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  She raised her eyebrows slightly, her expression doubtful. I decided right then that she wasn’t a rookie. Only a veteran cop can give that look. “Wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “We’re pretty much finished here. The Ambo is going to transport for us,” BP said, motioning toward the ambulance medic. “You could finish up with him at Deac, right?”

  “I’m not going to the hospital,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “You lost consciousness,” Gauze Man said. “You need to go to the hospital.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I repeated.

  Officer Lee looked pointedly at all four of us. Then she shook her head shortly. “Wait here until I get back.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she turned and went into the bar.

  “What a hard ass,” Gauze Man muttered.

  “Yeah,” said BP. “I think I’m in love.”

  4

  It took Officer Lee less than ten minutes to complete her investigation inside the bar. When she returned, we were all still dutifully waiting for her at the rear of the ambulance. She pointed at BP and Gauze Man first. “Fire, you guys can clear. Thanks for your help.”

  Both men started packing up their gear without a word.

  Officer Lee turned to me. She spoke to me in a slow, matter of fact manner. “Mr. Kopriva, you are trespassed from this business for a period of one year. They don’t want you back, and if you do come back, you’ll be arrested. Is that clear?”

  “Clear,” I said, and pushed off the ambulance bumper. “See ya.”

  “Hold on,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but the tone was firm.

  I stopped. “What?”

  “You’re going to the hospital. We’ll finish our interview there.”

  “I’m not going to the hospital,” I said.

  “You’ve been knocked unconscious.”

  “Yeah, twice. I told you that. But I don’t need—”

  “You’re going,” she said. She motioned to the ambulance medic. “Help him inside.”

  I held up my hands. “Whoa! Don’t touch me.”

  Both of them hesitated.

  “I’m refusing medical service,” I said. I turned to the medic. “Give me an Against Medical Advice form. I’ll sign it.”

  He hesitated, looking back and forth between Officer Lee and me. Finally, he addressed her. “I can’t force him. If he’s going to refuse and he’ll sign the AMA…”

  “No.” Officer Lee’s voice left no room for discussion. “He has lost consciousness twice in a ten minute period. And he is intoxicated. He isn’t capable of making an informed, reasonable decision. I’m directing him to be transported.”

  I didn’t reply. I just stared at her, first in shock, and then with a hot anger seeping in. My immediate reaction was to tell her off, but she looked resolute, and I didn’t want more cops involved.

  The medic shrugged. “You do that, you gotta ride in the ambo with him.”

  She blinked, considering. “How about if I follow you in my car?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, no. I’ve been burned on that one before. I get up to the hospital with this guy and you’re nowhere in sight.”

  Officer Lee thought about it for a moment, then said, “All right.”

  When she reached for my hand, I pulled away. “Wait.”

  Officer Lee gave me another veteran look, one I also was able to read. It said that I had about one sentence to say something reasonable before she put me in handcuffs. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been in bracelets, but that didn’t mean I liked the idea.

  “How about if I waive the ambo ride?” I said. “I’ll come along with you, and you can transport me up in your patrol car.”

  She thought about it a second.

  I decided to push her a little more. “Since you’re overriding the AMA, the city is paying for all of this anyway. You’d save the cost of the ambo trip and their re-stock, and the end result would be the same. You’ll be interviewing me at the ER.”

  She looked at me while she considered it. I could tell she was trying to figure me out. Her gaze had a strange quality to it that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it had an intimidation factor to it, too.

  Finally, she agreed. The medic closed up the ambulance and drove away. I waited, knowing what was coming.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  I turned around, put my hands behind my back, the backs of my hands together to make it easier for her. She didn’t comment on this, only slipped on the handcuffs, ratcheting them down and double-locking them. Then she executed a swift but complete pat-down. The only things I had on me were my wallet and my keys. She removed them, checked each for weapons, then slid them both into the pocket of my leather bomber jacket.

  I remained silent as she escorted me to her patrol car and helped me into the back seat. I sat sideways on the plastic covered seat to avoid putting pressure on my wrists. Officer Lee started the car, typed something into her computer, then dropped it into drive, and headed for the hospital.

  It was less than a three-minute drive to Deaconess, especially that time of night. Neither of us said a word on the short trip. Once we arrived at the ER, she helped me out of the car and walked me inside. Inside of the admitting area, she uncuffed me and pointed at a chair. I took a seat.

  I was suddenly exhausted, and wasn’t looking forward to what I knew was ahead. The slow grind of hospital procedure, punctuated by her questions. What I really wanted to do right now was sleep. I’d heard somewhere that you weren’t supposed to go to sleep if you had a concussion, but maybe that was just bullshit medical legend. Stuff a cold, starve a fever, that sort of thing.

  Officer Lee stood a few feet away from me, her stance slightly bladed, gun side away. I realized that she’d stood that way at the scene, too, but it had looked so natural that I hadn’t noticed it. But before she could ask me any questions, a male nurse appeared. He seemed to register the police uniform and my disheveled state, and jumped to a conclusion that wasn’t really wrong.

