Broken Glass
"Good morning, Roy." Kel put on his biggest smile, and tried to be a beacon of joy. He almost felt it, too. It was his favorite part of the job, and on the surface, he really was quite pleased. "I assume Carol's gone over all the instructions with you?"
Roy was already grinning ear to ear, and was waving his newly untractioned plastered arm around like a pinwheel. "Three times! Is it true? I get to leave this thing off the torture rack?"
"It's true. You still have to be mummified for about forever and a half, but at least you won't be a trussed up mummy anymore."
"Hallelujah! Not that I can bend my legs or scratch or anything, but still..." Roy wiggled his fingers where they stuck out of the cast, and smiled brightly at Kel. "But the best part is, no more hospital food. I could be hanging three feet over the bed for all I care, if it means some good home cooking. Heck, even Johnny's food wouldn't be half bad right about now!"
"Yeah, well, don't get too crazy, Roy, or I'm not signing anything." Kel laughed at Roy's mock horror, and opened up his folder full of Roy's discharge papers. "You enjoy that first meal. Just don't eat anything that's gonna make cleanup a difficulty later, because I don't want to hear any moaning and groaning." Kel frowned. "You're turning down the nurse?"
"Carol said it was optional, Doc - isn't it?"
"Well, yes, but Joanne might want the help - she's going to be the mother of three and a half for the next few weeks, you know."
"Three and a half?"
"Yes. The half is for your physical self, and the whole is for all the whining I know she's in for - and don't lie and say she isn't, because every man turns into a whiny baby when he's down." Kel noted Roy's preference in the paperwork, and shuffled over to the instruction sheet. "I'm giving you the number for in home support, in case your wife is wiser than you, and decides to take advantage of all the resources available - but don't feel obligated to call it if you really don't want the help. I just want to make sure you're well taken care of. We can't have you off the job too much longer now, can we?"
"Whatever you say, Doc. I guess I can run it by her later - there she is!"
Kel looked over to see a beaming Mrs. DeSoto holding the door open to let the little ones scramble all over their still fairly exhausted dad. Kel bit back the urge to pull them off his patient - Roy could tell them they were hurting him a lot more effectively than he could. Instead, Kel signed the papers in five different places, and passed the folder on to Joanne. "His instructions are here. I had a nurse go over everything with him already, so he's ready to go as soon as an orderly arrives with a chair, but if you'd like, I can have someone go over the instructions with you as well."
"No, I'll be fine, Roy's pretty good at explaining the technical stuff to me. I just wanna get him in our own bed, so he can get comfortable."
"I think he's thinking more of the kitchen table, if you know what I mean."
"I think I do, Dr. Brackett. Thank you so much for your help." Joanne gathered Kel in her arms and gave him a good hard squeeze.
"Hey," Roy called from the bed. "What am I, chopped liver?"
"Oh, hush," Joanne said, and kissed Kel on the cheek before joining her children in crawling all over Roy. It was a sweet scene, even if it made Kel worry about undoing all the work Orthopedics had done. Kel ducked out of the room quietly, to let the family enjoy being reunited.
The rest of his morning rounds were interrupted by a six car pile up on PCH, followed by a massive case of food poisoning from a cruise ship just moored at Long Beach. Between the throngs of dehydrated, explosive merry makers and the bloodied, litigious commuters, the ER was completely overrun for the rest of the morning. By the time he was able to catch his breath, it was time for him to consider a lunch break anyway. He didn't want to be confined by the cafeteria. He didn't want the eyes on him. But he hadn't come in his own vehicle - ever since she’d dragged him out of his questionable lodgings and into her apartment, they’d ridden in together, so that he would never be too far out of her reach. It was an irritating arrangement, but he'd agreed to it because he was too damned tired to try getting through his crisis on his own any longer. Still, he was discovering that there were distinct disadvantages, like not being able to run out for a burger if he wanted to.
Not that he'd been wanting to for the last few weeks. But that was beside the point.
He went out to the front of the hospital, to the stone benches that lined the walk way from the street, and sat in the shade of the heavy, dark palms that swayed overhead. The walkway was almost as busy as the ER reception area, with folks hurrying in and out of the building. He was surprised - most of the staff staggered their lunch hours in the same two hour period. He expected foot traffic to be greatly reduced, since there was no one around to take scheduled patients. But the flow of people running in and out of the building didn't seem to change.
Suddenly, though, a large flux of people scurried out of the lobby, tittering with surprised laughter. A moment later, two armed sheriff's deputies flanked the main doors, and stared down everyone seated on the stone benches. Some people got up and ran off with the first group. Those who didn't all wore name badges, and lab coats or uniforms of some kind that identified them as hospital personnel. Kel recognized everyone still seated, though to most of them he'd never said so much as a howdy-do. Still, they all seemed determined not to be moved from their chosen lunchtime digs, and collectively, they stared back at the deputies. A heavily marked sheriff's department van came swinging around the narrow fire lane, and settled itself at the edge of the walkway. More deputies piled out of the back of the van, half of whom waited at the edge of the walk, while the other half joined the first pair at the doors.
