The Day A Mountie Died - part two
Get to the Consulate. Maybe he wasn't hurt that bad. He's probably still there, knowing that moron. If he can walk he will not go to a hospital. But I'll make him go. Why didn't I make you go home? Why didn't I? I should have. I should have! You're okay, Benny. Man, you got to be okay.
Ray's thoughts were racing. They were making better time than the Riv. Ray knew every backstreet, alley and byway in Chicago, but right now everyone of them was jammed with afternoon traffic.
At last he was schreeching to a halt in front of the Consulate. Leaping out, he left the car door swinging. He sprinted through the misty rain toward the front entrance.
Beside the steps a dark red pool, washed along by the chilly drizzle, was slowly oozing down a storm drain. Ray forced down an upsurge of nausea. As Ray turned from the pool of blood, a man in a red tunic and royal blue pants burst out of the Consulate's door. Ray's flash of relief was quickly replaced by disgust. It was Turnbull.
With a wail, Turnbull threw himself on Ray. Shrilly he sobbed, "Oh, Detective Vecchio! It was horrible. Just horrible! I cannot begin to tell you how horrible it was."
Ray struggled to untangle himself from the weeping, clinging Mountie. "Turnbull," Ray bellowed in his ear. "Let me go!" With a heave, he shoved Turnbull backward.
The young Mountie stood sniffling and trembling like a whipped puppy.
Ray huffed furiously before demanding, "Where's Benny?"
Turnbull gazed about in confusion.
Ray scuffed both hands back over his bare crown. With strained patience, he said, "Constable Fraser. Where is Constable Fraser?"
"Oh! Constable Fraser!" Turnbull's simple face broke into a grin of recognition. Importantly, he said, "Constable Fraser is gone."
His face twisted with blind fury, Ray grabbed the collar of Turnbull's tunic. Viciously, he shook the Mountie as he roared, "NO!"
"But.......but........Detective Vecchio........" Turnbull squeaked. "He is gone. Constable Fraser is gone."
In furious despair, Ray shoved Turnbull away. Hot salty tears bit at his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.
Turnbull staggered back. He gazed sympathetically at Ray. "I'm really sorry that you missed him, Detective Vecchio."
"Yeah," Ray muttered as he wearily scrubbed at his eyes. "So.......where did they take him?"
"Who?" Turnbull asked.
Ray grit his teeth in annoyance. Not trusting himself to speak, he jabbed a shaking finger at the dissapearing pool of blood.
Turnbull stared goggle eyed at the blood. His lips began to tremble. In a burst of tears he howled, "Mercy General! Oh, Detective Vecchio, it was horrible. Horrible!! You should have been here!" Once more Turnbull threw himself at Ray.
Green eyes ablaze, Ray punched Turnbull full on the jaw as he stridently roared, "_He_ should not have been here because _I_ should have taken him back home when I had the chance!"
Turnbull was whirled around by the force of Ray's blow. He fell to his hands and knees. Sqealing like a piglet, he scrambled on all fours back inside the Consulate.
Ray was already racing back to the Riv. He threw himself into the driver's seat and revved up the engine. He paused for a second to gaze down at the Stetson in the passenger's seat.
"That lack brained nincompoop is wrong," Ray said to the hat. "If you was dead they would have taken you to the morgue---not to the hospital."
With rising hope, Ray roared out into the traffic. He was making a beeline for Mercy General.
*
Ray nearly balded a tire schreeching into the hospital's parking lot. As he slid the Riv into a tow-away zone, he was mildly delighted to see Inspector Thatcher striding toward one of the Consulate's cars. Her face was set in a businesslike scowl as she marched through the gray drizzle.
"You heartless dragon," Ray muttered as he scooted out of the Riv. "Just because Benny didn't fall in a love-sick swoon at your feet you could care less about what's happened to him."
Just as Thatcher settled into her car, Ray rushed up and grabbed the door. Startled, she gave him a withering glare. "Vecchio. What are you.......?"
Ray snapped, "I heard about the shooting. How is he?"
She looked a little puzzled but mostly annoyed as she sharply answered, "D.O.A. The body has been shipped to the Amtrak Station for immediate transport to Ottawa."
The misty gray world took a sudden off course, lurching whirl. Ray knew that if he had not been holding the car door he would have fallen flat on his face on the wet pavement. Between the nausea rolling in his stomach and the buzzing in his ears, Ray barely heard Thatcher saying,
"I assume that you have been by the Consulate. Didn't Turnbull tell you that Fraser was gone?"