  “Let’s get you started, honey,” he said to me, his effeminate voice belying his large features. “Come this way.”

  He led me through a door and to a nurse’s station. “Take off your jacket, please,” he said.

  I did, and then sat on the hard plastic chair while he wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm. He moved with practiced surety.

  When he saw Officer Lee approach, he stopped and put his hand to his chest. “Oh my, I didn’t see that it was you.”

  “Hello, Sean.”

  “Ah, she remembers my name.” His voice brightened and took on an even more effeminate, sing-song quality. “’For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams…’”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “’And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes…’”

  “You can stop.”

  “But do you want me to?”

  I looked back and forth between the two of them in wonder. It wasn’t that I didn’t get the banter. Cops and nurses have been a thing since long before I came on the job, just like cops and waitresses. I didn’t imagine that had changed in the decade-plus since my career ended. But I don’t remember any nurse ever springing poetry on me.

  “Yes,” said Officer Lee. “I want you to stop, and then process this guy so I can interview him and write my report before I’m stuck on overtime again.”

  “Ah, Anna, Anna. You’re breaking my artist’s heart.”

  “You don’t have a heart.”

  “No, honey, that’s you you’re thinking of.”

  That brought a hint of a smile to her lips, but she glanced at me and it disappeared. “I’ll be back in ten,” she told Sean.

  “I’ll be finished long before then,” he said.

  “I’m counting on it.” She turned and strode away.

  Sean chuckled to himself, then finished taking my blood pressure. He followed up with the rest of my vitals, punching the data into the computer on the small desk next t
o us. “Do you have some identification?” he asked, “or do you want to tell me all of your horsepower?”

  That made me smile, which in turn made me wince. That was a term I hadn’t heard in a while, referring to someone’s basic biographical information like that. I reached for my wallet, and handed him my identification.

  “What was that?” I asked him.

  “What was what?”

  “That poem. Did you make it up?”

  He scoffed. “I wish. No, it’s Poe.”

  “Poe?”

  “Yep, Edgar Allen.”

  “The horror writer? I didn’t know he wrote poetry. Except for ‘The Raven’, I mean.”

  “He wrote quite a bit, actually, although most people aren’t terribly aware of it.” Sean motioned after Officer Lee. “But I’m betting her parents knew it well.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they named that lovely piece of work who brought you here after one.”

  I thought about it, but nothing came, so I shrugged.

  He gave me a sad smile. “No? A. Lee doesn’t ring a bell? How about Anna Lee? Short for Annabel?”

  “I’ve never read it.”

  “Well, then, your life is most certainly incomplete. Love, loss, yearning…it’s all there.” He held up my license. “Everything current?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  For me, things hadn’t changed much in a long while.

  5

  Sean finished with me and put me in a small patient room with an ice pack. I alternated between pressing it to my lip and the top of my head. Officer Lee returned a couple of minutes after that with a cup of coffee. I recognized the paisley design on the cup immediately. Some things don’t change, and apparently cafeteria cups are one of those things.

  She set the cup on the counter behind her, and took out her pen and notepad. “Tell me what happened,” she said. “Slowly this time, and try to make sense.”

  I swallowed thickly, took a deep breath, and gave her my account. She listened without interrupting this go round, only making an occasional note. When I’d finished, she asked a couple of clarifying questions, then put her notepad away.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  She pulled out a beige card and wrote a number on it. I knew without looking that it would be the report number for this incident. She handed it to me and told me anyway.

  “Why do I need this?” I asked. “Did you arrest the guy that hit me? Or the person who crashed a bottle over my head?”

  She shook her head. “No one knew the other party you were fighting with, and he was gone by the time I conducted my investigation.”

  He slipped out the back, Jack, I thought. I also remembered what I was pretty sure had been the bartender’s voice yelling, “Get him out of here.” At the time, I thought he meant me, but now I wondered if he’d been talking about the other guy, wanting to get him out before the cops arrived.

  To Officer Lee, I said, “He’s probably a regular. Someone should have known him.”

  “No one recognized him,” she said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “That’s what all the witnesses said. They all also agreed that the fight was mutual.”

  I thought about arguing the point, but since I couldn’t remember what I said to the guy, I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on. “What about the bottle?”

  “No one saw who was responsible for that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I asked everyone.”

  “I believe you. What about the bouncer, then? When he threw me out, I landed on my head and lost consciousness again. Does that strike you as reasonable force?”

  She looked at me for a long moment, then slid her pen back into the shirt pocket. “Here’s what I’ll say, Mr. Kopriva. You were drinking in what is essentially a neighborhood bar. Most of the patrons are regulars there. You are not. By all accounts, you drank heavily for several hours. According to the bartender and other patrons, when the other party sat down next to you at the bar, you began haranguing him with insults.”

  “Haranguing him?”

