TEAM ANGST: Day 17, "Sometimes we take chances"
Title: Sometimes we take chances
Author: ifreet
Team: Angst
Prompt: "Not a plan, exactly--more like a strategy."
Pairing(s): F/K/V
Length: 2700 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death
Author's Notes: Many thanks to jamethiel_bane, nos4a2no9 and secretlybronte for betaing and general helpfulness!
Summary: Ray hated that look. His brief adventure in Florida had been fueled, in part, by the need to get away from that look and his replacement's long shadow.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
Ray double checked the number on Frannie's note and tucked it in a pocket before knocking. All in all Benny's new place was several steps up from the old one on Racine. The hallway was clean and trash-free. The door didn't sound hollow or shake under his hand; it even had a decent lock. It was hard to believe that rattrap was gone--"burned down," Frannie had informed him while giving him the you should know this look. He hated that look. His brief adventure in Florida had been fueled, in part, by the need to get away from that look and his replacement's long shadow. In hindsight, getting involved with the guy's ex-wife had not been the best way to do that.
The door opened. "Benny."
"Ray!" Ray'd clearly surprised him, but Benny recovered quickly, stepping out into the hall to wrap gather him into an embrace. Ray was startled to be on the receiving end, but that didn't stop him from hugging back, tucking his face into Benny's soft fisherman's sweater, which was so ratty a real fisherman would be embarrassed to wear it. When Benny released him, he kept his hands fastened on Ray's shoulders, as if Ray might vanish if he let go.
"It's good to see you, Ray."
"Good to be seen. Are you going to invite me in?" Ray teased.
Benny ducked his head a little, hand coming up to eyebrow in an achingly familiar gesture. Before he answered, a voice called from further within the apartment. "Fraser? Who's at the door?"
Christ. It was that guy. Stanley Kowalski. He tore his eyes away from Benny and noticed the sheer amount of stuff in the room behind him: actual furniture, clutter, party lights. No way it all belonged to Benny. Frannie couldn't have told him about this? She couldn't have maybe warned him about Benny's roommate?
Kowalski chose just that moment to enter from another room, looking annoyed. "Oh, it's you."
"Yeah, nice to see you, too, Stanley." He knew his expression said it was anything but.
"S. Raymond Kowalski. Ray." He actually pulled out his wallet, flipped it open to his ID and jabbed at it. "Why is that so hard to remember?"
"Whatever, Sta--" He caught sight of Ben's face and stopped dead. He looked miserable. Ray felt like a jerk, but there was no way he could surrender his name. He cleared his throat. "Whatever, Kowalski."
Kowalski grinned, in a tooth-baring way, but since Benny started smiling again, too, it wasn't so bad.
***
Benny had frustrated any plan to get him one-on-one by inviting Ray to stay for dinner, and Kowalski'd had the delivery place on the line before Ray had a chance to object. And after dinner, Benny tossed them both out of the kitchen, claiming that clean up would proceed more smoothly without their interference. Since there couldn't possibly be that much clean up involved in take-out Chinese, even if Benny had insisted on real dishes, Ray suspected he was trying to throw the two of them together. Benny was not subtle.
But Benny wasn't subtle in his feelings, either, and he was happy in a way Ray had never seen. If it made Benny that happy, Ray could manage to carry on a semi-polite conversation with Kowalski, even without a referee.
Eventually, the gurgling of the sink signaled the end of the dishes, and Benny joined them. As he passed behind Kowalski's chair, he dropped a hand to his shoulder. Kowalski reached up and squeezed it absently, still talking about the Sox like anyone cared. Ray half-smiled but dropped his eyes to his water glass.
Ray had been startled when he first caught on, a dozen little touches adding up to something more. Kowalski had noticed him noticing and stared him down, just daring him to make something of it, but Ray had simply shrugged and acted like he didn't care. He was glad, mostly, that Benny wasn't trying to hide this from him.
But it did make him uncomfortable. Not for the reason Kowalski had expected--Ray was hardly going to claim moral high ground there. But every witnessed touch was a reminder that, even if he hadn't been replaced as Benny's best friend, Kowalski had become something more than a friend. And it was lonely on the outside.
