Afterburn (46 page)

"The Narcan is working," a calm voice announced. "Maybe ten seconds more."

He opened his eyes to look at the arm, to see how the chain snaked around it, even cut through it, probably cut through it, and when he did, he saw three men watching him, men he remembered but did not know. The floor was littered with fast-food bags, and they'd brought in a television.

"Oh, please!" he cried, his mouth hurting thickly. "Make it go away!"

"Can't do that, Rick," answered the one named Morris. "Your heartbeat was getting a little sleepy on me there. I had to snap you back."

He was laid out on a table in a bloody T-shirt. He lurched up. His right arm was still cuffed to the table. His left arm barely extended past his sleeve. A metal clamp was taped into the bandage. "You fuckers cut off my arm!"

Morris laid a heavy hand on Rick's chest. "Easy," he said, pushing Rick down gently, familiar with bodies in distress.

"My arm! You fuckers cut off my arm!"

"I did a very beautiful job packing that arm. Textbook."

I'm weak, Rick thought.

"You going to ask him about the money again?" said the one named Tommy.

"He doesn't know anything," said Morris, resting his palm on Rick's forehead.

"How can you tell?"

"How?" He frowned. "I've treated something like two thousand people in shock. You can't lie when you're in shock." Morris took Rick's pulse, checked his watch. "The body doesn't work that way. The body forgets things in shock, but it doesn't lie."

"What time is it?" Rick asked.

"Late. Early. Two a.m."

"Is my arm here?" he called upward.

"You arm's in the cooler," said Tommy. "We got it on ice. Like beer."

"Can I have it?" he asked in a faraway voice.

Morris shook his head. "Not yet."

"When?"

"When we're done here."

He felt unable to lift his head. Hot but cold. "When is that?" He closed his eyes. He understood the pain as a kind of exposed wetness; if he could get the arm stuck back on, then maybe it would stop. His foot and rib and mouth hurt like there were holes in them, nails and glass and bone slivers. "What the fuck do you fucking want?" Rick cried at the ceiling.

"What does anybody want?" said Morris. "We want the cash."

He felt his breathing now. Some problem with his rib. The pain in the arm was wired into the breathing. He twisted to look.

"The more you move, Rick, the more the skin will differentiate at the edges of the wound." Morris pulled a candy bar from his pocket. "Here." He tore away the wrapper, broke off a piece, and pushed it between Rick's lips. "Get some sugar going."

"Where's my arm?"

Morris pointed and Rick lifted his head, just enough. A red plastic cooler, big enough for about a hundred pounds of tuna steaks. Sealed with duct tape, even. He collapsed back onto the table.

"Tell me about the money, Rick," said Morris.

"When we get to the hospital."

Morris handed Rick the candy bar. "We can't take you
into
the hospital."

"Drop me at the corner."

The men looked back and forth. "He doesn't know about the boxes," Tommy said. "Not after that."

"Probably got some stash somewhere, though."

"How much you got, Rick?"

"Oh, fuck," he breathed. "Maybe forty thousand."

"Not enough, man."

He'd known a hundred guys like them. "It's all I got." He ate the rest of the candy bar. It was helping. Maybe he could talk okay, despite the pain of the tooth. Morris wanted to get this thing wrapped up. "Take me and my arm to the hospital—to the corner, whatever. You each get something like . . . thirteen, fourteen thousand bucks. I don't have any more money. I had all my cash in my aunt's place."

"Yeah, we know. Where is it now?"

He found the texture of the ceiling interesting.

"What's wrong with him?"

"The sugar is hitting him pretty hard, I think."

"Where's the truck, Rick?"

"My truck. In a garage."

"Look in his wallet for the ticket."

They pulled it out of his pocket.

"Nothing."

"Give the man his wallet back, we don't need picky-shit cash."

"How did you find me?"

Morris ignored the question. "Where's the garage, Rick?"

He felt strange. "You know," he explained, "I saw my mother inside a tomato."