  She shrugged. “The bartenders word, not mine.”

  “Awful poetic word for a bartender.”

  “Either way, he said that you started in what could be described as playful but pretty quickly graduated to obnoxious. That’s why the guy punched you.”

  “Because I deserved it.”

  “In a word, yes.” She waited a beat, then went on. “Whoever hit you with the bottle probably did you a favor, too.”

  “A favor? How’s that?”

  “Because the witnesses I talked to said you were about to seriously hurt the other party. Inflicting that kind of injury would have landed you in jail for a felony. Instead, you’re at the hospital with a bloody lip and a bump on your head.”

  I ignored her analysis. “But no one knows who the other guy was? Or the person that hit me with the bottle?”

  “No.”

  “And you believe them?”

  “No.”

  That stopped me for a moment. “So…”

  She shrugged. “I can’t make them tell me the truth, sir. It’s a neighborhood bar. They look out for their own. And you’re a stranger to them.”

  I nodded slowly. It was slowly sinking in. “I suppose I am. And that’s not likely to change, either, since I’m Eighty-Sixed.”

  “True,” she allowed.

  “So based on all of that, I’m guessing you’re going to write a half-page report on this and that’ll be the end of it.”

  She nodded, her eyes still appraising me.

  “Fine,” I said.

  I’d been mad at the time, but now the tiredness sank into my bones and the alcohol was starting to fade. I realized what she said was true. I probably deserved to get punched, and the bottle smasher probably kept me out of jail by stopping me. And the bouncer? In his mind, he was just taking out the trash.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  She shook her head. Then she picked up her coffee and turned to go. As she reached the door, I stopped her.

  “Officer?”

  She turned, and gave me an impassive look, waiting.

  “Thanks,” I said. “For trying, at least.”

  She nodded, turned to go, then stopped again.

  I thought I knew what was coming, and I waited for it with some small measure of dread. But she surprised me a little.

  “Cop or criminal?” she asked.

  I feigned confusion. “Come again?”

  “You know too much about the system, and the jargon. Only cops and experienced criminals have that kind of knowledge.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “What did your computer check tell you?”

  “That you’ve been arrested twice. Charged, and found guilty, once.”

  “I pled guilty,” I corrected. I doubted the distinction mattered to her, but it was important to me. “To a misdemeanor.”

  “It’s still a conviction,” she said.

  “So I’m a criminal, then.”

  She nodded once, then shook her head. “But you don’t sound like a criminal. Outside of the bar, and here in this room, you sounded like a cop.”

  I stared at her for a long while. It’d been a while since I’d come across a cop who didn’t know me or my story, or at least one who wasn’t able to put the two together. Strangely enough, it was a little refreshing. I almost smiled.

  Then I realized it wouldn’t last. She was smart. She’d dig a little deeper or ask around, and then she’d know, just like the rest. And she’d come to the same simple conclusion about me. Hell, it was probably still the right conclusion.

  Finally, I said, “I’m sitting in the ER with a concussion from a bar fight. I got my ass kicked and no one is going to answer for it. So what does it matter?”

  “Everything matters,” she said quietly, and left.

  6

  Forty-five minutes later, the doctor came and checked me out. After a five-minute examination, he said I
didn’t need to be admitted. I rose to leave, but he stopped me.

  “I can’t let you leave on your own,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re intoxicated, and you’ve had a head injury.”

  I sighed. “So I can’t stay but I can’t go? What am I supposed to do, doc?”

  “Do you have family waiting for you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Is there someone who could come and get you?” he asked. “A friend?”

  And for a long moment, that one really stumped me.

  7

  After a while, the only thought that came to was Clell, which should have been my first thought, anyway. If I had one honest friend in the world who didn’t want anything in return, it was him. Hell, we first met because he literally saved me from freezing to death, and all I’d really ever done for him was introduce him to Maxwell House coffee. He counted it as the best coffee in the world, and while I’m sure there are a hundred thousand coffee snobs out there in River City who would argue with him, none of it matters to Clell. He’s comfortable in his own skin.

  He had a spare set of keys to my car and apartment, so picking up my Toyota from the bar and driving it to the hospital was no problem. He arrived within the hour, his hair tousled and his face unshaven, but without any judgment in his eyes. That was Clell.

  Once Clell showed up, the doctor signed my release papers. They came with a prescription for some pain meds. I didn’t even catch what they were when Sean mentioned it during my out processing. As soon as he handed me the packet, the first thing I did was fish the prescription, ball it up, and throw it in the nearby garbage.

  Sean looked at me in confusion for a moment, then realization came into his eyes.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  I didn’t want to wait. For one, I’d already put out Clell. Mostly, I wanted to get home and sleep. It had been a long night, and the fact that it was already morning wasn’t lost on me. But Sean had treated me well, and I was an asshole for even being in the ER in the first place, and I didn’t want to compound that by bailing on the guy while he was trying to do something nice. So I waited.