After gathering up what he needed, Parker headed to the locked medication cabinet placed in between two small refrigerators. He’d lost his knife in the alley when the damned boy he’d been sent to kill bashed him across the face, and his side was the least of his worries. The right side of his face was swollen to nearly double its size, blocking his eye and pushing his nose in, while his left eye socket throbbed, a red tinge seeping into his lopsided vision. He needed drugs, something to take the edge off his pain, but a few jerks on the cabinet’s combination lock didn’t make it give way.
“Fuck this.” He still had his gun, a spare piece he’d picked up on the way from Montana. Not caring if anyone heard the shot, he blew open the lock, then flung the door open and grabbed anything that looked remotely like a sedative.
He’d bled on the sedan’s front seat, despite wrapping his side in a jacket. Barely able to make out a flashing neon vacancy sign amid the blood wash in his eye and the rain, Parker pulled into a cheap hotel less than a block away from the clinic. He’d have to move quickly. If someone spotted the interior of the car and connected it to the break-in, he’d have the cops on his ass before he could stitch himself up.
And he needed to be at least partially functional when he went to pay a certain special someone a visit.
Parker left his rental car in one of the front office’s reserved spaces, grunting when his foot hit one of the lot’s cement pylons. The swinging door gave him trouble, and his ribs pulled when he opened it, releasing another rivulet of blood into his makeshift bandage. Limping over through the lobby, he slammed a hundred dollar bill down and pointed at one of the keys dangling from a hook on the board, snapping his fingers at an older Chinese woman behind the desk.
She didn’t even blink at the blood on his clothes or his battered appearance. The woman screwed her mouth up into a skeptical grimace and nodded at his chest. Jaded couldn’t begin to describe her expression. Parker knew her interest was keenly on the bottom line and from the looks of the place, she normally charged by the hour. She looked like someone who periodically forgot how to dial 911.
Unless she was paid for it and even then it was iffy if she’d actually punch the numbers.
“You want extra towels, you’re going to have to pay for them.” Swallowing something in her mouth, the woman picked at something in her teeth with the tip of her pinkie nail. “And none of that rough stuff on the furniture. You break it, you pay for it too.”
“That’s enough for what? A day, yes?” He pointed at the money. “Give me a room. Something on the ground floor.”
“Hold on. I have to check this one. Too many fakes.” She snatched the bill up and held it up to the light suspiciously before grabbing one of the keys. Satisfied, the old woman swiped a highlighter over the bill and shoved it down a money slot built into the desk. She handed him a registration card and held out a pen. “You have to sign.”
“Fucking sign it yourself.” Snatching the key out of her hand, he growled, “Whatever the change is, keep it. I’m only going to be here for an hour.”
“Yeah, they all say that,” he heard her muttering at his back. “Then they come out in less time than it takes my dog to shit. Hour my ass.”
The room stank. He couldn’t decide if it smelled more of sex or cigarettes, but he wasn’t planning on sleeping in its stew. The bathroom was large enough for what he needed, and its overhead fluorescents lit up the small space to the point of being painfully bright. A towel hanging from the rack smelled of bleach, reassuring Parker of its relative cleanliness, and he spread it over the counter and laid out the things he’d stolen from the clinic.
“Take the pill first or sew?” Peeling off the jacket was torture, cementing his wavering on a sedative. “Just one. Shit, just something so I can stitch this fucking thing up.”
He shook out a single pill, turned on the faucet, and waited for the sludge to clear from the stream. The mouthful of clear water was pinked by the blood on his hand, but its metallic taste did nothing to fade away the bitter granules dissolving on his tongue. He couldn’t wait for it to take its full effect, but the numbness spreading over his cheeks was enough for him to get started.
He’d found a package of Leukostrips, but he couldn’t be certain they would hold. The pain in his side was wide, and the adhesive bandages would give if he bled too much. Shrugging off his shirt, Parker got his first good look at the gash in his side and groaned.
“Damned faggot bitch.”
He pressed at the wound, seeing how the edges would fit back together. All in all, he’d been lucky. The knife’s edge had gone in clean, but when St. John lost his footing, its hooked tip gouged out a triangular chunk of skin. While not deep, it would bleed him out if he didn’t close up the wound.