“I was the one who called it in,” I said, “to 911. I was supposed to meet Lawrence here, and when he didn’t show up, I went looking for him.”

“These people, the ones who broke into my store, these are the people who tried to kill Mr. Jones?”

“It’s possible,” I said.

“It’s all over for me,” said Brentwood. “I have been hit before. The insurance people, they say they won’t cover me anymore. I can’t do this anymore.”

And he looked away, thinking that I would not see the tear that was running down his cheek.

“You tell Mr. Jones I am sorry,” he said. “And you can tell him that I am finished.”

Chapter 21

21

My next stop was the hospital. But not to give Lawrence the message from Mr. Brentwood. I’m sure he felt bad enough without hearing that his client was being forced out of business. I’d been thinking of him all day, had called the hospital a couple of times and managed to get nothing more out of the nurses than “critical but stable.”

With the Virtue still at Otto’s, I grabbed a cab in front of the Metro building and asked to be taken to Mercy General. After inquiring at the front desk, I found out, not to my surprise, that Lawrence was in the intensive care ward. There was a sign outside the ward that told me ICU patients could only have two visitors at a time, and they had to be family. I found a nurse, told her who I was.

She reiterated what the sign said. “I’m sure you’re very concerned about Mr. Jones, we all are, but it’s family only.”

“Is there anyone with him right now?”

“I believe his sister’s in there. She flew in from Denver.”

“I’ll wait for her.”

I peered in through the window of the door to the ICU. There looked to be about a half dozen beds in there, and at one of the two far beds, which were up against the window that looked out onto the parking lot, a black woman was sitting in a chair. A curtain pulled partway around the bed kept me from seeing who was in it. All I could make out, under the pale blue hospital bedding, was the shape of legs and feet.

She was an attractive woman, in her late thirties I guessed, with gleaming black hair and a tailored blue suit, and every few seconds she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. She reached out and held the patient’s hand, leaned in a bit, cocked her head slightly to one side, as if she was trying to hear something the patient was saying. She tilted forward out of her chair, and now I couldn’t see her head as she disappeared behind the curtain.