Down Among the Dead Men

59

The mexican wrestlers were back.

He caught only fleeting glimpses of them as they grabbed hold of him and tossed him around as if he were nothing more than an oversized suitcase.

One of them said something to him, but in a language he didn’t understand, and all he could do was groan in response. It must have been enough, however, because the crowd watching them cheered.

Then he was picked up again and tossed around and the next thing he knew there were blinding lights in his eyes and the wrestlers were gone, replaced now by angels in pastel greens and blues.

One of them was rubbing his aching shoulder, and suddenly the pain went away and he was gone again, only to awaken in a hospital bed, surrounded by curtains and the sound of voices and beeping machinery, his shirt and shoes gone, a patch of gauze taped to the space between his neck and his right shoulder, an IV attached to a tube in the back of his hand.

Only then did he remember what had happened and was surprised to discover that he was still alive.

He felt a presence nearby, someone moving around next to him, playing with tubes or wires or buttons or whatever. Then one of the angels appeared in front of him, leaning forward, her pastel blue-covered breasts brushing against his arm as she checked something above him.

He looked up at her and saw an attractive short-haired Asian woman who smelled faintly of lilac.

“Welcome back,” she said.

“Did I go somewhere?”

“You drifted off a few times, but that was mostly because of the medication. The effects should wear off pretty soon.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Not long. The doctor will be in in a moment to fill in the details.”

“Somebody shot me.”

“That’s the general consensus,” she said. “But you got lucky. The bullet went straight through and didn’t manage to do much damage. You lost some blood, but nothing substantial.”

“I can’t feel a thing.”

A soft laugh. She patted his arm.

“You will when the local wears off. But then you probably already know that.” She gestured toward his stitches. “Looks like you’ve had extensive experience in that area.”

She fussed with some of the machinery again, checked the tube in his hand, then turned and reached for the curtain.

“I’ll let the police know you’re awake. They’ll want to see you as soon as the doctor is finished.”

Vargas’s stomach dropped. “Police?”

“They’ve been waiting to talk to you. We have to report all gunshot wounds.”

“What do they look like?”

She frowned at him. A question she hadn’t anticipated. “Look like?”

“Black, white, Hispanic?”

“They look like a couple of bored cops in uniform. What difference does it make?”

Vargas shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”

She studied him a moment, uncertainty in her eyes, then said, “I’ll get the doctor,” as she disappeared behind the curtain.

When she was gone, Vargas sat up, looking around the cubicle for his shirt and shoes. He didn’t know if the cops out there were the same ones who had shot at him, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Besides, even if they weren’t, how could he know who to trust anymore? La Santa Muerte might very well have tentacles that reached far and wide.

He felt a stab of pain as he yanked the IV free, then stood up, surveying the small space again, looking for his clothes and backpack.

He found them under the gurney, his shirt neatly folded inside a plastic bag but torn and covered with blood, his shoes and backpack lying next to it.

The shirt would make him a target, but so be it. It was all he had. He pulled it from the bag and slipped it on, felt the damp liquid against his shoulder as he buttoned it up.

Then he slipped into his shoes, checked to make sure he still had his wallet and keys and cell phone, then slung his backpack over his good shoulder and moved to the curtain, peeking out into what looked like every other emergency room he’d ever seen: a cluster of computers at the center, people in scrubs moving about in a deliberate but hurried pace, shouting code words to one another, a row of curtained cubicles on either side.

A clock on the wall read: 4:00 A.M.

Vargas looked to his left and saw a short hallway that led to a set of double doors. Above them was a standard-issue green exit sign.

His immediate destination.

Checking to make sure his nurse was nowhere around, he quickly slipped out of his cubicle and beelined it for the doors.

If anyone noticed him, they didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to stop him. And the next thing he knew he was through the doors and moving down a longer corridor past a row of vending machines.

He found another set of doors marked exit and pushed through them into the ambulance bay, which was pretty quiet at this time of morning.

There were a couple of LAPD patrol cars parked among the ambulances but no cops visible, so Vargas kept moving, heading straight for the driveway and on into the street.

There was a thrift-store on Magnolia that opened at 6:00 A.M. He’d grown up wearing thrift-store clothes, and he knew it would be a good place to buy a shirt for little cash.

So his first priority was to find an ATM, then call a cab.