I started the car and I had to drive hunched over because I couldn’t sit up right. There was an emergency vet clinic near the Y that was open twenty-four hours. I ran every light and made it there in just about ten minutes. I lifted Al out of the front seat and noticed his nose was covered in blood and a puddle of his blood had formed on the front seat. He yelped again as I got him in.
I handed him to an assistant and they rushed him somewhere to the back of the building. I was breathing fast but with very shallow breaths and I felt the dried blood crusting to the side of my face. I heard another assistant say:
“Sir, why don’t you sit down?”
“Will he be okay?” I heard myself say. Things were getting fuzzy.
“The doctor is checking on him. Sir, you’re bleeding.”
“Make sure my dog’s okay. Make sure he’s in no pain.” I felt nauseous and dizzy.
That’s all I remember.
I came to in a hospital bed with Rudy standing over me. Rudy was checking on some of his patients and had seen my name on the admissions list.
“What the hell’s going on?’’ I said.
“Don’t sit up,” Rudy said.
I ignored him, sat up, and puked all down the front of me.
“Where’s my dog?”
“What are you talking about?” Rudy said.
“Al, my dog, where the hell is he?”
“Duffy, you don’t even have a dog.”
“Yes I do. He was Walanda’s. He’s at that emergency vet.”
I swung my feet around to get off the bed and threw up again, this time on the floor.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’ve got a concussion and some cracked ribs,” Rudy said.
“I got to check on Al,” I said.
“No way-no fucking way am I discharging you.”
“Look, Rudy, I’m leaving. I appreciate you being here, but I gotta go. Hand me my pants.”
“No, you ain’t getting your pants. You’re not leaving.”
“Rudy,” I motioned at him with my finger. “Give me my fuckin’ pants.”
“Nope-you got no business leaving this hospital.”
“Fine. You should know me better. You think I need my fuckin’ pants to leave? Watch me,” I said.
I headed out of my room barefoot with that stupid half-dress thing they give you with no back. The nurses were a bit startled when I blew past them and I was all the way to the elevator when Rudy caught up to me with my pants, shirt, and shoes.
“Fuckin’ stubborn Mick-Pollack,” he said.
“I need a ride to that vet by the gym,” I told him.
“Let’s go,” Rudy said.
I puked in the parking lot just before climbing into Rudy’s SUV. I’ve been concussed before and I knew what to expect. The mid-morning traffic was making me crazy. We pulled into the vet’s lot twenty minutes later and I bounded in the door and went right to the counter.
“Where’s Al? Is he okay?” I said to a vet assistant. I didn’t remember her from last night, but considering my state then, that didn’t mean much.
“I’ll get Dr. Perkins to speak with you,” she answered.
I paced the small waiting room, waiting for the vet.
“Mr. Dombrowski?” the vet said.
“Is he all right?” I said.
“He’s going to be, but it’s going to take a while. He’s had some internal bleeding along with the cracked ribs. He also was hit on the head pretty hard. I think he probably has a concussion.”
“Can I see him?”
“Sure, he’s still groggy from the pain medication. We bandaged him up and he’ll be okay, but he’s going to be in some pain for a while.”
I walked into a small room off the examination room and there was Al in a small cage. His eyes were closed; he had a bandage on his head that was soaked through with blood, and his midsection was all wrapped up in gauze.
I got close to the cage and put my fingers through to pet him. His eyes opened and he saw me. When his eyes could focus, he tried to get up but couldn’t. His tail started to wag, but then he started to whimper from the pain.
Seeing that hurt more than anything I’d experienced in the last twenty-four hours. Right there, I decided someone was going to pay dearly for this.
“When can I take him home?” I asked.
“You can take him now if you can keep him quiet, give him his medication, and watch him all day. If you want, I can get him ready.”
“Please,” I said.
I waited while they changed the dressings on Al and gave me his medications and directions for what I was supposed to do. The assistant up front, a cute blonde woman who couldn’t have been twenty-five, asked me if I’d be paying cash, check, or charge.
“I hadn’t even thought of that. How much is it?”
She slid the invoice in front of me and started to explain the bill item for item. I didn’t hear any of it. I was transfixed by the number on the bottom of the computer printout. It said $3,892.
“Um… what happens if I can’t pay this?” I said.
“Then we can’t release the animal,” she said.
“You keep the dog?”
“Sir, we will hold him until you pay and charge you for boarding.”
“Give me a second,” I said.
I went out to see Rudy. He was reading The New York Post and sitting behind the wheel.
“Hey Rude, I need a favor,” I said.
“What else is new?” he said.
“You got a credit card, don’t you?”
“How much is it?”
“Around four thousand dollars.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need it.”
Rudy walked me into the vet’s and handed them his Visa Platinum. They handed me Al in a carrier.
25
I stayed home with Al, spending most of the day in bed with him next to me. I iced the egg on my forehead and my bruised ribs and tried to do the same for Al. He slept most of the day, probably from his medication, and periodically let out whimpers when he breathed heavily. One time when I dozed off and rolled over, I bumped him and he yelped.
I ran the series of events through my mind. This is what I knew: The women on Walanda’s block suspected that Tyrone, her ex, the perverted pimp, was up to no good and that he had made overtures toward Shony in the past. I knew that there were three women linked by a tattoo in the jail and that they were all from around Forrest Point. I knew that the same design as that tattoo was featured on a website that also had photos of one of the women from the jail, probably Tyrone, and definitely Shony. I knew that the term “Webster” was used by Walanda and was the user name for the perverted pay site that featured a mother/daughter prostitution ring. I knew that some big bald-headed biker type gave me and Al an awful beating shortly after I put this all together. I also remember Laila, the woman from Walanda’s neighborhood, mentioning that Walanda took rides with a big, bald-headed biker guy. Then there was the fact that the guys in the park got beat up by a guy with the same description. Sure, the percentage of guys who commit hate crimes who are shaved-headed biker types might be skewed in such a way as to suggest that there may be more than one of them, but I didn’t like coincidences. Then, of course, there was the Crown Vic.
I didn’t know where they housed the women in the porn ring or who ran it. I didn’t know for sure how they got women to be part of it, but that was probably the easiest thing to figure out. People who get addicted to crack will do just about anything to keep using the shit. If it’s made available to them, they will keep doing whatever it is that makes it available to them. Most crack addicts don’t even try to stop until the supply runs out. If whoever was running this operation could keep the women who were tricking for them supplied, then they could keep the operation going endlessly. Add in the usual pimp mind games and abuse, and you got yourself a very captive audience.
I called Jerry to make sure he was okay. He told me that he had not been visited by the biker guy and assured me that he hadn’t mentioned anything to anyone about my Internet explorations. He also gave me an impromptu tutorial on Internet security or, better put, insecurity. Though it wasn’t easy, someone who cared enough could track who was visiting their sites and from what server. It meant being pretty vigilant, but if you’re running a kiddie porn site and facing years in prison with people who take a dim view on the mistreatment of children, you might go the extra mile with security measures.