This story is based on the 'Gunsmith Cats' manga by Kenichi Sonoda, with a few elements from the 'Riding Bean' OAV (1989). It is set after the last published manga in English as of March 2005.
Tell me what you thought of it, no matter what you have to say. I'm a big girl. :) I always welcome reader reactions, especially ones that go into detail. Please email me at MmeManga "at" aol dot com (address spelled out because this site strips all email addys and URLS) or leave your comments here.
NOTE: The complete version of this story is housed at my Livejournal, which is linked on my main page on this site. I have removed large sections of chapters Two, Eight and Thirty from the postings here because of the current site rules, although this story existed on the site long before those rules went into effect. I am sorry for any inconvenience to readers; this factor is unfortunately not under my control. The complete version will also be posted at Mediaminer. My former dedicated Gunsmith Cats site no longer exists.
DISCLAIMER: Characters of RALLY VINCENT, BEAN BANDIT, MAY HOPKINS, ROY COLEMAN, KEN TAKI copyright Kenichi Sonoda. All other characters, and story, copyright 2000--2005 by Madame Manga. Contact by email at MmeManga Do not sell or print for sale without the express written permission of the author. Do not archive. Permission is granted to circulate this text in electronic form, free of charge and with this disclaimer and the author's name attached. Do not plagiarize, alter, or appropriate this text in any way. This story is intended for personal entertainment purposes only. No infringement of any copyrights or other rights is intended.
ADULT CONTENT WARNING IN BOLD CAPS!
This story is not for kids or the easily offended. It contains explicit violence and extreme profanity. If you object to reading such things, do not read this story.
Chasing the Dragon
by Madame Manga
Chapter Seventeen
"Put the mother and child in my car," said 426, and the Dragons scurried to obey. Wojohowicz grabbed Sarah Brown and dug a hand in the breast pocket of the fatigues she had given to her, taking out a small object. She forced Tiffany's mouth open and put it in, whispering something to her. Tiffany nodded and swallowed.
Two men yanked the Charger's rear doors open and pulled out Wojohowicz and Tiffany while the Dragons holding Bean and Rally at gunpoint kept their positions. The driver of the truck that had hit the Charger started his engine and fled.
The Dragons left Sarah Brown where she was after ripping her child from her arms, the mother crying and half fainting, and pushed Wojohowicz toward the black Mercedes S500. Rally could see the FBI agent's arm muscles tensing below the too-tight silk blouse, and held her breath. What was she likely to do, and could Rally back her up? Her rifle, jammed crosswise under her feet, had so far escaped the Dragons' notice.
"No, the mother!" said 426 in mild irritation. "This woman is not Brown's wife." A Dragon grabbed Wojohowicz and stuck an automatic under her jaw. One more Dragon car, a BMW 540i in dark red, pulled up between the black Mercedes S500 and the police car. The BMW disgorged its armed passenger—now six Dragons held weapons on them, directed by 426.
The drivers of the BMW and of a dark green Lexus LS400 stayed behind the wheel with their weapons, as did the driver of the black S500. The man with the MP5K stood guard over that car. Eleven in all, seven of those deployed around them in a circle. All but their leader wore body armor under suit jackets or over jumpsuits. 426 wore only a dark grey suit and white shirt, blood-red tie and dress shoes, the suit cut loose and unconstricting. "Bind them," he said.
"Leggo me, bad man!" Tiffany fought and kicked, applying her teeth to the hand of the man who held her. The Dragon swore and hit the little girl across the face. She cried out in pain and went limp, sobbing. Rally hissed in horror, then felt rather than heard a vibration beside her, like the beginning of an earthquake: Bean.
Moving only her eyes, she caught his expression, spotlighted by the headlights of the car that pinned the Charger against the police car. Even Brown's child was still a child, obviously. Bean's hands gripped the Charger's wheel so hard she thought he might break it in pieces, his whole body shaking with violent tension.
"Bean!" she whispered. "Wait for—" The MAC-10 at her temple pushed harder, and she closed her lips. But Bean's fury remained in check for the moment, his grip loosening slightly with a noticeable effort.
426 stepped aside to let his men put the tiny girl in the car. Her wavy dark-blonde hair hung over her pale face, and they dumped her on the rear seat and bound her with duct tape, then rolled her into the foot well like a parcel. Rally ground her teeth, trembling. No matter what happened, they couldn't let 426 take Tiffany! Bean's face worked and twitched, his temples and ears turning red.
"My baby! My baby!" cried Sarah Brown as they dragged her from the Charger and bound her wrists behind her. "Please don't hurt my baby! You can do anything to me—let her go!"
"That is up to your husband," replied 426. "The original deadline is still in effect, in spite of the FBI's attempt to deceive me. I consider myself a forbearing man." He looked at his watch. "Nine-twenty-eight P.M. He has sixty-two minutes to reveal himself. After that, I will begin. With her, in front of you, and with a Web-cam broadcast in case your husband does not take me seriously. She is only a child, so will live perhaps half an hour."
He half-smiled, and Rally felt so sick to her stomach she wanted to scream. "You will occupy considerably more time, I anticipate, but of course your husband may interrupt the process before I have time to test that theory. Though if he does not respond to the screams of the child, it is unlikely that he will to the mother's. Only your ghosts will reproach him."
"NO!" shrieked Sarah. "Sly is dead! He can't reveal himself to anyone! For God's sake, have mercy!" She collapsed in tears.
"Yes, that is what you claim, and probably even believe. But I know otherwise!" He gestured, and the Dragons half-carried Sarah to the car as well, buckling a seatbelt around her and binding her ankles. Her piteous sobs and cries tore at Rally's heart, and she could tell that Wojohowicz felt exactly the same. "I must admit I am surprised that no one has heard from him yet. I did not expect that he would be so recalcitrant. But no matter."
426 looked at Rally. "Whether Brown comes forward or not, I have ample material here for my efforts. I assure you, Ms. Vincent, that I will learn where that money is, and I will hold you to account for your crimes." He looked at Wojohowicz. "An FBI agent? She will be useful for all manner of reasons, so I will hold her in reserve." He turned his eyes to Bean. "Roadbuster."
"Don't wear it out," said Bean through stiff lips.
"You have betrayed the trust of the Eight Dragon Triad."
"No shit?"
"No punishment is sufficient. But I will make the attempt anyway. Even if I wished to kill you quickly, Roadbuster, I doubt I would be able." 426 actually laughed.
"You done with the jawbone, Four? Because I'm about to perish of boredom here." Bean yawned. "All talk, like yer pal Brown. Take a shit or get off the crapper."
426 blinked slightly. "Very well." He turned to the Dragon holding Wojohowicz at gunpoint. "We will begin with the women. Remove the bounty hunter from the car first, and if she resists, shoot the agent." He went on in Cantonese, pointing at the dark red BMW.
Wojohowicz's fists clenched at her sides, and she met Rally's eyes with a glance that meant Don't be timid on my account! Rally didn't know Wojohowicz well, but obviously she was a competent and physically trained FBI agent; she felt sure that she could be counted on.
Rally made a slight inclination of the head toward Bean, then at the Mercedes with the hostages. Wojohowicz nodded almost imperceptibly, then slid her eyes right and left at the Dragons. Rally winked, then narrowed her eyes at 426. Wojohowicz pursed her lips; Rally made a tiny shrug.
"Out," said the man with the MAC-10, opening her door. Rally quickly put her feet outside to draw his attention away from the rifle, then bent and caught it up, planting one foot on the ground to push off.
WHAM! She did an upward shoulder ram on her guard, hitting his solar plexus. Bean had already grabbed the Uzi. He pulled it forward and wrenched the weapon from the owner's grasp.
Rally knocked her guard off balance, pushed off him with a flying kick to the crotch and somersaulted backwards to gain some distance. Two other men converged on her and the man holding Wojohowicz cocked his .45. Wojohowicz pretended to faint, pulling her captor down with her, and grabbed his gun, jamming it against his armored chest and firing.
He screamed soundlessly, wind and consciousness pounded out of him, and crumpled to the ground. Bean erupted from the Charger like a volcano, swinging the Uzi by the muzzle and belting its owner with it. Rally landed with rifle aimed, sweeping from left to right. Bean's victim went down with a bloody laceration across his face, nose nearly torn off.
426 bent his knees in a defensive crouch, hands going up in a martial-arts pose, but he did not attack, stepping back from the line of fire with one man on guard in front of him. The driver of the Lexus opened his passenger door and took a shot.
Bean threw the Uzi at him like a boomerang and shattered the window, hitting the driver in the face and knocking him flat on the seat. KRAK KRAK KRAK said Rally's rifle as she shot from the hip, and her first magazine was empty! Her guard and the two other Dragons screamed, plugged through their bullet-resistant vests and lung-shot. Two collapsed and writhed; one dropped to his knees and drew a nine-millimeter Glock.
"That's for Larry Sam!" she yelled, ducking behind the Charger's open door and quickly changing the empty magazine for one of the full ones clipped beside it.
BBRRAAAAPP! Bean ran to the BMW as its driver and the Mercedes' guard opened fire on him, hitting his jacket and the pavement. KRAK KRAK! Rally shot the Glock out of the wounded Dragon's hand and removed his trigger finger. 426 shouted, and the man guarding him lunged for Bean, who stiff-armed the Dragon so hard he flew over a hood and broke the windshield with his head. He rolled off unconscious.
Bean reached the door of the BMW and punched straight through the window to take out its cowering driver, then withdrew his fist and whirled to face 426, who still stood aside from the fray as if it were beneath his dignity. Eight of eleven accounted for! Only 426 himself and the Mercedes' guard and driver were still in commission.
Rally took four shots at 426, aiming carefully. He moved like a ghost, to Rally's astonishment evading every bullet. Yelling in Cantonese, he took something out of a pocket; his black Mercedes started up, the driver crouching low. Bean stalked directly for 426.
The assassin flung what looked like two empty hands at Bean; four small throwing stars flew out, glittering in the headlights. One took Bean in the wrist as he blocked it, one stuck solidly in his jacket, one hit him in the neck, the last angled for his unprotected right eye. Rally put a bullet through it and deflected it away.
426 glanced at her, basilisk eyes narrowing, and almost casually drove a wicked-looking spike through the air at her. Rally dodged and hit it aside with her rifle. It left a scar on the receiver. "Hey! That's my SIG 551!" she yelled. "You know how hard it is to get these now?"
She aimed at 426 again and flipped the lever to three-round bursts. One moment he was twenty feet away and in her sights; the next he took a running start, leaped into the air, did an unusual twisting flip like a gymnast and landed right in front of her, inside her guard. "Whoa!"
