Chapter 182

word count 1122

The security office was a tiny, over-heated room in which Trudy and Mrs. Dunn found Algernon handcuffed to a chair and surrounded by security guards. He looked ready to blow his stack.

“Well, Ms. Hunt! And so we see you again.” The head of security sat with his feet up on the desk. His badge read Officer Dan Kent.

“I didn't do anything this time! Now when can I see a doctor?” Trudy repeated her mantra hoping someone this time would listen.

“Officer, I think I can explain everything,” broke in Winnie. “You see, Mr. Miller got angry and approached Mr. English there...” She nodded to Algernon. “And Mr. English merely defended himself. I'm afraid he knocked Mr. Miller out cold. But Mrs. Hunt had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

“And how can an old man like that knock out a robust fellow like Miller. I know Miller. Nobody knocks out Miller.” Dan Kent kicked his feet off the desk and rose to confront Mrs. Dunn at close range.

She blushed in embarrassment. “Well, there are extenuating circumstances which I can only share with you in private.” She leaned closer and murmured in his ear. “I've said too much already.”

Dan stepped back and studied the older woman as if trying to decide if she were a nut or not. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and spoke. “Okay, you and me, in the hallway, NOW!”

The two disappeared and Trudy went to Algie, sitting opposite, dragging Buzz's bedspread with her.  “Algie, are you going to be okay?” she asked. She leaned closer to whisper. “I know how you decked Buzz. It was a knockout punch, wasn't it? The one you told me about...the one so intense, on impact the gray matter inside your head bounces backwards then ricochets forward banging against the walls of the skull. Bam! Bang!”

“For Gawd's sake, Trudy! Shut up! Are you trying to get me arrested?” he hissed.

Mrs. Dunn and Officer Kent returned, bustling though the doorway.  Dan cleared his throat nervously.

“Well, Mrs. Dunn explained. I talked to the powers that be. Mr. English, we'll be letting you go now. I can't tell you how sorry I am to have arrested you. I'm hoping there will be no hard feelings...or repercussions for us, for that matter.”

“None taken. Now get these handcuffs off me, if you please.”

An officer quickly obliged. Rubbing his wrists, Algie nodded to Trudy and Mrs. Dunn to go. He didn't look back at the security guards, choosing to leave without another word.

“Well, perhaps now we should go and check on Detective Miller,” Winnie said.

“Winnie, dear. I don't think his seeing me would be a good idea. I'll go back to the house if you don't mind, and you two go ahead and visit.”

* * *

The Salami nodded to the Rainman. “Yeah, that's right! I need protection.” Wow, protection, thought the Salami. They're already treating me like Mr. Big.

But it was when his driver, Little Sal, opened the car door for him and he bent to get inside that he knew he was in trouble.

“Aaaah, Holy geez!” he screeched, clutching his stomach, next collapsing to his knees.

“What's the matter, boss!” Little Sal whimpered. He bounced around, not knowing what to do.

The Salami couldn't even appreciate the thrill of being called “boss” he was in so much pain. It was like machetes slicing through his abdomen with zigzag strikes, each stroke a blazing cramp. Breaking out into a cold sweat, he moaned. “Call 911!”

“Holy shit!” Little Sal said, punching out the numbers on his cell.

When the paramedics arrived, Sal wouldn't let the Salami out of his sight.

“Sir, you can travel in the ambulance, but keep out of the way!” Jimmy, the paramedic warned. “We have to give this man treatment en route. And we can't have you in the way.”

“You tellin' me what to do?”

“Um, no sir.”

Little Sal sat next to the Salami in the ambulance while the paramedics bumped around him attaching IV's. He was in the way but they put up with it.

When the ambulance zoomed in the emergency room entrance, once again Little Sal hung close to his boss, jumping from the vehicle and rushing to keep up. But when he followed the gurney past the admitting desk, a voice stopped him in his tracks.

“I'm sorry. You can't go beyond this point.” The desk nurse said the words, sharp-edged and angry, the same lady whom Trudy had argued with earlier. Her name was Judy.

Little Sal approached her, all 320 pounds of him, ironic considering his name, and hovered over the nurse, staring her down. His little, round, dark eyes penetrated to her core. The nurse flushed, knowing full well her hot flash was from feeling turned on by Little Sal's eyes. Even for their intensity, they were bedroom eyes with a softness lurking somewhere. Not surprisingly, those penetrating eyes got him free admittance into the cubicle where they'd taken the Salami.

When he entered, a doctor was feeling the Salami's abdomen.

“It's rigid,” he said to the assisting nurse. “We're going to have to go in there and operate pronto.”

The amorous admitting nurse, Judy, hovered in the door way. “Hey, big boy!” she purred. “I can help you kill the time while you wait for your friend to have surgery.”

Little Sal smiled.


* * *
Later, when the Salami came to, he was in a semi-private room with another fellow. The guy had visitors so Salami pretended to be asleep. He hated all the social necessities like saying hi and my name is...to total strangers. As he lay though and his head cleared from the murkiness of anesthesia, his first lucid thought was that he was in the hospital because of pain in his stomach. Fear clutched his chest. The key! It must have been the key he swallowed causing the pain. Did they take it out of him? Where was the key? He needed it to get to the diamond. He needed it. Little Sal? Where was Little Sal?

At that moment, he heard the shuffle of visitors preparing to leave, the scrape of a chair on the floor, the tone of the voices changing. He heard their last farewells. A British voice said, “Get well, Detective Miller!” and another said, “Bye, Buzz, love ya!”

Buzz...and Miller? He put the words together. He was in a room with Buzz Miller! The most accomplished cop in New Albany? The guy he had personally threatened in court after Buzz's testimony sent him up the river for five years? That Buzz Miller? Where was Little Sal?