Paulie, fuck everything about you, your car and your wife, your paper shredder and your clean teeth. What have you ever done? I always did it, and I'm going to do it now. You always hated me, and I always hated you. I'm going to stick my arm in there and show you. He shoved his left hand into the cool thickness of the silver. Felt almost wet. Right down past the elbow, opening and closing his fingers in the warm chill of the liquid. When he pulled his arm out, it was a roaring wide-belt floor sander, spitting the silvery liquid everywhere. A loud fucker, vibrated his whole body. Industrial stand-up model, ran on 220 power. Took two guys to carry it up a staircase, but here he was waving it around. Better than the fish. Don't let the spinning belt touch you, take the flesh right off. He dropped the floor sander back into the shining pool. He could feel the machine stop spinning, the weight disappear from his shoulder. Everything was okay. But what came out was a length of rusted anchor chain that pinched him, pinched and rubbed and hurt, you could say that the fucking chain even burned, strangely, right through his arm halfway above the elbow, burned in a perfect line so much that you couldn't touch it-oh, God, you wanted to touch it to see if it was really true, but it hurt so much that-
'The Narcan is working,' a calm voice announced. 'Maybe ten seconds more.'
He opened his eyes to look at the arm, to see how the chain snaked around it, even cut through it, probably cut through it, and when he did, he saw three men watching him, men he remembered but did not know. The floor was littered with fast-food bags, and they'd brought in a television.
'Oh, please!' he cried, his mouth hurting thickly. 'Make it go away!'
'Can't do that, Rick,' answered the one named Morris. 'Your heartbeat was getting a little sleepy on me there. I had to snap you back.'
He was laid out on a table in a bloody T-shirt. He lurched up. His right arm was still cuffed to the table. His left arm barely extended past his sleeve. A metal clamp was taped into the bandage. 'You fuckers cut off my arm!'
Morris laid a heavy hand on Rick's chest. 'Easy,' he said, pushing Rick down gently, familiar with bodies in distress.
'My arm! You fuckers cut off my arm!'
'I did a very beautiful job packing that arm. Textbook.'
I'm weak, Rick thought.
'You going to ask him about the money again?' said the one named Tommy.
'He doesn't know anything,' said Morris, resting his palm on Rick's forehead.
'How can you tell?'
'How?' He frowned. 'I've treated something like two thousand people in shock. You can't lie when you're in shock.' Morris took Rick's pulse, checked his watch. 'The body doesn't work that way. The body forgets things in shock, but it doesn't lie.'
'What time is it?' Rick asked.
'Late. Early. Two a.m.'
'Is my arm here?' he called upward.
'You arm's in the cooler,' said Tommy. 'We got it on ice. Like beer.'
'Can I have it?' he asked in a faraway voice.
Morris shook his head. 'Not yet.'
'When?'
'When we're done here.'
He felt unable to lift his head. Hot but cold. 'When is that?' He closed his eyes. He understood the pain as a kind of exposed wetness; if he could get the arm stuck back on, then maybe it would stop. His foot and rib and mouth hurt like there were holes in them, nails and glass and bone slivers. 'What the fuck do you fucking want?' Rick cried at the ceiling.
'What does anybody want?' said Morris. 'We want the cash.'
He felt his breathing now. Some problem with his rib. The pain in the arm was wired into the breathing. He twisted to look.
'The more you move, Rick, the more the skin will differentiate at the edges of the wound.' Morris pulled a candy bar from his pocket. 'Here.' He tore away the wrapper, broke off a piece, and pushed it between Rick's lips. 'Get some sugar going.'
'Where's my arm?'
Morris pointed and Rick lifted his head, just enough. A red plastic cooler, big enough for about a hundred pounds of tuna steaks. Sealed with duct tape, even. He collapsed back onto the table.
'Tell me about the money, Rick,' said Morris.
'When we get to the hospital.'
Morris handed Rick the candy bar. 'We can't take you into the hospital.'
'Drop me at the corner.'
The men looked back and forth. 'He doesn't know about the boxes,' Tommy said. 'Not after that.'
'Probably got some stash somewhere, though.'
'How much you got, Rick?'
'Oh, fuck,' he breathed. 'Maybe forty thousand.'
'Not enough, man.'
He'd known a hundred guys like them. 'It's all I got.' He ate the rest of the candy bar. It was helping. Maybe he could talk okay, despite the pain of the tooth. Morris wanted to get this thing wrapped up. 'Take me and my arm to the hospital-to the corner, whatever. You each get something like… thirteen, fourteen thousand bucks. I don't have any more money. I had all my cash in my aunt's place.'
'Yeah, we know. Where is it now?'
He found the texture of the ceiling interesting.
'What's wrong with him?'
'The sugar is hitting him pretty hard, I think.'
'Where's the truck, Rick?'
'My truck. In a garage.'
'Look in his wallet for the ticket.'
They pulled it out of his pocket.
'Nothing.'
'Give the man his wallet back, we don't need picky-shit cash.'
'How did you find me?'
Morris ignored the question. 'Where's the garage, Rick?'
He felt strange. 'You know,' he explained, 'I saw my mother inside a tomato.'
They may not have been honorable men, but they were reasonable, especially when the reason was easy money and the prisoner was babbling, and so they threw an old coat over him, hiding his bandaged stump, and half-dragged him outside into the old taxi, the lettering and medallion number painted over poorly, the interior torn to hell, and sat him in the back, which made his stump and ribs hurt, and they each grabbed a handle and dropped the cooler into the trunk just like they said they would, and put the toolboxes in the front. He glanced down the block and under a streetlight saw a skinny dog looking back, something hanging from its mouth. Morris handed Rick a big bottle of Gatorade and said, Drink the whole thing. Drink it now, keep your fluids up. He did it and maybe felt better. One guy sat on each side of him, and after the long night neither had a beautiful smell. Morris sat at the wheel and pushed them crosstown on Fourteenth Street, a few people outside walking along peacefully. Hey, they cut off my arm! He would never say that because then they might not take him to the hospital, and besides, he was feeling a little weak, to be honest about it, his foot and ankle hurt as much as his arm, he couldn't really breathe the way he wanted, he was still thirsty and his head hurt. He wanted to sleep. Just get there, just, just.
'You all right, Rick?'
'He's in shock,' Morris said, checking his mirror. 'His pupils are big. He went from lying down to a sitting position. His heart is working a little harder, and probably there was too much sugar in that candy bar. His kidneys are dry, but he'll be okay. Five minutes he'll be better.'
'But you remember about the truck, right, Rick?'
'Yes.'
