Chapter 7 Section VI

Erik Kensen, still wearing his blood-stained green shabby coat, lay flat on a chair in the doctor's lounge on the first floor, his long legs stretched straight forward, his feet at the ankles. cross-stacked.There was no one else in the house but him, and it seemed empty.A strand of black-and-gray hair hung over his forehead, which he seemed to have stroked with his right wrist. He heard the door open, and someone lightly turned on the overhead light with a snap. When he opened his eyes, he realized that it was Ann, who was about to become his ex-wife. "They told me I could find you here." She tried to control her tone, her voice was so small it was like a whisper.

"It seems they were right." She went on: "At least you should call me and say, Eric, that's what I don't understand about you. I didn't get it from you, but from the damn radio, and The kids were with me," she said, before adding, "Thank you so much." He recovered quickly and stood up.He didn't want to add fuel to the fire at this point, so he avoided his wife's questioning and said, "Where are they now? Are they all right?" "Of course they're all right. What do you think? I put them at Jenny's. They're all right."

"Yes, fine." He paused, waiting for her to speak. "Then why didn't you call me?" He took a step back and folded his arms.He has a frank and childlike face, although the worries of life have carved the marks of the years on it, bags under the eyes have appeared, and the once proud handsome chin has become swollen due to puffiness. So charming.About his wife, especially in the past one or two years, he had already heard about it, which made his face no longer appear alive.It's not that he felt the need to act like this now, but that he had already decided not to reveal anything to Ann.He may be like a wax figure, closing himself up; or he may be like a person who has seen through the world in his early fifties, although he is still fifteen years away from fifty. "Why should I call you? His wife is here, and his family is here. Besides, I'm afraid that you will have another nervous breakdown if you find out. It's better not to tell you."

She pursed her lips tightly and took a deep breath as if making up her mind. "I want to see him," she said. "As you please. As long as Carla and his children are not here. If they are, I will ask you to be vigilant." "Oh yes, Mr. 'Vigilance', that's your role, isn't it? Beyond courtesy, to comfort the bereaved?" "Sometimes." He shrugged noncommittally. "I don't care. You can do what you want, and you will do what you want to do anyway." "That's right, that's what I planned." She became aggressive, "How did he die here? How did this happen?"

"He was smashed, Ann, very badly." "Every time someone was crushed, they didn't die." "Yes, but Tim is dead." "You don't care about his life at all, do you?" "What do you mean by that? I don't want to lose my patient, but he's not..." Her voice became sharp, almost hysterical. "He's not just a patient, Eric," she said, staring at him. "Don't try to reason with me like a doctor. I know what you're thinking." "Oh yeah? What's that?" "You're glad he died, didn't you? You wanted him dead long ago."

These words made him speechless for a moment, and finally, he shook his head helplessly and disgustedly. "Well, it was a pleasure talking to you. Now please forgive me..." He stood up and moved away from her. But she blocked his way. "Where are you going?" "Go back to work, I have nothing more to say to you. You came here to see Tim? You found me easily. You have no problems. Now please get out of my way, I have something to do to do." She stood still. "Oh yes, busy doctor." Then changed the subject, "They said you were in that place." "which place?"

"You know where it is." He took a step back and said, "What are you talking about?" "When he died." "That's true," he said cautiously, "so what?" He has enough experience to deal with her sometimes when she gets emotional and takes a surprising leap in logical thinking.Now, he saw something familiar in her eyes, an uncanny insight that made him feel extremely nervous inside. "I should have told someone," she said, "I'm sure I knew what was going on there." "I don't understand what the hell you're talking about."

"No, you know, Eric. I'm the only one who knows exactly what you did, how ruthless you were, what kind of person you were." "Oh, please, Ann, stop talking." "I'm going to say. You killed him, didn't you?" He thought she would talk about it, and now she did.Reason told him that apart from responding calmly, he could not make any unwise moves.Suppressing the anger in his heart, he turned his head and looked around to make sure that no one around could hear their conversation, then leaned forward and stopped only inches from her face.He forced a sneer at her. "Exactly," he said resolutely and decisively, "I squeezed his IV drip into his body as fast as I could."

Hearing this, she couldn't help but backed away, frozen like a piece of wood. Now he had her under control.Her panicked look aroused his desire to continue torturing her. "Here, I'm killing people all the time. It's one of the little-known benefits of work." She stared at him for a long moment with horror on her face, but then his intimidation calmed her down.Her tensed shoulders relaxed, and she gasped several times. "Do you think it's funny?" she asked. "Do you think it's a joke?" "You thought I was joking? Were you joking with me when you asked me?" However, suddenly the situation changed drastically, "Think about it, Ann, did I kill him? My God!"

"You were there, and you hated him." "What does that mean? Maybe you didn't catch the message. He was hit by a car." "Sent here." "It's the ICU, Ann, and there's nothing I can do about it anyway." "Then you yourself should recuse himself from his case." "Why? Then I won't have the chance to kill him? Maybe you don't understand this, what if I want to kill him? So what?" He stared at the man who had lived with him for more than a dozen years. In 1999, he also bore three children for him, but Ann said that he was like a complete stranger to him.For a moment, he wanted to provoke her to explode again.