WHAK! 426 struck her on the right shoulder with the bladed edge of his left hand as he descended, a blow she never saw coming, and Rally let out a yelp. Her right arm instantly went numb and she nearly dropped her rifle. 426 drove the heel of his right hand up under her chin, snapping it up, and she bit her tongue and staggered backwards, grabbing her rifle in her left hand and firing at him.
He dropped gracefully to a crouch and the burst flew over his head. He was faster than O'Toole, and far more skilled, obviously—his technique made him an untouchable opponent, barehanded though he was. Springing up, 426 hit Rally in the stomach with a whipping kick as Bean tried to grab him, bowie knife in hand.
She fell, gasping in pain, and her rifle skidded away. On the backswing of his kick 426 drove his shoe heel into Bean's crotch, provoking a grunt and pained expression, but Bean remained upright, trying to fight the man though unable to lay a hand on him.
WHAK! WHAK! Bean suffered half a dozen sharp, expertly-aimed kicks and strikes without ever coming close with the knife. Though he outweighed 426 by close to eighty pounds, he staggered at every blow. WHAK! WHAK! Bean lost his bowie knife under a car and flicked out the switchblade. WHAK! 426 jumped in the air and nailed Bean square in the face, the other foot knocking aside the knife.
"OW!" Bean put a hand to his face, his mouth and nose bleeding, and looked for his switchblade. Wojohowicz aimed and fired at 426, but the assassin dodged with another twisting flip and threw one more spike while still airborne. It stuck in the barrel of the .45. Wojohowicz looked at it in surprised disgust, threw it away and drew her ankle knife, rolling a bleeding Dragon over to find her own handgun.
Bean backed off from the attack, pulling the throwing stars out of his jacket and neck and wrist; the small wounds trickled blood. 426 surely couldn't expect such weapons to have much effect on Bean! Were they poisoned? Bean looked perfectly healthy, however, leaving aside the blood and rising bruises on his face, and Rally yelled, struggling upright.
"The car! The car!" Bean was already starting for the Mercedes with the hostages, but 426 extracted something from his sleeve and threw it—a set of wire bolas. They tangled Bean's legs and he fell headlong, catching himself with both hands.
As he struggled to disentangle his feet, 426 hurtled into the air. He came down from a four-foot height with both feet slamming on Bean's back and neck. WHUNK! Bean's chin bounced off the pavement.
"Oough!" he grunted—426 had probably broken a rib or two right through his armored jacket. Bean rolled over and made a grab, chin and mouth bleeding afresh. Rally scrabbled for her rifle, but 426 jumped free and over the BMW as lightly as a teenager despite his grey hairs.
"Aw, shit!" Bean complained, still working on the wire bolas as Rally and Wojohowicz ran to him. With his multi-tool and Rally's help, he clipped some wires and disentangled others. 426 got into the rear seat of the Mercedes S500 next to Sarah and slammed the door. The guard jumped into the front passenger seat.
Wojohowicz had recovered her ten-millimeter and Rally's CZ75 from the fallen Dragons. She threw the CZ75 to Rally, who caught it and aimed, the numbness in her right arm beginning to ease. Using the BMW for cover, she and Wojohowicz fired at the Mercedes' rear tires. Run-flats again! The guard stuck the MP5K out the window and ripped off a couple of bursts, then the driver let off the brake and began to steer around a patch of broken glass.
Bean freed his legs, got up, did a one-handed vault over the BMW and lunged at the Mercedes as it started. He grabbed one rear door handle and rammed his elbow into the glass. The window shattered and he reached inside to pop the lock. The door came open, but the guard thrust the MP5K past the screaming Sarah at Bean's face.
Bean opened his jaws wide and clamped down on the Dragon's wrist, jerking his head to the side and ripping the gun out of the man's grip. It clattered on the pavement as the guard howled, clutching his bleeding arm against his chest. The car was moving. Bean seized the door by the empty window frame and planted his feet, leaning back; he grabbed a light pole with the other arm, looped his elbow around it and held on. The tires spun and smoked, but the car only inched forward.
"Get 'em!" he yelled. Rally sprinted to the car, holstering her CZ75, and tried to pull Tiffany from the foot well. She was wedged under her mother's bound feet, and 426 struck at Rally, Sarah's body partially blocking his way. Rally barely dodged another numbing blow. Bean's face turned red and broke out in sweat, shoulder and elbow joints popping audibly. He was holding back a three-hundred horsepower engine with one arm! He would have to let go or be torn apart, but he was holding on!
Wojohowicz ran around the other side of the Mercedes and broke 426's window with her ten-millimeter. "Freeze!" she yelled. "Stop the car!" He seemed to be out of throwing weapons and hesitated with hand poised at his coat as the agent aimed at his head. Sarah screamed again and the window frame that Bean held began to bend. Rally would have to get the mother out first before she could reach the child!
She leaned into the car, grabbing Sarah under the armpits and unbucking her seatbelt, yanked her out and rolled backwards on the ground with her. Tiffany still lay in the foot well, apparently unconscious.
An awful sound of tearing muscle—Bean's left shoulder wrenched out of the socket. He yelled something inarticulate, his grip slipping on the light pole until he hung on with only his fingers. Rally knew the pain must have been incredible, but Bean persisted.
The door hinges groaned, bolts popping. Bean's boots slipped several feet, the car beginning to drag him. Rally disentangled herself from Sarah after hauling her a few yards away and left her still bound, prone on the road behind the Mercedes. She scrambled for the car again, trying to grab Tiffany, but Bean lost his grip on the light pole and the Mercedes took off.
The little girl slipped from her grasp. The bent door hung open at a crazy angle, grating on the ground and sending up sparks. Bean half-ran, half-dragged alongside the car still locked on to the door with his injured arm, his boots scraping on the asphalt.
"Baby!" wailed Sarah as Wojohowicz knelt to cut her bonds. "My baby!" Rally ran after Bean for a moment, but the Mercedes was gaining speed and she knew she couldn't catch it. Perhaps one of the other cars—Rally stopped and ran back, leaping into the dark red 540i and shoving the limp driver aside and out. The keys were still in the ignition and the seat was covered with glass from the broken window.
She started the car and peeled out, turning on the brights and veering around Wojohowicz and Sarah. Just in time to see Bean grab the top of the speeding Mercedes' car door with his one good hand and vault upwards! He landed halfway on the roof with his legs hanging into the door opening. Rally followed, heart in her throat. He had a dislocated shoulder! What if he lost his grip and fell?
Bean slid down until his feet hit the seat, bent his knees, gripped the top of the door opening and slid down and inwards with a rapid swinging kick aimed at 426. Rally could see 426 evade the attack, the dome light on with the open door, and Bean landed on the seat and pushed off with his right hand to shove his body all the way into the car. He was not likely to fall now, though the door was hanging open, but how was he going to get the girl out safely at that speed? Forty miles an hour and accelerating!
Bullet holes appeared in the back window. The guard in the front seat was firing at Bean as he struggled with 426, his left arm flopping and obviously disabled. He managed to grab the Dragon by the throat and they both went down, vanishing from Rally's line of sight through the back window. In a couple of seconds 426 leaped up again, apparently crouching on the seat. Bean did the same and cracked his head on the ceiling. A car's back seat was close quarters for a fight!
426 lashed a fist at Bean, who blocked the strike. The Dragon's left hand moved up with lightning speed behind the feint and swung at his face with a slashing motion. Something glinted, like a knife, but it looked like several blades at once jutting from 426's left fist.
Bean jumped backwards to avoid the weapon and nearly threw himself out of the speeding car. He stopped his fall just in time with a grab to the car's roof. Hanging halfway out, anchored only by his right hand, Bean swung his body backwards and pushed off with his feet, arcing out and aiming back inside again.
Rally leaned on the gas and gradually drew alongside the Mercedes, rolling down the passenger window of the BMW. If Bean got a chance, he might be able to pass Tiffany into the car Rally drove! "Bean!" she shouted, gesturing.
He caught her eye and dove to grab the girl, her little body curling up against his chest, and awkwardly threw up his left forearm to block another of 426's strikes. His jacket took a set of three parallel cuts right down to the chain mail. The weapon flashed again; three blades an inch and a half apart, six inches long and razor-pointed, projecting from 426's knuckles. It was something like a set of Chinese tiger claws, but with longer, wider blades sharpened along both edges.
If Bean or the girl caught that thing in the face, or the throat, it would tear them to shreds! Rally slewed to the right and cracked up against the Mercedes for a moment, pushing in as close as she could and yelling.
"Bean! Now!" He heard her above the wind and hoisted Tiffany in readiness. Rally reached out to catch, keeping her left hand on the wheel. The guard fired at her, the BMW's windshield shattering. Rally ducked and avoided the flying glass, cracking the car against the Mercedes again.
But just before Bean could pass Tiffany through the window, 426 struck. An arcing slash from behind, the left hand taking the left side of Bean's throat. The collar of his jacket impeded the blow, but Rally, no more than four feet from him, saw the triple blades bite into flesh.
Bean grunted in pain, trying to pass Tiffany to Rally with both hands, unable to defend himself. 426 yanked his head back by the hair and raked the blades across his throat again, right to left. They ripped appallingly deep, blood gushing from the wounds, and Bean fell backwards into the car, still holding the girl protectively to his chest.
To her horror, Rally saw Bean's blood spurt upwards as high as the headliner. 426 had nearly cut his throat! A major artery was slashed and his heart was pumping blood straight out of his body!
Bean reflexively grabbed his wounded throat for a moment, his face splashed with his own blood. 426 wrestled Tiffany away from him and threw her to the guard in the front seat. Bean twisted upright and began to reach for her. The guard raised a revolver, cocked it, and put it to the girl's head.
Bean suddenly froze. 426 said something that Rally could not make out, but the intent was obvious. Desist, or we shoot her on the spot! Bean's chest heaved with rapid breaths, and when he swiveled his head to look at Rally, she saw that his entire shirt and jacket front was already soaked with blood.
"Bean!" she screamed. 426 took Tiffany's little hand, held it up in front of Bean's eyes, and displayed his bladed claw. He was threatening to cut off a finger! Bean took another quick look at Rally.
"Bean! He will do it! You know that! Jump into the car!" His teeth gritted, and 426 drew the blade across Tiffany's index finger, opening a small cut. The little girl screamed. Bean, shaking with rage, tried to grab the child again and met the tiger claws. The blades punched through his palm and pinned his right hand to the back of the driver's seat. With a yell and a wrench, Bean pushed his hand forward to disengage it. 426 yanked the claws back and out. "Bean! It's no use!"
For the third time he looked at her, his gushing blood soaking his clothes, the Mercedes' upholstery, and 426's suit trousers. Both his left arm and his right hand were badly injured, his throat was slashed, and if he kept bleeding at that rate, he would soon go into shock.
426 smiled and held the claws to Tiffany's face, speaking again. Bean's face contorted with helpless fury. He jerked upright and stood on the seat, leaning out of the Mercedes and holding the hanging door.
