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New York City: St Dympna’s Home for the Mentally Deficient and Criminally Inclined
It was still some hours before dawn when Nighthawk heard a soft knock on his door. Years of strenuous living had taught him how to awake instantly and fully.
“Yes,” he said, sitting up in bed.
“Phone call for you, Mr. Nighthawk,” a respectful voice said softly.
“I’ll be right with you.”
He was wearing his shorts and tee shirt in lieu of pajamas, so he took a moment to put on pants, shirt, shoes, and jacket and run a brush through his hair. Nighthawk always figured that since he could meet his end at any second, he should always be well dressed when he went out in public. If he was going to end up in Hell, he certainly wanted to look his best. And if he was going to Heaven, he was sure it would be expected. When he opened the door to the corridor an unfamiliar face awaited. Nighthawk figured that he was a recently recruited credenti. The new recruits always got stuck with the jobs nobody else wanted, like nighttime security.
“Yes?” Nighthawk asked.
“It’s Usher. He’s calling from the Waldorf and wants to talk to a perfecti.”
“All right.” He followed the credenti to the office where a couple of Allumbrados were hanging out, supposedly guarding the building but, Nighthawk suspected, actually bullshitting and eating donuts. At least, the open, mostly empty donut boxes and half-filled coffee cups near every hand led him to suspect that that was the case. The three of them, including the message boy they’d sent to get Nighthawk, watched with interest as he took a seat behind the old-fashioned desk.
“Usher,” Nighthawk said into the telephone.
“John,” the big man said with surprise. “Good thing you’re still there.”
“I didn’t feel like coming back into the city after getting Cameo settled.”
“Yeah.” Since Usher and Magda were acting as Contarini’s private bodyguards, they’d returned to the Waldorf right away after escorting Cameo and Nighthawk through Dympna’s wrought iron gates. “Listen. We may have a problem.”
“What else is new,” Nighthawk said, sorting through the leftover donuts on the desk stop. “Ah. Raspberry filled.” He took a bite and chewed softly.
“No time for snacks,” Usher said. “We’ve discovered that Butcher Dagon apparently isn’t really Butcher Dagon.”
“Really?” Nighthawk said. He looked pointedly at the coffee cup that one of the credenti held until the recruit scrambled to his feet and got Nighthawk one for himself.
“Who is he, then?”
“We’re not sure,” Usher said. “It seems the real article is in a Vegas jail cell.”
“Interesting,” Nighthawk said. “I’d better check it out.”
“We can be there in half an hour.”
“You’d better. I don’t have much confidence in the local talent.”
Suddenly the three credenti were looking everywhere in the room but at Nighthawk.
“Okay, John. We’re on the way.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Magda and the Witness.”
“Which one?”
“The big one.”
“All right,” Nighthawk said. He hung up the phone and stared thoughtfully into space for a moment while he finished his coffee and donut. The Bigger Asshole. He’d better, he decided, move fast.
“What is it?” one of the credenti asked. Nighthawk looked at him steadily until he added, “Sir?”
“Possible security breach,” Nighthawk said, rising from behind the desk.
“Want us to come with you, sir?”
Nighthawk shook his head. If they saw what he was planning to do, he’d have to kill them all, and Nighthawk just wasn’t that bloodthirsty.
“No. Give me the keys to the infirmary.” One of them took a ring of keys off his belt and handed the proper one to Nighthawk, who nodded his thanks and crossed the room in his soft, measured tread. He stopped at the door and added, “If I’m not back in twenty minutes, come after me.” He thought twenty minutes should give him plenty of time, if things went well. If they didn’t... it probably wouldn’t matter. “In the meantime, finish your donuts.”
He closed the office door softly behind him and went down the corridor lit dimly by infrequent night lights. It’s just like the Cardinal, Nighthawk thought, to be stingy with the electricity. You’d think he was paying the bills personally.
The infirmary was a three-room suite with an entrance off the corridor. The key fit the outer door, but, surprisingly, Nighthawk discovered that it was already unlocked. He opened it quietly and slipped into the reception area, which was dark and silent. A closed supply room was attached to the reception area. The infirmary itself, where the sick or injured were bedded, opened off the reception room, and by order was also locked at night when there was no nurse or doctor in attendance. Contarini had a loyal medical staff on call, but they only spent the night if a patient was in danger. In this case, Nighthawk understood that they’d transported a badly wounded credenti to a friendly hospital where there’d be no questions about how he’d gotten hurt.
Nighthawk stopped before the infirmary door. It was ajar. He listened intently, but heard only random rustling movements of sleeping men. Moving as quietly as approaching death, he took the glove off his left hand and then slowly opened the door wide enough for him to look inside. There were four beds. Three were occupied by injured men, now sleeping, none of whom looked like Butcher Dagon. The fourth, with disturbed bedclothes, was empty. Nighthawk glanced at the inside of the door, and frowned. A smear of blood on the lockplate was still dripping sluggishly to the floor. He touched the stain gingerly, then rubbed his fingertips together. The blood was still relatively fresh.
He checked the outer door and discovered that it too had a bloodied lockplate.
“Curious,” Nighthawk said quietly to himself, wiping the blood on his fingers on a tissue he took from the box on the reception desk.
He moved like a ghost into the dimly-lit corridor, swiftly and silently, and went down the stairway that led to the floors below.