Benny sat beside him on the couch, so close the cushions sagged and their shoulders bumped. He managed to feign interest in Chicago baseball teams for almost a whole minute. "Well, I for one think the Bears could go all the way."
"That's football, and I know you know that, so quit trying to change the subject." Kowalski's tone was exasperated, but his smile was warm. Too warm for company.
"Speaking of changing the subject." Ray set his glass down and sat forward to begin the dance of the graceful exit. "Thanks for dinner; it was great. But I should be going."
"No."
"No?" He looked at Benny in surprise, who shared a speaking look with Kowalski, a whole conversation that Ray couldn't quite follow.
"Stay," Kowalski answered for Benny. Kowalski slouched down in his seat, the very picture of nonchalance. "We'd like you to stay."
There was a peculiar emphasis on the word. Benny nodded, but stiffly, and he was slightly flushed. That, more than anything Kowalski had said--or rather, not said--gave meaning to the word. Stay didn't mean have another drink and talk until almost morning. Stay meant, what, sex?
"You're serious? You're--that's crazy." He felt the slight shift of Benny tensing, a space opening between their shoulders. He would have backed off; he was already backing off. Kowalski, though, he sat forward, set his elbows on knees, and leaned right into Ray's space. Only the hands fiddling with the neck of his beer bottle gave away any nervousness. Ray found it reassuring that Kowalski wasn't quite as cool and casual as he wanted to look.
"Hey." The soft tone surprised Ray into looking up from his hands, and, yeah, he wasn't really so casual at all. There was something intent and arresting in his expression. "Undercover is crazy. Moving a thousand miles away? That was crazy. Working with him--?" Benny made an indignant noise. "That's crazy. This can be the easy part."
Benny's hand closing over his own made Ray jump. Benny began to pull away, again, but Ray turned his hand over and held on, stopping his retreat. He wasn't saying no, and he turned to Benny to tell him that. But Ray hadn't gotten a word out before Benny's lips brushed against his in a soft, cautious, unmistakable kiss. Benny drew away briefly to look Ray in the eye. Ray didn't know what Benny saw there, but whatever it was, Benny kissed him again before turning to Kowalski. Kowalski, who had been watching them, leaned over and kissed Benny. It seemed to go on forever, and then they were both looking at him.
"Okay." It came out hoarsely, so Ray tried again. "Okay."
***
Benny had dropped off to sleep immediately afterwards, but Ray was still drifting when the mattress dipped. Kowalski got up, scooped up his jeans, and slipped out. Benny mumbled and curled towards Ray but didn't wake. After a moment of debate, Ray slipped out from the warm cocoon of the covers. He found his pants and kept hunting until his hand encountered the cool cotton of his shirt, too. He glanced back at the bed. Benny slept on, though he'd sprawled out and taken up all the available space.
Ray found Kowalski in the living room, sitting in the window that opened to the fire escape, a cigarette in hand.
"You smoke?"
He glanced over his shoulder. The streetlights cast his face into unreadable shadow. "Not much. Fraser hates the smell. Don't tell him, alright?"
Ray shrugged and walked over to lean against the other side of the window. Benny would figure it out on his own. Or not. He didn't really care about the cigarette. It was just another thing he didn't know about Kowalski and not high on his list of things he was curious about. "Are you having second thoughts?"
"What?" Kowalski sounded honestly surprised. He scrubbed his free hand through his hair, making it stand up in all directions. "Oh. I'm just up after sex. Wired. Always have been. It used to drive--" He cut himself off with a cough. "Anyway, I didn't mean to wake you."
"I wasn't asleep." The street below was quiet, though the sound of more distant traffic drifted up on the slightly cool breeze. Ray suppressed a shiver, but Kowalski didn't seem to mind. But then, Kowalski had voluntarily spent time in the Frozen North.
Ray knew all these facts about Kowalski, without knowing him. It was all impersonal and second-hand. Well, Ray supposed he did have some first-hand knowledge now, but what he knew first-hand about Kowalski could fit on a laundry list. Benny, though, he'd thought he knew. The things he knew about Benny could fill an encyclopedia--maybe an entire library. Ray wondered whether the two of them had been heading here all along, if they'd have gotten here sooner if Ray hadn't been pulled for Vegas. He wasn't sure.
