The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [119]
chapter 39
18:20
“This covers everything?” Antonio Salinas, Tyler’s foreman, friend, and, Laurel suspected, associate held the sheet of paper Floyd had given him, crammed with lines penciled in neat script.
“Almost everything,” Floyd said. “It’s impossible to anticipate all eventualities, but I reckon these should be enough. That man,” he nodded in the general direction of the corridor, “is climbing out of an unnatural state. He needs vitamins and glucose to boost his system … and lotion; his skin is very delicate. He will also need clothes. Loose cotton garments. You know the skin is the largest and heaviest organ in the body?”
“I know now.” Tyler stepped over to them and reached for the list. “What’s his status?”
Floyd’s voice changed and took on a professional tone. “He’s stable, drifting in and out of consciousness, which is excellent, considering his condition. As far as I can determine, he doesn’t seem to be suffering irreversible brain damage, although he’s understandably confused.”
Lukas leaned against the living-room door frame, his face as reserved as usual. It was his turn to stand guard by Russo.
Laurel craned her neck over the sofa’s back to face Lukas. “Is he awake?”
Lukas shook his head. Over the past eighteen hours, Russo had climbed back from unconsciousness several times, squinting in all directions before returning to his semicomatose state.
“Has he said anything else since last night?” Tyler asked.
“Besides asking for water and food twice, nothing,” Floyd said. “Altogether he’s been awake for fewer than thirty minutes, but the periods are lengthening steadily. I’ve told Laurel to talk to him whenever he’s conscious, to explain that we’ve sprung him out of hibernation, that we’re friends, and that we’ll soon need his help.”
“When?” Tyler asked in a sharper tone.
Floyd’s features hardened. “I’m a medical doctor, not a soothsayer. In plain English, Russo has been more dead than alive for years. My guess is he’ll recover quickly, but that doesn’t mean overnight. It will take weeks of painstaking care to nurse him back to something resembling normalcy.”
Tyler squared his shoulders. “Your guess?”
Laurel swallowed. The atmosphere had been tightening progressively over the past hours, and frayed nerves were starting to show. She turned and laid a hand on Floyd’s arm. “We don’t have weeks.”
“Unless he stops fighting, my guess is he should be able to start communicating soon. That is, if he wants to talk.”
“He will,” Laurel said. “I’ve seen the hate in his eyes.”
A vein throbbed in Floyd’s temple. “Does he know who did this to him?”
“He must have a good idea.”
“That’s probably what has kept him alive all these years.”
Antonio reached to take Floyd’s shopping list back from Tyler and squeezed past Lukas. “I don’t know how long it will take me to put this stuff together.”
Tyler followed him, to reappear a moment later with a pack of beer cans he handed around before settling in his armchair. Like mountain cats parceling their territory, everybody had seized a favorite spot. Tyler and Antonio each had an easy chair—sort of an “I was here first” privilege. Laurel shared one of the two sofas with Floyd, while Raul and Lukas used the other. Laurel glanced at Raul’s large frame stretched over the opposite couch, his head propped on one arm of the sofa and his legs on the other. He hadn’t said much over the past hours and, in an unguarded moment, she’d seen him weep. Bastien.
On TV, a round of advertisements gave way to an old cops-and-robbers film.
“I’m sorry. We’re under a lot of stress, but some things can be improved only with time. Time we don’t have.” Floyd licked froth from his lips and leaned forward. “My gut tells me Russo is gathering information about his surroundings and getting stronger by the minute, but we must give him time.”
“I know I’m jumping the gun, but if he continues to improve, how long would it be until he can