. “You called it right.” Norman came back to Jeff. “We had a bad feelin’ about him. What the feds want him for?”
“You know how they are about their cases. Very tight-lipped. But I’ve met with the agent who’s been trying for years to capture Bannock.”
“Years? Then whatever he did must’ve been bad.”
“I shudder to think,” Jeff said. “His attack on you was psychopathically vicious. And now he’s kidnapped my wife. For the second time.”
Norman turned his head and exchanged a long look with his brother, as though silently consulting with him. When he came back to Jeff, he scrutinized him as he shifted his weight and resettled more comfortably in the bed. Then he flashed a grin, made particularly ugly by the damage done to his face.
“You sure she didn’t just run off? ’Cause it didn’t strike us that she was with this Bannock against her will.”
“He’s brainwashed her.”
Norman guffawed. “Get out.”
“Maybe not in a literal sense,” Jeff said, “but something to that effect. I can tell you with certainty that she’s not herself. She’s behaving irrationally, and…and I fear that if she’s ever returned, she won’t be the woman she was before. The one I knew and loved.”
He covered a light cough/sob with his fist and hoped to God the playacting was convincing. He also hoped they understood at least a few of the multisyllable words.
They understood enough of them. Norman was no longer grinning. “He’s got our ma and sister all moony-eyed, too. Sum’bitch just sauntered into our house and made himself all cozy in our business.”
“That’s why I—”
“But truth is,” Norman continued, interrupting, “he’s meaner’n a snake, and we don’t want no more truck with him, especially with him being wanted by the feds and all. We don’t need that shit, nor nothing like it. No thank you.”
In the next bed, Will confirmed that with as much of a nod as he could manage.
Bolstered by his brother’s endorsement, Norman expanded. “Now, I’m sorry about your wife preferring him. That sucks, all right. But it ain’t our problem, it’s yours. So…” He hitched his chin toward the door. “Don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”
Jeff remained where he was and brushed an imaginary piece of lint off his trouser leg. “Of course my marital issues are entirely personal, and I wouldn’t have aired them to you at all, except for the fact that they have become your problem.”
“How’s that?”
“I’m prepared to leave Bannock’s fate to the federal government. My wife is my only concern. His influence has turned her into a criminal and made her mentally and emotionally imbalanced. For instance, yesterday she told detectives from the sheriff’s office that the baby your sister miscarried was…” He looked away, as though unable to speak the nasty allegation.
“Wuz whut?”
“Was…” He let out a long sigh. “Fathered by one of you.”
Despite his broken ribs, Norman jack-knifed up. “Hell you say!”
Jeff raised his hands in surrender. “Not I, Norman. Emory.”
“Well that’s a damn lie,” he said, jabbing the air with his index finger for emphasis.
“I should hope so. The incest notwithstanding, any sexual congress with Lisa would be statutory rape because of her age. As I’m sure you’re aware.”
Norman looked across at his brother, whose reaction was hard to decipher, but Jeff decided it contained equal portions of fear and fury.
Jeff fed both. “Lisa was questioned by a female deputy. I wasn’t privy to that interview, but based on how fondly Emory spoke about your sister, I got the impression that the two of them have forged a strong bond.”
“Lisa thinks the sun rises and sets in Dr. Smith.”
“Hmm.” Jeff tugged his lower lip as though he found that very troublesome. “I guessed as much. I’m afraid your sister will back anything Emory told the authorities about you. Which is why I felt compelled to inform you that while you’re sequestered in here, your family name is being maligned. You’re being accused of the worst sort of depravity and an egregious crime.”
He purposefully used the big words this time. The brothers probably didn’t know all of them, but the language tolled impending doom for the Floyd brothers, and that was Jeff’s intention.
Norman looked over at Will. “We gotta get out of here. Shut this down before it goes any further.”
Will gave his brother a thumbs-up and began bicycling his legs to push the sheet off them.
Jeff stood. “Wait! You can’t leave the hospital. Your conditions are far too serious. I wouldn’t have told you if I thought—”
“Don’t you worry about us, mister.” Norman started tearing at the tape that secured the IV shunt to his hand. “Thanks for coming by and letting us know. We’ll take it from here.”
“Well,” Jeff said, “since you’re insistent on taking immediate action… It had occurred to me that we could be of help to each other.”
Norman stopped pulling on the tape. Will hummed his eagerness to learn what Jeff had in mind. He even made a rolling motion with his hand as though to say, Let’s hear it.
Jeff kept his expression thoughtful and serious, but up his sleeve he was laughing.
*