For an answer, Ray-----with all the power of frustration and despair-----slammed the car door. Spinning on his heel, he dashed back to the Riv. With a squeal of rubber on asphalt, he raced out of the parking lot.
One handed, Ray guided the powerful green Buick through the rain soaked traffic. His other hand lay heavily on the crown of the Stetson.
Why the train station? his thoughts were screaming. Why in the world were they sending Benny away on that blasted train?
Ray shivered as his mind whirled backward...............he had come way too close to losing Benny at the train station on that terrible night. Ray gulped sickly.
And now I am losing him.
I gotta get there. I gotta see him one last time. I gotta give him this. Ray's long fingers absently stroked the soft felt of Fraser's hat. I can't let him down. But did I ever let him down this morning. The Riv's windshield wipers whipped back and forth asking and asking-----Why? Why? Why?
Why didn't I take him home? Why didn't I listen to my gut feeling? Why did I leave Benny there when I knew he was sick? Why? echoed Ray's thoughts, WHY?
And then he was there. The imposing facade of the train station frowned through the misty rain. Ray stared balefully back,.......remembering............seeing again in his mind's eye-----Fraser----wounded and bleeding, sprawled------dying on the platform, brought down by the bullet fired by Ray's own hand.
"And now," Ray muttered aloud, "Benny is here----dead---and I'm just as guilty as I was the last time 'cause I was too stupid to take him back home." He punched the Riv's steering wheel in self anger.
A train whistle sparked Ray to urgent action. Snatching up the Stetson, he scrambled out of the Riviera. Recklessly, he stormed into the great, yawning door.
Shouldering his way up to the nearest ticket counter, Ray demanded of the smiling girl, "When's the next train leaving for Ottawa?"
She smiled even wider. "That's in Canada, isn't it?" she asked. In a bright, helpful voice she went on, "Would you like to purchase a ticket?"
She was so bright and so chipper and so helpful, she made Ray sick.
"No," he snapped. "My best friend's bod..............." he choked, then managed to recover. "My best friend in on that train. I gotta give him his hat." He pushed the Stetson forward on the counter. "So when's that train leaving?" he demanded as he glared down his long, fine nose at the smiling girl.
She smiled at the hat. She smiled at Ray. She smiled at her computer screen. "Just a moment, please. I'll check." Her fingers danced lightly over the keyboard.
Ray drummed impatiently on the countertop with one hand. He traced absent patterns on the crown of the Stetson with the other.
The girl looked up, smiled even brighter and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but that train is just now leaving the..............." She stopped because there was no one there to talk to.
Catch that train! Catch it! Stop it before it can take Benny away------ Ray was furiously commanding himself. With long legs pumping to their utmost, Ray zig-zagged through the crowded lobby. People skittered out of his way. No one dared to try and stop that panting, crazed, green-eyed mad man.
Ray careened out onto the platform. For the briefest of seconds he again saw himself running down this same platform---------saw himself aiming his gun and--------------
The lonely shriek of a departing train shook Ray back to the present. And the reason he was here again.
Ahead of him a train was huffing out into the misty drizzle. Spurred by the sight of the escaping train, Ray ran in long loping strides down the platform beside it. Wildly, he waved Fraser's Stetson over his head.
Screaming over the rattles and whistles of the train, Ray pleaded, "Stop! Come back! Don't take Benny. I gotta see him. I gotta tell him how sorry I am. He can't go without his hat. I don't want him to be buried without it."
Ray's cries were lost in the clatter of the wheels on steel rails. The train gave one last mocking whistle before it rushed from the station. Intent on his hopeless pursuit, Ray loped on down the platform. He did not realize how close he was to the end until suddenly he was teetering on the very edge. With a hoarse yell, he windmilled his arms in an effort to keep from toppling onto the tracks.
Just before he would have gone crashing over, two hands clamped on his shoulders and jerked him backward.
Ray staggered drunkenly for a moment before he whirled about with a hopeful cry, "Benny?' His rescuer was not Fraser. Ray found himself staring into the smling face of an elderly security guard.
He patted Ray's shoulder and asked kindly, "Can I help you, son?"
"Yeah," Ray snapped. "You can help me by kicking me all the way into the Chicago River 'cause I did not take him home when I had the stinking chance!" Ray shook the Stetson under the guard's bushy moustache. "And because I didn't, he's dead and it's all my stinking fault!" Choking on his barely suppressed sobs, Ray spun on his heel and raced back down the platform.
Mystified, the guard scratched his head as he stood and watched Ray leave.