Rally held down the gas pedal with her left foot, lifted her right leg and kicked the passenger door ajar. Bean took a deep breath, let go of his throat wound, shoved Rally's passenger door all the way open and pushed off from the Mercedes, landing prone on the BMW's seat and halfway out of the car, boot toes skidding on the pavement.
Rally grabbed his jacket collar and he pulled himself all the way inside and sat up. His clothes were saturated with blood. More blood pumped from the throat wounds in time with his rapid heartbeat. It ran down his jacket in thick streams and dripped steadily on the upholstery. "Bean! My God, are you all right!"
"He said…tell her to turn the car around, or the kid goes blind," said Bean in a dreadful voice.
Rally gulped and took a U-turn, nearly in tears as the Mercedes sped away with Tiffany. Bean clamped his right hand on his wound again. She knew that it would not seal itself or stop bleeding with pressure alone—not a severed artery, not with three cuts clean across it! Bean knew that also, of course. His expression was uneasy under the blood spatters.
"You are going to need surgery fast, Bean! Where can I take you?" She raced back down the hill towards the Charger for lack of a better direction. Perhaps Wojohowicz could help. She saw a pair of ambulances stopped in the road, lights going, and had to slow down to weave through the traffic jam around the accident scene.
"Dunno." He jammed forefinger and thumb into the lowest and deepest cut, grunting in pain, and tried to pinch off the artery.
"Haven't you found an underground doctor in San Francisco yet? What about the buckshot wounds you took?"
"Doctored 'em myself." The blood still pumped in horrifying quantities, and Bean looked down at his jeans, now entirely red as well. "Damn..."
The ambulances left, sirens wailing, but the traffic still would not yield. The minutes ticked by, Bean losing more and more blood, his face paling.
"Then you have to go to a hospital!" Rally approached the wrecked Charger again, coming to a stop and yelling out the window to Wojohowicz, who had put Sarah Brown back into the car and was talking into the radio. "Where's the nearest hospital? Bean's wounded! He's losing blood!"
"There isn't one very near! I'll ask for another ambulance!" said Wojohowicz. "Smith, you hear that? Bandit's injured…well, dislocated shoulder, for one thing! I told you he held the Mercedes in place! Vincent says he's bleeding. No, she looks all right. Where's the girl?" she asked Rally.
"Still in 426's car. He threatened to maim her unless we backed off. He's nearly cut Bean's throat! He's been stabbed through the hand, too!"
"Tiffany Brown still in Dragon custody!" said Wojohowicz into the radio. "Tracer pill in place! Start looking at the telemetry!"
"No goddamn hospital!" Bean lurched out of the BMW and leaned on its hood for support, unable to use either hand to grip anything. "They'll arrest me…"
"Where's my daughter?" asked Sarah, looking past the bleeding Bean. "Baby?"
"Bean, you've lost an awful lot of blood already, and it's not stopping! You have to get the slashes sewn up, and you may need a transfusion! Let me take you to a hospital!" Rally slid out of the BMW and put a hand towards Bean, hesitating. Did she dare touch him? "Please get back in the car! I can drive faster than any ambulance!"
He looked terrible, his face grey and breaking out in cold sweat under the splashes of blood, and waved her off. "No! I don't need a hospital!"
"Oh, my God!" said Wojohowicz, staring at the gouts of bright red spurting between Bean's fingers. She jumped out of the Charger. "He's got a cut artery!" Bean swayed and grabbed the BMW's hood. "Lie down, Bandit! Vincent, think! How much blood has he lost?"
"Where's my baby? Tiffany?" Sarah Brown got out of the Charger as well. "Is she in your car? Baby?"
"426 still has her, ma'am. I'm sorry. We're going to try to get her back."
"Aaaiiggh!" wailed Sarah, collapsing in tears.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," said Rally to Sarah. "We did our best. Bean was hurt trying to rescue her!"
"How much blood!" barked Wojohowicz, sounding a great deal like Smith.
Rally calculated rapidly. "Ten or twelve minutes at that rate of bleeding…about a cupful a minute…maybe, um, almost three quarts?—oh, my God."
"Shit…!" hissed Wojohowicz. "Six units? That's probably about a third of his blood already! He's going into shock! Bandit, lie down before you fall down!"
"I don't feel so good," said Bean absently, breathing hard. "Kinda dizzy."
Wojohowicz grabbed him around the waist. "Vincent, help me! He's going to fall!" Rally took his right arm and put it over her shoulders, and between them they lowered Bean to the ground. Rally took off her jacket and put it under his head.
"We need a pressure bandage! Give me your shirt!" said Wojohowicz to Rally, taking off Sarah Brown's silk blouse, and Rally pulled her own white knit top over her head, leaving her in her bra. "Ambulance is coming. We have to slow the bleeding until they get here, and I'm afraid it might be a while, because it's a summer Saturday night and all the services are busy. Shit—if I'd known, I'd have told them to leave the damn cops on the road and wait for you!" She seemed truly concerned for Bean; Rally felt gratitude and trepidation at the same time. Was he going to be all right?
"Don't go taking me to any hospital," said Bean, sounding agitated. His hands shook and clenched. "Vincent, promise me you ain't taking me!"
Rally rolled the shirts together and pressed them against Bean's throat wound. "Calm down, Bean. No one's arresting you. Smith promised, remember?" She could feel his heart going a hundred beats a minute and accelerating as his body tried to circulate his dwindling blood supply fast enough to supply oxygen to the vital organs. "Now chill out and let's try to get your pulse rate down!"
He glanced at her half-naked torso with a smile, eyes beginning to focus again. "Popping your top for a bandage? That sure ain't the way to slow my pulse, babe!"
"Bean…oh, be quiet!"
"Put your feet up on the car seat," said Wojohowicz, helping Bean to do so. "There we go. Is it better lying down?"
"Yeah."
"Just stay like that, and keep pressure on the wound. You'll be all right."
"Ahh, it's nothin'." Bean grimaced and looked at Rally. "What did I do to my damn shoulder? Kinda hurts."
"You dislocated it hanging onto a Mercedes! Don't you remember?"
"Oh. Yeah." He seemed slightly perplexed. "Wouldja pop it in for me?"
"Uh…"
"I'll do it, Vincent," said Wojohowicz. "You keep pressing on that bandage." She moved to Bean's left side, grabbing his bloody hand and elbow. "Brace yourself, Bandit."
"Yeah. Ready."
Wojohowicz planted her feet, arranged his arm at the right angle and yanked hard. There was a sound of sliding joints and a loud pop. Bean grunted and moved his arm. "Uhm—OK, I can feel it's in. You did that good, babe. Agent Wojohowicz, is it?"
"Yep, but that's a mouthful. Call me Sue," said Wojohowicz with a smile, putting his hand on his chest and patting it for a moment. "No charge."
"Oh, I pay my debts, Sue," said Bean, returning the smile. He idly examined Wojohowicz's sports bra and tight waist.
Rally felt a little twinge—yes, it was jealousy. She flushed and looked down; the blood began to soak through the pad she held against Bean's wound. "Agent…look."
Wojohowicz looked. "Oboy. Mrs. Brown, we need more bandage material. Give me those fatigues." Wojohowicz shed the slacks she wore.
"But…I'll be naked!" Sarah protested.
"Yes, you will. This man's bleeding, ma'am. He needs your help. See, I've used all my clothes, and Ms. Vincent here is wearing leather pants, which won't help." Wojohowicz folded the slacks and put them over the top of the blouses; Rally clamped the thick pad tightly down. Bean closed his eyes as she leaned over him, his face growing paler and paler. Sarah reluctantly began to undress.
"When is that ambulance coming?" said Rally.
"I hear a siren," said Wojohowicz. "Look, there's Smith and Wesson!" An FBI car pulled up and Wesson and Manichetti got out of the rear, Smith out of the front passenger seat. "Sir! We're over here!"
"Jesus." Smith jogged forward. He seemed to register the three semi-naked women clustered around Bean as he lay on the ground, but his attention centered on Bean. "He all right?"
"Severed artery and a bunch of other wounds," said Wojohowicz. "Lost about six-seven units by now. He's shocky—clammy skin, rapid respiration, anxiety, the works."
Smith's eyes widened. "Holy fuck—well, they're coming as fast as they can! I told 'em an FBI agent was down. They clear the boards for law enforcement."
"No shit?" said Bean, eyes still closed and smiling slightly.
Manichetti lumbered up behind Smith, out of breath. "Sarah? Ma'am? You OK?" Although she was half undressed, Sarah leaped at him and he embraced her.
Rally barely noticed, having little attention left for anyone but Bean. "Oh…Manny…" she heard Sarah weep. "They have my baby…" Manichetti let out a sobbing gasp and hugged her close, patting her hair.
"Christ, at least he's still alive," said Smith with relish. "Looks like hell. Is all of that his blood? Man, I recall in the 'Nam—"
"Pete…" Rally gave him a pleading look.
"Sorry, kid." He took off his jacket and shirt, ripping his tie knot out. "Here's some more fabric if you need it before the medics arrive. Mrs. Brown, you just put that jumpsuit back on in front of the men; that's a good girl." Manichetti blushed, letting go of Sarah, but she clung to him, sobbing. Smith squatted next to Bean in his undershirt. "Hey, soldier. How you doing there?" Bean grunted.
"Pete, how are Roy and May? What happened at the nightclub?"
Smith looked at her. "The Dragons have your partner. 426 used her for a shield and took her away. We couldn't do a thing. I'm sorry."
"Oh, no... But she wasn't in 426's car!"
"Must have switched her to another one. She's been kidnapped, yeah, but I'm betting they'll keep her alive. The Dragons will be getting desperate now. We did get about twenty of the soldiers and sub-leaders, and the SFPD is mopping up the trail you left through town. That leaves only the three highest numbers and maybe eight or ten active rankers. Red Mountain and Red Gourd may already have left the country on a yacht. The Triad's neck is broken. These are its dying thrashes. The FBI will take care of it, Miss Rally."
"Good. And…and Roy?" She hoped he wasn't saving the worst news for last.
"Coleman's OK. Took a blow to the head, but he's conscious now. We sent him to the hospital for observation."
"Oh, thank God…"
Smith looked Bean over again. "Damn, he's bleeding faster all the time," he said aside to Rally. "Say…what's this cut on his wrist? And the holes in this hand? Weird weapon."
"It was a three-pronged set of tiger claws, and a throwing star. He got a star in the neck too, but you can't see the wound now—"
"No shit. I don't wonder that there's a lot of blood from the big wounds. But look at this." He pulled back Bean's jacket sleeve and pointed at the small punctures from the star. "This little cut is bleeding like a faucet. No clotting."
Smith, Rally, and Wojohowicz all looked at each other.
