Marvin shot upright, shouting. The last image he saw was that of a pistol to his head, right before the muzzle flash blinded his view. He looked around. It was a hospital room. It was a simple room, with a large window looking over the City of Lights, a television up on a high shelf, and the usual things one finds in a hospital room. Luckily, there was no-one next to him. There was a large, puffy bandage around his entire head. His face was extremely sore, as if he'd been in a fistfight. It hurt to blink. He rested his head on the rubber-foam pillow. The pelting of rain on his window lulled him back to sleep.
He was next awoken when the nurse opened the blinds, flooding the room in early morning light. When Marvin moved his head to the side, the nurse noticed his motion.
"Ah, Mr. Willis, you're awake. I'll inform the doctor." Marvin didn't answer, instead watching the shapely nurse leave the room. As she walked away from the open door, he saw a bear in a blue uniform sitting outside his room.
"Shit," he muttered, ever so lightly. Several minutes later, an old finch walked into the room, escorted by two detectives. They were not the people Marvin wanted to see.
"Good morning, comrade," Fedorov said, taking a seat at the foot of the bed.
"We found you- again. Looks like someone wanted you dead, Henry."
"Yeah, well, he screwed up."
"Excuse me," the doctor interrupted. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take a look at the patient."
"Yes. We will be outside," Matkovich said, smiling wickedly at Marvin. "We'll be right back."
The doctor, who quickly introduced himself as Gilbert Petit, began explaining to Marvin what had happened, all in a dry medical terminology that somehow made sense to the Lab. As he spoke, Petit inspected the bandages, looking for any abnormalities. Finding none, he excused himself and left the room. Fox and Fedorov re-entered.
"Where were we?" Matkovich asked, sitting in the same chair. Carmelita stood by the side table, arms folded.
"Who did this?" Fox asked.
"Lawyer," was the answer.
"You don't get one, Willis," Fedorov said. "We need your information now."
"Lawyer."
"Look, Henry. Whoever did this tried to kill you. We know you run with powerful groups. They'll find out you're still alive. We can protect you."
"Pshh. Yeah, right. Lawyer."
The two detectives exchanged glances.
"Okay. Do your thing," Carmelita said with a wave of her hand. Matkovich stood and approached Marvin. Carmelita, at the same time, took a pillow from under the bed and held it in her hands. Moving simultaneously, they lunged onto Marvin. Fox shoved the pillow over his head to muffle his cries as she put a knee on his forearm to keep it still. On the other side of the bed, Fedorov braced down Marvin's other arm with his shin while injecting the IV drip full of a clear liquid from a syringe. The chemical mixed with the drip, making its way into Marvin's system. Ten, perhaps fifteen seconds later, the Lab began to calm down. His struggling subsided, his breathing became more regular. He actually began to laugh a little.
"What's in that stuff?" Fox asked, slowly removing the pillow from Marvin's mouth.
"A little of this, a little of that," Fedorov answered, beaming with pride. "It's amazing how useful this substance becomes. Learned to make it a couple of years ago, before the Fall."
The detectives backed off of the patent, which was in a psychedelic euphoria.
"Fast, too," Carmelita observed. They waited another three minutes, to let the powerful drug take effect. They purposely gave him a little less, his resistance already weakened by the steady dosage of morphine.
"Okay, he is ready." Carmelita approached Marvin, who looked as if he was on a roller coaster in his mind.
"Henry?"
"Hmm?" Marvin squeaked.
"Who did this to you?"
"Heheaha… lawyer…"
"Henry," Fox said, becoming angry, "who did this to you?" she tapped the bandage, to remind Marvin of the pain.
"Ow… um… Mr. Abernathy…"
"What's his first name?" Fox asked as Fedorov began writing in a small notebook.
"E-e-e-ethster? Easter? No, that's not right… Ethan, I think. He's mean."
"Is he the man who shot you? Ethan Abernathy?"
"Hmm… yeah. He put the gun to my head… bang…"
"Damn, Matkovich! This stuff turns him into a four-year-old!"
"But he tells the truth, nyet?" Carmelita put a hand on Marvin's shoulder.
"Where is Mr. Abernathy? Henry? Where is the man who shot you?"
"Big… party… he's always in the glass room…" Marvin's head drooped to the side.
"Henry, Henry!" Fox tried to awaken the Lab, to no avail. "Damn," she said. "What'd you get?" Carmelita asked, approaching Fedorov and looking over his shoulder. There were three lines of notes, all in Russian. Matkovich pointed to the first one.
"Abernathy, Ethan," he pointed to the second and third lines, "'Big Party', I don't know what that is, and 'glass room'."
"Big party? Could mean anything. Let's get back to the office. I'll run Abernathy through the system, see what we can find."
"How do you feel, Mr. Willis?" the nurse asked, taking the tray of food scraps away.
"Like a freight train hit me," Marvin answered. The drugs made the body feel as if it had been intensely exercising, giving the victim a muscular soreness. He had no memory of the event. He remembered waking up, but not much else. The doctor said he had awoken earlier, but the concussion may have damaged the memory part of the brain. In his dry medical terminology, Dr. Petit explained that he may experience bouts of short-term memory loss. The bandages had come off. There was going to be a big scar, but the hair would grow back, masking it.
"Well, make sure you get your rest, Mr. Willis," The nurse said, extending her hand for a handshake. Marvin looked at her with a confused expression. It wasn't customary for a nurse to shake a patent's hand on her way out of the room. He slowly took her hand. There was something smooth and delicate in her hand, and she quickly pressed it into his hand. She smiled and left the room. Marvin looked down at the folded paper. He opened it up and read it to himself.
Don't mind the nurse, we paid her off. At ten o'clock, make sure to look out your room window. Wear pants.
He looked around the room. His clothes had probably been taken away in the emergency room, but there was a pair of green hospital trousers over the back of a chair in the corner of the room, along with a pair of slippers. They'd have to do for whatever this person had in mind.
Harvey began the last leg of his run. He could see his simple city home just a quarter-mile away, downhill. Every muscle in his body was screaming for more oxygen from his tired lungs. He loved it. The pounding of his feet on the concrete sidewalk was the only sound that night. The lion slowed to check for traffic on a cross-street. There was a pair of headlights headed his way. He decided to jog in place and wait. No sense getting killed by some careless driver after all the stuff he'd lived through. Two tours of duty in some far-off land full of smelly people, getting shot at every day, not to mention a wife and two kids. Eight years at bank, working up from the government-given position designed to give returning veterans a place to work all the way to the general manager of one of the largest banks in Belgium.
The van slowed as it approached the corner. There was a big golden lab behind the wheel. He looked left, to Harvey. Harvey waved by holding up a hand as he continued to jog in place. The side door of the van opened and three men wearing black masks leaped out. They rushed Harvey, tackling him to the ground, throwing duct tape over his mouth and binding his hands with plastic rings, pulled tight around his wrists. The masked men threw the lion into the van and closed the door.
"Go!" O'Hanlan shouted.