Fifty-Six

FIFTY-SIX

SOMEBODY brOKE INTO DR. Ben Kalinsky's office, swung away at him with a baseball bat, then fled. He awakened long enough to call 911 before passing out again.

When the cops and EMTs got there, a little after eight, Ben was still unconscious near the back door, bleeding from the head. I knew he was always the first to show up in the morning and the last to leave the office at night.

A friend from the East Hampton cops called Jimmy and told him that the locked cabinet where Dr. Ben kept his drugs had been broken into and apparently cleaned out.

"He only keeps heavy-duty pain pills in case of an emergency," I tell Jimmy.

"Addicts don't care how many, or how they get them," Jimmy says. The last thing Ben remembered, according to the first cops on the scene, was walking to the back room to lock up, hearing a noise, and seeing the bat coming for his head.

The EMTs got him into the ambulance and on his way to the trauma center in Bridgehampton.

"How bad is it?" I ask Jimmy from the car.

"They're trying to find out how much swelling there might be near the brain, and whether they might need to go in as a way of alleviating it," Jimmy says.

It's just Jimmy and me in the waiting area when I arrive at the trauma center. No other patients tonight except for the kindest man I've ever known, somewhere inside with his head cracked open like a walnut.

Maybe because of me.

By now I've told Jimmy about Allen Reese warning me that I was messing with the wrong people.

"You think he called Salvatore after you left him?"

"It's what I would have done," I say. "Maybe he was afraid that I might go around and tell people that he and Salvatore were besties."

I stare down at my hands, inspecting what's left of my last manicure, not even sure what the color was when I'd had the nails done. Wanting to think about anything except what's happening with the doctors on the other side of the double doors.

"What's taking them so long?" I ask.

"He was pretty banged up."

I'm too angry to cry. And too scared.

"Maybe it was just supposed to look like a robbery," I say to Jimmy. "Maybe whoever did this was just there to deliver a message to me."

Jimmy takes one of my hands and puts it in his own. "Or it really was a break-in and they were looking for drugs. Newsday reported that local vets' offices are frequent targets. Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Maybe the wrong place for Dr. Ben is me, " I say. "And the wrong time is right now."

After what seems like about three lifetimes, the doctor finally comes through the door. It's not Raymond Williams, who treated Jimmy after he was shot. Tonight it's a small woman with big red hair and what looks to be a sleek runner's body.

Dr. Byrne, her name tag reads.

"He's awake," she says.

"Are you going to have to operate?"

She shakes her head. "No. Even though his skull is fractured."

"Good Lord."

She smiles. "Let me finish," she says. "Fortunately, it's a linear fracture and not what we call a depressed fracture. So, no surgery."

"So that means he's going to be okay?"

She pauses. After everything I've been through over the past several months, I'm not crazy about doctors hitting the pause button, even for a beat or two. Every time they do, I feel like I might be slip-sliding toward the end of the world.

"He's very lucky, let's put it that way."

"Is that an answer?"

"As a matter of fact," she says, "it is. Because this could have been so much worse if he hadn't somehow regained consciousness long enough to make that call, and they didn't get him here as quickly as they did."

I decide not to press her further. She's on Ben's side, after all. And I don't want her to feel as if she's on the stand.

"Can I see him?"

"He wants to see you," Dr. Byrne says. "But be aware that the drugs have him feeling no pain."

"Good," I say. "I just need to tell him something."

Before I follow Dr. Byrne inside, Jimmy gently takes my arm.

" What do you need to tell him that can't wait?" he asks quietly.

"How sorry I am."

"I'm sure he knows that."

Now I'm the one pausing.

"And that as soon as he's out of here I'm breaking up with him."