The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(48)

“Could have been much worse,” he murmured as he prodded at me.“This’ll heal up nicely. You’re a very lucky man.”

“That’s what everyone tells me,” I said.

I glanced at the clock on the wall, a sterile white face under a dusty plastic bubble: 10:04. He’d be calling a guard to take me back to my cell at any minute, and I’d lose my only chance.

Then the door opened with a faint knock. Zap, the trustee, stood on the threshold wringing his hands. He looked at me before he looked at Valentino.

Right on schedule.





25.




Back in the hive, before my self-inflicted injury, I’d gone over my “shopping list” with Jake and Westie.

“Twine, or thick string,” Jake repeated. “Sure, that’s doable. And…a pack of cigarettes? I thought you didn’t smoke.”

“They’re not for me. Now, I don’t suppose either of you has an ‘in’ with Brisco’s little trustee buddy?”

“Zap?” Westie asked. “We’re not exactly close, but we’re not on bad terms neither.”

“What would it take to get a favor out of him if it won’t put him out too much?”

“Eh, he’s pretty laid-back,” Jake said. “As long as it won’t risk his trustee job, he’ll probably help out for a few bucks on his commissary account.”

I craned my neck, glancing at a clock set above the door to the yard.

“Okay, I’m going to be inside the infirmary at ten sharp. At five minutes after, precisely, I need Zap to deliver a message.”

*

“Message from the front office,” Zap said, sounding breathless. “You’ve got a phone call.”

Valentino glanced at the counter behind him where an old beige phone sat quiet and neglected. “They couldn’t transfer it to me?”

Zap shook his head. “Interoffice lines are dead again.”

“Fourth time this month.” The doctor sighed. “Did they take a message?”

“No, that’s the thing,” he said, then looked my way again. “Um, could I speak to you privately real quick? It’s…it’s about your wife. There’s been an accident.”

The doctor spun around, wide-eyed, the tail of his open lab coat swinging in his wake. The moment I’d been waiting for. I leaned forward, my fingers dipping into his oversized coat pocket and latching onto his key ring. The ring slid out effortlessly as he strode for the door, and I clasped the keys against my palm to muffle them.

Valentino joined the trustee out in the hall, keeping one foot in the door as they conversed in hushed tones. I didn’t need to listen in. I’d written Zap’s script.

St. Edna’s, the small hospital in Aberdeen, was calling with an urgent message about the good doctor’s wife and her involvement in a car crash. At least, that was what Zap was telling him. Valentino poked his head in.

“Stay right here,” he told me. “I’ll be back.”

Then he was off to the races, with Zap in tow. Leaving the wolf in the henhouse.

It was understandable. Everything was locked down tighter than a submarine door, and the camera in the corner was there to ensure good behavior. Of course, that assumed anyone was actively watching the screen, one of dozens if not hundreds all across the prison.

I wasn’t planning any mischief in here, anyway. My business was in the room next door.

I jumped up from the padded bench, ignoring a sudden twinge from my cut, and darted to the swinging door. The air dropped ten degrees on the other side. The chemical-lemon scent of antiseptic clung to every surface, sticking in the back of my throat.

Two examination tables stood on a water-stained granite floor, with a drainage vent between them. Both had an occupant draped under ivory sheets.

I pulled back the sheet on the first body. Not Paul, but I instantly recognized him from the flowery neck tattoo that read Emilie. It was the con I’d come in with, riding side by side on the prison bus. The one Jablonski had truncheon-whipped.

He had more than a head wound, now. His face looked like he’d gone ten rounds with a meat tenderizer, one eyelid a puffy mound and the other caved in over an empty socket. I wasn’t sure if that had killed him or the savage rents that peppered his chest, leaving his flesh torn and ribs cracked.

Jesus, I thought, what happened to him?

I had a sneaking suspicion that whatever he’d gone through, it had happened in Hive B.

All the more motivation to get the hell out before it could happen to us, too. I replaced the sheet, stepped to the second table, and pulled back the other one. Paul could have been sleeping, if not for the ash-gray skin and the crumpled ruin where his heart used to be.

I figured, given the distance between the infirmary and the front office, I had fifteen minutes at most. Enough time for Dr. Valentino to get up there and find nothing but a dead phone line. Then he’d call St. Edna’s; they’d have to search for his wife’s name and ultimately tell him there was no such patient. If I were really lucky, he’d call his wife to make sure she was okay, and they’d chat for a while.

As far as Zap went, he’d just claim he got duped by a prank caller. Happens to the best of us.

A rack of mortician’s tools hung on the wall, secured in a wire cage—bone saws and rib spreaders and hooks and hoses. A padlock dangled from the hasp of the cage door.