"This is weird," he admitted.
Kowalski took a drag off the cigarette. The flaring cherry illuminated his sharp glance. He exhaled slowly--buying time or savoring, Ray couldn't tell. "Good-weird or weird-weird?"
"Benny's involved. So both."
Kowalski smiled, a flash of white in the dim. "It's never boring around Fraser, that's for sure."
He snorted. "Tell me about it. If we weren't digging through dumpsters, we were scaling buildings."
"And endangering our lives in wildly bizarre ways."
"From what I've heard, that wasn't all Benny."
Kowalski extinguished the butt on the windowsill and dropped it into a rusting coffee can on the escape. It landed with a hiss. Ray would lay odds that he wasn't fooling Fraser at all; he'd known sneakier smokers as a teen. Kowalski dug in his pocket and pulled out a partial roll of candy. As he shredded more wrapper away, the sickly sweet smell of mint wafted up.
"Want one?"
"A pocket lint coated mint. Hm, let me think about it."
"Your loss." Kowalski popped one in his mouth, then stood and closed the window. "Come on. Fraser'll be upset if he wakes up alone."
***
Things were more awkward in the light of day. Benny and Kowalski moved easily around each other in their morning routines, but every time Ray turned around he knocked into one of them. It was almost a relief when Kowalski's phone turned up missing. With all those kids running around Ma's, finding lost things had become a specialty of his.
"Where is it, where is it, where is it," Kowalski chanted not quite under his breath. Ray ignored the soundtrack as he systemically searched the living room.
Benny walked out from the bedroom with the phone in his hand. Of course he'd found it. "If you'd simply plug it into the charger when you come in, we wouldn't go through this every--"
Kowalski kissed him, cutting off the lecture before it built up steam. Ray wondered if he could do that now, or if only Kowalski could get away with it. Kowalski plucked the phone from Benny's hand and tried turning it on. The phone emitted a sad beep and died. Kowalski shot him a rueful smile. "Sorry. Guess I'll charge it at the station."
Benny all but rolled his eyes, then turned to Ray. "What are your plans for the day?"
"I was going to baby-sit for Frannie for awhile. Not that she needs the help with Ma around, but I don't lecture as much."
"That sounds very nice."
"It sounds boring. Remember how badly I wanted that medical leave?"
"Yes."
"Well, I take it back. At this point, I'm getting nostalgic for paperwork."
Benny clasped his shoulder and fixed him with a sincere, understanding look.
"You're just feeling sorry for yourself," Kowalski interrupted. "You need to find something to do."
"Ray!"
Ray laughed. "Jeez, why don't tell me what you really think."
"I think you should come over tonight." Kowalski suggested it confidently enough, but his raised eyebrows turned it into a real question.
"Yeah. I'd like that," Ray replied.
Kowalski smiled, and Benny beamed.
***
Ray'd gotten to the hospital as quickly as he could. All that rushing, and now he was stuck in limbo. Hospital waiting rooms occupied a special level of hell. A peach-walled, antiseptic-smelling hell, full of chairs designed for cleaning off instead of sitting on and supposedly well-intentioned people who couldn't--or wouldn't--tell him a damn thing. The nurses couldn't update him on Benny's condition. The police couldn't tell him any details of what had happened, citing the on-going investigation. Welsh at least seemed apologetic about it.
Which left him nothing to do but wait and try not to think about Kowalski already on the way to Mort. Finally, a doctor came out and told the investigating detectives that Fraser was awake and could answer questions. The nurse told him that Mr. Fraser had been moved to a private room and could receive visitors once the police were done. Ray nodded and asked for directions to the vending machines. As he left the room, he saw Welsh giving him the eye, but he didn't say anything, which was as good as permission.
Ray circled around, coming up to the door to Benny's room from the other direction. He opened it the slightest crack on its hospital-quiet hinges, then leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and listened.
"... and we followed them into the factory." Benny sounded wrecked. He knew, or someone had told him.
"We split up when Bruce and Jennings left the production floor. Detective Kowalski took the door that the suspects had just gone through into the offices. I continued along the edge of the factory floor to the far door, which seemed likely to put me in position to cut off their retreat."
