999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [148]
Paone, next, began to actually laugh. What a weird turn of the cards the world was. God worked in strange ways, all right. At least He’s got a sense of humor. It was funny. Those three cops bite the dust and I’m lying here all snug and cozy, gandering the Ice Bitch. Paone’s low and choppy laughter did not abate.
The nurse turned on the radio to drown out her patient’s unseemly jubilation. Light news filled the air as she checked Paone’s pulse and marked his IV bags. The newscaster droned the day’s paramount events: A heat wave in Texas had killed a hundred people. Zero-fat butter to hit the market next week. The Surgeon General was imploring manufacturers to suspend production of silicon testicular implants, and a U.S. Embassy in Africa somewhere just got bombed. It made things even funnier: the world and all its silliness suddenly meant nothing to Paone. He was going to the slam. What difference did anything, good or bad, make to him now?
He squinted up when another figure came in. Through the room’s blurred features, a face leaned over: a sixtyish guy, snow-white hair and a great bushy mustache. “Good evening, Mr. Paone,” came the greeting. “My name’s Dr. Willet. I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing. Is there anything I can get for you?”
“Since you asked, Doc, I wouldn’t mind having my glasses back, and to tell you the truth I wouldn’t mind having another nurse. This one here’s about as friendly as a mad dog.”
Willet only smiled in response. “You were shot up pretty bad but you needn’t worry now about infection or blood loss. Those are always our chief concerns with multiple gunshot wounds. I’m happy to inform you that you’re in surprisingly good shape considering what happened.”
Jolly good, Paone thought.
“And I must say,” Willet went on, “I’ve been anxious to meet you. You’re the first child pornographer I’ve ever had the opportunity to speak with. In a bizarre sense, you’re famous. The renegade outlaw.”
“Well, I’d offer to give you an autograph,” Paone joked, “but there’s a problem. I’m left-handed.”
“Good, good, that’s the spirit. It’s a man of character who can maintain a sense of levity after going through what you’ve—”
“Shhh!” the nurse hissed. She seemed jittery now, a pent-up blur. “This is it … I think this is it.”
Paone made a face. From the radio, the newscaster droned on: “… in a year-long federal sting operation. One suspect, Nathan Rodz, was killed on-site in a frantic shootout with police. Two state police officers and one special agent from a Justice Department task force were also killed, according to authorities, by the second suspect, an alleged mob middleman by the name of Francis ‘Frankie’ Paone. Paone himself was under investigation for similar allegations, and thought to have direct ties with the Vinchetti crime family, which is said to control over fifty percent of all child pornography marketed in the U.S. Police spokesmen later announced that Paone, during the shootout, managed to escape the scene, and is currently the subject of a state-wide manhunt …”
Paone’s thoughts seemed to slowly flatten. “What’s this … Escaped?”
The nurse was smiling now. She opened a pair of black-framed glasses and put them on Paone’s face. …
The blurred room, at last, came into focus.
What the fuck is this?
A tracked curtain surrounded him, as he would expect on an ICU ward, but then he noticed something else. It wasn’t an X-ray nozzle that hung overhead; it was a retractable boom, complete with microphone. And one of the IV stands wasn’t an IV stand at all; it was a stand for a directional halogen light.
“What the hell kind of hospital is this!” Paone demanded.
“Oh, it’s not a hospital,” Willet said. “It’s a safe house.”
“One of Don Dario Bonte’s safe houses,” the nurse was delighted to add.
Willet again. “And we’re his private