"Anticoagulant," said Wojohowicz in a whisper.
"Huh?" said Bean, opening one eye.
"Oh, my God," muttered Rally. She pressed harder on the pad, now almost entirely red. "They WERE poisoned! Is he going to be…"
"Ambulance is almost here." Wojohowicz put a hand on Rally's shoulder and caught her gaze. The agent's grey-blue eyes were serious, but reassuring, and Rally managed a smile in return. "We're keeping the blood flow down. Just keep the pressure on."
Wesson, still in Sly Brown drag and makeup, loitered over from the car and surveyed the scene, turquoise eyes lingering on the women's bras. Rally felt his gaze and glared at him for a moment. He looked like a cheap, furtive version of Brown, his mascara running. "What a spectacle," he said with a snide undertone. "The celebrated Bean Bandit and his nubile cheering section—"
"No cracks, Bob," snarled Wojohowicz, her hands covered in Bean's blood. "Try stripping off some of those overpriced glad rags!"
Bean opened his eyes and turned his head to the sound of Wesson's voice. He had been relaxed, though breathing rapidly and shaking with a racing pulse, but when he saw Wesson, backlit, dressed in Italian suit and with blond highlights, his whole body jerked and tensed, fists clenching.
"Hey, calm down," said Wojohowicz. "What's the matter?"
Rally looked and realized. "No, Bean, that's Wess—" He lunged upright to a sitting position, the bandages slipping away as she tried to keep pressure on the wound. "Stop! Lie down! The bleeding—!"
Bean stumbled to his feet and out of their grasping hands, face ghost-white and dotted with cold sweat. Entirely covered with blood from the neck down, his clothes shone dark, sticky red, the neck wound pumping fresh bright color over all. Wesson's eyes went wide. He took an involuntary step backwards, and Bean pounced like a tiger.
"NO! Bean, STOP!" Rally leaped up and started forward. "That's not—"
WHAM! It was too late; Bean had grabbed Wesson's jacket front, pulled back a fist and smashed it into his face, sending him ten feet backwards into the nearest Dragon car. "Aiigghh!" yelled the unfortunate agent, bouncing off and falling to the ground with blood spraying from his nose. "Help! Heeellllp! Get him off me, for the love of—"
"THAT'S NOT SLY BROWN!" screamed Rally. "BEAN!"
"Goddammit!" bellowed Smith. "Bandit, stop it! That's my partner!"
"BEAN!" Rally pulled on Bean's elbow. "STOP!"
KRUNCH! He kicked Wesson in the testicles. "EEEAAARRGGGHH!" screamed Wesson, doubling up on the ground and fumbling out his .45. KRAK! A slug whizzed past Bean's head.
"Fuck—!" shouted Smith. "Bob, NO!"
Rally took a flying leap and landed on Wesson, shielding his body with hers and grabbing his wrist. "STOP! Bean, this ISN'T Brown!" Wesson let out a sob of pain and terror, trying to shove her aside and point his shaking pistol at Bean. "Bean! Listen to me! THIS IS AGENT WESSON!"
"Shit! BREAK IT UP, BOTH OF YOU!"
Bean had aimed another kick, at Wesson's head this time, and paused with boot in midair. "What the hell you talking about?"
"This is Agent Wesson in disguise, you idiot! You just attacked an FBI agent! Again!"
"Agh…agh…agh…" whimpered Wesson, clutching his crotch with both hands.
Bean took another look and straightened up. "Oh. Sorry."
"Geez! You are INSANE!" Rally rolled off Wesson. "You OK, Agent?"
"Agh…"
Bean grimaced, half turned, bent his knees and fainted. Smith and Rally tried to catch him, leaping to his side, but only succeeded in slowing his fall. An ambulance roared up, sirens going full tilt, and three others arrived in rapid succession, the crews jumping out. "Over here!" bellowed Smith. "We got casualties!" Two paramedics with a rolling stretcher ran to them and bent over Bean. The others headed for the wounded and dead Dragons.
"Hey!" complained Wesson from the ground. "Whad aboud be? I'b the one who's hurd here! He broge by fugging nose!"
"How long has he been bleeding?" snapped a woman paramedic, trying to strip off Bean's jacket. "God, what's this jacket made of?" With Rally's and the FBI agents' help, the paramedics rolled Bean onto the stretcher and trundled him towards the waiting ambulance. "Is all of this his blood?"
"Yes!" Rally ran alongside. "Can…can I come with him? He's been bleeding for about…twenty minutes now. Maybe eight units at that rate—and we think he's had an anticoagulant administered to him!" She snatched up a pair of the throwing stars from the ground. "Here! These!"
"A cut throat and an anticoagulant? Man, is that overkill or what?" said the woman paramedic to her male partner. "Yes, come along, ma'am. You next of kin?" She put an oxygen mask over Bean's face.
"Um…no. I'm, I'm his partner." Rally grabbed her jacket from the ground and put it on over her bra.
"Close enough. This was an assault? You a witness?" The paramedics folded up the legs of the stretcher and ran it into the ambulance feet first. The woman jumped up inside and began to pack Bean's throat wound with gauze.
"No…hospital…" groaned Bean through the mask, half unconscious. "No…arrest me…" He tried to sit up.
"Lie down!" the woman yelled."Ma'am, can you get this guy to cooperate?"
"Pete!" shouted Rally. "Tell him he's not getting arrested! Bean, please stay still! Let them help you!"
Smith turned around, helping Wesson to stand up and to staunch his bloody nose with a fifteen-hundred-dollar Italian silk jacket. "Miss Rally?"
"He's getting agitated! Please, before we go—"
Smith came over and peered inside. "Bandit, you assaulted my partner, and you sure as hell didn't pull your punches this time! He's got a broken nose and may sing soprano for a while!"
Bean muttered something and Rally jumped up beside him with the paramedics. "Bean thought he was someone else! You promised you wouldn't arrest him!"
"Yes, I did, Miss Rally. Take him to the damn hospital!" Smith waved the doors shut.
Just before they closed, Manichetti dashed up with Sarah still clinging to him, and reached something to Rally in the tips of his fingers. It was a business card, and she took it, uncomprehending. He had no time to explain, and Rally had no attention to spare, so she stuck the card in her jacket along with 426's throwing stars and turned to Bean. He rolled his head from side to side on the stretcher, beginnning to shiver and twitch uncontrollably. The ambulance drove off, siren whining.
"I can't cut this goddamn jacket!" yelled the male paramedic. "What is this lining? Chain mail?" His scissors grated on Bean's bloody jacket.
"Yes! Try a pair of bolt cutters!"
"I'll do a hand vein," said the paramedic, cutting the red-soaked T-shirt instead. He yelled into his radio headset. "Deep throat wound with apparent severance of left carotid, venous blood also present! Patient is hemorrhaging, pale and sweaty, anxious! Estimate, lost eight units, patient approximately one-ten kilos, adult male! Unable to take blood pressure reading yet!"
He jabbed a needle into the back of Bean's left hand, seeming to listen to instructions over the headset. "Roger, one unit lactated Ringer's! Attempting to stabilize bleeding!" The woman attached a bag of clear fluid to the IV. The man applied another large gauze pad to Bean's wound while the woman cleaned several spots on his chest to attach EKG electrode patches and squeezed the bag to force the fluid into his veins.
The man rapidly cut Bean's jeans and underwear off with the scissors, pulled off his boots and dumped the bloody rags into a disposal bag, then sliced off the rest of the T-shirt and looked for another tool. Bean's entire body was pale and mottled with blood that had soaked through his clothes.
"What the fuck's goin' on?" he said dazedly, batting the oxygen mask aside. "Babe?"
"Ma'am!" said the woman paramedic, resettling the mask. "Is he experiencing disorientation or confusion? Ask him a few questions. Things he would know."
"Uh—" Rally leaned over where Bean could see her. "Bean, do you know who I am? What day is it?"
"Yeah, you're Rally Vincent, an' it's Saturday night. July tenth, 1999."
"OK. He seems all—"
"I thought you were in Chicago, babe. What're you doin' out in Frisco?'
"Um…Bean, I came out here on vacation. We were working together?"
"Oh." His brow creased. "Oh, yeah. We got a room in some goddamn truck stop in the valley."
"That's right."
"You kissed me." He took the mask off again.
"Oh, boy..."
"You didn't just kiss me. Didn't you and me get in the sack?" The male paramedic used a pair of tin snips on the right arm of Bean's jacket, making slow headway. Bean's hazel eyes looked nearly black against his white face, wide open and restlessly moving. The woman talked to the emergency room doctor over her headset and fiddled with the EKG equipment. She covered Bean's lower body with a sheet after examining him for additional wounds.
"B-Bean, don't talk about that—"
"I know we did. Like, you said, Bean, please do it to me, and I don't know why you'd say that. Naw, you couldn't have, could ya?" He looked at her in confusion. "Am I crazy? I must've imagined it."
"No…you're not crazy. You've lost a lot of blood, Bean. You're not getting enough oxygen to the brain. You just need a transfusion! You'll be OK!"
"UCSF emergency room just went on diversion," said the driver up front. "We've got to turn around and go to General." The ambulance turned right.
"I hope the bank's not low on his type," remarked the man, taking Bean's blood pressure as soon as the jacket arm had been slashed. He spoke into his headset. "Sixty-one over fifty-three, pulse one-twenty-five. Thin and thready. Radial pulse nearly absent."
His partner hissed low. She again put the mask over Bean's face, but Bean struggled and tore it off. "Let go of me, dammit! I'll kill ya, you understand me? I don't take that from any man ever born!"
"Hey! Calm down! You need extra oxygen!"
Rally grabbed Bean's hand. "Don't fight them! They're trying to help you!"
"You are going to fucking regret that!" he yelled. "Just back off, hear? Go ahead and call in the pigs, 'cause I'll take 'em out just the same as your goons! No one's arresting the Roadbuster today!"
"Bean! I'm here, OK? This is Rally! I will NOT let anyone arrest you!" The woman tried to put the mask on and Bean knocked it off. "Please! Let them help you!"
"I'll do nose tubes instead," said the paramedic with an irritated sigh. "I'll be glad when this psycho's off my hands!" She had Rally hold Bean's head while she inserted the little plastic Y-tubes. "Don't let him rip those out. Try to keep him calm if you can, ma'am!" She went to work on the other arm of his jacket with the tin snips.
Rally's cell phone rang. "Yes?"
"You at the hospital yet?" asked Smith.
"No, we're going to another one. San Francisco General, I think."
"OK. I've got something to tell you. Manichetti split."
"What?"
"Grabbed a Dragon car and took off while we were occupied with my partner and Mrs. Brown. She's in hysterics." Rally could hear something high-pitched in the background. "Her four-year-old daughter under threat of torture and execution, and now her gentleman friend takes a powder. Such a nice guy."