THEY MAY NOT HAVE BEEN
honorable men, but they were reasonable, especially when the reason was easy money and the prisoner was babbling, and so they threw an old coat over him, hiding his bandaged stump, and half-dragged him outside into the old taxi, the lettering and medallion number painted over poorly, the interior torn to hell, and sat him in the back, which made his stump and ribs hurt, and they each grabbed a handle and dropped the cooler into the trunk just like they said they would, and put the toolboxes in the front. He glanced down the block and under a streetlight saw a skinny dog looking back, something hanging from its mouth. Morris handed Rick a big bottle of Gatorade and said, Drink the whole thing. Drink it now, keep your fluids up. He did it and maybe felt better. One guy sat on each side of him, and after the long night neither had a beautiful smell. Morris sat at the wheel and pushed them crosstown on Fourteenth Street, a few people outside walking along peacefully.
Hey, they cut off my arm!
He would never say that because then they might not take him to the hospital, and besides, he was feeling a little weak, to be honest about it, his foot and ankle hurt as much as his arm, he couldn't really breathe the way he wanted, he was still thirsty and his head hurt. He wanted to sleep. Just get there, just, just.

"You all right, Rick?"

"He's in shock," Morris said, checking his mirror. "His pupils are big. He went from lying down to a sitting position. His heart is working a little harder, and probably there was too much sugar in that candy bar. His kidneys are dry, but he'll be okay. Five minutes he'll be better."

"But you remember about the truck, right, Rick?"

"Yes."

"Not going to forget that."

He shook his head, which made his face hurt. "No."

A few minutes later they were close to Bellevue and pulled over at the light.

"Rick, the hospital is up the block." Morris watched in the rearview mirror. "You go just up the block and there it is."

"Get me out first."

"First talk about the money."

"Outside. Get me out."

They opened a door. Gentlemen. Of course, they could shove him back into the car if they wanted. He dragged himself over the seat and put his feet on the pavement. He could barely move, his ankle and foot and arm hurt so much.

"We've been very cool here, Rick. Now you come through."

"Yellow truck. My truck." Something was wrong. His ears pounded.

"He looks weak to me."

"Where is the truck?"

"Ask the Russian guy."

Tommy slapped him. "What?"

"Garage, across from the gym. Lafayette. Grand Street. Second floor. Ask the Russian guy."

"The money's in the truck?"

He nodded exhaustedly. "Radiator. Pull the wire."

"What's at the end of the wire?" came the voice in his ear.

"Plastic bag. Filled with hundreds." Also the traveler's checks that Paul had given him.

The men looked at one another. "Let's go."

They opened the car trunk and dropped the big sealed ice chest on the pavement. "See, Rick, we're very cool here," said Morris. "You're one block from the hospital. The cooler is here, your arm inside. Everything is cool. Now you can stand up and get out."

He rose uneasily in his long coat, his foot hurting like broken fish bones, leaking blood, and staggered over to the cooler and sat on it. They yanked the car door shut and pulled into the traffic. Then up the avenue, then a turn at the light, then gone. He picked weakly at the duct tape around the cooler. Stand, he told himself. He couldn't stand. He stood anyway. Get someone to help. Who would help? Not many people out this late. He knelt and grabbed the ice chest by the handle and lifted one end. It was shockingly heavy. How could that be? Somebody had made a mistake. Too much ice. No way he could actually carry it. But he could drag it, he knew that, and he waited for the light. Don't think, don't worry, he told himself, just drag this box across First Avenue. Make your legs do the work. Worry about the police later, you want your arm back on. That's the thing. The pain chewed at his left side. Guys in wars do this shit, Rick thought, so can I. The light changed to green and he pulled. The fucker was heavy; it must have weighed three hundred pounds, all that ice in there. It was too big, that was the problem, they didn't need a chest that big. He bumped the thing off the curb and began to drag, knees bent, back bent against the weight, his left arm, the stump, doing nothing, just jerking around strangely, hurting like hell, and he pulled the thing across the first lane of traffic, scraping the shit out of the bottom of the chest, but who cared. The taxi drivers watched him; in the darkness nobody noticed he was missing his arm because of the long coat or saw his bloody foot, nobody understood, and that was fine because he was going to make it, he was going to do all good things . . . Halfway across he saw a van turning onto First, going too fast, and he was unsure whether to run or stay, and instead he pulled harder to make sure the ice chest was out of the path of the van, but the effort did not produce commensurate progress and the van honked in irritation, not slowing exactly but cutting its wheels sharply, not to avoid Rick but rather an old man ten steps behind him on First Avenue—the van had a choice of hitting the old man or Rick's ice chest, and so it hit the chest, the corner of the bumper catching the back of the box and spinning it out of Rick's hands. He jumped back, foot on fire with pain.

