Read Known Devil Online

Authors: Matthew Hughes

Tags: #Occult Investigations Unit, #Occult Crimes Investigation, #zombies, #wereweolves, #vampires, #demons, #gangbangers, #crime spree

Known Devil (15 page)

BOOK: Known Devil
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“I’m Nurse Jenkins,” she said. “You’re at Mercy Hospital. How are you feeling?”
“Tell you the truth, I hurt like hell.”
“Where’s your pain located?”
“Back of my head’s pounding like a motherfu… uh, I mean it’s really pretty bad.”
She gave me a gentle smile. “You can say ‘motherfucker’ if you want, Stan. I’ve heard the word before – in this job, I hear it quite frequently.”
“Good to know.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how bad would you say the head pain is?”
“Hard to be objective, when you’re a tough guy like me,” I said. “But I’d give it about a six.”
“OK,” she said, and made a note on the clipboard she was holding. “Do you have pain anywhere else?”
I moved around a little, and winced. “My back hurts some, too. Not as bad as the head, though.”
“How bad is it?”
“About a four, I guess.”
Another notation. “We’ll have that checked out. What’s the last thing you remember?”
I thought for a few seconds. “Somebody with his knee in my back, going through my pockets. Oh, and shots. Three shots. Seems like none of them got me, though.”
“No, you’re not exhibiting any gunshot injuries.” She looked at me for a moment. “You’re a police officer, is that right?”
“Uh-huh. Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski, at your service,” I said. “Well, I
could
be at your service, if my head didn’t hurt so much.”
She gave me another half-smile and wrote on the clipboard some more. “No retrograde amnesia,” she said. “That’s a good sign – probably means you’re not concussed.”
She flipped through the papers on the clipboard and paused at one. “The head X-ray that was performed when you were brought in shows no damage to the skull. You’re a lucky man.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Any dizziness?”
“No.”
“Ringing in the ears?”
“No.”
“Try not to blink for a second.” She produced a penlight and shined it in one of my eyes, then the other.
“OK, good.” She turned the penlight off, then asked me, “What day is it?”
“Um… Sunday . I think. At least, it was, last I remember.”
“What’s your mother’s first name?”
“Eleanor.”
“Who’s President of the United States?”
I told her, then added, “Don’t blame me, though – I didn’t vote for him.”
She smiled at my feeble joke and said, “I’ll let Doctor Reynolds know you’re awake. He should be in to see you shortly.”
Nurse Jenkins walked away, her tread muffled by what looked like expensive running shoes. She slid the privacy curtain open a few feet, slipped through the gap, and closed it behind her.
I thought I was alone now. But then I remembered that Nurse Jenkins had said something like “He’s awake now.” Who had she been talking to? That was when I turned my head to the left, which hurt like hell, and saw Lieutenant McGuire sitting in the corner.
 
