The Gray Man

Typical of Fitzroy. If Sir Donald himself had made this call, Court would have told him all was lost. But the cagey bastard had known Gentry would be in dire straits right about now, so who better to entice him to keep up the fight than one of the twins?

“I’ll do my best.”

“Do you promise?”

Court lay there in the dark, his freezing, soaked suit askew on his body, the cold mud pressed into the back of his neck and his shaved head. Slowly, with a weak voice, he said, “I’ll be there very soon.”

“Do you promise?”

Court looked down at the wound in his belly. He pressed hard upon it now. “I promise,” he said, and he seemed to muster a little power in his voice. “And when I get there, I need you to promise you will do something for me.”

“Yes, sir?”

“When you hear a lot of noise, I want you to go to your room, crawl under your bed, and stay there. Can you do that for me?”

“Noise? What kind of noise? Do you mean guns?”

“I do mean guns.”

“Okay.”

“Stay there until I come to get you. Get your sister to do the same, okay?”

“Thank you, Jim. I just knew you would come.”

“Claire.” There was a shred of new strength in Gentry’s voice now. “I need you to sneak the phone back to your grandfather. I have to ask him a very important question.”

“All right, Jim.”

“And Claire? Thank you for calling. It was nice to hear from you.”

Sixteen minutes later, Gentry staggered along the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine. The rain had picked up, and there was no one around, which was lucky for the Gray Man, because he walked with both hands pressed to the left side of his abdomen, his left leg ramrod straight as he kicked it forward. Every twenty-five yards or so he stopped, leaned against a wall or a car or a lamppost, bent forward from pain, recovered after a few seconds to push off and cover a few more steps before again seeking refuge from the exhaustion of the blood loss.

He found the address Fitzroy gave him. The door was closed and bolted as he knew it would be, so he found a dark alcove a few doorways down and tucked into it, sat on a piece of cardboard like a bum, and leaned his head on the stoop to rest. Singsong police sirens wailed in the distance, maybe a mile away now. Surely the cops and the hitters and the watchers were all along the Seine looking for him, though hopefully they were concentrating their search not upstream but down, and hopefully they were all hindering one another with their respective presence.

He was just on the verge of dozing, his fist pressed into his bloody stomach, when he heard a noise back by the address Fitzroy gave him. He peered out of the alcove and saw the locked door open slowly. He’d expected someone to come by car, but apparently whoever worked at the location lived in a flat above in the same building.

A woman appeared on the pavement, barely visible from a streetlamp twenty meters on. Court rose to his feet and staggered forward.

“Allez!” She shouted in a whisper. “Hurry.”

He passed her, staggering still, and found himself in a long hall. Steadying his weak and swaying body on the corridor’s walls, he saw immediately he was smearing his own blood with his hands as he walked. The woman quickly tucked her head under his arm and hefted him. She was tall and thin but strong. After each step he felt himself giving in to her more and more.

They went through a doorway and into a darkened room. Before she could flip on the light, encumbered by the 170-pound man, Court was startled by a barking dog, close. Then another, then ten or more dogs barking at once, all around him.

When the bright overhead snapped on, he realized immediately that the emergency clinic Donald had sent him to was, in actuality, a veterinarian’s office. His knees gave out, and his weight dropped on the girl by his side. With a boyish grunt she pushed him forward and down to a small chair.

“Parlez vous francais?” she asked, looking down to him. He looked up and saw, apropos of nothing, that she was rather pretty.

“Parlez vous anglais?” he asked.

“Yes, some. You are English?”

“Yeah,” he lied, but he had no intention of trying to fake an accent.

“Monsieur. I tried to tell Monsieur Fitzroy. Zee doctor is out of town, but I called him; he’s on his way here now. He will arrive in a few hours. I am sorry, I did not know how badly you were hurt. I cannot help you. I will call an ambulance. You need a hospital.”

“No. You are in Fitzroy’s Network. You at least have medicine and blood and bandages.”

“Not here, I am sorry. Dr. LePen has access to a clinic nearby, but I do not. I only work here with zee animals. You need a hospital. You need emergency aid. Mon Dieu, you are cold. I will find you a blanket.” She turned from him and left the room, returned with a thick wool blanket that smelled like cat piss. She draped it over his shoulders.

“What is your name?” Court asked, his voice at its weakest point yet.

“Justine.”

“Look, Justine. You’re a vet. That’s close enough. I just need some blood and—”

“I am a veterinary’s assistant.”

“Well, that’s close to close enough. We can make this work. Please help me.”

“I give baths! I hold zee dogs down for zee doctor! I can’t help you. Zee doctor is on his way, but you cannot wait for him. You are completely white. You need blood. Fluids.”

“I don’t have time to wait. Look, I know battlefield medicine. I can talk you through what I need. We’ll have to get some blood, just a couple units of O positive, some antibiotics, and your hands. When the weakness and pain get to be too much, I won’t be able to do what needs to be done.”

“Battlefield medicine? This is no battlefield. This is Paris!”

Court grunted. “Tell that to the guy who did this.” He opened the blanket and took his hand from his knife wound. His blood pressure was low enough now to where the blood no longer pumped from his waist, but it oozed and glistened in the harsh light of the treatment room.

Justine gasped. “That looks bad.”

“Could be worse. It’s through the muscle, bloody, but I’ll be okay if I can get some O positive. If you can help me, I’ll be on my way. Fitzroy will pay you and your doctor for the trouble.”

“Monsieur. Are you not listening? I work with zee dogs!”

He shut his eyes, seemed to drift off a bit, but he said, “Just picture me with fur.”

“How can you joke? You are bleeding to death.”

“Only because we’re arguing. Where is this clinic? We can go there, get what I need. I can’t go to a hospital. Have to do it this way.”

She breathed out a long sigh, nodded, and tied her brown hair in a ponytail behind her head.

“Let me put a bandage on that so you do not lose more blood.”

The barking of the dogs began to subside.

The small surgical center in the vet’s office was filthy. It had not been well cleaned after the close of business on Friday.

“I am sorry, monsieur. If I knew you were coming—”

“It’s fine.” Court made to pull himself onto the metal stand in the middle of the room, but Justine stopped