Death Wish Read Free Page A

of his hand.

3

    He followed the signs to Emergency and found Jack sitting tense with one shoulder raised, twisting his knuckles. Jack looked up without recognition.
    â€œI’m sorry. My cab got hung up in traffic. You must have been here quite a while already.” He felt he had to apologize to someone.
    Jack said, “You may as well sit down. They won’t let us in there.”
    People on the hard wall-benches sat holding minor wounds and invisible illnesses. The room had a smell and a sound; the sound was a muted chorus of agony but it was the smell that Paul couldn’t stand. Hospital staff in dirty white clothes kept hurrying in and out. An empty ambulance pulled away from the open ramp. There must have been twenty people in the room, most of them sitting, a few rushing in and out, and except for one woman who sat blindly holding a little boy’s hand, none of them seemed to pay any attention to one another. Pain was private, not for sharing.
    A cop sat on the bench beside Jack. Paul sat down on the other side of him. Jack said, “The officer’s kind enough to stay and see if he can help. This is my father-in-law.”
    The cop extended a hand. He had a tough black face. “Joe Charles.”
    â€œPaul Benjamin. Can you tell me—what’s happened?”
    â€œI was telling Mr. Tobey here. We didn’t want to question Mrs. Tobey too much, she’s pretty shaken up.”
    â€œWhat about my wife?” He said it quietly; he wanted to scream it. But you talked in muffled tones in a room full of strangers in anguish.
    A man sat holding an injured arm against his belly, bleeding onto his lap. Paul wrenched his eyes off him.
    The cop was saying, “We don’t know. She was still alive when they took her out of the ambulance.”
    She was still alive —the implications of the cop’s choice of words set the pulsebeat drumming in Paul’s temples.
    A young man in white came into the room in company with a nurse. The young man beckoned to the woman with the small boy. The woman took the boy by the hand and followed the intern and the nurse out of the room. The man with the injured arm watched them until they were gone. Blood kept soaking into his trousers. After a moment the cop said, “Excuse me,” and got up to walk over to the man, dragging a handkerchief out of his pocket.
    Paul stared at his son-in-law: Jack’s face was gray. He didn’t seem compelled to talk so Paul prompted him. “What did he say?”
    â€œNot much.” Too stunned to be drawn out? Paul tried again:
    â€œDid you talk to Carol?”
    â€œYes. She didn’t say much that made sense. She seems to be in shock.”
    â€œAnd—Esther?”
    Jack shook his head. “Look, it’s very bad.”
    â€œFor God’s sake tell me.”
    â€œThey beat them both up.”
    â€œWho? Why?” He leaned forward and gripped Jack’s wrist. “You’re a lawyer. Think like one. Testify like a witness, can’t you? Tell me.”
    Jack shook his head as if to clear it. “Pop, I just don’t know. Two men, maybe more. Somehow they got into your apartment. I don’t know if they broke in or if Mom or Carol let them in. I don’t know what they wanted there. I don’t know what they did or why, except that they—attacked—them both. Oh, not rape, I don’t mean rape. That wasn’t it. They just—beat them up.”
    â€œWith their hands?”
    â€œI guess so. There was no blood that I could see. I don’t think they could have used knives or anything, there would have been blood, wouldn’t there?”
    â€œWho called the police? You?”
    â€œNo. Carol called the police. Then the police called me.”
    â€œWhen did it happen?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Jack looked at his watch and shot his cuff absently. “Couple of hours ago now, I guess.”
    Paul tightened his grip on