"Gentleman friend?"
"Don't leave me here," said Bean, sounding lost. "I don't want to stay here. Somebody hit me. Can't I go home with you?"
"You didn't notice? Looks like Manny has been driving more than his employer's cars, if you get my meaning. At any rate, he's gone. And there's only about twenty-five minutes left on the damn deadline. He didn't even give us a clue about where 426 might have gone with Tiffany, and it's damn lucky Wojohowicz got that tracer in place in time. We're trying to triangulate on a moving target—maybe we'll be able to get her in time, maybe not, no thanks to Manichetti. Only things he cares about in the world? His fat pair of dogs, that's what." Smith sounded tired, disgusted, and even sad.
"Oh, Pete…"
"I just went a little sour on human nature. And I'm such a Pollyanna optimist in general."
"I left my shoes somewhere," said Bean. "I'm hungry."
"But…could he be trying to help in some way? Maybe he's going to intervene."
"Don't see how! 426 wants Brown, Brown isn't answering. I mean, I knew Sly was a rat's ass. That is not such a surprise, though I hoped against hope he'd find a little humanity for his baby girl. But I really believed Manichetti for a few hours there when he seemed so upset about the family—well, now I know what that was all about. Guess he was porking the wife but he's well rid of Brown's kid. Shit, I guess it's time for me to retire after all..."
"I'm sorry, Pete. I believed him too."
"How's Bean?"
"Not great. But I'm sure he'll be all right once we get to the hospital."
"Good. Keep me posted. I'll try to get there if I can. I'm going to see about getting hold of Coleman for you. Apparently he's been released, but he's halfway across town at St. Mary's last I heard. I'll try there. See you."
"Thank you, Pete." She put the phone away.
"Rally…"
"I'm right here, Bean."
"Sorry. I ain't supposed to call you that, Vincent." Bean seemed to be breathing a little easier with the oxygen, but kicked off the sheet covering his naked body.
"It's all right. You call me whatever you want."
"Naw." He closed his eyes and grimaced, panting through his nose. "You were right about that. Some friend I was." His voice grew vague. "I guess it worked, 'cause here I am frickin' upside down…"
"Blood pressure fifty over forty-two and falling."
"It's OK, Bean. You've paid it off. All of it."
"No way, babe. I told 426 you did Huang. Can't make up for ratting on a partner. And…I took something from you I can't give back."
"Don't think about the damn money right now, Bean! It's not me you owe it to, anyway."
"Not the money. I can get money. I can't give it back…"
"What?" Rally thought he must have lost track of his thoughts again. "All you stole was a suitcase."
"Lot more than that, girl…woman. Can't lose that but once."
"Oh!" Rally blushed hot, turning her eyes away from his nudity. "Um…Bean, you didn't steal that from me. I, um, I gave it to you. It's not something you owe—"
"You let me figure what I owe on my damn own…"
"Now that is the strangest rule you have ever come up with! No, Bean. You don't owe me anything, so just forget it."
"Pulse one hundred thirty-eight."
"I got a lot to pay off, babe. I ain't…finished with what I owe you." He was gasping, his chest heaving with his rapid breaths. The paramedics completed cutting the jacket away and stuffed it into a bag as well.
Rally realized that Bean was grasping for a lifeline, and her stomach dropped. Was he in more danger than she realized? "Uh…OK, you owe me. You have debts to pay. Lots of things to accomplish. You haven't finished your job—"
"Tonight's job!" Bean blinked and suddenly tried to sit up again. "The bastard's got her! We got to get the kid, Vincent! Turn the car around!" The paramedics tried to push him down again and covered him.
"This is an ambulance, Bean. We're heading to a—"
"How the hell we gonna get the kid away in time? When's the deadline?"
Rally checked her watch. "It's 10:10. Twenty minutes to go. The FBI has a tracer on her—Wojohowicz made her swallow it. They'll do what they can. It's out of our hands, Bean!" The ambulance pulled into a parking lot and backed up to the doors of an emergency room. The paramedics opened the ambulance doors and pulled Bean's stretcher out. Rally followed, holding his hand.
"No! We didn't finish the job! Didn't carry out the contract!"
"You didn't even get paid for this job, Bean! It's not your responsibililty! The FBI is on it!"
He fell back on the stretcher as the paramedics ran it through the door, his eyes black with pain. "No…the contract…the kid…he's gonna do things to her…"
"I know what you mean, Bean. But you are wounded. You can't do anything about it!"
Bean gritted his teeth, and to her utter shock, Rally saw tears in his eyes. "He's gonna die. You hear me? 426 is gonna die for that."
"Bean, if he kills that little girl, I will take him out myself!" She meant it with every cell in her body.
"Not…on…yer own, babe." His breathing was so rapid now that he could barely speak.
"Goddammit, he needs that mask!" snapped the woman. "Keep it on this time!" She slapped it over Bean's face. "Be quiet and lie still!"
"This the slashed carotid?" A doctor accompanied by a young intern strode up to the stretcher through the crowded emergency room. "Christ, look at that." He peeled the blood-soaked gauze from Bean's throat. "Going to be tricky patching that mess up, so let's get started. Prep him!"
"Excuse me, Doctor," Rally began, "He might have had an anticoagulant—"
"I keep dreaming about it," announced Bean. "I dream she's, like, in the car sucking me off. I dream she's got all her clothes off and I'm on top of her going crazy. Man, it was so sweet."
"Huh?" said the doctor.
"These." She held out the throwing stars. "A couple of these stuck in him, and the bleeding keeps getting faster—"
"Type match!" yelled the doctor. "Another bolus of RL here!" A nurse quickly drew blood, and the paramedics assisted by three burly orderlies transferred Bean to a gurney and changed his transfusion bag. "You know him? What's his mental state? Coherent or confused?"
"He's switching back and forth—"
"Where the hell is this?" Bean asked of no one in particular. His wandering eyes fell on Rally. "Hey, babe. You mind telling me where my damn car is? I got a job to do."
"Bean, you're in a hosp—"
"Why's my goddamn neck hurt? You slice me up, lady? Or was it Murray?" He touched an old scar on his left deltoid.
"It was 426, Bean. You fought with him."
"Four hundred twenty-six keys of coke? Hey, I only picked up a hundred and fifty. Wasn't on my end. Take it out of Murray's hide."
"Bean, I have no idea who Murray is."
"I gather he's confused," said the doctor, turning away. "Operating room three! I want blood gases!" Another nurse drew blood.
"Vincent?" said Bean.
"Yes."
"Tell Vincent I didn't break my promise."
"I know you didn't, Bean."
"Percy can suck my dick," he replied. "Go on, tell him. I want to know what shade of red he turns." He seemed to see her for a moment. "Those look awful good on you, babe. Nice color. Same as your eyes."
"What about the stars?" Rally asked the intern.
"Uh, well, give them to me for the toxicology analysis," he said, holding out a gloved hand. "This was an assault?"
"Yes, a fight with gangsters. He's, um, he's sort of an FBI auxiliary." Rally crossed her fingers. In her hand was the business card that Manichetti had given her, and that she had put in the same pocket as the throwing stars. What was it?
"Geez, doesn't look much like a cop!"
"Uh…no." She glanced at the card; printed on it was 'Ephraim Lansky, M.D.', with a phone number and fax number. On the reverse someone had written 'Keeps his mouth shut'. Rally blinked and put it back in her pocket.
"Why would she give a damn?" asked Bean. "I didn't think she ever gave a damn."
"Run toxicology on him! Check for warfarin and derivatives! Go!" said the doctor. They rolled Bean directly into an operating room and a large Samoan orderly barred Rally's way. Bean's hand slipped out of hers as they took him through a pair of swinging doors.
"Sorry. Sterile operating area. Please wait outside, ma'am," said the orderly.
"But…but…"
"Vincent?" she heard Bean call. "Where the hell'd you go?"
"He's asking for me! Please, let me go in with him! I won't faint or anything!"
"Vincent!"
A nurse approached. "Miss, it's against hospital policy. Please go to the waiting area."
"Shit!" someone yelled beyond the swinging doors. "Hold him down! Get me some straps!"
"Please!" Rally begged.
The masked doctor stuck his head out. "Who's this Vincent he's calling for?"
"Me! Please let me stay with him!"
"Goddammit, put a gown on her!" the doctor barked at the nurse. "I don't have time for this shit! This man's vitals are crashing!" He vanished inside again. The nurse hustled Rally through the doors and tied a mask around her face, then wrapped her in a surgical gown.
"Don't get in the surgical team's way!" She turned to the operating table, where Bean thrashed wildly, surrounded by orderlies and nurses.
"Bean?" Rally called. "I'm here! It's all right! Let them help you!"
"Vincent? Is it time to go yet? We going to get the dough?"
She thrust a hand between the moving people and touched his chest. "I'm here. Bean, I'm not going to leave!" Bean grabbed her hand and nearly crushed it.
"Step on that type match!" yelled the doctor. "Hematocrit!" Someone put a blood pressure cuff on Bean's arm again. "Valium! Get this SOB quiet! Local on the wound!" She saw a needle go into his IV line, and another into his neck near the bleeding wound. "Sutures! I'm going to clean up this fucking mess—it's a miracle he got here alive!" The doctor bent over Bean with a scalpel. Rally closed her eyes before the blade met flesh, but held firmly to Bean's hand as he gradually relaxed from the sedative, his fingers tight around hers.
Around her, the doctor and nurses moved and jostled and spoke, their voices blurring into a hum of sound with the EKG readouts beeping in the background.
"AB-negative, it figures…fucking shredded…still exsanguinating…force that in…maybe have to graft…blood pressure twenty-nine over fifteen…packed red cells…no, it's still leaking…come on, come on, tie off…scissors…ten units at least…fucking class four hypovolemic…warfarin, all right…oh, this is not good…come on, you big bastard…not until you're sewed…some kind of organic poison with the anticoagulant…no antidote…nineteen over eight…keep breathing, you SOB…no capillary refill on extremities…this is bad…"
Gradually, Bean's fingers loosened and opened. And grew cold. The voices were low and urgent, and took on a note of controlled panic. Rally opened her eyes again. Bean's wound had been repaired, the doctor taking the last few stitches in his neck, and two bags of blood hung from IV stands, a nurse rapidly squeezing each into the lines that extended into Bean's arm and chest. But he was dead white and gasping, his eyes closed and lips blue, and Rally's heart began to thump.
"Holy crap!" said the intern, taking Bean's blood pressure.
"I want numbers, not your religious persuasion!" shouted the doctor.
"Zero. Blood pressure zero over zero!"
"Heart is fibrillating!" The activity in the room suddenly increased, from busy to frantic, and Rally was elbowed aside. She stood back from the operating table, hands over her mouth. Something was wrong. Everyone was too busy to talk to her, but she knew. Bean was in trouble! They had come to the hospital too late! Someone else came into the operating room—Agent Smith, in mask and gown. He touched Rally's shoulder and she looked at him in surprise.
