And do what? He hadn’t had an erection since the surgery.
He had always known Cindy would leave him for good. He was such a fool. Last night he had cried for her, for what they briefly had, for what he briefly hoped they might have again, when she had flown to his side after the tumor had been diagnosed. One last time he had melted into his ideal of Cindy, rather than the frozen reality. When they had first met, she was a vulnerable young woman who had been left adrift by the father of her child, and Will had vowed that he would never abandon her. That vow, and the time when they had seemed to glow together, those fleeting, joyful moments early on, had kept him going so long. It was like an addiction.
But after the cry, he had returned to the odd mental box he had been in since surgery. One side of the box was his gratitude at being alive. Things had looked so grim when the tumor had first been diagnosed: it might be malignant; there might be more; he might never walk again. Another side was oddly calm, where he was a good, self-sufficient patient, working hard in rehab, foiling the dark expectations of Lauren the shrink. The third side was his periodic bouts of claustrophobia-he had to get out of this hospital, just to sleep for one night-this one he concealed, and then it receded. And the fourth was the doctor’s murder, which brought it all back. That side was unfinished business, and, sure, he was also probably using it to distract himself from his life ahead: disabled, handicapped, crippled, dreading every new pain or change of feeling. Did the box hold anything?
“Pig.”
The voice behind him made him start, but his adrenaline, didn’t go down once the surprise was gone. He wheeled around, forcing himself to be calm. The man who stood before him was taller than Will; in fact, he knew that the man was exactly six feet five and, at one time, had weighed 250 pounds. Now he looked heavier, with a pronounced gut straining at his leather jacket. His face had always seemed ordinary except for the dramatic thick brown eyebrows that nearly met and the slight dimple in his chin that broke the monotony. Now, it looked puffy and his features seemed too small for that face. He had taken to shaving his head, which had long made Will imagine a malevolent Pillsbury doughboy.
“You’re the only police officer I’d call pig,” Bud Chambers said. “Or should I just say rat?”
Will said nothing. He had never felt more vulnerable. He vainly glanced at his lap for any weapon, seeing only the small fanny pack that held a few dollars, Kleenex, and his wallet.
