Whoever was there didn't answer. Now the fingers were lifting the bandages where they went around his head and over his ears.
Gus opened his mouth to ask a question but as he did so he felt a strong hand clamp down over his mouth and immediately there came a searingly painful jab in his neck. His whole body jerked against the restraint.
The hand covered his mouth tightly, turning Gus's shouts into a muffled whine. There was a hot feeling spreading inside his neck, around his throat. Then, slowly, the hand pressing down on his mouth released its hold.
A man's voice, very soft, whispered close to his ear. He could feel his hot breath on him.
'The doctors won't allow anyone to question you for a while. But I can't wait that long. I need to know who hired you.'
What the fuck . . . ?
Gus tried to sit up, but the strap held his body and a hand pressed against his head kept him in place.
'Answer the question,' the voice said.
Who was that? It couldn't be a cop. Some shithead trying to cut himself in on some of the stuff he'd taken from the museum? But then why ask about who'd hired him?
'Answer me.' The voice was still very quiet, but sharper now.
'Fuck you,' Gus said.
Except that, he didn't say it. Not really. His mouth formed the words, and he heard them in his head.
But no sound came out.
Where's my fucking voice gone?
'Ah,' the voice whispered. 'That's the Lidocaine's effect. Just a small dose. Enough to numb your vocal chords. It's annoying in that you can't talk. The upside of it is that, well, you can't scream either.'
Scream?
The fingers that had felt so gentry for his pulse landed on his left hip, right where the cop's bullet struck. They rested there for a moment before suddenly bursting alive and pressing in. Hard.
Pain seared through his body like he was being branded from the inside, and he screamed.
Silently.
Blackness threatened to overwhelm his brain before the pain receded slightly and saliva pooled at the back of his throat. He thought he was about to throw up. Then the man's hands touched him again and he flinched, only this time the touch was gentle.
'Are you right- or left-handed?' the soft voice asked.
Gus was now sweating profusely. Right- or left-handed? What the fuck difference does that make?
He lifted his right hand feebly, and soon felt something being placed between his fingers. A pencil.
'Just write the names down for me,' the voice told him, guiding the pencil toward what felt like a notepad.
His eyes bandaged shut and his voice gone, Gus felt completely cut off from the world and alone, more so than he'd ever imagined. Where is everybody? Where are the doctors, the nurses, the fucking cops, for Chrissake?
The fingers seized the flesh around his wound and squeezed again, this time harder and for longer.
An excruciating pain shot through him. Every nerve in his body seemed to ignite as he bucked against the strap, screaming in silent agony.
'This doesn't have to take all night,' the man stated calmly. 'Just give me the names.'
There was only one name he could write. Which he did.
'Branko . . . Petrovic?' the man asked softly.
Gus nodded hurriedly.
'And the others?'
Gus shook his head as best he could. That's all I know, for fuck's sake.
The fingers again.
Pressing in, harder, deeper. Squeezing.
The pain.
The silent screams.
Jesus fucking Christ. Gus lost track of time. He managed to write the name of a place where Branko worked. Other than that, all that he could do was shake his head and mouth, No.
Over and over and over again.
Eventually, thankfully, he felt the pencil being taken away from him. At last the man believed that he was telling the truth.
Now, Gus could hear small sounds he did not recognize, then he again felt the man's fingers lift the edge of the bandage in the same place. He cringed, but this time he hardly felt the needle prick.
'Here's some more painkiller for you,' the man whispered. 'It'll ease the pain that you're feeling and help you sleep.'
Gus felt a slow, rising wave of dark weariness flow through his head and start down his body and with it came relief that the ordeal, the pain, was over. Then a terrifying realization descended on him: that the sleep into which he was helplessly plunging was one from which he would never awaken.
Desperate now, he tried to move but couldn't, and after a moment it seemed as though he didn't want to move. He relaxed. Wherever he was going, it just had to be a better place than the sewer in which he had spent his entire miserable life.
Chapter 23
Reilly climbed out of bed, pulled on a T-shirt and looked out the window from his fourth-floor apartment. Outside, the streets were deathly quiet. The city that never sleeps only seemed to apply to him.
He often didn't sleep well for a number of reasons. One was simply his inability to let go. It was a problem he'd had more and more frequently over the last few years, this incessant mulling over leads and data relating to whatever case he was working on. He didn't really have a problem falling asleep. Sheer exhaustion usually took care of that. But then he'd hit that dreaded four a.m. threshold and suddenly find himself wide awake, his brain churning away, sorting and analyzing, searching for the missing kernel of information that might save lives.
Sometimes, the workload was sufficiently intense to monopolize his thoughts. Occasionally though, his mind would segue into personal issues, straying into even darker territory than the underworld of his investigations, and unpleasant anxiety attacks would worm their way to the surface and take over.
A lot of it had to do with what happened to his dad, how he'd shot himself when Reilly was ten, how the young boy had come home from school and wandered into the study that day and found his father there,
sitting in his favorite armchair as he always did except, this time, the back of his head was missing.
Either way, what followed was always a hugely frustrating couple of hours for him. Too tired to get out of bed and use the time to do something useful, but too wired to get back to sleep. He'd just lie there in the dark, his mind taking him to all kinds of desolate places. And he'd wait. Sleep usually came mercifully at around six or so, little comfort given that he'd have to be up again an hour later to go to work.
That night, the four a.m. wake-up came courtesy of a call from the night duty officer. It informed him that the man he'd chased across the streets of lower Manhattan had passed away. The duty officer mentioned something about internal bleeding and heart failure and failed efforts to resuscitate the dead man. Reilly had spent the next two hours, as was customary, reviewing the case, one which had now lost its most promising and only real lead given that he didn't think Lucien Broussard would be able to tell them much, if and when he was actually able to speak again. But thinking about the case soon merged with other thoughts that were swirling around in his mind after leaving the hospital earlier that night. Thoughts mostly relating to Tess Chaykin.
Looking out the window, he thought about how the first thing he'd noticed about her when they'd sat down at the cafe was that she wasn't wearing a wedding band, or any rings for that matter.
Noticing things like that played an important role in his professional life. It was an instinctive attention to detail that came with years on the job.
Only this wasn't work, and Tess wasn't a suspect.
***
