Page 6 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
When I do look up, he is still watching me.
There is a question there I pretend not to understand.
He dozes for a while after that, the drugs like a warm blanket thrown over the worst edges.
He does not snore, which feels like a courtesy.
I check his vitals every fifteen minutes.
His pressure comes up.
His pulse settles under ninety.
The cops give up and leave a card at the desk for our phantom to ignore.
Rizzo tells me she is going to take her break and spend it glaring at the snack machine until it stops stealing her quarters.
I tell her if she wins, I want a Twix.
At 3:10, he wakes and straightens like his body has decided rest is a liability.
I bring water.
He drinks, careful, like he does not trust anything that goes into him.
He swings his legs over the side of the bed and tests the floor with his feet the way people who have been hurt test the first step of a staircase.
He stands. He stays standing.
“Walk to the door and back,” I say.
He does.
He does not sway.
He does not hiss at the pull of stitches.
He returns to the bed and sits like a king who concedes a point, not a man who obeys an order.
I pretend it means nothing to me that he is built like someone who trains for control and not for mirrors.
The muscles in his arms are lean under the sleeve.
The scar on his shoulder is old and clean.
There is a rosary inked there that winds down toward his forearm.
It's good work.
Somebody paid attention.
“Pain?” I ask.
“Four,” he says again, and I roll my eyes for show so he knows I'm not fooled.
We go through discharges like we are both auditioning to be on a safety poster.
I give him the rules because that is how I sleep at night.