"You had a plan?"
"Not a plan, exactly--more like a strategy."
A soft, disbelieving snort at that. Ray's hand clenched against his arm.
"Detective," Welsh barked.
"Please continue, Constable." Ray really didn't like this guy's tone.
"I'm afraid there's not much more I can tell you. The door was unlocked. The fluorescent lights were dimmed, but it was readily apparent that there was not a clear line of sight between the doors. I moved forward, hoping the cubicles opened onto a straight corridor further in. I was struck from behind." He lapsed into silence.
"You didn't you see your attacker?"
"No."
"Hear anything?"
"No, my ears were ringing from noise of the production floor."
"So you can't say for certain that it was either Bruce or Jennings?"
"It hardly seems likely--no. No, I can't say with certainty."
The detective sighed. "Thank you, Constable."
Ray ducked into the neighboring room, which fortunately was empty of anyone but the poor slob asleep in the bed furthest from the door, which was surrounded by machines that clicked and beeped rhythmically. The door to the other room closed with a firm click that wanted to be a slam.
"Detective Turner, do you make a practice of antagonizing witnesses, or is this a special occasion?"
"I do when they get one of our guys killed." Christ. He slumped against the wall. He'd known Benny was going to blame himself no matter what, but what was Ray supposed to do if he started hearing it from others, too?
Welsh's voice dropped so low it barely carried over the general noise of the hospital. "That man is a witness, not a suspect. And he is an officer of the law, whom I would be proud to call one of ours. If he says they were unable to call it in, then I am inclined to believe him. Now if it's not too much trouble, might I suggest you redirect you investigation towards locating actual suspects. Start with someone with a gun."
Ray remembered to circle back around the long way and to stop at the vending machine. The nurse guided him back to Benny's room. He was asleep. He looked like crap.
Ray sat in the chair beside the bed, unwrapped a mint, and waited for him to wake again.
**
THIS POLL IS NOW CLOSED. ANY FURTHER VOTES WILL NOT BE COUNTED.
Poll Vote for this story
Author: ifreet
Team: Angst
Prompt: "Not a plan, exactly--more like a strategy."
Pairing(s): F/K/V
Length: 2700 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death
Author's Notes: Many thanks to jamethiel_bane, nos4a2no9 and secretlybronte for betaing and general helpfulness!
Summary: Ray hated that look. His brief adventure in Florida had been fueled, in part, by the need to get away from that look and his replacement's long shadow.
Once you've read the story, please take a moment to vote in the poll below. Ratings go from 1 (low) to 9 (high), so all you need to do is enter a single number in that range into each text entry box. You'll be able to see the Prompt and Team (Genre) information in the header above.
More details about the voting procedure can be found here.
**
Ray double checked the number on Frannie's note and tucked it in a pocket before knocking. All in all Benny's new place was several steps up from the old one on Racine. The hallway was clean and trash-free. The door didn't sound hollow or shake under his hand; it even had a decent lock. It was hard to believe that rattrap was gone--"burned down," Frannie had informed him while giving him the you should know this look. He hated that look. His brief adventure in Florida had been fueled, in part, by the need to get away from that look and his replacement's long shadow. In hindsight, getting involved with the guy's ex-wife had not been the best way to do that.
The door opened. "Benny."
"Ray!" Ray'd clearly surprised him, but Benny recovered quickly, stepping out into the hall to wrap gather him into an embrace. Ray was startled to be on the receiving end, but that didn't stop him from hugging back, tucking his face into Benny's soft fisherman's sweater, which was so ratty a real fisherman would be embarrassed to wear it. When Benny released him, he kept his hands fastened on Ray's shoulders, as if Ray might vanish if he let go.
"It's good to see you, Ray."
"Good to be seen. Are you going to invite me in?" Ray teased.
Benny ducked his head a little, hand coming up to eyebrow in an achingly familiar gesture. Before he answered, a voice called from further within the apartment. "Fraser? Who's at the door?"
Christ. It was that guy. Stanley Kowalski. He tore his eyes away from Benny and noticed the sheer amount of stuff in the room behind him: actual furniture, clutter, party lights. No way it all belonged to Benny. Frannie couldn't have told him about this? She couldn't have maybe warned him about Benny's roommate?
