All he knew was that it was late when he dragged himself into the loft. Juna was still up, sitting at the computer. Wanda took one sniff and wouldn’t go near him. They both watched him strip off his tux and leave it in a wet smelly pile on the floor. 

“That must’ve been some party.” 

Weecho wanting to say it was jumping, instead just picked up his camera he’d brought home and set it on the workbench on his way to the shower. 

Alexey and Dara had debriefed him in the car, after he’d pulled himself out of the river. He told them where he’d planted the bug, asked if they could turn up the car’s heater please, went over again how he’d given Lynch the slip by way of the harem. Left out the part about Nina. 

Dara still had his camera, passed it back. He found the pictures and video of Yoon’s opium girls, showed them to Alexey on the LCD screen.   

“Couple had runway potential,” Weecho said, “but I’m not sure they’d clear customs.” He’d offload the pictures at home, make dupes if anybody wanted.

He came out of the shower now and pulled on some clean skivvies. Juna had garbage-bagged his tux and flung the bundle over by the freight elevator, may it rest in peace. He went over to the workbench and sat with her while he toweled his hair. 

“You hungry?” she said. 

“Actually, yeah.” Except for those shrimp he’d grabbed and a couple of appetizers, he hadn’t eaten all night. 

Juna went to fix him a sandwich (the food supply had stabilized with her moving in) while he filled her in about Yoon’s yacht and the evening’s events. Kept the focus on bugging the library, which it looked like Yoon used for an office. Finished with running from Lynch and the jump from the boat. Juna had found a candle and lit it, brought it over with the sandwich and set them on the workbench.  

“Lynch didn’t just happen to be there,” Weecho said. “There had to be a reason. He wasn’t part of the party. And if he wanted to see Yoon, he could’ve done that whenever. Did you hear anything about it at work?” 

“No, but maybe it was the party.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Who was there that would have meant something?” 

“Lot’s of people, Alexey included.” 

“I mean to Lynch.” 

Weecho took a bite of sandwich. Chewed. Thought. “There was a senator.” 

“Name?” 

“Gatchel.” Spelled it from what he remembered on the program. 

Juna reached for the computer keyboard. Weecho stood up and watched over her shoulder while she Googled Gatchel’s name. Watched and couldn’t help but pick up how good she smelled. And not just because he’d smelled so bad. 

“Your senator has some muscle,” she said, pointing to the screen, to Gatchel’s Wikipedia bio.  

Senate Arms Appropriation Committee. 

She turned and looked up at Weecho. “Right?” 

Sat there looking up at him. 

Weecho nodded. “Yes.” 

Maybe it was the candle. Or that little bit of nice smell. Or maybe she’d put on some makeup. Whatever it was, he was still in his skivvies and could feel the effect starting to show. And grow. Which he knew she had to be aware of. 

Juna clicked off Google. “It’s late,” she said. 

Stood up and kissed him lightly on the lips. 

“The senator can wait till morning. Finish your sandwich, I’ll go brush my teeth.” 

He watched her walk to the bathroom and shut the door. Things were about to take a turn here. How somebody smelled – could it make that much difference?  

The bathroom door opened and Juna stuck her head out. 

“I forgot to tell you,” she said, “somebody keeps ringing your spare cell.” 

He thought for a second, realized the one he’d taken with him earlier, same number, had probably shorted out in the river, or was sitting on the bottom. 

Juna said, “It rang again while you were in the shower. I’ll be out in a minute.” 

She closed the door and Weecho picked up the spare cell from the workbench. Checked the last call. 914 area code. Westchester. 

Checked his voice-mail. 

“Hey, Weecho, it’s Tilda. Call me soon as you can. Your mother was taken to the hospital. I think you better get up here.” 

Tilda – guard at his mother’s lockup. 

                                                #          #          #                                              

It was too late to catch a train. Weecho called the grunge band, asked if he could borrow their van (a bunch that never seemed to sleep, at least not at night). Juna wanted to go with him, but he told her he didn’t know how long he’d be up there, and that in a couple of hours she had to go to work at Lynch’s. (Hopefully the two of them could pick up where they left off, but he knew passion things could be iffy). 

He took the Bronx River Parkway up to White Plains, where Tilda, when he’d finally reached her, said they’d taken his mother by ambulance. The curvy road, plus rain and a spastic windshield wiper, cramped his speed, but there wasn’t any traffic at this hour and he found the hospital right away. 

He got off the elevator on the floor Tilda told him to, found her on guard duty outside his mother’s intensive care room. 

