Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(27)

They didn’t exactly know what they were doing, and his ribs did have some padding from his parka, or they would have hurt him much worse, but, as it was, they hurt him badly enough.

He kept trying to roll so he could get to his knees, but they kept hitting him in the face and knocking him flat on his back. He got in a couple of short punches, but the heavy parkas on the women soaked up the impact.

The woman in a blue parka did most of the hitting, with her big, hamlike fists, while the other three kept him pinned, one of them struggling to her feet and starting to kick him in the hip and legs. The woman in the blue parka broke his nose, and blood went everywhere all over his face, and one woman actually squealed at the sight.

Nearly blind now, he got his hand inside one of the hoods and grabbed some hair and yanked it out of the woman’s scalp, and the woman screamed and rolled away from him, but Ham Fist hit him in the forehead, and someone kicked him some more, and finally a woman with a nice soprano voice said, “Stay away from Jesse, you prick.”

The weight suddenly lifted, leaving him lying on a dirty crush of snow and ice, trying to catch his breath. The women ran back to the truck, one of them saying, “He yanked my hair out, I’m bleeding,” and then the four doors slammed shut. The truck started crunching across the gravel lot, but he couldn’t see it because of the blood in his eyes, and he was afraid they were going to run him over, so he blindly rolled toward the building until his back was against the concrete-block wall. He was low enough that the bumper couldn’t get him, close enough the wheels couldn’t get him . . . he hoped.

If he’d had a gun, he might have tried to shoot at the truck, but he didn’t have a gun. A few seconds later, the truck was gone.

Virgil wiped the blood from one eye, ran his tongue along his teeth. None seemed broken or loose, though he could taste blood. He found with some probing that his lower lip was cut, apparently on his own teeth.

He managed to get to his knees and crawl to the back door of the bar but couldn’t reach high enough to get hold of the handle. He scratched at the edge of the door until he got his fingers around an edge and pulled it open—smeared blood on the glass, found both hands were bleeding from the gravel in the parking lot. He crawled into the back hallway, where he fell flat again.

A man came out of the men’s room and stepped over him and said, “Hey, buddy, you had a little too much there . . . Oh, holy cats.” And the man started shouting, “Shanker! Shanker!”

A minute later, the bar owner was there, and he looked at Virgil and said to somebody Virgil couldn’t see, “This is Virgil Flowers. Get an ambulance. Get an ambulance . . .”

Everybody in town knows me, Virgil thought vaguely, and, safe for the moment, he let himself relax and let other people take care of him.

—

He was aware of the transfer to the ambulance, although he felt himself to be some distance from that event. Once in the ambulance, he tried to sit up but found that he was held down by a safety harness. A man’s face loomed over him and said, “Easy, there. Stay down.”

A minute later, they were at the Trippton Clinic, not his first visit. When they rolled the gurney inside, a familiar doc looked down at his face and said, “Virgil fuckin’ Flowers. How are those stitches holding in your scalp?”

Virgil said, “Aw, jeez . . .”

The doc said, “Good. You’re talking. I’m going to wash your face here.”

He did, and Virgil could see from both eyes, and again tried to sit up, but the doc put a hand on his chest and said, “Count backward from ninety-five by sevens.”

“I couldn’t do that unhurt or sober,” Virgil said.

“Okay, good, you’re not too concussed . . . But you’re going to have amazing black eyes. I’ve got to do something about your nose . . . Do you hurt anywhere else?”

“Hip.” Virgil had one hand free enough that he could pat his right hip.

The doc said to somebody Virgil couldn’t see, “Let’s get his clothes off,” and to Virgil, “We’re going to give you something to relax you. You’ll feel a little sting . . .”

—

When Virgil woke up, he was in a small room with a lot of electronic equipment, some of which was attached to him. He had a needle at the crook of his elbow, and a tube that led back to a bag on a rolling rack. A nurse stuck her head in the door and said, “You’re awake.”

“I could use some water,” Virgil said, his voice sounding like sandpaper on Sheetrock.

“I’ll get the doctor.”

Virgil didn’t know exactly how long it took before the doctor showed up, but it was long enough for him to realize that his nose hurt so bad that his upper teeth hurt as well. He wiggled his teeth with a finger, but everything felt solid. The doc came in with a bottle of water with a straw, held it while Virgil took a sip, and asked, “How do you feel?”

“Hurt.”

“You’ve got a displaced septum—not the nasal bones—the septum, the cartilage, which has been pushed off to the left. I can’t do much for you now except put a gel retainer on it to hold it in place until the swelling goes down. In two or three days we can take another look and come up with a permanent solution, which will probably involve wearing a brace for a while. In a few weeks, everything ought to be back to normal.”