When the elevator doors opened to let them out on the sixth floor of the hospital, Parnell said, "I want to be sure that you understand me."
He took Richard by the sleeve and held him and stared into his pale blue eyes. "You know why I'm coming here, right?"
"Right."
"I'm coming to see your father because we're old friends. Because I cared about him a great deal and because I still do. But that's the only reason."
"Right."
Parnell frowned. "You still think I'm going to help you, don't you?"
"I just want you to see him."
On the way to Bud Garrett's room they passed an especially good-looking nurse. Parnell felt guilty about recognizing her beauty. His old friend was dying just down the hall and here Parnell was worrying about some nurse.
Parnell went around the corner of the door. The room was dark. It smelled sweet from flowers and fetid from flesh literally rotting.
Then he looked at the frail yellow man in the bed. Even in the shadows you could see his skin was yellow.
"I'll be damned," the man said.
It was like watching a skeleton talk by some trick of magic.
Parnell went over and tried to smile his ass off but all he could muster was just a little one. He wanted to cry until he collapsed. You sonofabitch, Parnell thought, enraged. He just wasn't sure who he was enraged with. Death or God or himself--or maybe even Bud himself for reminding Parnell of just how terrible and scary it could get near the end.
)
A retired police detective accepts his toughest assignment ever when his old partner hires him to end his suffering from liver cancer.
