He giggled some more. “How bad is it, Deputy Dawg?”
There was a fair amount of blood, but it was low and to the left-intestines, I hoped, not a lung. It was difficult to tell how bad, but he’d live, for a while, at least. I looked at his face. “Who the hell are you?”
He kept giggling and pulled his hand up. I noticed that he was holding his wallet, which he flipped open exposing a badge. His voice was singsong, and he sounded like he was an announcer on a bad fifties TV show. “Why I’m Cliff Cly of the FBI.”
14
October 31, 3:04 A.M.
He wasn’t giggling anymore. “How long do you think I’ve got?”
“Longer than you’re going to want.”
He swallowed underneath the neck brace and dropped the wallet. “God damn it, this hurts. I showed the kid how to drive the thing and told him that if I didn’t get back in a couple of minutes, to just gas it the hell out of here and stay off the roads.” His eyes closed, and he clutched his stomach. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I looked at the young man’s face. I had to admit that he was good; I hadn’t made him, but now, seeing the symmetry of his features under the stubble, and his general demeanor, even after being shot, it all made sense.
It also explained why Sandy Sandberg had called off the polygraph.
Another wave of exhaustion swept over me, and I started getting a little panicked about all the things I had to do before I fell over. I touched his arm, and he grimaced. “You have to let me take a look.”
“Fuck you, you one-eyed bastard. No way.”
I casually wondered if he’d looked in a mirror lately. “We have to put something in there to staunch the bleeding-your hands aren’t doing the trick.”
He ground his teeth, and I could hear the crunch of the enamel from a foot away. “No.”
“Look, I’ve got to roll you over and see where the bullet went.”
He shook his head violently. “No fucking way.” He glanced up. “Why? There’s nothing you’re going to be able to do for me, so just go get help.”
“If I don’t stabilize the wound, you’re going to bleed to death.” I continued to look at him. Something in my head started reciting organs along with percentages-kidney 22 percent, stomach 18 percent, bladder 12 percent, and small bowel 12 percent. Something stuck in my mind that these were bad numbers, and we should root for the smallest percentage.
He studied me. “What the fuck is wrong with you anyway?”
I tried to remember. “I think I’ve been drugged.” My cheekbone ached, and my neck muscles were still doing a pretty good imitation of a boneless chicken. “As a matter of fact, I know I’ve been drugged. Barsad said he put something in Hershel’s canteen.” “And I think something in my foot’s broken.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
I could feel my eyes starting to close again. “Could you say fuck some more; it’s really helping.”
“Fuck you, I’m the one who’s shot in the gut.”
I fought with my jacket while trying to get the. 45 back into my holster with my other hand. I couldn’t really feel my fingers, which didn’t bode well for my fixing Cliff Cly of the FBI.
I tried to focus on the case, figuring that the cipher effect might keep me awake-that, and the thought of a man who was possibly dying. But he could still talk, if with a limited vocabulary, so I was starting to think that his lung hadn’t been nicked after all. Some more facts leapt up about a collapsed lung-something about air sucking into the chest where it can’t escape, which in turn pushes the heart aside, so far, in fact, that the vessels to the heart are pinched to the point that they are closed and there is no blood flow to the heart.
I thought about it and came to the conclusion that that was bad, but it was like somebody else was talking inside my head, somebody I’d once been other than the sleepy person I was now. “So, what’s a nice bureau boy like you doing in a place like this?” I attempted to move his hands again. “Let me see.”
“Fuck you, Deputy Dawg.” His chin planted against the brace, and I watched as he tried to concentrate on not clutching the wound. He relaxed just a little, which I’m sure was for the best, and allowed his head to return to the ground. “He was ours in the witness relocation program, but after the fiasco in Youngstown we let him dangle, in hopes that he’d give us the information on his pals back in Jersey since they were looking for him. He was in Vegas, and then here.”
With his hands out of the way, I slowly unbuttoned his shirt and then carefully tore open the T-shirt at the wound. There was no sucking sound, and the blood was pooling at the depression in his skin.
“Well?”
Trying to keep my eyes open, I stretched my entire face in spite of my cheekbone. “It’s not as bad as I thought.”
“Yeah? Well, I feel so much fucking better.”
The voice was telling me things, and I wondered how smart was the guy I used to be? Now he was telling me about how, if it was a low-velocity, low-caliber weapon like a 9 mm, then most of the tissue damage was confined to the bullet tract, as opposed to a high-velocity, high-caliber weapon like a rifle that would result in a lot of damage to tissues and organs just by passing by them. “Energy dissipation.”
“What?” His voice was gargled, but I was pretty sure it was just mucus.
I leaned forward. “We’re hoping for no major organs or large blood vessels.”
“Well, if it’s a major organ, hopefully it’s my liver; the little fucker’s indestructible.”
Liver-30 percent.
“I think we can stop the bleeding, but you’re not going anywhere and we’re going to have to get you medical attention pretty quick.” I looked around and noticed that Wahoo Sue had moved off to the far side of the ring, probably because of the blood. She wanted nothing to do with us. The lightning had moved to the east, and it appeared that all we were going to get now was wind. “I don’t think I can move you.”
“I don’t want you to.”
“Deal.” I pulled off my neck scarf and looked at it, hoping it wasn’t too full of bacteria, and began folding it up in preparation for placing it over the wound. I thought about Martha, who had given me the silk bandana, and sighed. It was then that I saw the roll of duct tape that Wade Barsad must’ve dropped.
I reached over, picked it up, and ripped a length from the roll. Maybe it was being witness to someone else’s suffering, or having a task, or all the voices in my head, but I was actually feeling pretty good-still sleepy, but more on the dopey side than the passing-out side. I attached the one-foot piece to my scarf and ripped off another. “This stuff is great; you can use it for everything.”
He shook his head. “Oh, God.”
I completed the makeshift bandage, took a deep breath, and wished I had some whiskey. “This is going to hurt.”
“Uh huh.”
I planted the bandage squarely on the wound, pressed down, and wrapped the duct tape in all directions. He didn’t move. “There, that wasn’t so-”
“Jesus-fucking-Christ!”
I thought I’d been gentle.
The old me in my head was talking again and said that, with the ambient temperature, the blood around the wound was coagulating quickly, but the drop in blood pressure would also increase his susceptibility to hypothermia. I smirked a little to myself but then thought about the fact that no matter how smart the old me was, it was the new me that was going to have to do something about the problem. I took off my coat and carefully placed it over him.
I sat there for a moment, listening to him breathe and feeling as if I’d accomplished one of my tasks. Now, if I could just remember the others. The chain clanked and moved left.
Horse.
Dark horse. Three horses. One rider.
The boy, Benjamin.
I leaned over. “Where do you think he’ll go?”
The FBI man looked at me with one eye opened and one closed. “Who?”
I thought it was a reasonable question. “The boy… Benjamin.”