Page 104 of Hard to Kill

She reaches over and takes my free hand. I think about all the talks we’ve had in our lives, about everything, in what feels like another life a thousand years before we were doctor and patient.

“For the last time, please answer one question. I promise not to ask you ever again.”

“Liar.”

She leans forward, squeezes my hand harder. “Is it worth it?”

Ever since I resumed my defense of Rob Jacobson, I’ve been asking myself the same question.

I squeeze her hand back and remind myself that tonight is a no-cry zone.

In a whisper, I say, “It might not make any sense to you. But it’s worth it to me.”

She keeps me on the IV for another hour. The nurse comes in and unhooks me, but Sam shakes her head. “Obviously I can’t release you. You’re still acting lightheaded.”

“I’m fine.”

“The hell you are,” she says. “You can pick up the car in the morning. Besides, your ride is already here.”

Dr. Ben Kalinsky pokes his head into the room now.

“We need to stop meeting like this,” he says.

He drives me home and gets me into bed, walks Rip. No further conversation, he tells me. He’s going to sleep on the couch.

In the morning, Jimmy calls. From the hospital, Sam caught him up on the festivities at the Bell & Anchor.

“I took a ride over to the restaurant after you two girls left,” Jimmy tells me. “I found out some very interesting shit about McKenzie and Eric Jacobson.”

“Such as?”

“Such as they go in there a lot,” Jimmy says.

There’s a brief silence then, from both of us, while I process the information.

“Turns out it’s kind of their place,” Jimmy adds.

EIGHTY-TWO

Jimmy

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, JIMMY and Jane are drinking iced tea on her back patio. If she’s run-down enough tofalldown, Jimmy tells her, she needs to wake the hell up.

“I’d like you to please cut the shit,” Jimmy says.

“Yes, doctor. I slept until nearly noon today.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

While Ben was driving Jane home from the hospital, Jimmy made the short drive to the Bell & Anchor, taking a shot that McKenzie and Jacobson were still at the restaurant after watching Jane take a header. They weren’t.

But the guy at the host stand was a local who as a college student had bartended for Jimmy. He was an up-and-comer now, the kind restaurants in the Hamptons relied upon to know who wanted to be seen and who didn’t.

“According to my guy Jake, McKenzie and Eric Jacobson started showing up together about six months ago. McKenzie shot my guy some money at the time. Rent money, enough to guarantee a table no matter how crowded the place was.”

“Makes you proud to be an American.”