Final Stroke (53 page)

The collision had thrown her at the windshield, but the wide pas senger side airbag had saved her. Because she had been prone on the front seat, the impact of the bag was at her midriff, knocking the wind
out of her and smashing her head sideways against … Steve!

“Jan! Hurry!”

Adrenalin, Steve’s voice pushing her on. She reached out and tried the door handle, but it was stuck. She kicked out at the door with her good leg and it pushed out to the safety latch with a thud. She pulled at the handle and pushed as hard as she could with her good leg and the door finally lurched open with a metallic squeak.

Outside, she could still hear the sound of the climbing jet in the distance. But she could also hear a car. They were coming. Max and Dino coming so they could get her and Steve to tell what they know, then kill them.

Despite the pain in her head and ankle, she climbed from the car, pulling the wheelchair from beneath the airbag that had draped over it like a death shroud. Then she pulled at Steve.

He’d also had the wind knocked out of him, but was alert now, moving as quickly as he could to get out of the car. She barely had a chance to turn and push the wheelchair against the door opening be
fore he landed in the seat. He spun the chair around, and when she turned to limp toward the loading dock door, Steve pulled her into his lap and they were off in his wheelchair, rolling along the loading dock to the door.

As they rolled nearer the door she wondered why the men were not already upon them. Both the van and the car had skidded to a stop near the bottom of the ramp with its bent-out railings. All they had to do was run down into the loading dock well. From there they could easily shoot up at them …

No, they couldn’t shoot them! Despite all that had happened, she hadn’t told them what they wanted to know!

But why weren’t they coming after them? Why were they simply standing there?

She got her answer when she reached out to open the heavy steel door. Something reflected on the door’s enameled surface. At first she thought it was the flash of the gunshots. But when she glanced back, she saw a police car driving down the entrance road to the back park
ing lot, and she saw Max and Dino standing at the open side door of the van, looking back at the approaching police car.

Steve shouted, “Don’t stop now!”

“But the police are coming.”

“Hurry! Hurry!”

As soon as they were inside and the door slammed shut, Steve pulled her back into his lap and they rolled down a short hallway, noisy with machinery, and through a door propped open with a crate. They would speed off down the long hallway through the nursing home wing. Nurses and aides and guards would be there to help. Phone calls would go out. The police coming into the back parking lot would be radioed.

But that’s not what happened. The wheelchair was top heavy with her on board. One wheel of the chair caught the edge of the crate holding open the door as Steve tried to turn into the long hallway. They fell and Jan hit her head on the hard tile floor.

She was vaguely aware of Steve struggling beneath her. She could hear his voice.

“Jan! Jan! Hey, you in there! Hey, kitchen!”

It was a dream. He was calling to a kitchen. But with his stroke …

Kitchen! They were near the kitchen and he was calling out to whoever was in the kitchen for help. But how could anyone in there hear Steve? How could anyone in the kitchen hear anything with all the racket? First jets climbing from O’Hare, and now what sounded like the largest automatic dishwasher in the world. So loud it vibrated the floor against her cheek.

CHAPTER

THIRTY

TWO

The world was full of shit. The fuckin’ world with its
spaghetti heads waving guns and fists around until everyone goes fuckin’ nuts was full of shit. The world was also fuckin’ hell. First they beat the shit out of him, then they tape his mouth
and
his nose and leave him that way a few seconds so he figures he’s dead, then he gets whiplash when the van gets shoved into the loading dock and the damn shoulder belt nearly strangles him. And, sure as shit, it wasn’t over.

It wasn’t over because the craziness hadn’t gone out of it. The cra
ziness hadn’t gone out of it because of who showed up after the two spaghetti heads blamed it all on him and jumped out. It wasn’t over yet because the cracker drivin’ the van had no fuckin’ legs! Not even stumps! Maybe not even a dick or asshole for all he knew. He’d seen the guy roll in through the side door and roll up front and hoist him
self into the driver’s seat.

Even though the van’s front end was smashed, the cracker with no legs had managed to get it started, had backed up the ramp, had
chased around the parking lot for a while, nearly strangling Tyrone several times on the shoulder belt, and then had driven back up to the building giving Tyrone a front row seat to an accident in which a white Lincoln drives up the damn loading dock wheelchair ramp and smashes into the building. All during this a police radio is chat tering away, and after the Lincoln crashes into the building he sees the fuckin’ monster drivin’ the van on the phone and expects him to call an ambulance. But instead of calling an ambulance, the monster just says, “Cop call just came down.” Then, after a pause, “Yeah, I’ll stay put.”