He was sprawled in a low-slung armchair that had seen better days, holding a tattered copy of
Reader’s Digest
. As I watched, he tossed the magazine onto a table and stood up.
“I just finished the ‘Increase Your Word Power’ quiz,” he said. “Only got seven out of ten.”
“That’s better than I usually do.”
“Do you know what a fucking ‘clowder’ is?”
“Sounds like something you’d order in a seafood restaurant,” I said.
He tossed the magazine aside, stood up, and came over to stand a few feet from my gurney. “It’s the term they use for a bunch of cats,” he said.
“Yeah? I’ll try to work that into conversation, next time I’m talking to Karl. He’ll be impressed.” My voice sounded better now.
McGuire looked at me for a few seconds. “Your guardian angel’s been putting in some overtime.”
“You mean, because I’m not dead?”
“Because you’re not dead, and because three other guys
are
.”
“The ones who jumped me? I only saw two of them, but the third guy left me a souvenir.” I gently touched the back of my head and found it covered with a thick bandage that had been taped in place.
“They were all carrying ID that turned out to be fake, but we ran their prints, and the State Police got back to us pretty quick.” He took a notebook from his pocket and flipped through some pages. “Avery Dalton, Peter Amico, and Steven ‘Thumbs’ Milbrand. All three of them leg-breakers from downstate, each one with a rap sheet as long as my arm.”
I looked at McGuire. “How far downstate are we talking about?”
“Philadelphia.”
I nodded, and then the pain taught me that I shouldn’t do that. “Wiseguys?”
Even though the Delatasso family was headed by a vampire, that wouldn’t prevent them from having some “warm” members. A lot of vampire gangs had humans on the payroll, to guard their resting places during the day.
“Uh-uh,” McGuire said. “Day labor. The kind of muscle loan sharks hire to beat up on some guy who’s a couple of weeks behind on the vig.”
“All the way from Philly? Shit, they could’ve hired somebody local and saved themselves some money.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “Even the dumbest scumbag in town is smart enough not to kill a cop, except out of desperation. They know the kind of heat that brings – every cop in Scranton would be on the case, whether assigned or not. And we’d never stop looking.”
“On the other hand, if they use imported labor…”
“Exactly,” McGuire said. “They blow into town, do the job, then go back to whatever shithole they crawled out of. None of the locals can snitch on them, because nobody knew they were even here.”
“Except it didn’t work out that way.”
“Not this time. At the sound of the shots, some of Jerry’s customers came running out to see what was going on.”
“That’s either very brave or extremely stupid.”
“Whatever it was, they went around back and found four guys on the ground. Turned out the only one still breathing was you. The other three each had a bullet in the head.”
“Three shots, three kills,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. Whoever was back there knew how to use a gun. Had steady hands, too.”
“Are you about to ask me if I was the shooter?”
McGuire gave me a thin smile. “Don’t need to. Your weapon hadn’t been fired.”
“Good to know.”
“Besides,” he said, “the clip in your Beretta was your usual load of silver, alternating with cold iron – I know, because I checked.”
“So…?”
“So while I was waiting for you to come to, I got an email on my phone from Homer Jordan at the Coroner’s Office. Must be a slow day, because he’s finished the autopsy on one of the Philly boys already. The slug that killed the bastard was lead.”
“Which explains why you started out talking about my guardian angel.”
“Somebody nailed those three goons before they could kill you. At least, I’m assuming that was their plan. Can’t see them coming all the way up here from Philly just to lift your wallet – although one of them did that anyway. We found it in his coat pocket, along with your watch.”
“They wanted it to look like a mugging,” I said. “I vaguely remember one of them saying that. They were gonna shoot me with my own gun, too – make it look spontaneous, I guess.”
“You heard them talking?”
“Yeah – they must’ve assumed I was out cold. Or maybe they figured it didn’t matter what I heard, since they were about to put a bullet in my head.”
“Instead, somebody put a bullet in
their
heads,” McGuire said. “You see anything, hear anything, that’ll give us a lead on the shooter?”
I shook my head – another painful mistake. “All I remember is the sound of the shots and wondering why I wasn’t dead – the second time that’s happened to me recently.”
“You’re thinking about those vamps who were trying to kill Calabrese the other night – especially the one who got behind you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Somebody got
that
guy in the head, too.”
“We’ll compare the slug from the vamp with the ones they dig out of today’s casualties,” McGuire said. “Although the first time, the shooter used silver – for obvious reasons.”
“Won’t matter,” I said. “The striations will still be identical – assuming it was the same gun, both times.”
“And if there’s no match, what does that prove? Diddly-fuck. Your guardian angel could have more than one gun. Maybe he carries one with lead, and another one loaded with silver. That way, he’s ready for everything – or she is.”
“Question is, who’s doing this – and why? Not that I’m complaining, you understand.”
“If we had the ‘who’, we’d have the ‘why’,” he said. “Or if we figured out the ‘why’, it’d probably give us the ‘who’.”
“Stop,” I said. “You’re making my head hurt worse than it already does, and that’s saying something.”
“Don’t complain,” McGuire said. “If it weren’t for whoever’s been watching your back, you wouldn’t be feeling anything right about now.”
 
