Chapter 184

word count 1236


No one answered Nick the salami's request. The ambulance kept moving at high speed along long, lost roads into a virtual wilderness. He was strapped to a gurney in the vehicle and the lights were out, although he could see two forms moving around him, checking monitors and god only knew what else. Two windows on the back door offered a panorama of the passing road and the increasingly more numerous forested areas as they journeyed. They were heading somewhere far beyond the city. That was for sure.

And then it hit him, the official mob doctor. His office was past the suburbs in a desolate, rural area. The privacy out there gave the medical man good opportunity to do his work without neighbors seeing who had come and gone to the office. The gears in salami's brain worked overtime with thoughts and ideas churning. And then he remembered—he'd completely forgotten his sickness, the key, the locker. He had thought they took him to the OR at the hospital, but now he wasn't sure. He'd been anesthetized all right. He was groggy from it, but what happened, or not? With great care he lifted the blanket covering him. He looked, his eyes searching frantically. No wound, no stitches. No one had opened him up. The key was still in him! But apparently he'd been shot up with enough drugs not to feel the pain anymore.

And then he realized the worst of it. Dr. Bigelow, the mob doctor, must be planning to remove the key at his place. That's where they were heading. How did they know about the key? They couldn't have figured out what the key was for. But they must have figured if he swallowed it to hide it, it must be something good.

"Hey?" he called out. "Where are we going?"

"Oh, I think you know," one of the strangers answered. He leaned closer to reveal his face.

"Rainman! What the fuck?"

"You didn't think we bought that song and dance you gave us, did you?"

But what did they know, and were they for sure taking him to Dr. Bigelow? He needed for them to show their hands. "So what's going on and where are we going?"

Rainman laughed, a deep, intimidating chuckle, and turned away. The other guy, a medico in a white lab coat, took the salami's pulse. Obviously, he was some lab flunky on the payroll.

“Hey, can ya help me, fella?” salami whispered when the guy leaned close. “Please!”

The guy snorted and ignored him. “You need to relax. Your pulse is racing,” he said.

Salami knew it when they turned up Dr. Bigelow's driveway. The snakelike curves as the ambulance maneuvered were unmistakable. Now maybe he would find out just how deep the shit was he'd stepped in. A part of him rebelled, surmising the worst case scenario, an abdominal search, by a hack doctor with limited anesthesia...and once they knew what the key was for, they didn't need him at all.

Dr. Bigelow had his examining room ready. His nurse stood by, laying out sponges, pulling instruments from a sterilizer. As they rolled the salami in and he saw the table, a huge one, black leather with straps on the sides, fresh sheets laid in place, his heart began a drum beat at ever increasing rhythms. This couldn't be true. They were going to cut into him here? It was crude! Frankenstein had it better. He struggled on the gurney, pulling against his restraints, trying to get free. Although where he thought he could go, he had no idea.

Dr. Bigelow was a rotund fellow, like a barrel with arms and legs. He always stunk of tobacco from the cigars he loved, his breath always rancid, and beads of sweat constantly rolled off his forehead. As soon as the men lifted salami onto the table, the doc bent over to examine him. His stink was overwhelming.

Then doc turned and switched on a light to display an x-ray on a screen. It was the salami's x-ray. His name and the hospital were etched along the top. The distinct form of a key was in full display in the middle of the scan.

"Thank you, fellows, for getting me this x-ray. It will make the job a lot easier," Dr. Bigelow murmured, stretching to look closer.

"No problem," rainman said. "We had someone watching him every minute in the hospital, and when the doctors commented on that x-ray and how there looked like a key in his stomach, well, we knew we didn't want them taking it out." He chuckled. Then he leaned over the salami. "Little Sal was clueless, by the way. He was just a diversion for you...to make you think it was safe to keep your defenses down."

"Now, about this key," Dr. Bigelow continued. "What's it to, salami? We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way."

The salami quaked in fear. He'd heard about Dr. Bigelow's methods. The man may have been a doctor, but he was a sadist at heart. Unspeakable horrors took place in this examine room all the time. He knew that. He transported some of the victims here himself...waited in the outer room, heard the screams, went in at the end to remove the body, saw the nurse cleaning up the mess. The room would always be covered in blood. Bile exploded up his throat as he recalled the carnage. The condition of the bodies when they came out...severed limbs, gaping holes in the torsos, big enough to stick your hand into...cuts streaking along every available area of skin, making it look like spaghetti.

I am in deep trouble, he thought.

* * *

Hank's blood was boiling. Whenever he had to do anything that included Buzz in it, it bothered him. He'd never truly recovered from their bad feelings toward one another regarding Buzz's late wife, Jeannie. And now the fool was up to his usual nonsense, taking a swing at the English fellow and getting, frankly, his just desserts. Would the guy ever learn to control his temper?

“Is something bothering you? You look like you're ready to explode.” Marisa Wells, his new partner, eyed him suspiciously. “Was it something I said?”

He looked at her and smiled, a rare motion for the by-the-books cop. “No, no! Not at all. Nothing to do with you anyway.”

He liked her as a partner...older than most of the female officers in the department. She kept constant that “all business” exterior which he could appreciate. Over her 20 years in the department, there had never been a bad word said about her. And she was good at her job, tough as any man. She wasn't married. There were rumors she might have a “life partner.” Hank didn't care what her life choices were as long as he could trust her with his life. That's what partners did for one another. Yessir, no more of that silly, mind-always-on-the-ladies Gilberto. Things with Marisa would be good cop work and getting the job done. Good riddance to that crazy Latino!

And now to see about Buzz. Another idiot he had to put up with. Seriously, were there no real crimes going on in this city? Between Buzz, Gil, and Trudy and their run ins with the law, he had a full slate lately.