"Just got here. Coleman's on his way," he said low.
"Thank you," Rally whispered. She checked her watch. "Oh—my God. It's 10:39! Tiffany Brown!"
"I have some news for you. 426 has canceled the deadline."
"What?"
"He issued a communiqué about five minutes ago while I was on my way here. He no longer demands that Sylvester Brown give himself up in order to save his daughter. You are not going to believe why."
"Why?"
"Because, he says, Brown is dead."
"But…?"
"Your guess is as good as mine." Smith shrugged. "Don't ask me what his next move is going to be." He looked at the bustle around Bean. "How's Bandit doing? I thought he'd be out of here by now. When they told me he was still in surgery, I got a little concerned." Rally knew he meant about her as much as about Bean. An alarm went off on one of the monitors, then on another.
"I…I'm not sure—it doesn't look very—"
"Code Blue!" yelled the doctor. "Cardiac arrest!" He started CPR.
"Oh, NO!" Rally started forward, and Smith pulled her back.
"Don't get in their way! Nothing you can do!"
"But he kept asking for me—"
"Let 'em do their job." Smith drew her towards the door. "Give them room. We'd better go to the waiting area."
"I want to stay." Rally pulled away. "He…he needs me!"
"Clear!" The intern punched defibrillation paddles to the sides of Bean's chest and his body jumped. "Clear!" Bean's body jumped again. The doctor resumed CPR.
"Cardiac monitor flatlined," said a nurse. "No respiration."
"Bean?" Rally whispered. The doctor kept pumping Bean's chest, his face grim. The nurses looked at each other. The cardiac monitor beeped again. Bean's heart had restarted! The cloud in the room began to lift, the doctor leaned back for a moment with sweat running down his face, and as a nurse mopped it for him, the monitors all went flat again.
"Clear!" shouted the intern. They repeated the whole process, the doctor working frantically with clenched hands over Bean's breastbone, and again the machine began to register heart activity. Bean took one gasping breath. And no more.
"Goddammit!" said the doctor. "Come on, tough guy! You got this far, God knows how! Give me a goddamn heartbeat!" But this time, despite the frantic efforts of the medical team, nothing came back to life. The monitors remained flat, the alarms going off, and Bean took no more breaths. The doctor kept up CPR for several minutes more, pounding and shouting. "Come on! Come on!" The intern took over the CPR for a few minutes, then the doctor resumed.
Nothing. The doctor kept working, the nurses kept squeezing the bags, the intern kept taking readings and calling out the dismal results. Bean did not visibly respond. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, the doctor said, "Stop." The nurses reluctantly let go of the blood transfusion bags. "That's it. This man's dead."
"Oh, my God," said the intern, looking dazed. "He's gone."
"Note the time." The doctor slumped over Bean's chest. "Passed away at 10:51 P.M." Someone switched off the flatlined monitors. "Damn."
"Doctor?" said Rally, more confused than anything else. Bean couldn't be dead! It wasn't within the bounds of possibility!
"I'm sorry, ma'am. We did our best, and he was a real fighter. If anyone could have survived this, he would have. He'd just lost too much blood. Not to mention the fucking rat poison in his circulation!" He stripped off his bloody gloves. "We never did finish the toxicology analysis on that shit—could take a while to get full results back on that, but it's the coroner's job now."
The doctor turned to the intern. "Note the cause of death—hypovolemic shock and massive organ failure resulting from severe hemorrhage. It's a homicide, so get the goddamn paperwork ready for me to sign."
A nurse took the gloves and dropped them in a medical waste container. She detached the EKG patches and began to remove the IVs and oxygen tubes from Bean's body.
"What?" said Rally, not believing a word. "He's not dead!"
"Miss Rally," said Smith, very gently. For a moment she didn't realize who was speaking. "He's dead. I'm sorry. Why don't you come with—"
"NO!" Rally darted forward and grabbed Bean by the shoulders. Cold, clammy. Eyes closed halfway, his head rolled slightly from side to side as she shook him. "Wake up! Wake up! It's not possible! He can't die! BEAN!"
Smith put an arm around her, drawing her back from the operating table. "I know, it's gonna take a minute to sink in. I remember what it's like. I lost two partners in the line of duty, kid. I'm sorry."
"I've got to go to the next patient," said the doctor apologetically. "It's a busy Saturday night around here. My condolences." He patted Rally's shoulder and left with the intern.
"But he's…he can't be…he's so strong…he CAN'T be dead!"
"That's the hell of it, Miss Rally," said Smith. "One moment a man's alive, the next he's dead. I lost a lot of friends in the Army. A lot faster than he went. Most of them couldn't do a thing about it—just shot dead on their feet, never even knowing what hit them. At least he got the chance to fight. I'm damn sorry he lost."
"He's never lost. Never…"
"All of us are going to lose that fight some day."
Rally turned to the table again as orderlies moved Bean to a gurney. "Not Bean. Not Bean." Smith kept his arm around her shoulders.
"Miss, he's gone," said the nurse tiredly, but with sympathy. "No brain activity, no heartbeat. His body just gave up." She sighed and followed the gurney out of the operating room, ushering Rally and Smith into a large vacant cubicle. The orderlies placed the gurney with the head against one wall.
"What are you going to do with him?"
The nurse put a hand on Bean's blood-spattered forehead. "I'm going to clean him up a little, OK? We're not going to throw you out or do anything with his body right now. You can stay." The nurse took a wad of wet gauze and washed Bean's face; the blood smeared and thinned and vanished, leaving him grey-white and still. His mouth hung slightly open, his eyelashes not quite concealing his irises.
The nurse removed the top layer of stained blue incontinence sheets from under him and wadded them up. Around his head, his hair sprawled out untidily. The nurse smoothed it back and tucked it behind his ears, then washed his chest and arms and laid his hands at his sides. She shut his eyes all the way with a gentle stroke of two fingers, adjusted his jaw to close his mouth and pulled a sheet up to his breastbone.
"Bean's dead?" said Rally stupidly. "He's really dead?"
"Yeah," said Smith. "Bean's dead."
"I'm finished," said the nurse, throwing the stained gauze pads and blue sheets in the medical waste container. She snapped off her gloves and discarded them as well. "You can stay, if you want to be with him. I'll tell the shift nurse. They won't have to take him away to Pathology for an hour or so, if that's what you want."
"Yeah, I do." Rally's vision began to blur. "I want to be with him for a little while."
"You want me to stay, or not?" said Smith. "Until Coleman gets here?"
"I'd…like to be alone with him, for a little…if that's OK."
"It's OK, kid." Smith gave Rally another squeeze and let go. For a moment, he paused at the foot of the gurney, looking at the body. "Goodbye, Roadbuster." He saluted and went out.
"You going to be all right?" asked the nurse, washing her hands. "I can ask the chaplain to come by. What's your religious preference? Would you like him to undergo Extreme Unction?"
"No…he wasn't religious." The tears were hot, and beginning to overflow. "I don't think he would have wanted that. I'll be all right."
"All right," said the nurse, gave her a slight hug, closed a curtain to divide the room, and left.
For some time Rally stood still, watching the occupant of the gurney through her streaming eyes. So far, her grief was nearly silent. As if she didn't want to wake a sleeper. Someone resting, someone dreaming, who would wake and get up when his dreams were finished. She'd seen Bean asleep before, and unconscious, and with his eyes simply closed. This wasn't the same.
So still. Nothing moved at all; not his chest nor his eyelids nor the pulse on the unstitched side of his throat. She realized that the tiny movements, the breathing and the blinks and the little vibration of the heart beating, were the real seat of life. Bean wasn't given to small movements. He was fast, he was large, he was powerful. That had been the nature of his life. But the absence of any gross motion wasn't the reason he was dead. He was dead because his heart had ceased to beat, because he no longer breathed, because his eyes lay unseeing beneath his closed lids.
Rally sat on a stool and pulled it up to the side of the gurney, then lowered the rail. There was his wounded, unbandaged right hand, the thumb turned into the palm with the entire loss of muscular tension. She picked it up. Already, he was ice-cold. Raising his hand to her lips, she pressed it gently to her cheek and put it back.
"Bean?" she said. "I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know where you are now. I don't know if it's just black and nothing, or if you know what's happening or not. I really don't know. But I guess I'm going to talk to you anyway."
Rally swallowed hard and went on. "I'll do what I can, Bean. I'll try to straighten out your affairs, what little I know about them. I wish I knew where you lived, so I could go and tidy things up when I get home. Take care of things for you. I guess no one's going to do that, because no one knows where you lived. At least, I don't think so. Maybe you told someone, but you didn't tell me. I don't know what the place where you lived is like."
She thought about his former residence that she had seen only once, a small apartment above an enormous garage. "Your cars are there, I guess. No one's going to drive them now. They're going to sit there and gather dust on the hoods and the windshields, and the gasoline will settle out and the hoses will crack and the oil thicken in the pans. The tires will lose their air. The seats will stiffen and the steel will rust. Those cars won't know what happened to you, because they're just cars. They're patient, because they're machines. They do only what you tell them to do. They're going to sit there and wait for you, and you're not going to come back. Ever..."
What would happen to Bean, to his vacant body? Would he be cremated or buried and left to rot? For once, she preferred the idea of cleansing fire.
"The building will be empty, and bricks will get thrown through the windows, and graffitti will be sprayed all over the walls. Eventually they'll have to tear it down because it's been abandoned so long. Some day, years from now, someone's going to cut the locks off the doors and look inside before the wrecking balls strike. They're going to find your place, and your cars, and they're going to wonder who lived there. The cars will get towed away, or junked because no one will be insane enough to drive that kind of car any more, years from now, and everything you owned will get thrown into a dumpster.
"They're going to wonder; what kind of guy lived here all alone? All alone, with a garage full of cars? Who was he? Why didn't anyone come and tidy up, if he died away from home or something? If he died, why didn't anyone give a damn?" Tears dripped off the end of her chin and her nose, hitting the white sheet beside Bean's hand. "You know I gave a damn, Bean. Don't you know? I wish you had told me where you lived."
Someone parted the curtains. "Miss? The nurse told me you might need someone to talk to. I'm a hospital volunteer. And I'm a part-time minister, if you want a clergyman."
"He wasn't religious," said Rally again, wiping tears away with the back of her hand.
"Yes, I know that. Well, that's not really why I'm here. I'm just here to talk. How about you? Are you religious?"
"I don't know."
"But you might still want to talk to someone."
"Maybe. Come on in."
The volunteer, an elderly man of indeterminate race dressed in a polo shirt, came in and stood at the foot of the gurney. "I'm Michael. Will you tell me your name?"
"Rally."
