Chapter 74

Chapter 74—Jack arrives at hospital

10:30 p.m., Thursday, December 29 

The driver turned around once more, facing Jack. “I’m gonna drop you off here, Jack. If I try to drive through we might get trapped in there, and never get out.”
“That’s fine,” Jack replied. “I’ll just jump out here. … Hey, you said my stuff was already at the hotel? What’s my check out?”
“Don’t worry,” the driver said. “We’ll take care of that. You can stay with Kate as long as necessary. The address of the hotel is on the card.”
“Thanks for all the help,” Jack said. “What about Reg? There will be a funeral?”
“There will be,” the driver answered. “The official cause of death is an auto accident. We’ll clean him up and get the body to an appropriate funeral home.”
“Send his clothes to me, okay?” Jack requested. “Buy him some new ones to send to his family. But I want his clothes.”
“Certainly,” the driver replied. “You take care, and we’ll be in touch.”
With that, Jack looked over at Scarface and nodded his gratitude, then closed the door.
“He was right about the Bruce Willis movie,” Jack thought, as he took in the sea of red and blue surrounding the ER entrance.
“Best way to do this is through reception,” Jack concluded. So he walked around to the main entrance, and stood in line at the desk.
“New patient. Kate Handler—H-a-n-d-l-e-r,” he said. “I’m her father.”
The woman at the desk started checking on her screen to see if she had admission by that name.
“She was just brought in,” Jack said. “Might not be in your data base yet. I believe she suffered a gunshot wound.”
With that information, the attendant ceased looking at her computer and made a call. “Have you got a Kate Handler—H-a-n-d-l-e-r? … I have her father here. … I’ll let him know.”
The woman then hung up the phone, and addressed Jack. “Your daughter is in surgery right now. I have no more information for you than that. She was admitted into the ER about a half hour ago. There is a waiting room right outside surgery. I will give you a map.”
The woman then presented Jack with a sheet of paper outlining the route he should take to get over to the proper waiting room. “You are here,” she said. “You need to follow the blue line over to the elevator. Take the elevator down one level. That will be level one. When you get off the elevator, there will be another blue line. Follow that blue line to ER waiting room. There will be nurses there that can give you more information.”
“Thanks,” Jack said, as he turned to follow the woman’s instructions.
“Wonder what I’ll find there?” he asked himself. “That waiting room will no doubt be full of cops—cops asking questions.” Jack scrutinized every person he encountered along the way, looking for familiar faces, but finding none. As he approached a bank of three elevators at the end of the helpful blue line, Jack pushed the button, and there was the familiar “ding.” Jack looked up to see that the elevator on the left was arriving at his floor.
After several passengers got off, Jack entered, and pushed the button marked “ER.” When he turned around to face the closing doors, he observed a man walking up to that same bank of elevators. As the door closed in front of Jack, for a split second their eyes met. It was Kate’s “friend” Kurt, from the Penn Station coffee shop.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Jack wondered, as the elevator door closed between them.