Dukkha Unloaded. Loren W. Christensen
out of the car and standing by the fender as Rudy works his girth out from behind the steering wheel. “My wife calls me ‘Fatty McButterpants,’” he says, standing and catching his breath. “I tell her it’s her fault ‘cause she’s such a good cook.”
We wind our way between several rows of parked cars. A KGW News van and a KOIN News van are parked side by side across from the ER entrance. There must have been a shooting or something.
“Always somethin’ goin’ on here,” Rudy says. “Been here lots of times with fares who got themselves sick, shot, or stabbed. One guy got all three done to him. The front desk is to the right just inside the door.”
The last time I was here I was cradling Jimmy in my arms. I shudder. I sense Rudy looking at me. Thankfully, he doesn’t ask what’s wrong.
The glass doors slide open and we hang a right into the air conditioning. The elderly woman behind the desk is talking with a large, Hawaiian-looking woman. The big woman thanks her and heads quickly toward the elevators.
“I’m looking for Mark Sanderson,” I tell the woman. “He was brought in some time today with a David Rowe.”
“You a friend or relative?”
“Friend.”
“Don’t need to look them up on the computer. Lots of people interested in them today—police, the TV. Everyone is up on the second floor. I don’t know if they will let you see them but it’s where they are. Sad about what happened. It’s been crazy,” she says, looking behind me at someone else needing directions.
“I hope everything will be okay, Sam,” Rudy says. He points to a hallway to our right. “Coffee shop is down there. I’ll wait ‘bout forty minutes, forty-five.”
I nod, too stunned to speak, and hurry toward the elevator.
The elevator doors swoosh open on the second floor to reveal a crowd of police brass and reporters. The press doesn’t look my way but the cops do, some with blank faces, a few with slow nods. Chief Rodriguez looks at me for a long moment before giving me a single nod, then continuing his conversation with Deputy Chief Glanville. My fans. Gotta love ‘em. Only Captain Regan smiles and moves toward me.
“Sam, how are you doing?” he says.
“Captain,” I say, shaking his hand. Bill Regan is the Captain of Detectives, my top boss. He’s a good one, a hundred percent supportive of his people. He and Mark have been a dream to work for. “I just got back into town. Mark was supposed to pick me up at the airport but he called me about twenty-five minutes ago. Said he and David got assaulted.”
Regan nods. “He and David were walking on the River Walk on the east side of the Willamette when some assholes jumped them, don’t know for sure how many. Thumped them good. Mark has a lot of lacerations and some torso bruising where they stomped his chest. Docs looked him over and patched some of his cuts. Nothing broken. David is in rough shape. Still unconscious. They’re doing all kinds of X-rays and scans.”
Adrenaline charges through my muscles, pushing away my jet lag. I don’t know what my eyes are doing, but Captain Regan takes a step toward me, his eyes looking intently into mine. His voice is low, his words just for my ears. “This is the time for cool heads, Sam.” I don’t say anything.
“You hear me?”
I nod. “Yes.”
He looks at me for a beat longer, then over at a camera crew. “Just once, I’d like to catch whoever calls the press whenever a cop is involved in something. Anyway, the Fat Dicks caught the case and are still in there talking to Mark. We’ll know more details when they’ve finished their—”
“Excuse me.” An Asian nurse smiles at the captain. “Are you Sam Reeves?”
“I am,” I say.
She turns toward me. “Sorry. Someone over there pointed at you two. Mark Sanderson is asking for you.”
“Oh, okay,” I say. “Captain, I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Regan nods and I follow the nurse through the crowd.
“Detective Reeves,” a female voice to my left calls out before we get to the doors. I recognize the woman as a KOIN reporter. “May we get a comment from you? Why are you here?”
“Does this have anything to do with your shooting?” asks a male voice from behind me. Shoulder mounted cameras that had been sitting on the floor are quickly lifted into place and aimed at me.
I ignore them and follow the nurse through a set of swinging doors and into a large room with a series of small rooms formed by curtains along each wall, some empty, some with their curtains drawn. Men and women in pale green scrubs dart about busily. Mark waves to me from where he is sitting outside of one of the rooms, its curtain drawn.
“Mark,” I say, rushing over to him. Grimacing, he scoots to the edge of his chair, tries to get up but his body changes his mind. He looks like hell: bandaged forehead and hand, abrasions on both pale cheeks and chin, and a wide-eyed, confused look I’ve seen a hundred times on the faces of trauma victims.
“Sam, I … David is hurt bad.”
“Mark,” I whisper, kneeling down on one knee next to him. I gently touch his shoulder, not knowing where he hurts. “What on earth? Are you hurt badly? Is David in this room?”
He slowly scoots back until his back is flush with the chair, closes his eyes, and exhales as if it’s all he can manage. “No. He’s in X-ray right now. I think they’re bringing him back here but I don’t know for sure. He’s got tubes sticking in him, he’s hooked up to machines … God.” Mark takes a slow, laborious inhalation and eases it out. “They kicked him … over and over … in his head. I tried to help him but two of them were on me. They had me … down, punching and kicking me.”
“They hurt your head,” I say, tentatively lifting my hand toward it but not touching him. It’s hard for my jet-lagged brain to compute my friend is hurt. Ninety-nine percent of me is still back in Saigon. Stepping off the plane into Portland’s airport and the cab ride on the city streets was a culture shock after the chaos and intensity of my ten days in Vietnam. It’s hard to catch up. “I mean, damn, Mark. What do the doctors say about you?”
“ER released me,” he says. “Nothing broken. Ribs are badly bruised. It’s a little hard to breathe and to … talk. I cough a lot, which really hurts. They stomped on my chest and my side. I hit one of them. I might have fractured a knuckle.”
“Are the suspects in custody?”
He shakes his head. “White … late teens, early twenties. There are these … benches along the walkway. It was about three this afternoon and Mark and I … we were sitting on one looking out at the river, having a Starbucks and sharing a muffin. We were sitting close to each other. Guess it gave us away. I saw them coming in my peripheral but I didn’t think anything about it. I was aware of them again, out of the corner of my eye, when they were about fifty feet away. When my cop instinct finally kicked in, I scooted away from David a little. But it was too late. The young men were moving straight at us saying things like … ‘faggots’ and ‘butt rangers’ and the like. We stood and … started walking in the opposite … direction but they were on us.”
“Can you ID them?”
He nods through a cough spasm, clearly in pain. “For sure the ones who worked me over. Maybe the two who got David, I don’t know. They split in the direction they came from. No one else on the walkway, so no witnesses, none I know of, anyway. Fat Dicks are on it. They got my report and left just a couple …” Mark coughs into the crook of his arm. He takes a deep breath, then, “They left a couple of minutes before you got here. Must have left a back way. Didn’t … want to deal with the press.”
“I’m so sorry about this, Mark. I’m so pissed right now I can’t think straight.”
His scabbed lips