When the side door slid open, Tyrone was trying to cough be
cause of being choked so many times on the shoulder belt, but since his mouth was taped, he snorted out the cough through his nose and tears ran from his eyes and into the cuts on his face.

He’d seen a man and woman get out of the Lincoln and ride dou
ble on a wheelchair into the back door of the building, apparently es
caping from the spaghetti heads. He couldn’t see too well because of his swollen eyes, but he figured it was Babe and his wife. Now, all he could think about was that they’d lost Babe and his wife and they’d be pissed when they came inside and blow his brains out with one of those silenced guns and dump his body in a dumpster next to the load
ing dock and the flies would feed on his eyeballs until day after tomor
row when the garbage was picked up.

But even though the door was open, no one came inside. Instead of coming inside they stood outside the door and talked to one another and to the monster in the driver’s seat.

“We gotta do this fast. Stay inside, Legless.”

“Where’s T.J. and Mario?”

“I sent them to get another car. Theirs was fucked up worse than ours.”

The cracker named Legless turned in the direction of flashing lights coming in through the side door. “Looks like a two-man squad.”

“Yeah, we gotta take care of ‘em. Any other calls go out?”

“Not that I heard.”

“No call-back?”

“Nope. Gizmo on the scanner would’ve picked up a local signal.”

“Turn off the scanner.” The guy giving orders came inside the van. “You got that blanket in here, Legless?”

“Yeah, under the back seat.”

The guy rummaged under the back seat, shook a blanket loose and threw it over Tyrone. “Don’t move, fucker. Leave the blanket on or your balls come off.”

The blanket was dusty, making him sneeze through his nose and ears. He froze, waiting for the bullet in his balls. But none came, and he could hear the guy leave the van.

“I’ll do the talkin’. Wave to ‘em, Dino. Act like somethin’s funny in the van. Friendly. Yeah, real friendly. That’s it. Over here, boys.”

Tyrone heard the unmistakable sounds of a squad car arriving. The squeak of overused brakes, the sounds of the police radio coming from inside the squad as the door opened, then another door opening, probably the cop on the other side, hidden behind the car, maybe with his service revolver out of its holster just in case.

“Evenin’, gentlemen. Little accident here?” Sounded like an older cop, white. He’d heard plenty of them back in his gang-bangin’ days.

“Yes, officer. That’s why we stopped. Two of us were just comin’ off the late shift. We were drivin’ out when …”

“Is anyone in the car up there?”

“No, officer. Some nurses came out already and took the injured guy inside. Guess he was bleedin’ pretty bad.”

“You involved in the accident?”

“Yes, officer. I was drivin’ my car here when the guy in the Lin
coln sideswipes me before he plows into the building.”

“The van involved?”

“No, officer. But the driver, who’s handicapped, works here with us and he stopped to help. It’s really kinda funny in a way, officer.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, the two of us just got in my car here and were startin’ out when we see the back door to the building fly open and this woman comes running down the ramp in her birthday suit. Yeah, she didn’t have no clothes on, nothing.

“Anyway, the Lincoln’s driving into the lot at the same time we’re driving out and I guess the guy in the Lincoln got distracted, turning around to have a look, and the next thing I know he turns right into me, sideswipes my front end. Then I guess his foot slips off the brake and onto the gas pedal or something because he ends up flyin’ up the ramp there. Good thing no one was on the ramp.”

“Okay, and where exactly is this naked lady?”

“She’s in there. Refuses to go back into the building, so we put her in there to keep warm and put a blanket over her. We tried talkin’ to her but we couldn’t make no sense of it.”

Tyrone could hear the cop coming inside. Was this it? Maybe the bastards planned to slam the cop inside and take off. But what about the other cop?

Despite the sounds of another jet in the distance, starting its climb away from O’Hare, Tyrone could hear the meaty thud, the unmistak
able sound of something heavy and hard on someone’s skull. Then the cop’s body fell onto his legs and dragged him farther down the seat, the shoulder belt choking him again, the blanket pulled from his face. Through it all the guy outside kept up his chatter, louder because of the approaching jet, fast like he was in a hurry.

“See what I mean? She don’t want nothin’ to do with goin’ back into that place. Oh shit, lady, keep the blanket on or you’ll get pneu
monia. What? Yeah, sure. Officer? Your partner wants you. Maybe you can talk sense into her. Geez, lady, don’t do that. He’s just tryin’ to help.”