They decided to keep me overnight, “for observation.” What they wanted to observe wasn’t exactly clear. Maybe they were afraid I’d develop subdural hematoma – a term I picked up from doctor shows on TV.
McGuire made it very clear that he didn’t want me going all TV-detective-hero on him and checking myself out of the hospital prematurely because the Forces of Evil were on the march, and only I could stop them.
“The Forces of fucking Evil are
always
on the march,” he said. “They’ll still be there, day after tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re gonna stay here until the docs are sure you’re not about to fucking die on me. Got it?”
McGuire’s the only guy I know who can make compassion sound like he’s threatening your life. He went on. “I’ll ask the Captain to put a uniform on the door to your room, once they get you settled.”
“You figure the Delatassos have a ‘B’ team waiting in the wings?”
“Could be,” he said. “If not, he can at least keep the reporters away – unless you’ve decided you like giving interviews to the media?”
“Fuck that shit,” I said.
“That’s kinda what I figured.”
While I was waiting for the people in Admissions to process my paperwork and assign me a room, I called Christine. It was just past 2 in the afternoon, and I knew that she was still resting. But I wanted to leave a message on her voicemail so she wouldn’t panic when she came upstairs at sunset and found that I’d never made it home from work.
Hi, honey – this is your old man. Listen, do
not
freak over what I’m about to tell you, OK? I’m in Mercy Hospital, but only for observation. I’ll be out tomorrow. I ran into a little trouble and got whacked upside the head. But you know what a thick Polack skull I have – there’s been no damage, apart from a lump that feels like it’s the size of a billiard ball. No skull fracture, no concussion, no subdural hematoma. In other words: nothing to worry about. But apparently it’s SOP to keep head injury cases for twenty-four hours, and that’s what they’re doing with me.
So, listen, on your way to work tonight, could you drop off my toilet kit? It’s in the big suitcase in my closet. And bring a change of clothes, too, will you? Nothing too dashing – I’ll have to go to work in them.
I appreciate it, kiddo. I’ll see you sometime tonight. Love ya. Bye.
I don’t think I own an article of clothing that anybody would call “dashing”, but I wanted her to understand that I needed work clothes, not jeans and a T-shirt.
Before the orderly wheeled me upstairs – I told him that I could walk OK, but apparently the wheelchair was SOP, too – I stopped at the hospital gift shop and picked up a paperback book, along with a copy of the
Times-Tribune
. When the lady in Admissions had told me the cost of getting TV service in my room, and that insurance wouldn’t cover it, I decided that reading would pass the time just as well, and cheaper.
Fifteen minutes later, I was in a private room, sitting up in bed and wearing one of those idiotic hospital gowns that are cleverly designed to rob you of any dignity you might have left after getting poked and prodded downstairs.
McGuire had said that the ER nurse in charge of Intake had taken my gun when I’d first arrived and given it so someone for safekeeping. He’d found out who had it, and waved his badge around until they gave my Beretta to him. He’d slipped it to me when no one was looking, just before the orderly came to wheel me up to my room. “You never know,” he’d said. “You might get a visitor who isn’t the friendly type.”
My clothes were now hung up in the little locker they have in each room, but the Beretta was under the sheet next to my right leg. Just in case.
The book I’d bought was
Sematary Danse
, the new exposé of the funeral industry by that true-crime writer, Stephen King. I’d been wanting to read it for a while, but I decided to look at the paper first, in case anything important had gone down while I’d getting beaten up by hired thugs.
There was no story about all the excitement that had taken place behind Jerry’s Diner, and I hadn’t expected one in this issue. The
Times-Tribune
is a morning paper.
But it would be front-page news tomorrow unless a war broke out, and my luck never runs that good.
Three Dead in Attack on Police Officer
, the headline would read. And the local networks would have the story for their evening broadcasts.
I was glad that McGuire was going to have somebody on the door to keep the media jackals away. The last thing I needed right now was some asshole with a hundred-dollar haircut sticking a microphone in my face.
The Patriot Party had a full-page ad on page three, reminding me that the election was about a month away. The tone hadn’t mellowed any since I’d last seen their advertising. They were still attacking Mayor D’Agostino without mercy, although it looked like they’d found a new horse to ride: crime in the streets.
BOOK: Known Devil
4.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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