Kowalski chose just that moment to enter from another room, looking annoyed. "Oh, it's you."
"Yeah, nice to see you, too, Stanley." He knew his expression said it was anything but.
"S. Raymond Kowalski. Ray." He actually pulled out his wallet, flipped it open to his ID and jabbed at it. "Why is that so hard to remember?"
"Whatever, Sta--" He caught sight of Ben's face and stopped dead. He looked miserable. Ray felt like a jerk, but there was no way he could surrender his name. He cleared his throat. "Whatever, Kowalski."
Kowalski grinned, in a tooth-baring way, but since Benny started smiling again, too, it wasn't so bad.
***
Benny had frustrated any plan to get him one-on-one by inviting Ray to stay for dinner, and Kowalski'd had the delivery place on the line before Ray had a chance to object. And after dinner, Benny tossed them both out of the kitchen, claiming that clean up would proceed more smoothly without their interference. Since there couldn't possibly be that much clean up involved in take-out Chinese, even if Benny had insisted on real dishes, Ray suspected he was trying to throw the two of them together. Benny was not subtle.
But Benny wasn't subtle in his feelings, either, and he was happy in a way Ray had never seen. If it made Benny that happy, Ray could manage to carry on a semi-polite conversation with Kowalski, even without a referee.
Eventually, the gurgling of the sink signaled the end of the dishes, and Benny joined them. As he passed behind Kowalski's chair, he dropped a hand to his shoulder. Kowalski reached up and squeezed it absently, still talking about the Sox like anyone cared. Ray half-smiled but dropped his eyes to his water glass.
Ray had been startled when he first caught on, a dozen little touches adding up to something more. Kowalski had noticed him noticing and stared him down, just daring him to make something of it, but Ray had simply shrugged and acted like he didn't care. He was glad, mostly, that Benny wasn't trying to hide this from him.
But it did make him uncomfortable. Not for the reason Kowalski had expected--Ray was hardly going to claim moral high ground there. But every witnessed touch was a reminder that, even if he hadn't been replaced as Benny's best friend, Kowalski had become something more than a friend. And it was lonely on the outside.
Benny sat beside him on the couch, so close the cushions sagged and their shoulders bumped. He managed to feign interest in Chicago baseball teams for almost a whole minute. "Well, I for one think the Bears could go all the way."
"That's football, and I know you know that, so quit trying to change the subject." Kowalski's tone was exasperated, but his smile was warm. Too warm for company.
"Speaking of changing the subject." Ray set his glass down and sat forward to begin the dance of the graceful exit. "Thanks for dinner; it was great. But I should be going."
"No."
"No?" He looked at Benny in surprise, who shared a speaking look with Kowalski, a whole conversation that Ray couldn't quite follow.
"Stay," Kowalski answered for Benny. Kowalski slouched down in his seat, the very picture of nonchalance. "We'd like you to stay."
There was a peculiar emphasis on the word. Benny nodded, but stiffly, and he was slightly flushed. That, more than anything Kowalski had said--or rather, not said--gave meaning to the word. Stay didn't mean have another drink and talk until almost morning. Stay meant, what, sex?
"You're serious? You're--that's crazy." He felt the slight shift of Benny tensing, a space opening between their shoulders. He would have backed off; he was already backing off. Kowalski, though, he sat forward, set his elbows on knees, and leaned right into Ray's space. Only the hands fiddling with the neck of his beer bottle gave away any nervousness. Ray found it reassuring that Kowalski wasn't quite as cool and casual as he wanted to look.
"Hey." The soft tone surprised Ray into looking up from his hands, and, yeah, he wasn't really so casual at all. There was something intent and arresting in his expression. "Undercover is crazy. Moving a thousand miles away? That was crazy. Working with him--?" Benny made an indignant noise. "That's crazy. This can be the easy part."
