I drove to the hospital to see if Carter could improve my mood.
He looked better. There was color in his skin, and the tube had been removed from his chest, leaving a lone IV line trailing into the back of his right hand. There were a couple of bandages in different spots and he was maybe a tad thinner, but he looked like Carter again.
“Please tell me you brought me some real food,” he said, sitting up. “I can’t eat this crap anymore.”
“Sorry. Want me to get you something?”
“Hell, yes. The next time I see a tray come in here with covered things on it, I’m gonna jump out the window. Seriously.” He looked at me. “You alright? You look like shit. And I don’t mean from Costilla’s beating.”
I shook my head and sat on the edge of the bed. I told him about going to see the Criers and Marilyn’s explosion at the end.
“The problem is,” Carter said, “I have a hell of a time feeling sorry for them.”
I looked at him. “Hey. Their daughter’s dead. Easy.”
He shrugged. “I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to look at them as anybody other than the people that made you miserable.”
“Your loyalty has its faults.”
“No, it doesn’t. I feel badly that their daughter is dead, but it doesn’t make me like them any more than I ever did.”
I didn’t feel like having the conversation with Carter. He was grumpy and tired of being in the hospital, and regardless of his feelings for the Criers, I didn’t want to hash it out there.
“How do you know Charlie?” I asked, moving us away from the subject.
“Charlie? Just a guy I run into now and then,” he said.
“He’s creepy.”
“Yeah, a little, but he’s alright.”
“Think he’ll be able to get me anything on that key?”
“If he can’t, no one can.”
I hoped that he could. I didn’t know if it would lead to anything, but at the very least, it would be a closed loop in the mystery.
“You know yet when they are going to release you?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes and made a face at the door. “I wanted to leave today. I feel fine. But they want me here for one more night.”
“Your charming personality, no doubt.”
“Man, I have tried to piss off every person that walks in here, hoping they’ll kick me out,” he said, clenching his fists. “They keep telling me how they can’t believe I’ve recovered this fast. And I’m like, I know, sign the goddamn release papers.”
“That famous Carter charm must be working. They love you too much to let you go.”
“Bite me,” he said, shooting me a dirty look. “I want out.” He took a deep breath and dropped back on the pillow. “What’s the story with you and the Ice Queen?”
“I’m not sure you’re in the mood to hear about it,” I said.
He waved his hand around the room. “If I’m gonna have a heart attack, this is as good of a place as any.”
I laughed and started to tell him, but my cell phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out. “Hello?”
“Who’s this?” the voice asked.
“Noah Braddock. Who’re you?”
“Just checking,” he said. “It’s Charlie. I’m calling about your key.”
“Right. What can you tell me?”
“That it’s ready to be picked up, dude,” he said, that hissing-laughing sound making its way out of his throat and through the phone line.
“Great. Did you find out what it belongs to?”
“Um, sir, your key is ready,” he said again. “The cost is one fifty and I’ll be at my desk the rest of the day. I can show you what you need to know.”
I started to ask him again if he knew anything, but the line went dead. I closed up the phone and looked at Carter. “Your buddy, Charlie.”
“What’d he say?”
“That my key’s ready. Wouldn’t tell me if he found anything.”
Carter chuckled. “He’s a little paranoid, Noah. A few irons in the wrong fire, you know? Is he charging you?”
I stood. “For the third time. Said it was going to cost me one fifty to pick up my key.”
“If he’s taking your money, then he knows where to stick that key.”
I walked to the door. “He goddamn better, because if he doesn’t, he’s not gonna like where I’m gonna stick it.”