The deputies then turned their attention to the doors themselves. Kel could just make out some activity in the lobby through the glass doors, but the glare and reflection on the heavy glass distorted everything going on inside. Then the doors swung open, and the deputies readied their gun hands, as an orderly and his wheelchair-bound charge was passed from the in-house deputies to the group of armed and suspicious officers outside. A breath caught in Kel's throat as the wheelchair glided slowly past.
Stan.
They hadn't spoken since Kel's assurance that he'd do something about Stanford's situation. Kel hadn't even considered going up to see him again. There'd been nothing left to say, and Kel hadn't been in the mood to listen to Stan rehash all his lies. And now he was leaving in chains.
Stan lifted his head and looked Kel in the face, almost as if called. Stan smiled a little, like something had passed between them, something good. He watched Stan face the van with his head held a little higher, and wondered for a split second what it was Stan thought he'd seen.
"One of your hard luck specials, Dr. Brackett?"
Kel jumped and turned towards the sound of the voice over his head. It was an anesthesiologist, one Kel hadn't worked very closely with. The man's name escaped him. Kel was too busy trying to figure out just what in the hell the man meant. "Hard luck specials?"
"Sure. You know the type. They get in over their heads, do a bunch of stuff they have no business doing, and suddenly realize they've got no friends, no family to turn to. So they lean on the doctor stitching them back up, siphon off enough strength to either pull it together or go do something else dumb. Hard luck specials."
Kel nodded faintly, but he was off on another trip altogether. No friends. No family. Kel didn't doubt that the fair weather friends at the firm had politely ignored Stan's calls - wouldn't do to be caught talking to a criminal in a law office, now would it? - and most of Stan's family tolerated him best from a great, great distance. Only Kel ever really stayed by his side.
And that is what Stan thought had passed between them. He'd thought Kel had come, purposefully, to quietly see him off. After all, wasn't that his job? If Stan were going home from a simple procedure, Kel would have been the one to gather him up and take him home. Just like Joanne DeSoto.
Kel's head hurt.
But he couldn't deny the tiny seed of guilt growing deep in his chest, now that he'd made the connection. Angry as he was, he was still Stanford's family. The least he could do was find out just how to go about making arrangements. Besides, it wasn't as if he was going to be able to go anywhere anyway. Might as well do something productive with his lunch hour, instead of staring at Carson Street.
He went back to his office and, uncharacteristically, locked the door behind him. He pulled the yellow pages from his shelf, and sat down at his desk. He scanned the beginning of the phone book until he got to the full page spreads of all the South Bay's bail agents. He looked at all the ads carefully, but he didn't have the first clue of what to look for when procuring the services of a bondsman. Finally, he settled on the biggest ad on the page, with big, bold, blocky numbers. If they could afford such a large ad, maybe they made a brisk business. He certainly hoped so.
Kel stared at the phone for a long time before he finally picked up the courage to dial. The phone rang several times. He was just about to give up when the ringing finally stopped, and there was a lot of heavy shuffling and the sound of things clattering, and children screaming in the background.
An old, croupy voice finally croaked "Lawson Daycare."
Kel frowned down at the phonebook. "I think... I think I must have the wrong number."
"Okay." The phone disconnected.
Kel wrinkled his nose, and tried dialing again. Again, the phone rang several times, before the same clanging and bopping and infantile shrieking came on the line, and the same tired, wheezing voice announced, "Lawson Daycare."
Kel sighed. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm looking at the phonebook, and it says-"
He heard a loud crash coming from the other end of the line, and the woman started hollering blue murder (and hacking like she was at death's door) just off the phone. The background was suddenly very quiet, and the woman returned to the phone. "You looking for the bailman?"
"Yes," Kel said, half relieved, but mostly confused.
"Hold on." More clattering and clanging, and then what sounded like doubled clattering and clanging, and the sounds of weeping children. Kel could just make out a man's voice, and though he wasn't sure what the man was complaining about, he knew that the man was definitely not a happy camper.
Finally, another woman's shrill voice came on the line. "I got it, Ma."
"You got it?"
"I got it."
"Tina? You got-"
"Goddammit, Ma, I said I got it!"
Kel winced and pulled away from the phone.
"Hello? You still there? Hellooooooo!"
Kel could hear her big mouth screaming down the line even without his ear to the receiver. "Yes, I'm still here."
"Whaddaya want?" The woman had to be hard of hearing, or simply didn't understand how telephones generally operated, because she kept screaming.
"I found this number in the phone book... for the bail agent?"