"Hello, Rally. Will you tell me who this man is? Not your husband?"
"No. A friend. My partner." Rally put her hand on Bean's again. "Sort of my lover... His name was Bean. Bean Bandit."
"I see." Michael pulled up another stool on the opposite side of the gurney. "I understand he was murdered."
"Uh-huh."
"And that you saw it happen? I'm so sorry. Too many people have seen murder and violence. I know that this life has a lot of that kind of thing, but I'm sorry that a young woman like you had to see that."
"Thank you."
"Bean was a good friend of yours?"
"Uh-huh. He saved my life. Several times. A really good friend."
"I see." Michael leaned forward and put one hand briefly on Bean's chest. "Do you believe in God, Rally?"
"Yeah, I guess so. I don't think I'm religious, but I believe in God."
"Can you find comfort in the thought of Bean being with God?"
Rally, to her horror, snorted in laughter. "Oops. Sorry."
Michael shook his head in a sympathetic manner. "Don't worry. People react to death in all kinds of ways. I've seen all kinds of things, so don't worry. What is funny about that thought?"
"I don't know…just the image of him on a cloud with a harp." Rally laughed again with a hint of tears. "Not his thing."
"What would his idea of heaven have been?"
"Oh, gosh…lots of beer! And ribs, and cigarettes that don't kill you, because you're already dead, and cars that never run out of gas or get a flat. Endless highways with no semis or speed bumps or little old ladies in Cadillacs." Rally laughed and cried at the same time. "Mountains and cities in the distance, and fresh air. Always a clear paved road in front of him, and the cops are all fat and slow and driving broken-down Yugos. The highway goes wherever he thinks it should, and he drives. Just keeps driving, as far and as fast as he wants to go." She sobbed out loud, smiling up at the ceiling. "God, I hope so. God, I hope it's like that."
"With God, all things are possible," said Michael, smiling.
"What about him going to heaven at all?" Rally wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "That's not really possible, is it? He wasn't a law-abiding citizen or anything. He didn't care about anyone's rules but his own. He broke the rules all the time." And I wished him in hell so many times…I wished him in hell! She bit her lips. "Don't you go to hell for breaking the rules? Does that always happen?"
"I don't think I'm qualified to answer that, but I wouldn't say that it's all about rules. The most saintly of us sometimes break the rules, and even the most hardened criminal can be open to God. None of us can know the state of another person's soul. God alone knows that."
"No, but I don't think he was…ready. Not ready to die, and I don't mean because he was only twenty-nine, because I don't know if he ever would have changed as long as he lived. He wasn't thinking about the end of his life, and if he ever did, I doubt he ever thought about God."
"It's never too late," said Michael. "For this earthly life, perhaps." He looked at Bean and put a hand on his chest again, moving it slightly as if to find a heartbeat that wasn't there. "But it's never too late for God. I know that for a fact."
"I doubt he ever prayed or anything. He never asked God for anything."
"What about you? What do you want to ask God, Rally?"
"I…I want to ask for Bean to have another chance." Rally dropped her head. "He did bad things, and no one ever taught him better. He learned a lot of the wrong things in his life and he didn't do much to learn the right things. He kind of blew it, frankly. So did a lot of other people, and that's part of it, though a lot of it was his own doing. But if he could…if he had a chance, he might ask for forgiveness."
Rally closed her eyes, then lowered her head to the gurney beside Bean, putting her forehead on both hands and clasping his cold hand in her own. "I know he was capable of that. He was able to admit he was wrong when he realized that he'd made a mistake, and he tried to make up for what he'd done wrong. That's what I would ask for, God. I'd say, God, please let him have another chance. You know his soul, God, and you know if he asked you for forgiveness. If he knows he was wrong and he wants to do better, help him, please. There's no way for him to repay the debt, so I know nothing but mercy will save him. You're the only one who can help him now…"
Rally woke with a start, her whole body jerking. She had fallen asleep on the bedside stool, her head pillowed on the gurney. For one instant, she thought the whole thing had been a dream. Perhaps she had only imagined that Bean lay dead, or only imagined that she had asked him to help with the rescue. Only imagined that she had led him to his death. Perhaps none of this had happened. But there was a cold hand in hers. She sat up and blinked her eyes to clear them. Michael had left and no one was with her, but Bean's body still lay on the gurney.
She looked at his face, knowing it would be utterly still, utterly white and motionless. It was, save for the blue bruises on chin and cheekbone. He was dead. Rally let out a deep, sad sigh, the brief, tiny hope she had had upon waking only pulling the reality into sharper focus. No one got a second chance—she knew that. Bean would never have asked for one. He'd known that the decisions he'd made in life were final. Heaven of any kind was not for him…
"Bean, I guess I have to go now. I wish I didn't." Her watch told her she had been asleep for about ten minutes, if that. Like the way she had slept briefly in Bean's car just after the fire in the pier. Perhaps it was her brain's way of giving her a respite from unbearable pain.
But she had to keep going. It was now a quarter past eleven. "I wish I could stay with you until they have to take you away. But May's been kidnapped, and Tiffany Brown is still a hostage, and… Oh, Bean, I wish you could help me. I hope you'd want to. Be with me, huh, pal?"
Rally leaned over the gurney and touched Bean's sprawling black hair. She thought about cutting a lock of it, but decided that was truly maudlin. She didn't need a bit of him to remember him by, though she wished she had a good photograph—any photograph at all, if it showed him alive. He was dead and she didn't want to take anything away from the dead. Although there was something she could give him back, now that it was too late. His face looked peaceful and blank; it was barely possible to imagine he only slept.
Rally bent lower and kissed Bean's lips. Cold and slack against his teeth—she nearly recoiled, but pressed the kiss more firmly, tears rolling down her face. This was the last time she would ever be able to touch him. The last time anyone who cared for him would touch him. Perhaps, somewhere, wherever he was, he would know.
With the heat of her skin, the warmth of her tears, his lips seemed to lose some of their chill. His mouth was still resilient, yielding under her touch, almost responding, almost parting, almost breathing…
Rally sat bolt upright, staring, and put her hand on Bean's chest. He let out a slight sound, like a sigh heart-deep. Then another.
"DOCTOR! DOCTOOORRR! DOOOCTOOORRR!"
Feet down the corridor, snail-slow it seemed and the curtains opened room spinning and hot as an oven. Sweat. Heartbeat like a piston slamming, blood roaring in the ears. Hard to hear own voice echoing in the chambers of the head, something like alive alive alive alive and the nurse pitying, not understanding, frantic pointing and ear to his chest, grabbing the stethoscope and gesturing. Listen listen not air escaping from the lungs no you're wrong it was breathing, I know, I know, I kissed him and he knew it…
"Ms. Vincent?" said the doctor when he eventually came, sounding aggrieved and compassionate at the same time. "I know, it can sometimes seem like they're breathing. As the body settles. We had a flat scan on all vitals. No brain activity, not even the lowest level. No heartbeat. No one comes back from that." Another nurse entered and looked at the first one, silently communicating what Rally didn't want to hear.
"But…I knew it. I kissed him. He responded…" Please, God, no, not again, don't let me know again that he's dead…
The doctor sighed and leaned over the gurney. "I'll listen for a minute. All right? I have patients waiting." He placed the cup of his stethoscope, once, twice, his face conveying forbearance. Then a slight frown. Then dawning, drawing open like curtains letting in the noon sun.
"STAT!" he bellowed, and the nurses exploded into activity. "I want EKG! I want four units type-matched whole blood! I want oxygen!" A crowd pressed into the cubicle with equipment and supplies, pushing Rally into a corner, bending over Bean and applying, sticking, hooking up to him everything under the sun. The EKG began to read out again, an irregular beep, but slowly, steadily increasing in strength and rhythm.
The people working over him hid him almost entirely from view. All she could see was glimpses of his bare feet. The toes twitched, a tiny movement of life. She slid slowly down the wall, legs giving way under the press of incredulous, overwhelming gratitude. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Dear God, thank you…
"Call it whatever the hell you want," said the doctor, looking exhausted. "The only thing I've really learned in sixteen years of emergency-room practice is that I do not know a damn thing about what is possible for the human body. I truly, absolutely believed he was dead. I have never seen vital signs like that on a person who could be resuscitated, and I have never known an adult with those vital signs to just wake up and start breathing on his own twenty-five minutes later with no obvious signs of brain damage. Never.
"But I am not omniscient and neither are the machines. Obviously, because that man I was sure was dead spoke a few reasonably coherent words to me and is now sleeping like a baby in the ICU with a couple more pints of crystalloid dripping into his veins. Damn, I want that toxicology analysis now!" He picked up his foam cup of coffee and drained it. "I'm going to order another four units of packed red cells when we get the AB-negative from the UCSF blood bank. He used up our whole damn type-compatible supply. Not that I grudge it to him. It could be a miracle from heaven, as you seem to want to imply, and it could be that he is just one tough motherfucker who wouldn't give up."
He shook his head. "Or you are his magical fairy princess and brought him back to life with a kiss. Take your pick."
"I like the fairy princess theory," said Rally. "I'm going to go sit with him."
"Be my guest. If kissing him brings him back from the dead, sitting with him probably brings his hematocrit up to normal in no time."
Rally smiled and headed back to the ICU. In the bed, Bean lay with one nurse maintaining the bags suspended above his head. He wasn't flushed, but he had regained some color, and when she took his hand, it was merely cool. His face twitched in sleep, his chest rose and fell. Rally gazed at him silently, pressing his hand, and when his eyes briefly opened, she leaned over and touched his chest. He recognized her with a faint smile and a weak squeeze of the hand she held.
Tongue moistening his lips, he whispered something she didn't catch, though she put her ear directly above his mouth, and fell asleep again. She sat watching him breathe for a long time. The nurse checked the monitors and left.
"Miss," said another nurse, "there's an FBI agent asking for you. In Dr. Gage's office."
"OK." Rally squeezed Bean's hand and put it on his chest, then backed out of the cubicle, keeping her eyes on his face until the curtain fell into place. She'd nearly lost him. Not again. Never again…
Outside the office the nurse pointed her to, Rally hesitated. She heard voices. Loud, angry.
"This is INSANE! You have to arresd hib!" That was Wesson, muffled through his broken nose. "He assaulded an FBI agent! Be! He would have KILLED be!"
"Yeah, if she hadn't stopped him," acknowledged Smith. "For cripe's sake, he didn't realize it wasn't Brown! I swear, I'd take a shot at Sly if he showed up now!"
"Thad's a fucking Federal crime! Not to bention whad he did yesderday, and…and everything he's done in his endire LIFE! YOU HAVE TO ARRESD HIB!"
"Bob…I promised her."
