Blood Men: A Thriller

There are even fewer cars in the hospital parking lot when I get there than there were earlier tonight—mine doubles the number; the other is a van with a bunch of guys a few years younger than me leaning against it drinking. I wrap the weapon in a jacket Jodie left in the back of her car.

Visiting hours are over and have been for probably six or seven hours. I walk in looking like somebody who knows where they’re going and nobody says anything because there’s nobody around. Not a single person in this part of the ground floor—everybody is either at home for Christmas or working in the emergency room. I make my way down the corridor to the elevators, not leaving any bloody footprints behind because my shoe has dried up. I go up to the fifth floor and step past a nurses’ station that doesn’t have any nurses. Only about half the lights are on that were on this afternoon and it’s only about half the temperature. I reach the ward where my father is and there aren’t any police officers outside like there were this afternoon—which the accountant in me puts down to simple supply and demand. Tonight the city is demanding the most from its guardians, and the police are supplying every man who’s prepared to work overtime and ignore their family—which isn’t many, it seems.

Still, this isn’t going to be a walk in the park. There aren’t any officers here, but there is a security guard sitting in a chair reading a magazine, doing what he can to stay awake. I help him out there by showing him the shotgun. He’s in a similar situation to the one Gerald Painter was in last week—he’s sitting here earning a minimum wage, armed with nothing useful. He doesn’t even make it out of his chair. He wants to—he gets about halfway up before realizing there’s no point in moving any further. He doesn’t sit back down either—just stays suspended between the two actions.

“Don’t say a word,” I say.

“I won’t.”

“Stand up.”

“Okay.”

“Is there anybody else here?”

“Like who?”

“Police. Other security guards.”

He shakes his head.

“Any nurses in there?” I ask, nodding toward the ward.

“There’s one somewhere but I haven’t seen her in about half an hour.”

“Okay. You know who I am?”

He shrugs. “Am I supposed to?”

“That’s my father in there you’re looking after.”

“Oh shit,” he says. “Please, please, don’t kill me.”

“Then pay close attention.”

I direct him into the ward. There are six men all sleeping in the room, a combination of snoring and farting coming from every corner: if somebody lit a match the air would ignite. The curtain is no longer pulled around my father’s bed. He turns his head toward us.

“The curtain,” he says, and nods toward it.

I reach up and pull the curtain around us. The security guard stands on the opposite side of the bed. My dad has his left arm free, but his right is still cuffed to the bed railing.

“I hear you’ve had a busy day, son,” he says.

“They have Sam.”

“What?” he asks, and his face looks pained.

“The men who killed Jodie. They took Sam tonight. They’re going to kill her, Dad, they’re going to kill her unless I can get her back.”

The security guard doesn’t seem sure what to do. He takes a small step back and ends up sitting down, most likely thinking he doesn’t get paid enough for this.

“I had no idea,” Dad says.

“I need names.”

“I’ve given you a name.”

“It didn’t pan out. Dad, I wouldn’t be here if there were any other choices. You must have something else.”

“Hand me that water, son.”

There’s a glass of water on the stand next to the bed. I grab it for him. He takes a long slow sip before handing it back.

“Water tastes better here,” he says. “In prison, by the time the water makes it to us about half a dozen guards have already spat in it. Or worse.”

“Dad . . .”

“Kingsly was the driver, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, minus the man you ran over, there are five more.”

“Three more.”

“Three?”

I give him the details. “The monster got them,” I add.

“Okay, son. Well, I have another name that can help.”

“Who?”

“Not so fast.”

“What?”

“Twenty years is a long time,” he says. “The air inside, it tastes different. It tastes stale, it tastes of desperation. At night, tough men who try to kill you during the day cry. In winter it’s always so damn cold and in the summer it’s so damn hot and . . . twenty years, son, twenty years is a long time.”

“It’s still better than what the women you killed got.”

“Is it? Is it really?”

“I think if you could ask them, they’d agree.”

“I’m not so sure,” he says.

“The name?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

“You want that name, you have to take me with you.”

“They have Sam, Dad. Give me the goddamn name.”

“I know they have Sam.”

I point the shotgun at my father’s chest. He flinches. “I’m not messing around, Dad.”

“You going to shoot me?”

“If I have to.”

“How’s that going to help you?”

“It’ll make me feel better.”

“That’s my boy,” he says, and then smiles. “But you’re not going to pull that trigger.”