“We have you on a pain killer for now, just lay still. Do you mind, if I have a few of our students come in?”
I didn’t recognize the voice. It sounded distant and seemed to echo in a weird sort of way. I murmured something and closed my eyes again. When next I opened them I was looking down at four pairs of shoes, three round toes and black, the fourth pair was sort of a pearl gray with a pointed toe and a small heel. From somewhere behind me a voice droned on about buttock contusions and anal laceration, then said, “Miss Shipley, if you’d clean up here, please. Gentlemen follow me.”
The three pairs of black shoes disappeared and the pointed toe, pearl gray pair moved closer.
“Three years of med school and I’m wiping your ass, have a nice day, asshole,” she whispered.
Chapter 54
Eventually I came to, but still felt a little foggy. I was in a different beige room, still on my stomach with pillows propping my butt in the air at what felt like a forty-five degree angle.
“You waking up?” I recognized Heidi’s voice.
“Ughhh,” I groaned.
“Here,” she said, holding some sort of container at an angle and directing a straw into my mouth.
“Ughhh.”
“The nurse said to get plenty of liquids in you. You’ve been out for the better part of the day. It’s a little after eight.”
I sipped what I guessed was water.
“Oh God.”
“You’re telling me! You’re lucky to be alive, Dev. If you’d been any closer to that explosion,” her voiced cracked.
I took another sip, if it was water it was some of the best I’d ever tasted.
“My car, is it okay?” I asked, exhausted with the effort.
“Your car? You can forget about that. I think it was scattered all over the street. Don’t worry about it, just rest now.”
I did, or attempted to. I had frightening dreams. Faces exploding, wolves or something chasing me, a lot of fire all around. I was aware of being woken by nurses at least twice, both times they had me sip liquids. I think it was water but I can’t be sure. Someone gave me a hypo in the butt.
When next I woke it was daylight, and I felt ravenous. Aaron and Heidi were arguing over a blueberry muffin from my breakfast tray.
“See what you did, he’s awake, now neither one of us will get any. He’s not any good at sharing,” Aaron said.
“Hey, Dev, how you feeling?” Heidi asked as she gently laid a hand on my head.
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus.”
“Not far from the truth. Someone seems to have a real hard-on for you, buddy.” Aaron said.
“My pal Braco the Whacko?”
“Who’s that?” Heidi asked.
“I would guess,” Aaron replied. “Braco the Whacko is an individual we have an interest in and Dev was, well, doing some investigation.”
“Well, he’s crazy, obviously, have you arrested him?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Working on it, God.”
“Look, if it’s any consolation, Dev, the docs in surgery worked long and hard and have made you a perfect asshole,” Aaron said.
I couldn’t quite see it, but I sensed Heidi gave him one of her patented disgusted looks then said to me, “They had all sorts of metal and plastic and stuff to dig out of your butt and head and back. It’s why you’re in this kind of goofy position, you know, with your butt up in the air and all.”
“I suppose I could have brought a flower, you know stick it…”
“That’s not even funny,” Heidi said, half giggling at my expense.
“God, when can I get out of here?”
“We’ll have to wait until they say it’s okay for you to go home. You’re going to be doing some physical therapy and…”
“Physical therapy, on my ass! I don’t think so.”
“Well gee, nice to know you’re prepared to be the model patient. I can hardly wait,” Heidi said.
“Hey, I’m the one who’s lying here with his ass up in the air.”
“See how you like it for a change,” Heidi said.
Neither Aaron nor I had a response to that.
Chapter 55
I was in the hospital for another night, then Aaron gave me a lift home. I was sitting on this sort of donut-hole foam thing as he drove, with my back at an angle to the seat. I was, to say the least, uncomfortable.
“Gee, me bringing you home from the hospital, just like old times, darling.”
“Kiss my ass,” I said in no mood for humor.
“Touchy, are we?”
“It’s just such a pain in the ass, pardon the pun. Hey, in case I didn’t mention it, thanks for your help. If it wasn’t for you I might have gone up with my car.”
“Yeah, no problem. For what it’s worth there was a switch that activated some sort of a timing device. Either your weight in the seat or possibly opening or closing the car door set the thing in motion. The idea is to make sure you’re in transit, stuck behind the wheel, then boom. I guess the good news is there wasn’t someone watching you who set it off with a remote. Small consolation.”
“I’m here to tell the story, right now that’s good enough for me. Any ideas who?” as if I needed to ask.
“You mean besides any woman you’ve had a relationship with in say the past twenty years? Probably Braco Alekseeva or one of his thugs spring to mind. Maybe your girlfriend Kerri? I‘d say either one is a pretty safe guess. Am I missing anyone?” Aaron asked.
“No, but I’m missing the why part of all this. I mean it’s not like I’m the only one investigating these creeps. In fact, I was just looking for one woman, Nikki Mathias, barely on the radar screen. If Kerri Vucavitch hadn’t hired me, then gotten me drunk so I’d hop in the sack with her, I wouldn’t even be on their radar screen.”
“There you go, we could probably get her on date rape.”
I looked at him disbelieving.
“Look, I’m serious. What jury would possibly have trouble believing a drop-dead gorgeous woman forced you to drink yourself silly so she could take advantage of you in your incapacitated state?”
“Yeah, yeah, but I still don’t get what the big deal is, from their standpoint that is. And, who shot that sleaze ball Sergie Alekseeva? I mean they pull up and he gets nailed just as he’s coming out of the SUV.”
Aaron glared at me then put his eyes back on the road.
“I knew it, I knew you were fucking there. I just knew it.”
Oops.
“Actually I was leaving, had left in fact. I just saw it out of my rearview mirror.” I went on to tell Aaron the rest of the tale. Waiting outside Braco’s condo building for three days, following Kerri, chatting with her. He asked a couple of questions about who had been in the SUV with Sergie. I had no answers.
“And that brings us to “The Butcher”. So, tell me what you know about that guy. What’s his name?”
“Tibor Crvek. Not much actually,” I said foolishly thinking I had a chance at dodging his question.
“How did you find out about him?”
“I went to the Deli and he was working.”
“What?”
“I went to the Moscow Deli Da’nita Bell told me about the place. They have a meat counter and Tibor Crvek was working, he’s the butcher there.”
“You mean he’s a butcher, for real, at a deli? And that’s who you told Peters about in the Task Force meeting?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Jesus, you idiot.”
“What do you know about “The Butcher” the real guy?” I asked.
“About just what you’d guess from the name. These clowns got a habit of enforcement. They have someone, who based on what we can determine, has a knowledge of butchering, lays out his victims like dressed beef. Tongue, kidneys, heart, hams.”
“Hams?”
“You get the idea. We’re not sure who it is. Could be anyone of these idiots.”
“Could also be someone with the simple knowledge of how to field dress a deer, which covers about every third guy in Minnesota,” I added.
“Yeah, although, how can I say it, there’s an apparent efficiency of effort in his work. The guy’s experienced.”