Because of the jet overhead, he could not hear the other cop walk up to the door of the van. But now that the blanket was pulled off his face he could see the cop’s shoulder and one edge of his cap. The cop just stood there, shouting to be heard over the rumbling of the jet.

“Looks like I picked the wrong night to leave the video camera back in my locker,” said the cop. “Well, that’s all right. Least I can do is take a reading on the situation.” A black cop. He could tell by the voice.
Pull your piece, man!

Tyrone knew they’d get him and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Even if he grunted through his nose, even if he could make himself heard above the roar of the jet, the cop would figure it was his partner inside. He felt sorry for the cops. Doin’ their jobs, tryin’ to help out, and maybe get a look at a naked lady, and they get their heads smashed in. As soon as the cop turned and put one knee up on the floor of the van, they let him have it. The pipe, or whatever it was, looked like a blur coming in from above like a fuckin’ meteor.

The next unmistakable blow to the head seemed harder than the first, the guy who did the slugging giving off a wheeze of breath with the effort. Bastard hitting the black cop harder than necessary.

When Tyrone opened his eyes again he could see flashing from the squad car’s lights coming through the open door, but then the lights were shut off and all he could see in the dark were the hulks of the two bodies at his feet. Neither of the cops budged and, as he re
called the sounds of the thuds, he figured both were dead. A black cop and a white cop, pretty widows and two or three kids apiece at home.

The whole thing hadn’t taken a minute. Other than the two bodies, the van was empty except for the gargoyle up front who had his head turned and was gawking back at him.

At first he thought the gargoyle was speaking, but it was the voice of one of the spaghetti heads who had leaned inside and was pulling one of the cops by the ankles. The cop’s body hit the pavement with a thud. The next cop out made a moan when he hit the pavement and Tyrone heard another heavy blow. Yeah, they were dead all right. He heard car doors slam and figured they put the cops back in their squad car. The spaghetti head spoke through all this like it was something he did every day.

“Here, make sure their portable units are off. Dino, you get on their car radio. Call in a Code 4, say it’s a minor parking lot fender bender and we’ve got it under control. Then shut off their radio and their computer and make sure there’s no camera. Shut everything off and drive it back there in the corner where it’s dark. We don’t want more fuckin’ cops back here, and if they don’t see another car they’ll figure they’re in the wrong place and move on.”

There was a pause, then the guy giving the orders continued.

“I don’t see anyone in any windows up there. Patty says it’s all storage rooms and shit in this part of the building. No patient rooms. Legless, you drive around to the main entrance and park in a handi
capped spot. Watch the front in case they come out there. If they do, follow them, but no ruckus. We don’t want to draw any more atten
tion to this place than we have.”

The squad car started up, moved off a short distance, then shut off and a car door slammed. It was quiet for a bit, with the guy outside mumbling like he was on the phone, then footsteps as the other guy who had moved the squad car came back.

“Okay, I sent the Code 4.”

“Good,” said the guy giving orders. “I called T.J. and Mario. Now that things are calmed down they can get their asses back here and watch this door while we’re inside.”

“Should we call Patty?”

“Call him on our way in. Tell him to stay by the elevators on the third floor. No way they’ll be takin’ any stairs. You got those stock
ings? Okay, let’s go. We’ll get what we want out of ‘em inside and fuckin’ leave ‘em in there.”

The gargoyle spoke. “The door.”

“Yeah, right,” said one of the spaghetti heads.

After the door slammed shut with a meat locker sound, the gar
goyle started up the van and Tyrone felt the shoulder belt dig into his neck as they did a quick U-turn.

Yeah, a full-of-shit world, all right. Hospitals keepin’ zombies alive inside while outside the folks who take care of their asses get beat up and the cops who protect the zombies get their heads smashed in. As far as he was concerned, the world outside Hell in the Woods needed Medicare and Medicaid a whole hell of a lot more than the zombies inside.

Now that the van was closed up, Tyrone could smell his shorts. The shorts with hearts Latoya had given him for his birthday messed up because of him. Again he wished he were with Latoya right now. The hell with all this shit, and the hell with any other women.

Tyrone got choked up thinking about Latoya. But then the van in the hands of the gargoyle up front turned violently and he got puked up instead. This time he couldn’t hold the puke down and, because of the way he was slouched down and hanging by the neck from the shoulder belt, he snorted out chunks of the stuff and messed himself up good, the acid in the puke setting fire to the inside of his nose and to the cuts on his face.