Benny's hand closing over his own made Ray jump. Benny began to pull away, again, but Ray turned his hand over and held on, stopping his retreat. He wasn't saying no, and he turned to Benny to tell him that. But Ray hadn't gotten a word out before Benny's lips brushed against his in a soft, cautious, unmistakable kiss. Benny drew away briefly to look Ray in the eye. Ray didn't know what Benny saw there, but whatever it was, Benny kissed him again before turning to Kowalski. Kowalski, who had been watching them, leaned over and kissed Benny. It seemed to go on forever, and then they were both looking at him.
"Okay." It came out hoarsely, so Ray tried again. "Okay."
***
Benny had dropped off to sleep immediately afterwards, but Ray was still drifting when the mattress dipped. Kowalski got up, scooped up his jeans, and slipped out. Benny mumbled and curled towards Ray but didn't wake. After a moment of debate, Ray slipped out from the warm cocoon of the covers. He found his pants and kept hunting until his hand encountered the cool cotton of his shirt, too. He glanced back at the bed. Benny slept on, though he'd sprawled out and taken up all the available space.
Ray found Kowalski in the living room, sitting in the window that opened to the fire escape, a cigarette in hand.
"You smoke?"
He glanced over his shoulder. The streetlights cast his face into unreadable shadow. "Not much. Fraser hates the smell. Don't tell him, alright?"
Ray shrugged and walked over to lean against the other side of the window. Benny would figure it out on his own. Or not. He didn't really care about the cigarette. It was just another thing he didn't know about Kowalski and not high on his list of things he was curious about. "Are you having second thoughts?"
"What?" Kowalski sounded honestly surprised. He scrubbed his free hand through his hair, making it stand up in all directions. "Oh. I'm just up after sex. Wired. Always have been. It used to drive--" He cut himself off with a cough. "Anyway, I didn't mean to wake you."
"I wasn't asleep." The street below was quiet, though the sound of more distant traffic drifted up on the slightly cool breeze. Ray suppressed a shiver, but Kowalski didn't seem to mind. But then, Kowalski had voluntarily spent time in the Frozen North.
Ray knew all these facts about Kowalski, without knowing him. It was all impersonal and second-hand. Well, Ray supposed he did have some first-hand knowledge now, but what he knew first-hand about Kowalski could fit on a laundry list. Benny, though, he'd thought he knew. The things he knew about Benny could fill an encyclopedia--maybe an entire library. Ray wondered whether the two of them had been heading here all along, if they'd have gotten here sooner if Ray hadn't been pulled for Vegas. He wasn't sure.
"This is weird," he admitted.
Kowalski took a drag off the cigarette. The flaring cherry illuminated his sharp glance. He exhaled slowly--buying time or savoring, Ray couldn't tell. "Good-weird or weird-weird?"
"Benny's involved. So both."
Kowalski smiled, a flash of white in the dim. "It's never boring around Fraser, that's for sure."
He snorted. "Tell me about it. If we weren't digging through dumpsters, we were scaling buildings."
"And endangering our lives in wildly bizarre ways."
"From what I've heard, that wasn't all Benny."
Kowalski extinguished the butt on the windowsill and dropped it into a rusting coffee can on the escape. It landed with a hiss. Ray would lay odds that he wasn't fooling Fraser at all; he'd known sneakier smokers as a teen. Kowalski dug in his pocket and pulled out a partial roll of candy. As he shredded more wrapper away, the sickly sweet smell of mint wafted up.
"Want one?"
"A pocket lint coated mint. Hm, let me think about it."
"Your loss." Kowalski popped one in his mouth, then stood and closed the window. "Come on. Fraser'll be upset if he wakes up alone."
***
Things were more awkward in the light of day. Benny and Kowalski moved easily around each other in their morning routines, but every time Ray turned around he knocked into one of them. It was almost a relief when Kowalski's phone turned up missing. With all those kids running around Ma's, finding lost things had become a specialty of his.
"Where is it, where is it, where is it," Kowalski chanted not quite under his breath. Ray ignored the soundtrack as he systemically searched the living room.
Benny walked out from the bedroom with the phone in his hand. Of course he'd found it. "If you'd simply plug it into the charger when you come in, we wouldn't go through this every--"
Kowalski kissed him, cutting off the lecture before it built up steam. Ray wondered if he could do that now, or if only Kowalski could get away with it. Kowalski plucked the phone from Benny's hand and tried turning it on. The phone emitted a sad beep and died. Kowalski shot him a rueful smile. "Sorry. Guess I'll charge it at the station."
