The nurse left, saying that she was going to call my doctor.
When Dawn had recovered from her shock she pushed me back onto the bed. “Stay,” she said. She handed me her purse, then handed me the wallet I had been looking at just a bit ago.
“What?” I said.
“Look at your driver’s license, and look at mine.”
There was a crapload of stuff in her purse. What is it with women, anyway? I found her wallet and opened it up and looked back and forth between the licenses.
“We live together?” I said.
She sat down next to me and put her arm around me.
“Johnny, I’m your niece. Don’t you remember me?”
I stared at her face, willing the memories to come forward. Nothing. Then I realized something.
“Shit,” I said, and tried to move back under the sheet. She just held onto me.
“What? Johnny, what’s wrong?”
I stood up and moved away from her. “If what you say is true, ‘niece’ and ‘naked uncle’ don’t really go well together.”
That made her laugh. Hard.
“Johnny, there’s a lot I have to tell you. But for now let’s just say that it’s okay if I see your body. I see it all the time, and I love it. I love you.”
That’s the point at which a candy striper chose to enter my room. She stopped and stared at my body and turned bright red. I stepped behind Dawn.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It happens,” she said. “I’ll come back later.” She backed out and pulled the door closed.
“Well that was awkward,” I said.
“Happens all the time,” Dawn said.
“What?”
“You’re a nudist, Johnny. You’re naked more often than you’re clothed. You wind up flashing people all the time.”
“That’s bizarre, and no I’m not,” I said. “She was just a little girl. She doesn’t need to see that shit.”
“She was 15 or 16,” Dawn said. “I can guarantee you that she’s seen it before.” She looked into my eyes. “Johnny, I want you to wait for the doctor to see you. I need you to wait here for her to try and figure out what’s wrong with you.” She moved her fingers gently over my head wound. “What do you remember?”
I stared at her, wondering whether to trust her. She seemed honest and caring, and empathetic. But then again this could all be some sort of orchestrated setup, that little part of my mind told me. Orchestrated by who, though – and why?
I breathed deeply and told her. I didn’t have any objective reason to trust her, but for some damned reason I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“I don’t remember anything. I don’t know who you are.” I paused. Breathed again. “I don’t know who I am.”
Her tears were immediate and she hugged me. “Oh Johnny, I’m so sorry. I’ll take care of you. You’re going to remember. Baby, you’ll be okay.”
I registered her use of “Baby” and added it to the earlier lover’s kiss and her easy acceptance of my nudity.
“Dawn, I need to ask you a question. Will you please answer me honestly?”
She looked at me and her expression was surprise and maybe even shock. “Of course, Johnny. I always do.”
“Do we have sex?”
She stared at me. “Yes. How did you figure it out?”
“I’m a trained detective,” I said. Then paused, not knowing where the hell that came from. “I’m actually not sure what that means,” I said.
Dawn just laughed and hugged me again. “You’re going to be okay, baby,” she said. It’s going to come back to you.”
—
The doctor came an hour or so later. I expected her to be pissed about being called in when she wasn’t scheduled to do hospital rounds, but she wasn’t. She was cheerful and happy and apparently not all that worried about the fact that I had no idea who in the fuck I was.
“Retrograde amnesia,” she said as she examined my head. “It will usually only mess up your memories for a little while. You’ll get better, I promise.”
“What caused it?” I said.
The doctor cocked her head and gazed at me. “Well, I could be wrong but my best guess is that there’s a pretty good chance the bullet to the head did it,” she said.
“I want to get out of here,” I said.
“I can’t stop you,” she said. “I think you should stay here for another day or two, but honestly I don’t think going home should be a problem if you have people there who can care for you.”
“He does,” Dawn said. “The care will be constant.”
“Okay then,” the doctor said. “I’m going to sign your release form, but not until you get your chest wound bandaged again. I’ll send in the nurse.”
Something occurred to me. “Who’s paying for my care? Do I have insurance?”
The doctor put her hands on my chest, gently. “Don’t worry. The City of Los Angeles is taking care of you.”
“Why?”
She looked at Dawn. “He doesn’t know?”
“He woke up just before you came. He doesn’t remember anything.”
The doctor looked at me for a long time. Then looked at Dawn.
“There’s a woman in 417 that I think Mr. Rand should meet.”
Dawn said, “I’d like that. If he’s up to it.”
I looked at them both. “What are you talking about?”
Dawn said, “Trust me.”
And suddenly, I did.
—
Dawn and the doctor helped me get into a stupid hospital smock and I walked with them down the hall to room 417. The doctor went in first and made sure the woman was ready to receive visitors, then beckoned us in. There was a man in police uniform sitting next to her bed. Dawn helped me into a chair on the other side of the bed.
The woman on the bed looked pale and drawn. She burst into tears when she saw me.
The officer said, “Oh, fuck,” and ran his hand across his face.
“Oh my God,” I said. “Please tell me I didn’t do this to her.”
The woman just cried harder.
“Johnny, you saved her life,” the doctor said.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” the cop said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What the hell happened?” I said.
The woman in bed explained it. She was a cop. She had pulled a car over on a beach road in Santa Monica and had radioed for backup. The two guys had initially been compliant. Then a want had sounded over her radio and they had heard it. When she went back to her unit they followed her and shot her.
She said that as best the LAPD could figure out the crime scene I had taken out the shooter with my car, then jumped out and beaten the shit out of his partner. According to her I’d grabbed the shooter’s gun and then had attended to her, using her radio to call in “Officer down” and then had stripped off her shirt and vest.
“‘There’s blood’,” she said. “That’s what you said. That you were just trying to figure out where it’s coming from. Then you pulled up my bra and found a wound in my breast. You went digging into it and it hurt, but then you said, “It’s still in here. It’s not deep. You’re okay. I promise that you’re okay.”
And then the next unit showed up. I had a handgun and I was standing over a prone police officer. They did what they did.