Bottled Abyss (30 page)

He went back to Ramirez’s room and entered. A couple minutes later he came out, pale-faced. The nurse he’d spoken to earlier looked concerned for him.

“Not in there either,” he fumed and pointed at the chair. “I put it down right there. I know I did! It was brand new too. I accidentally ran over my last one.”

The pretty nurse laughed.

“That’s not funny.”

“Well wait,” said the nurse, “did you leave it in the cafeteria?”

His face didn’t show that as an option and he shrugged. “Maybe, got coffee earlier, but I went home for lunch…crap. God dang it. I brought the radio back—I know I did. I called Tony for a soda.” He stared up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. “The department’s on the way. Ramirez’s lawyer, too. Frickin’ great. My supervisor was going to call with a heads-up to prepare for an interview. That’s gonna be completely screwed—they have no way of getting in touch with me from downstairs. Tony will have to take them up.”

“They can just call our station.”

“Those dummies couldn’t figure that out.”

“No cell phones?”

The guard cocked his head. “We’re lucky LW3 still buys our uniforms for us.”

“They’re just coming to ask questions right?” The nurse noted something more important on her monitor and leaned in to type at whatever it was.

“I don’t know—that’s the thing. The department is already jonesing to get rid of our contract.”

The nurse snorted. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a radio. People lose things.”

The guard growled and ran his hands through his blonde-gray hair. He plopped down in his chair. Janet pulled out a compact and stared at her feral looking eyes, which desperately needed Visine.

The guard shook his head. “Stupid, so stupid, I’m always losing things. Now it’s going to be my job.”

“In that case, you better get Tony to cover for you and drive like hell to your house,” suggested the nurse. “Ramirez is in no shape right now to run anyway.”

“Tony can’t leave his post, and I can’t leave mine.”

“Because they’ll can you?”

The guard looked grim. “Yep.”

“And they’ll can you for losing your radio?”

“It’s pretty likely considering my last review.” After a moment’s thought, the guard sprung up. “Can you just watch the door for like fifteen minutes while I run down real quick and talk to Tony?”

“
No
—I have two alarms going off and I need to see my patients.”

“Gee thanks.”

“No problem,” she said with a mocking smile. “And best of luck.”

He patted his pocket. “Good, I haven’t lost my ID card at least…”

Janet put her compact away and made her way to the water fountain. The guard was only going downstairs, but this was still turning out better than she could have imagined. She might well have grinned, if not for what she faced next.

The guard left his post and spoke to a pair of other nurses as he hurried out. The pretty nurse got up and went to check on another patient adjacent to her station.

Not wiping the water from her chin, Janet took her chance, crossed the hall, drew the curtain slightly, pushed open a door and in the very next moment, she was standing in Josue Ramirez’s presence. From within her purse she retrieved her gloves and slipped them on. Then grabbed the homeless man’s coin from the side pouch.

Her face warped around the bottle’s glass, watching her every action.

She approached Ramirez’s bed. There were no other patients in the room.

Just the two of them.

FURY

So groggy—wake up with something in my hand—eyes can’t make it out—fuck my stomach hurts—fuckin’ Vincent, hope he burns in hell with all his whores—what the hell
is
that—?

Eyes crack open, lift my hand a bit, see something circular and dark brown, shiny, on my palm—a coin—this medicine must be getting me loopy—

“Josue Ramirez—” says a voice; it’s female, that one hot nurse—?

Lean up a bit, eyes so damn heavy, stomach’s twisting, gonna die in this place, fuckin’ assholes—

“Who’re you—?” I mumble—

The woman there has long black hair, her eyes are hard, like she’s seen a lot of shit—she’s kind of sexy in a thick kind of way, but she doesn’t look like someone you’d want to cross—she isn’t a doctor and no detective would be wearing that dress—

“How did you—?—”

“Tell me where your partner is—” she said—

Chuckle—it hurts—these people will try everything—they think cleavage is going to make me give up Vincent—? Shit—he’ll cut all their throats and stomp my skull into mush—
like Pedro, like Jessica—I’m so sorry bro, so sorry Jessy
—Christ, don’t think I wanna live without them—I hate everything—

It’s starting to piss me off, though—cops keep asking and asking without letting me get better—probably making up shit about my brother and cousin being in that drive-by—tryin’ to scare me—where the hell’s that dumbfuck lawyer—? If Vincent did do that shit, how many of my people do these cops want to see dead—? They need to damn well drop this because it’s egging that bastard on—

Wanna tell the bitch all this—tell her about the train Vincent would make me and the homies run on a hyna like her—can’t—head’s too fucked up—belly’s about the same—worse—