999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [143]
Yeah, I’m in a hospital, all right, he realized. An ICU ward. It had to be. And he was buckled down good. Not just his ankles, but his knees too, and his shoulders. More straps immobilized his right arm to the IV board, where white tape secured the needle sunk into the crook of his elbow.
Then Paone looked at his left arm. That’s all it was—an arm. There was no hand at the end of it. And when he raised his right leg …
Just a stump several inches below the knee.
Nightmare, he wished. But the chasing memories seemed too real for a dream, and so did the pain. There was plenty of pain. It hurt to breathe, to swallow, even to blink. Pain oozed through his bowels like warm acid.
Somebody fucked me up royal, he conceded. The jail ward, no doubt. And there’s probably a cop standing right outside the door. He knew where he was now, but it terrified him not knowing exactly what had brought him here.
The memories raged, chasing, chasing …
Heavy slumps. Shouts. A booming, distorted voice … like a megaphone.
Jesus. He wanted to remember, yet again, he didn’t. The memories stalked him: pistol shots, full-auto rifle fire, the feel of his own piece jumping in his hand.
“Hey!” he shouted. “How about some help in here!”
A click resounded to the left; a door opened and closed. Soft footsteps approached, then suddenly a bright, unfocused figure blurred toward him.
“How long have you been awake?” came a toneless female voice. “Couple of minutes,” Paone said. Pain throbbed in his throat. “Could you come closer? I can barely see you.”
The figure obliged. Its features sharpened.
It wasn’t a cop at all, it was a nurse. Tall, brunet, with fluid-blue eyes and a face of hard, eloquent lines. Her white blouse and skirt blurred like bright light. White nylons shone over sleek, coltish legs.
“Do you know where my glasses are?” Paone asked. “I’m nearsighted as hell.”
“Your glasses fell off at the crime scene,” she flatly replied.
Crime scene, came the bumbling thought.
“We’ve sent someone to recover them,” she added. “It shouldn’t be too long.” Her vacant eyes appraised him. She leaned over to take his vitals. “How do you feel?”
“Terrible. My gut hurts like a son of a bitch, and my hand …” Paone, squinting, raised the bandaged left stump. “Shit,” he muttered. He didn’t even want to ask.
Now the nurse turned to finick with the IV monitor; Paone continued to struggle against the freight of chasing memory. More images churned in some mental recess. Fragments of wood and ceiling tile raining on his shoulders. The mad cacophony of what could only be machine gun fire. A head exploding to pulp.
Blank-faced, then, the nurse returned her gaze. “What do you remember, Mr. Paone?”
“I—” was all he said. He stared up. Paone never carried real ID on a run, and whatever he drove was either hot or chopped, with phony plates. The question ground out of his throat. “How do you know my name?”
“We know all about you,” she said, unfolding a slip of paper. “The police showed us this teletype from Washington. Francis K. ‘Frankie’ Paone. You have seven aliases. You’re thirty-seven years old, never been married, and you have no known place of legal residence. In 1985 you were convicted of interstate flight to avoid prosecution, interstate transportation of obscene material depicting minors, and multiple violations of Section 18 of the United States Code. Two years ago you were released from Alderton Federal Penitentiary after serving sixty-two months of concurrent eleven- and five-year jail terms. You are a known associate of the Vinchetti crime family. You’re a child pomographer, Mr. Paone.”
Christ, a fuckin’ burn, Paone realized. Somebody set me up. By now it wasn’t hard to figure: lying in some ICU ward strapped to a bed, shot up like a hinged duck in a shooting gallery, one hand gone, one leg gone, and now this stolid bitch reading him his own rap sheet