“Hi, how is she?” 

“A stroke, like I thought. You made good time.” 

“Sorry I took so long to call back.” 

“No problem.” 

“She conscious? Can I see her?” 

“She wasn’t before. I’ll check.” 

Tilda went into the ICU room and spoke to a nurse, pointed Weecho out to her through the glass partition, came back out. 

“You can go in, but not long.”  

Weecho nodded thanks and went in as quiet as he could. Went over and stood by his mother’s bed. Stared down at her face, Selena Marti looking more gray now than brown. He watched her closed eyes, felt a stinging in his own. She was lying there with her mouth part way open, hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes. 

Weecho turned to the nurse, her hanging a bag of liquid onto a stanchion. 

“How’s she doing? I’m her son.” 

“I know. That’s the only reason we let you come in.” 

Which Weecho guessed was her way of saying not too good. She slipped a needle into his mother’s limp arm, a tube attached to the needle connecting with the bag on the stanchion. 

“She had a stroke, which you know,” the nurse said. “But we don’t know yet how bad it was.” 

She moved the stanchion closer to the bed, checked the row of monitors blinking above Selena’s head. 

“I’ll be back,” she said, and went out. 

Weecho watched her go… heard a weak cough behind him. 

Turned around – and just about lost it. 

His mother was looking up at him, trying to speak, her mouth moving but nothing coming out. Eyes in and out of focus but she knew who he was. Wanting to ask what was going on, but couldn’t form the words. It was the saddest damned thing. He felt like her hands were around his heart.  

“Take it easy, Ma. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. Tilda’s right outside.” 

He wanted to touch her, hug her. She coughed again, tried again to speak, was cut off by the returning nurse. 

“I’m sorry, we’re going to have to ask you to leave now.” 

And he’d just said he wasn’t going anywhere. 

“Doctor wants her ready for a scan.”  Two orderlies had come in behind her. One stepped in front of Weecho and pulled a white curtain around the bed. ICU patient Selena Marti disappeared.  

                                                #          #          # 

Weecho sat in the waiting room, Tilda over there with the paper, the two of them waiting for the results of the scan. 

“She’ll make it, you’ll see,” Tilda said. “She’s big on survival.” 

“She puts it to the test.” 

Tilda nodded, she knew, went back to her paper. Weecho thankful his mother had this friend, this corrections officer, you can believe it, who towered over him – square black face, pale blue eyes, like sometimes pop up around the Caribbean. Trinidad he thought she was from. 

A door across the room opened and a doctor in a white coat came in. 

“Mr. Marti?” 

Weecho couldn’t remember being called Mister except when there was trouble.  

“Yes, sir,” he said. 

“We’re going to need you to sign some papers, as next of kin.” 

“How is my mother?” 

“We can talk about that after we do the signing.” 

“Can’t you tell me now?” 

The doctor looked at him, like Who was he? 

Tilda stood up. “Doctor?” 

He looked at her. The uniform. The won’t-take-any-crap expression. 

“I’m from the facility where Ms. Marti is incarcerated. I’d like to know myself what her condition is.”  

The doctor’s eyes flicked from Tilda to Weecho. Back to Tilda. “Come this way, please.” 

The doctor took them through some doors into a room that had a light box on the wall for viewing X-rays. There was already a set clipped in place, X-rays of a head, Weecho’s mother’s. The doctor pointed to the image furthest left, to a little spot on the skull. 

“This is a type of aneurysm,” he said. “It’s exerting pressure on the brain. It can affect basic motor functions – speech, sight, coordination…” 

“How dangerous is it?” Tilda asked. 

“Any aneurysm is dangerous.” 

“I’m asking about this one.” 

“We won’t know until we operate, which will probably be in the next twenty-four hours.”   

 Weecho kept staring at that little spot on the X-ray. “Will she be okay then? I mean, after?” A question he was sure the doctor had heard a thousand times. 

“Almost always,” the doctor said, “even in the best of cases, there’s a long period of therapy. Just to relearn the basics – eating, walking…” 

The same answer Weecho was sure the doctor had given a thousand times. 

“What made it happen?” Tilda asked. “The aneurysm.” 

“Most likely the result of an injury.” 

Tilda shook her head. “She hasn’t had any injury that I know of.” 

“It doesn’t have to be recent,” the doctor said. “It could have been something that happened a while ago.” 

Like a beating. 

Which Selena Marti thought she’d gotten even for.  

But the ghost of Weecho’s father came back. 

Like this. 

Like Soul Patch.