The van stopped. "Yo," said the driver, jumping out, a man in his twenties, head a bullet. "What the fuck you doing, you goddamn—" He saw the blood on Rick's T-shirt, stopped, and jumped back into the van.

Rick reached the cooler, which was dented but undamaged, and dragged it over to the curb. He noticed the cooler's drainage plug and pulled it. Water gushed out. Was there a bit of color in the water? He could do it, he was almost there.

HE DRAGGED THE TRUNK
through the emergency ward's electronic doors, right past the guard up to the nurses' desk.

"I got my arm cut off," he croaked.

"What?" asked the nurse.

He shrugged his big coat to the floor. His shirt was a bloody mess.

"Lie down!" she commanded. "Clyde, I have a priority! Call Dr. Kulik." She turned back to Rick. "Sir, lie down! You need—"

"It's in
here
," he said, pounding the cooler. "Get someone down here who can put it back on!"

"What? The arm?"

"Yes," he said, suddenly dizzy.

She picked up a phone. "I need a gurney and saline and a quick blood match."

"The cooler . . ." Rick muttered.

"Clyde," ordered the nurse, "cut open that cooler. But don't touch anything. Sir, lie down! We're getting a gurney in here, sir."

The guard stepped over to the cooler and produced a pen knife. He slit the tape with four hard strokes and lifted the top. Then he looked back at Rick.

"Get it
out!
" Rick called.

The guard took his flashlight and stirred around the ice. He struck something and bent closer.

"Don't contaminate any body parts," called the nurse.

"You can contaminate
my
body parts," muttered the guard, digging in the ice. "This is fucked
up
."

An orderly pushed in the gurney. "Sir?"

"What—wait," pleaded Rick. "I have to see my arm."

The guard reached in, spilling ice. "I got it, I got it."

"Let me see!"

The guard shook his head in disgust. "This ain't no arm."

"What?" cried Rick. "Look!"

"No,
you
look, my man." The guard tugged upward, using his weight, this time spilling most of the ice, and pulled out the frozen head and neck of a huge turkey, its pale plucked body following, maybe thirty pounds in all, something asymmetrical about it, frozen black feet sticking out awkwardly. The guard examined the turkey, then pointed. "They took off one wing, right here." He dropped the carcass back into the cooler, looked at Rick. "That's
it
, my man."

He pushed away the gurney and sank down on one knee, then two, thinking he might vomit, but he did not, although a sickening shiver went through him, a cold shot of pain and grief that ended in stillness. The dog, eating. He put his remaining hand against the tile floor, supporting himself, then fell forward as they gathered around. His head rested against the floor. That was it. You can't give frozen turkey to a dog.

Sir, they said, we're going to start an IV. He was somebody else now, forever. He collapsed onto his right side, lifting his legs to his chest like a child curling beneath a blanket. Yes, now he was released. He'd waited years and years and finally it had happened. He had received his punishment.

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Peace Hotel, Shanghai, China
September 24, 1999

HIS TAXI RACED
recklessly from the airport over an elevated highway that snaked past hundreds of enormous construction sites extending every direction into the haze. This Shanghai, new yet already retro-futuristic, forced itself brutally upward through the accumulated crust, erasing the narrow lanes of crumbling brick and pagoda roofs, penetrating the massive and ill-kept English mansions—surviving relics of Europe's short-lived triumphalism—and toppling, perhaps especially, the dreary ten-story apartment blocks erected by Mao's bureaucrats. Knocked down, bulldozed aside, trucked away. All gone—forever or soon. Finished, the fifty-story projects stood like rigid mechanical fingers, exoskeletally articulated with glass and stainless steel, aloof in their inhuman size, while the unfinished structures—great concrete bones veiled with bamboo scaffolding—entombed the foul air of the very sky itself, their shadowy honeycombed interiors flickering and flaring with welding torches as cranes lifted tilting loads, or caged construction elevators plummeted along zippered seams, while gray ant-men in yellow hard hats moved along the huge edges of man-made stone with dull vigor.