Benny all but rolled his eyes, then turned to Ray. "What are your plans for the day?"
"I was going to baby-sit for Frannie for awhile. Not that she needs the help with Ma around, but I don't lecture as much."
"That sounds very nice."
"It sounds boring. Remember how badly I wanted that medical leave?"
"Yes."
"Well, I take it back. At this point, I'm getting nostalgic for paperwork."
Benny clasped his shoulder and fixed him with a sincere, understanding look.
"You're just feeling sorry for yourself," Kowalski interrupted. "You need to find something to do."
"Ray!"
Ray laughed. "Jeez, why don't tell me what you really think."
"I think you should come over tonight." Kowalski suggested it confidently enough, but his raised eyebrows turned it into a real question.
"Yeah. I'd like that," Ray replied.
Kowalski smiled, and Benny beamed.
***
Ray'd gotten to the hospital as quickly as he could. All that rushing, and now he was stuck in limbo. Hospital waiting rooms occupied a special level of hell. A peach-walled, antiseptic-smelling hell, full of chairs designed for cleaning off instead of sitting on and supposedly well-intentioned people who couldn't--or wouldn't--tell him a damn thing. The nurses couldn't update him on Benny's condition. The police couldn't tell him any details of what had happened, citing the on-going investigation. Welsh at least seemed apologetic about it.
Which left him nothing to do but wait and try not to think about Kowalski already on the way to Mort. Finally, a doctor came out and told the investigating detectives that Fraser was awake and could answer questions. The nurse told him that Mr. Fraser had been moved to a private room and could receive visitors once the police were done. Ray nodded and asked for directions to the vending machines. As he left the room, he saw Welsh giving him the eye, but he didn't say anything, which was as good as permission.
Ray circled around, coming up to the door to Benny's room from the other direction. He opened it the slightest crack on its hospital-quiet hinges, then leaned against the wall, folded his arms, and listened.
"... and we followed them into the factory." Benny sounded wrecked. He knew, or someone had told him.
"We split up when Bruce and Jennings left the production floor. Detective Kowalski took the door that the suspects had just gone through into the offices. I continued along the edge of the factory floor to the far door, which seemed likely to put me in position to cut off their retreat."
"You had a plan?"
"Not a plan, exactly--more like a strategy."
A soft, disbelieving snort at that. Ray's hand clenched against his arm.
"Detective," Welsh barked.
"Please continue, Constable." Ray really didn't like this guy's tone.
"I'm afraid there's not much more I can tell you. The door was unlocked. The fluorescent lights were dimmed, but it was readily apparent that there was not a clear line of sight between the doors. I moved forward, hoping the cubicles opened onto a straight corridor further in. I was struck from behind." He lapsed into silence.
"You didn't you see your attacker?"
"No."
"Hear anything?"
"No, my ears were ringing from noise of the production floor."
"So you can't say for certain that it was either Bruce or Jennings?"
"It hardly seems likely--no. No, I can't say with certainty."
The detective sighed. "Thank you, Constable."
Ray ducked into the neighboring room, which fortunately was empty of anyone but the poor slob asleep in the bed furthest from the door, which was surrounded by machines that clicked and beeped rhythmically. The door to the other room closed with a firm click that wanted to be a slam.
"Detective Turner, do you make a practice of antagonizing witnesses, or is this a special occasion?"
"I do when they get one of our guys killed." Christ. He slumped against the wall. He'd known Benny was going to blame himself no matter what, but what was Ray supposed to do if he started hearing it from others, too?
Welsh's voice dropped so low it barely carried over the general noise of the hospital. "That man is a witness, not a suspect. And he is an officer of the law, whom I would be proud to call one of ours. If he says they were unable to call it in, then I am inclined to believe him. Now if it's not too much trouble, might I suggest you redirect you investigation towards locating actual suspects. Start with someone with a gun."
Ray remembered to circle back around the long way and to stop at the vending machine. The nurse guided him back to Benny's room. He was asleep. He looked like crap.
Ray sat in the chair beside the bed, unwrapped a mint, and waited for him to wake again.
**
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