"Whad the hell does thad hab to do wid anything? He hadn'd tried to beat be to death at the time! Maybe you don'd care about your goddab elbow, but he left a mark on be for life! By profile will never be the sabe again—and I look like a crook with this cheek slash! Like sobe kind of sdreet fighder!"
"What's so friggin' awful about that? Honorable wounds!"
"Has id occurred to you that id's againsd the law to addack Federal law enforcebend officers! He could pull thirdy years for whad he's done in the last week alone! And you were a WIDNESS! Whad the fuck is the badder wid you?"
A short silence. "I don't fucking know. Anyone else, I'd cuff him right in the ICU. But if I do that, that girl will never forgive me."
"OK, OK, I ged id now! He's her lover, they've been in cahoods with each other all along, you sobehow APPROVE, and if you shib her big stud off to jail, the little slud will ged MAD at you? You are INSANE!"
"Bob, I get your point. Truly, I do. But it's not like that. He came back from the fucking dead, Bob. I haven't pried my jaw off the floor yet, and I am in some kind of awe, I think—that man was as dead as they come. Can't you cut him a little slack? Doesn't that sort of clean the slate?"
"You are not the person he tried to kill, Pede! I ab your pardner. Your pardner in the Federal Bureau of Investigation for five years now! You owe be for this! THE SLADE ISN'D CLEAN!"
Smith let out a resigned sigh. "OK, already. I know. Let me break it to her first, OK? Don't go grinning in triumph, or I may just smash that nose some more." The doorknob started to turn, and Rally fled. Back along the corridor, back to the ICU and the curtained bed, her tears starting again. He was helpless and asleep and weak. There was nothing she could do to defend him now. But at least she would stay with him until they came for him. Some kind of alarm was going off, and she pulled the curtains aside. To an empty bed.
"Bean?" Rally looked around.
He was gone. No one on the bed, no one in the curtained alcove or on the floor. Just a set of disarranged covers and a dangling needle, the transfusion fluid dripping with audible splats. "Oh, no! Bean!" she hissed. "You're not going to get far, the state you're in!"
He had trod in the fluid, and the prints of his bare feet led out to the corridor. There they dried to nothing, and Rally looked up and down, trying not to panic. Was he still confused and disoriented? Or was he making a deliberate escape attempt? Maybe some of each.
Rally walked to the nearest door and tried it; it opened into an empty staff break room. The next door was marked 'Laundry'. She opened it and peered into darkness, feeling for the light switch. Someone grabbed her wrist, then her mouth, and pulled her inside.
"Bean!" she said through his hand. "I'm not going to turn you in! Let me go!" The grip loosened and the door closed, leaving them in total darkness. "Can I turn on the light?"
"Naw," came Bean's voice, weak and choppy. "I ain't got any pants on."
"Oh."
"I'm lookin' for some goddamn clothes…here we go…aw, shit, these wouldn't fit a dwarf." She heard something flung on the floor. "OK, this feels big enough." He hopped on one foot and tied a drawstring, the ends flapping. "You can turn the light on now."
Rally did so, and gasped at the sight of him. Covered with half-stuck-on EKG patches, his chest and face were pale and dewed with clammy sweat. The big black stitches on his neck stood out like tire tracks in snow. Bean pulled a green surgical scrub shirt over his head, which matched the pants he already wore.
"You look terrible, Bean! How can you stand up?"
"Don't…know…" he said, face going even paler, and swayed, grabbing the shelves to support himself. "Shit, I guess I need some more of that stuff they were pumpin' in…" He fell to his knees and Rally jumped to his side, trying to hold him up with both arms.
"Please, Bean! Come back and let them take care of you! You were clinically dead for twenty-five minutes! You need help!"
"They stopped the leak, right? I'm outta here." Bean tried to get up and fell backwards, carrying Rally with him. She kept his skull from cracking on the floor, then laid his head gently down with some folded towels under it.
"You can't go anywhere! I have to call someone!" Rally began to get up, and Bean grabbed her wrist.
"No! Don't put me back there—they'll shoot me full of stuff and knock me out all the way!" He half rose, his eyes wide and wild. "They'll knock me out!"
"I…OK, Bean. I won't call anyone, because I just heard Smith and Wesson fighting about whether you were going to be arrested for hitting Wesson, and Smith lost the argument. It sounds like you are still having trouble from the blood loss, and I am worried about your condition. But I don't want you to be arrested, either."
She got out the card Manichetti had given her and looked at the phone number. "I think that this is exactly what you need. Wait here!" Rally pulled a few laundry bins in front of him to conceal him from the hallway, turned the light out and shut the door behind her. Where had they put Bean's ruined clothes? That jacket had a lot of things in it that Bean would need, not the least money.
She scanned up and down the corridor and went through the ICU to see if his effects were there. The frantic nurse was calling security. Rally pretended astonishment, promised to look for Bean, and hid behind a curtain as Smith and Wesson stormed in and began to yell into phones. They were quickly shushed and escorted out, but she caught a glimpse of them as they went by. Wesson red-faced and with a large taped splint on his nose, dressed now in a plaid flannel shirt several sizes too large for him, and Smith, also red in the face, but, Rally thought, with another emotion. He was suppressing a grin. She slipped out of the ICU and found another nurse.
"Excuse me…where would they put the personal effects of someone who came in by ambulance? Someone who died in surgery?" Rally flashed her ID. "I'm looking for a fugitive."
"Hmm? Well, if he died, and it was a murder, you'd have to ask Pathology. They would have packed up his things for the coroner."
"Thank you," said Rally, and snagged a wheelchair on the way back to the laundry room. Bean was still there, half conscious and looking dreadful, and she helped him into the chair with considerable trouble. His heavy limbs wobbled like rubber, so she strapped him in, threw a blanket over his knees and rolled him out. Pathology was on the third floor, according to the signs. Rally found an isolated elevator, loaded Bean into it, took him to the third floor and left him in the elevator, telling him to hold the doors closed with the button.
No one was on duty in Pathology at this time of the night, and no one noticed Rally pick the lock of the storage room. But there were several large clear plastic bags in an upright freezer, next to jars containing stomach-turning bits of human being, and she immediately spotted the one with the remnants of a blood-soaked leather jacket and jeans.
Jogging back to the elevator with the chilly package wrapped in a sheet, she met a couple of nurses in the corridor and fervently hoped they weren't heading to the elevator. They weren't, and Rally tapped on the closed doors to tell Bean she was back.
"OK, I'm going to take you to—um..." Rally put the bag on the floor of the elevator and punched the button for the hospital's underground garage. "My hotel, I guess. I don't think anyone would think of looking for you there! I'm going to have to steal a car, because mine's not here, and I don't want a cab driver answering questions about his fares later! Boy, your jacket is totally saturated with blood—it's going to start smelling awful when it thaws! I'll have to dump it somewhere once I get all your stuff out and clean it—I guess money's pretty waterproof, because when you leave a dollar bill in your pants and they go through the washing machine it's alway OK! But first I'm going to call this number, because Manichetti gave me a card for an underground doctor, though why he would do that I don't know—"
"Whoa," said Bean as she rolled him out of the elevator into the garage.
"What?"
"What the hell are you talkin' about?" He seized the wheel of the chair and stopped it. "I'll hotwire a car, yeah. Thanks for getting my stuff and getting me out. I ain't going with you."
"What? But you're in terrible shape!" Rally protested. Bean tried to stand and grabbed the arm of the wheelchair. "I have to take care of—" A car drove into the garage and parked a few rows away.
"No way. I'm deep enough in debt as it is, Vincent." He lurched over to a late-model Cadillac and leaned on the door. "Just split. Now!"
"No, Bean! I won't!" Rally leaped to him and grabbed him under the arms for support as he began to slide to the ground. "I am going to take you to a safe place and get you a doctor!"
"Listen to me, woman—"
"I owe this to you, understand? Because you agreed to do this job for the family of a man you hate, for no other reason than that I asked you to, and I've already told you the debt is paid. I almost got you killed, Bean. The debt's on my side now."
"No, it's—"
"You let me figure what I owe you on my damn own, Bean Bandit," she shot back, poking him in the chest with a finger. Bean looked startled. "Good, that's settled. Now let's get this car open!" Rally reached for the door of the Cadillac, still holding Bean up. Someone came around the end of the row, aiming for the elevator door, and stopped short.
"Rally?" he said in a shocked voice. It was Roy Coleman. "Who the hell—oh, blessed Mother—!"
"Roy?" said Rally, equally shocked, her arms around Bean's waist. Bean let out a hiss and tensed, his legs shaking with weakness.
"W-what is HE doing here? Smith…Smith called me while I was driving over and said he was DEAD!" Roy came close enough for her to see a dark bruise on his browbone.
"He wasn't. They thought so for a while, but he wasn't. Roy…please. Let me take him out of here."
"I was coming here to help you," said Roy, miserable fury building. "I was coming here to COMFORT you! Because this bastard was dead and for some damn reason you were SORRY!" His voice broke. "Don't you realize what this guy's done to you? He's a liar and a thief and a braggart and all he wants to do with you is USE you! Look at this! Sneaking out of a hospital in the dead of night when he's looking like a ghost and about to fall down unless you hold him up! Because he can't be where HONEST people are!"
"Please, Roy."
Bean jammed his fingertips up into the rubber seal of the driver's window of the Cadillac and pushed the glass down as Rally held him.
"They're going to arrest him, isn't that right? That's why he has to crawl out a hole and escape! It's clear as day. And you're helping him dig a hole for BOTH of you!"
Bean opened the door and collapsed on the seat.
"Roy…I don't know what it is you two said to each other. Some awful things, I gather. But that has nothing to do with me!" Roy made a strange sound. "I am taking him out of here. You can help me or you can stand aside, or you can go tell the FBI that he's in the garage stealing a car with my help and that they ought to arrest both of us. I'm aiding an escaping felon, yes. He isn't using me; as a matter of fact, he's been trying to get me to leave him alone. Did it ever occur to you I might have reasons of my own for doing this?"
Roy looked as if he were about to weep. "That's what I'm afraid of, Rally. If this man has ever told you he cares about you, he's a goddamn lying—"
"I'm not deluded, Roy. This isn't a personal matter. It's a matter of professional honor. According to the rules."
Bean ripped the cowling from the steering column and fiddled with the exposed wires.
"I'm a cop. I have my duty." Roy made a move for his .38 in its shoulder holster.
"Then arrest us. Both of us, or neither. I won't resist, and Bean can't." Rally held her palms out as the Cadillac started. "We're going to go now, Roy. I'll see you later, because I know May and Tiffany need our help. Both of us, Detective." She slid into the car with the jacket in its bag, and Bean moved over to let her drive. His head fell back against the seat rest.
"Goodbye. I'll get in touch with you in a couple of hours." Rally slammed the door and pulled out of the parking space. As she drove away and aimed up the ramp for the exit, she could see Roy standing where she had left him, crying.
