Bull Mountain(60)

“I’m sorry, Mommy.”

“Don’t be sorry, baby. Don’t you ever be sorry. It’s going to be okay. I promise. We’re going to be okay.”





CHAPTER





18




SIMON HOLLY

2012

Officer Holly stood in front of the hospital’s vending machine with his phone pressed to his ear and a torn sheet of notebook paper tucked under his arm. He hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours and needed some caffeine. As the phone rang, he fished a dollar bill out of his pants pocket and smoothed it out. He inserted the money into the machine and pressed the Diet Coke button. Nothing happened.

The phone stopped ringing and a gruff voice answered. “Montgomery.”

Holly switched the phone to his other ear. “Yeah, hi, Agent Montgomery. My name is Simon Holly. I’m a police officer here in Mobile. We met on the Fisher case. The one with—”

“I know who you are, son. That was some fine police work you did down there.”

“Thank you, sir. I couldn’t have done it without the help I received from your office.”

“Glad we could help. What can I do for you, Officer?”

Holly pulled the folded sheet of notebook paper out from under his arm and flipped it open. He also kicked the vending machine that had just taken his money. Nothing happened.

“I was hoping I could give you a name to run by your people over there. I’m working on something and I’m having a little trouble getting what I need.”

“Why are you calling me? Don’t you have access to the databases at your department?”

“Well, I should, but after that whole Fisher affair, I’m not exactly the most popular person around here, if you get my meaning.”

“The big boys don’t like you rookies solving their high-profile cases?”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Well, f*ck ’em, son. If you’re on a case, you shouldn’t be cut off from resources. Who’s in charge down there?”

“That’s kinda it, sir. This isn’t a case. It’s personal.”

“I see.”

The line was silent for a moment and Holly kicked the vending machine again. Nothing happened. A male nurse who looked more like a security guard in scrubs looked over and tilted his head.

“Well, what have you got?” Montgomery said.

“One name. Pepé Ramirez.”

“Spell that for me, son,” Montgomery said.

The big nurse approached Holly and surprised him when he put a hand on his shoulder. “Excuse me, sir?”

Holly turned his back to him, ignoring him, and spelled out the name for Montgomery. “He’s a low-rent pimp, this Ramirez,” he said, “a gangbanger out of Jacksonville, Florida. I just need to take a look at his file. He’d be older. Most likely in his sixties, if he’s even still alive. That should help you narrow it down if more than one pops up.”

The nurse walked around to face Holly again. “Excuse me, sir,” he repeated with a little more urgency. Holly covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Fuck off, buddy. It’s just a Coke machine.” The nurse looked at the machine and raised his eyebrows. Holly turned away from him again.

“I’ll see what I can do, Holly,” Montgomery said. “Give me a good number to call you back at.” Holly did.

The nurse walked around to face Holly for a third time. “Mr. Holly,” he said.

“What?” Holly said, covering up the phone again.

“It’s time,” the nurse said.

“Time for what?”

“It’s time,” the nurse repeated, but softer and more compassionate. “We’ve been trying to find you. Didn’t you hear the page?”

Holly hung up the phone.

Within seconds, he was back in the terminal wing, where his mother was being monitored. He knew before he stepped into the room that he was too late. Doctors and medical staff were crowded around her bed and the beeps and buzzing that had filled his head for the past twenty-four hours from all of the various monitoring equipment was painfully silent. When they noticed him in the doorway, the staff backed away and made room for him to enter. His feet were made of lead, each step heavier than the next. A doctor’s hand was on his shoulder. The sympathetic stares were squeezing the air from his lungs.

“She’s gone, son,” the doctor said.

“I . . . I was using the phone . . .” Holly said, unable to think of anything else to say. The doctor cleared the room and Holly sat on the edge of his mother’s bed. He took her hand and held it to his face. The coolness in her fingers pushed the reality of what had just happened straight through his chest and he started to cry. He cried in loud sobs—a boy’s sobs. He ran his hand down her face and let his fingers explore the scar that crossed it. She never let him touch it. She always pulled away, ashamed of it. He thought it was beautiful. He thought everything about her was beautiful. Even more so now that the sadness was gone, as if it had evaporated along with her breath. He laid his head on her chest and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for minutes or hours. It could have been either.

Another hand was on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” a voice said behind him. Holly lifted his head but didn’t look at the hospital’s pastor, who was there to console him. He looked at the black-and-white composition notebooks scattered all over the floor and stacked on the chair beside his mother’s bed. He’d brought them here from the apartment he’d set her up in, to read while she faded away. Until today, he hadn’t even known his mother kept a journal. Until today, he didn’t know a lot of things. He didn’t know hepatitis C caused liver cancer. Or that it could kill you this fast. He didn’t know his mother had been keeping it from him. She must have started writing these journals when she got sick. It read like a Greek tragedy. Every horrible thing she went through, and not one word of regret about having Simon. Even when they had to sleep in abandoned cars, or had no food for days. It all started in Jacksonville, with this Pepé, and the night she was cut. From the top of one of the journals he hadn’t read yet, he saw the tip of a photograph being used for a bookmark. He sat up and willed himself to stand.