The Maze

"Lacey isn't at all weird." Where had the attempt at humor come from?

"Hey, maybe you're not a bad chicky after all. Oh my God. You're looking beyond ripe, Savich. Ms. Lily wondered if you and Quinlan were tough enough to do this stuff." Marvin was out the door in that moment, racing down the porch steps. Lacey saw him, a giant of a man, help Dillon into the weathered porched house.

"You do look like dirt-shit, boy," Marvin told Savich as he laid him down on the long sofa. "Don't you move now. Let Marvin check out those ribs of yours. Good thing I had nine brothers. I've bandaged some ribs in my day. But you know, I don't bandage anymore. I've stayed up with medical strides. Nope, don't do anything now except to tell you to take it easy. They're not broken, Savich, but you sure got some cracks in there. My third brother, Tomalas, now that boy had broken ribs. We used to tell him jokes just to see him laugh and groan at the same time."

Savich's eyes were closed. He didn't say a word, just listened quietly to Marvin's rich, low voice drawling out his words until you thought the sentence would never end. He suffered Marvin, who appeared to be surprisingly gentle, his big black hands moving slowly and expertly over Savich's chest.

"Nothing's broken, Marvin. I'm just bruised, that's all. I'm glad you're here. Is Ms. Lily all right?"

"Ms. Lily is always all right. She won five hundred dollars last night in a poker game off this black smart-ass goon from Cleveland. Yeah, she's real happy. You look like Ms. Lily got pissed at you and smacked you but good. She smacked me once and I was laid out just like you are now. Took me damned near three days to pull myself together again."

"Ms. Lily owns the Bonhomie Club," Sally said to Lacey. "I've got a painkiller for him, Marvin. What do you think?"

Savich said without opening his eyes, "Sally, give me whatever you've got and I'll kill dragons for you."

"My hero," Sally Quinlan said and disappeared into the small kitchen.

"Don't be so loose with that," Quinlan called after her. "I'm your main hero, remember?"

Lacey watched Marvin's big hands move over Savich's body, pulling slightly here and there, kneading, pressing. Finally, he rose, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, "You'll live, boy, but I don't like this at all. You and Quinlan, you two shouldn't have such dangerous day jobs. You boys are just too soft, too trusting. There are lots of mean fuckers out there. I should know, I bounce them out of the club nearly every night."

"It was a brown Ford Taurus, license number 429JRD, a 1994, I think."

Savich opened his eyes at that. "You sure, Sherlock? All I got was the RD. Hey, that's really good. Why didn't you tell me before?"

"You jerk, I was worried about you."

"I'll run it now," Quinlan said and went to the phone. Sally returned with a pill and a glass of water.

Ten minutes later, Savich's eyes were shut. Sally covered him with a blanket. Marvin took off his shoes.

"He's got nice feet," Sally said.

"What he's got is big feet," Marvin said. "Look at these suckers, Chicky, they're size twelve."

Both women looked up. Marvin looked from one to the other. "Well, ain't this a kick? I've never had this problem before."

Sally said to Lacey, "Marvin calls every female Chicky, except for Ms. Lily of course. How about your mother, Marvin?"

"She's the Big Chicky. Nobody screws with the Big Chicky, even my dad. You can go to Sally now, but she's still Chicky."

"I don't mind at all."

"Chicky Savich," Dillon said slowly, relishing the sound. "Talk about strange. I don't know if I can deal with that. But you know, it's not as bad as Chicky Sherlock."

"We thought you were asleep. How do you feel, Dillon?" Lacey leaned over him, her fingertips lightly flaring through his dark eyebrows, lightly touching the bruise on his cheek.

"Alive."

"Yes, that's good. You're kind of out of it, aren't you, Dillon?"

"No, not at all. I hurt enough still to keep me out of the ether."

"You don't know what you just said, do you?"

"Yeah, I know what I just said. It does sound strange, don't you agree?"

"I think," Lacey said very slowly, staring down at the man who'd become more important to her than anything or anyone in her life, "that I could get used to it, until Marvin gets to know me well enough to call me Sherlock."