The Gray Man

him, grabbed a spray bottle, and perfunctorily wet and wiped down the brushed aluminum surface while her patient leaned against a shelf of bandages. She ran out through the door and came back with a cushion from the sofa in the waiting room.

“You must let your legs hang off zee side. It is not made for persons.”

“Okay.”

He used his last bit of strength to rip open his shirt. Buttons flew and bounced over the tiled room. Justine pulled off his rain-soaked shoes and used shears to cut his pants off, left him in his shorts.

“I . . . I am not so experienced with humans,” she said.

“You’re doing great.”

She fought her timidity and looked Gentry over from head to toe.

“What happened to you?”

“I got shot in the leg. A couple of days back.”

“With a gun?” She looked down at the open three-day-old wound in his thigh, then back up to the bloody hip. She quickly pulled rubber gloves on over her small hands. “Mon Dieu.”

“And then my legs and feet got cut with broken glass.”

“I see that.”

“Then I snapped a rib rolling down a mountain in Switzerland.”

“A mountain?”

“Yes. Then I fucked up my wrist busting out of some handcuffs.”

Justine was silent. Her jaw had dropped open slightly.

“And your stomach?”

“Knife wound.”

“Where?”

“Here in Paris. About an hour ago, I guess. And then I fell into the Seine.”

She shook her head. “Monsieur, I do not know what you do for a living, and I do not want to know. But whatever it is, I think you should find some other type of job.”

Court laughed a little, setting fire to the stab wound. “My skill set is not conducive to honest work.”

“I’m sorry. I do not understand these words.”

“Never mind. Justine, we can stanch the knife wound with this bandage, more or less, but if I don’t get some blood in me, I’ll pass out.”

“The clinic is close by, but it is closed.”

“We’re going to open it,” Court said. “Let’s go. I need to be on the move in under an hour.”

Justine had been wrapping a compression bandage tight around Court’s waist to hold the thick square of gauze she’d placed over the knife wound. “Move? You don’t need to move at all! For days. Do you not understand how badly injured you are?”

“You don’t understand. I have someplace I have to be! I just have to get patched up so I can leave!”

She clenched her teeth, and her eyes widened. “Monsieur, I am no doctor, but I can promise you there is no place you need to be right now other than in medical care. You could die within zee hour.”

“I’ll be okay. I have to be.”

Justine knelt down, unlocked a low cabinet, and began pulling equipment from it. “That is impossible! If we give you a transfusion, zee blood will just leak out of your stomach if you move. You need stitches. When you get the stitches they will just break if you try to move.”

Court thought it over. He looked down to his wrist-watch to find it was three a.m. “I . . . I need to get to Bayeux, up in Normandy.”

“Tonight? Are you crazy?”

“It’s life or death, Justine.”

“Yes, your death, monsieur.”

Court pulled Maurice’s envelope of cash from his pocket. It was soaked, but it was a miracle it had survived the river, as had his car keys. He handed the soggy envelope to Justine. “How much is it?” he asked as she looked through it.

Her eyes returned to his. “It’s a lot.”

“It’s all yours. Just help me get to Bayeux before eight a.m.”

“If you can’t even drive a car, what do you expect to do when you get there?”

“I can drive the car, but I need you to stitch me up and bandage me while I drive. We can do the transfusion on the way.”

She stood slowly. Said each word alone. “Sutures? In, zee, car?”

Court nodded.

“While you drive zee car?”

“Yes.”

She muttered something in French that Court did not understand. He picked up the word for dogs and figured she was saying it was due to moments like these that she preferred her patients to be the four-legged variety.

She tied the bandages around his waist and helped him put his wet dress shirt back over his shoulders. She did not look up from her work as she spoke. “What is going on in Bayeux early on a Sunday morning that you absolutely cannot miss?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was singing in the church choir?”

She shook her head without smiling. “No.”

“Okay. Then I will tell you.” And he told her. He told her with holes in his story jumbo jets could fly through about what had happened and what he had to do by eight a.m. He told her about the kidnapped girls and the father who died trying to protect them. He told her about the teams of foreign operatives after him, and as the blood loss and fatigue addled his brain, he told her again about the phone call from Claire and again about the little kids he just had to protect.

She reacted with horror when he talked of the killers and the killing, the mortal peril of two little girls for the sake of the reputation of some thuggish corporation. Yes, Justine worked for a doctor of veterinary medicine who occasionally kept some strange hours and dealt with some highly suspicious patients, and the doctor had told her enough about Fitzroy and the Network to where she knew to ask no further questions, but she never imagined in a million years that men were as brutal and as callous as those in the stranger’s story.

“So . . . what do you think?” asked Court.

“Why are you trusting me?”

“Desperation. I was dead on the riverbank forty-five minutes ago. Since that moment, you have become my only hope. If you double-cross me, I am no worse off than I was lying there.”

“What about the police?”

“Lloyd says he will kill the hostages if anyone but me shows up at the house. I know men like this. They will do exactly what they threaten to do. I have to go alone, with your help. I’ll leave you in Bayeux. My destination is a few kilometers north of the village. You can be on the morning’s first train back to Paris. You’ll be miles from any danger, I promise you.”

“What do I call you?” she asked.

“Jim.”

“Okay, Jim. We will go on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me give you a little pain medicine, just for the procedure. We’ll find something at zee clinic that we can give you once the transfusion brings your blood pressure back up. We will take my car. I will drive to Gare Saint- Lazare to get your car. Then we can go. There will be no traffic on zee road once we leave town. I will work on your injury as you drive.”

Court thought about it. Every fiber of his being was against taking any medication that would cloud his mind and dull his senses, leave him less than completely focused on the task at hand. He felt he could handle the pain.

No, he did not like Justine’s plan, but for some reason he did trust her. And as he