But the following situation showed that this struggle had died down, and she finally shook her head and gave up her previous insistence. "You didn't kill him," she said, "you didn't have the guts." "You said so, not me, but he's dead whether I'm proud or not, isn't it? It's going to be a misfortune for little Annie, isn't it?" The words he said touched her sore spot again, and she clenched her jaw with a firm expression.Suddenly, she stretched out her arm, grabbed a sleeve of his coat tightly with her hand, and roared. "You son of a bitch! What am I going to do now, Eric? Tell me, what am I going to do!" "Whatever you do, Ann, I really don't care, he's not coming back anyway." Then he hit her again, "Don't tell me you don't even have a backup boyfriend." This is undoubtedly adding fuel to the fire.She became furious and slammed her fists on him indiscriminately. "You bastard!" His fists kept hitting Kenson's body, swearing, and he didn't stop until he grabbed her two fists.He gripped her fist tightly against his chest. "Ouch! Let me go, you hurt me." "very good." "Let go of me, go to hell!" "Do you still dare to be arrogant to me? Did you hear what I said?" For a while, he squeezed her hand as hard as he could.She continued to resist, uttering strange howling sounds from time to time, twisting her body, trying to pull out her arm.But he held them and wouldn't let her get away.Finally, he pulled her body closer to him and held her in his arms.She still wasn't about to give up the struggle, but he held her tightly like a pair of iron pincers, holding her in place until finally he felt her stop resisting. "Did you hear me, goddamn thing?" he said, pressing his mouth against her face. "Yes, let me go." As he let her go, he stepped back and pushed her outward. "I'm going," he said. "Get out of my way." She stroked her arm, then held it out to him and said, "Look what you did. You hurt me." "You'll survive," he said. She stepped forward and stood in front of him, risking being controlled by him again. But after the pain and anger in his heart dissipated, he no longer had the desire to fight with her. "Why don't you go home, Ann? Go back to the children. You shouldn't be here." But she raised her face and stared at him stubbornly. "I want to see him. Where is he now?" He understood what she meant.She wanted to see Markham's body.This is so fucking annoying, he thought to himself. "I guess there's a good chance right now," he said. "It's right next to the underground central hall." After speaking, he hurried past her and left the lounge. The minor league team has messed up Hardy's schedule.Vincent will play on Monday and Wednesday, and Hardy will coach them.So he and Franny had to adjust their sacred date nights to Tuesday nights.Just after seven o'clock tonight, Hardy pushed open the door of their pre-agreed spot, the Clover Cantina, but Franny hadn't arrived yet. Franny's brother, Moses McGuire, sat in a seat behind the fence, chatting with a young couple covered in black leather.When the conversation got hot, McGuire's voice was loud enough to drown out the singer Sting from the jukebox, and he was clearly not muttering. Hardy walked over, grabbed a stool and sat down by the window, half-turning toward the window so that he could see the cypress trees on the edge of Golden Gate Park across the street, swaying in the strong wind.Moses glanced at him and started pouring beer.At this moment, nine times out of ten, there was a call coming in from Hardy's mobile phone, so he ignored Moses.After the stout was poured into the glass, it took several minutes for the foam to dissipate, during which time Moses was able to talk incessantly.There's no reason to interrupt a good story. The story continues. "The guy had stomach pains for like nine months, and first they mistakenly removed his appendix, and then they took out his gallbladder. Well, it was wrong again, and it didn't help. They couldn't figure it out. So, in the end, he had to be released from the hospital, told he could get acupuncture, see a chiropractor, take herbal remedies, go to massage therapy, and none of that made his symptoms better. Meanwhile, " At this point, McGuire stopped, turned his head to Hardy, pointed to the pint of beer in front of him, meaning that the foam in it was almost gone, and then continued, "At the same time, that Guy is trying to survive, he was going to get married in a few months." The young couple asked almost in unison: "Then what happens next?" "Just two weeks ago, he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't even get out of bed after that. They cut him again and opened him up, but this time the opening was closed without moving anything. and apologized to him. They had to forego the operation because he had only one month to live." "One more month to live?" the girl asked. "Is that what they mean?" "Yes, but not a month," said Moses at last. "It turns out to be five days." The young man stared at the drink in his hand, shook his head and said, "Five days?" McGuire nodded indignantly. "I bought him a drink here three weeks ago, and went to his funeral on Monday." He grabbed Hardy's glass and stepped off the bar stool. Hardy took the wine glass and took a big gulp. "That's an interesting story. Who are you talking about?" "Sean McGee, don't you know?" Hardy had known McGee while working as a bartender and playing softball for many years on the Shamrocks' softball team.He's probably in his early forties now.Hardy remembers treating him and his fiancée to a drink at a New Year's party here four months ago.He carefully twirled his glass on the bar. "Is this story true?" "At least mostly true. The wedding is planned for next month. Susan and I have bought them some dinner plates as presents."