Then: silence.
His stomach burned like swallowed napalm. His consciousness began to drift away with wafts of cordite. He sidled over; blood dotted his glasses. EMTs carried off the dead police as a man in blue utilities poked forward with a smoking rifle barrel. Radio squawk eddied foglike in the hot air, and next Paone was being stretchered out over what seemed a lake of blood.
Dreamy moments later, red and white lights beat in his eyes. The doors of the ambulance slammed shut.
“Great God Almighty,” he whispered.
“I told you you’d remember,” the nurse said.
“How bad am I shot?”
“Not bad enough to kill you. IV antibiotics held off the peritoneal infection, and the EMTs got tourniquets on your arm and leg before you lost too much blood.” Her eyes narrowed. “Lucky for you there’s no death penalty in this state.”
That’s right, Paone slowly thought. And the fed statutes only allowed capital punishment if an agent was killed during a narcotics offense. They’d send him up for life with no parole, sure, but that beat fertilizing the cemetery. The fed slams were easier than a lot of the state cuts; plus, Paone was a cop-killer, and cop-killers got instant status in stir. No bulls would be trying to bust his cherry. Things could be worse, he recognized now. He remembered what he’d told that punk Rodz about taking things for granted; Paone stuck to his guns. He was busted, shot up like Swiss cheese, and had left a hand and a leg on Rodz’s kitchen floor, but at least he was alive.
Yeah, he thought. Hope springs eternal.
“What are you smiling about?” the nurse asked.
“I don’t know. Just happy to be alive, I guess... Yeah, that’s it.” It was true. Despite these rather irrefutable circumstances, Paone was indeed very happy.
“Happy to be alive?” The nurse looked coldly disgusted. “What about the men you murdered? They had wives, families. They had children. Those children are fatherless now. Those men are dead because of you.”
Paone shrugged as best he could. “Life’s a gamble. They lost and I won. They’re the ones who wanted to play hardball, not me. If they hadn’t fucked with me, their kids would still have daddies. I’m not gonna feel guilty for wasting a bunch of guys who tried to take me down.”
It was ironic. The pain in his gut sharpened yet Paone couldn’t help his exuberance. He wished he had his glasses so he could see the nurse better. Hell, he wished he had a cold beer too, and a smoke. He wished he wasn’t in these damn hospital restraints. A little celebration of life seemed in order, like maybe he wouldn’t mind putting the blocks on this ice-bitch nurse. Yeah, like maybe roll her over onto the bed and give that cold pussy of hers a good working over. Bet that’d take some of the starch out of her sails.
Paone, next, began to actually laugh. What a weird turn of the cards the world was. God worked in strange ways, all right. At least He’s got a sense of humor. It was funny. Those three cops bite the dust and I’m lying here all snug and cozy, gandering the Ice Bitch. Paone’s low and choppy laughter did not abate.
The nurse turned on the radio to drown out her patient’s unseemly jubilation. Light news filled the air as she checked Paone’s pulse and marked his IV bags. The newscaster droned the day’s paramount events: A heat wave in Texas had killed a hundred people. Zero-fat butter to hit the market next week. The surgeon general was imploring manufacturers to suspend production of silicone testicular implants, and a U.S. embassy in Africa somewhere just got bombed. It made things even funnier: the world and all its silliness suddenly meant nothing to Paone. He was going to the slam. What difference did anything, good or bad, make to him now?
He squinted up when another figure came in. Through the room’s blurred features, a face leaned over: a sixtyish guy, snow-white hair and a great bushy mustache. “Good evening, Mr. Paone,” came the greeting. “My name’s Dr. Willet. I wanted to stop by and see how you’re doing. Is there anything I can get for you?” “Since you asked, Doc, I wouldn’t mind having my glasses back, and to tell you the truth I wouldn’t mind having another nurse. This one here’s about as friendly as a mad dog.”
Willet only smiled in response. “You were shot up pretty bad but you needn’t worry now about infection or blood loss. Those are always our chief concerns with multiple gunshot wounds. I’m happy to inform you that you’re in surprisingly good shape considering what happened.”
Jolly good, Paone thought.
“And I must say,” Willet went on, “I’ve been anxious to meet you. You’re the first child pornographer I’ve ever had the opportunity to speak with. In a bizarre sense, you’re famous. The renegade outlaw.”
“Well, I’d offer to give you an autograph,” Paone joked, “but there’s a problem. I’m left-handed.”
“Good, good, that’s the spirit. It’s a man of character who can maintain a sense of levity after going through what you’ve—”
“Shhh!” the nurse hissed. She seemed jittery now, a pent-up blur. “This is it... I think this is it.”
Paone made a face. From the radio, the newscaster droned on: “... in a year-long federal sting operation. One suspect, Nathan Rodz, was killed on-site in a frantic shootout with police. Two state police officers and one special agent from a Justice Department task force were also killed, according to authorities, by the second suspect, an alleged mob middleman by the name of Francis ‘Frankie’ Paone. Paone himself was under investigation for similar allegations, and thought to have direct ties with the Vinchetti crime family, which is said to control over fifty percent of all child pornography marketed in the U.S. Police spokesmen later announced that Paone, during the shootout, managed to escape the scene, and is currently the subject of a statewide manhunt...”
Paone’s thoughts seemed to slowly flatten. “What’s this... Escaped?”
The nurse was smiling now. She opened a pair of black-framed glasses and put them on Paone’s face...
The blurred room, at last, came into focus.
What the fuck is this?
A tracked curtain surrounded him, as he would expect on an ICU ward, but then he noticed something else. It wasn’t an X-ray nozzle that hung overhead; it was a retractable boom, complete with microphone. And one of the IV stands wasn’t an IV stand at all; it was a stand for a directional halogen light.
“What the hell kind of hospital is this!” Paone demanded.
“Oh, it’s not a hospital,” Willet said. “It’s a safe house.”
“One of Don Dario Bonte’s safe houses,” the nurse was delighted to add.
Willet again. “And we’re his private medical staff. Generally our duties are rather uninvolved. When one of the don’s men gets shot or hurt, we take care of him, since the local hospital wouldn’t be safe.”
Bonte, Paone thought in slow dread. Dario Bonte — Vinchetti’s only rival...
“And the police were all too happy to hand you over to our goodly employer,” Willet continued. “Half of the state police are on Don Bonte’s payroll... and this way, the suffering taxpayers are spared the cost of a trial.”