"Oh. Yeah. Murray ain't here right now, he's... busy." The woman laughed. "You wanna set up an appointment?"
Kel's heart sank. "To be honest, ma'am, I don't really know what I'm doing-"
"Well, ain't that a good thing? Because once you know what you're doing with an outfit like us, you got a lot of shit to reconsider, doncha?" She laughed some more. "I'm sorry, sugar, I'm sure this is a very bad time for you - but if you don't laugh, you'll cry, amirite?"
Kel found himself tittering against his will. "Apparently," he said. "Still, I'd like to ask some questions over the phone before I commit to any sort of drive or-"
"Okay, shoot. Murray's the one with the license, that's why his name's in the ad, but I do all the work. That's what happens when you marry a slick job like Murray - he gets the glory, I get the sweat. I don't mind it, though. I like helping people. Folks think peoples what been arrested don't need no help, but that ain't true! Plenty of good men and women find themselves in the clink. Plenty of good men and women do stupid shit that they deserve to be locked up for. But that don't mean their families gotta suffer, you know? I like to help people. What about you, you like helping people?"
"Uh, yes, ma'am-"
"Tina. Name's Tina. It's actually short for Justine. Like Justice. Get it?"
"Yes," Kel said, bewildered. "I do."
"You do what? You get it, or you like helping people?"
Kel threw his free hand in the air. "Both."
"Yeah? That's nice, you get to do a lot of helping?"
"I'm an emergency room surgeon."
There was a long pause, before Tina finally said, "Wow. Gee. I kinda feel inferior now."
Kel jumped at the chance to get the conversation back on track. "Well, don't. I have a very old friend in a very bad situation, who did a very stupid thing, and while I'd like nothing more than to let him sit and rot for the rest of his days, I've actually had the misfortune of seeing him come through my hospital, because the other inmates... well, they didn't like what he'd been accused of. So, in the interest of making sure he gets to trial in one piece, I'd like to post his bail, but I haven't the faintest clue how to go about doing that - and you sound like exactly the person I need to help me. So don't feel inferior to me - I can't possibly begin to do this without your help.”
"Wow. Gee," Tina said again, but this time, she sounded almost infatuated. "Sure, I can help you, absolutely no problem! You'll want to meet with Murray eventually, to sign the paperwork, and to exchange any collateral-"
"Exchange collateral!?"
Tina laughed. "Yeah, I'm almost positive you'll want to bring a pink slip or a deed to something or other, you know, if you think your buddy's in danger from the other fish. If he's pissed the other jailbirds off, but the court wont let him go on his own recognizance, then he's probably done something that's kinda, well, bad. Even for jail, I mean. Which means a high bail."
Kel sighed. "He did do something bad-"
"Ah ah ah!" Kel could almost see a finger wagging in his face as Tina shouted him down. "Don't worry about that, and don't tell me about it. Murray will know all that from the courthouse, but me? I don't need to know that, nobody needs to know that. Ain't nobody's business. Okay. So you wanna bring some identification, your checkbook or your credit card - we take MasterCharge and BankAmericards now - the docket number, or, if you don't have that, the incarcerated's name, address, and city where he was arrested. Okay?"
Kel wrote everything down on a scratch pad, quick as he could. "Yeah, got it."
"Okay. So you wanna meet with Murray today? We can see you any time after four. I mean, if you want, you can come by sooner, but my mother, she got the little monsters here, and most people feel funny talkin about jail and stuff with a buncha little snotnosed hoodlums underfoot. It don't bother me none, maybe it'll knock some sense into some of em. Monsters. Well?"
"Uh. Yes. Sure. I... how late is too late?"
"Nothing's too late, you need to come at midnight, come at midnight. It might take your friend a while to get out of jail if you do that, because we gotta go pay the piper and wait for all the folks to wake up, but you don't gotta worry about that, make it whenever it's convenient for you, okay, we're here for you."
"I see. Can I call back to make this appointment, then?"
"Hon, you don't gotta make an appointment if you don't wanna, you can just drop in. Ring the buzzer, somebody'll be out. I'll tell Murray to expect you sometime before dawn, how's that sound? That sound ok, Doc?"
"Sure, that sounds fine. Thank you, Tina."
"Uh-huh." The sound of an angry child screaming obscenities in the background brought the discussion to a quick and final end. Kel could just make out the sounds of an angry man and a hacking old woman in the background before the line disconnected.
Kel hung up the receiver in a daze. Maybe he ought not deal with this company - maybe he ought to try one of the other ads in the phone book. He checked his watch, and grimaced. His lunch hour was just about gone. There wasn't any time left to feel out another agent, and he still had to somehow get away from Dixie once they got back to her place, so he could gather his funds and various ownership papers, to see what he could offer in exchange for Stanford's freedom. This motley crew of babysitting bonds agents would simply have to do.