I take in the face of the old man lying on the stretcher we brought him in on and I’m reminded of what a father in his advanced years would look like. I never met mine, but this man’s snarling visage…
It makes me think he probably looks like the father I might have had.
I can’t be sure though because my father was dead before I ever got a chance to meet him.
“So, old boy, they’re sending me in for the fun,” I say as I take the wrinkled hand without an IV in it and give it a light shake.
The old man tries to hock something up on me, but it ends up just dribbling down his chin.
I guess my bedside manner lacks something.
“What’s the plan?” Andrew asks as he looks up to me.
Shrugging my shoulders, I say, “Lots of misery for this fuck. Got a second?”
“Sure, that paralyzing drug should keep him pretty useless from the waist down,” he says before slamming a fist down on the old man’s naked ball sack.
Fuck me, that didn’t even make the old man flinch.
“Gonna need that shit turned down a bit for what I have in mind,” I say.
“Oh, we gonna work on the legs first? Been a while since we did that,” Andrew says while we walk away from the stretcher.
Making our way over to Simon and Lucifer, I motion for Johnathan to join us.
“We need to keep him alive through all of this,” I say to Andrew once we’re all together.
“Fuck,” Andrew groans. “You all know I’m not a doctor, right?”
I grin. “You’ve got this, I have faith in you.”
“What exactly are we doing with him?” Johnathan asks.
“Fingers, ears, eyes, and tongue,” Lucifer says.
“Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,” I sing-song after him.
When every pair of eyes turns to me and just stares, I shrug my shoulders. I couldn’t help it, the song just came out of me.
Lucifer chuckles first, then the others quickly follow suit. Chuckling and shaking their heads.
“Anyway, we’re shipping him off to somewhere out of state. I think the west coast would probably be our best bet,” I say.
“Why not the east coast or New York?” Simon asks.
“Too hard to get through the city and back out. Also, it’s their big hub. Everyone knows their shit’s jacked up all over the eastern seaboard,” I say, trying to get my words out as fast as my thoughts are flying.
“So somewhere west coast,” John says and begins to rub his eyebrows in thought.
“Yeah, we know they’ve been beefing for territory out there with the Cartels,” I say. “Let’s give them an added worry.”
“That’s a well-thought-out idea,” Lucifer says.
Shrugging my shoulders after a moment of silence, I say, “We could also always drop him off at the pig farm and let them have their way with him.”
“No. A long-term plan like this would work better for us,” Lucifer says firmly, putting an end to the debate.
“Alright, time to work,” I grin and look to Andrew. “You’re going to need to keep him alive through the questioning. The rest of the maiming… I figure we can knock his ass out for that so he doesn’t go into cardiac arrest or some unlucky shit.”
Sighing loudly to us all, Andrew’s big ass looks over to Lucifer and says, “We need to find a real doctor. It seems to me, every day we’re heading into deeper and deeper waters. Right now, I’m pretty much fucking drowning in an ocean of medical shit I just don’t know how to do.”
“Out of curiosity, has your GI Bill for tuition gone out of date?” Lucifer asks him with a grin.
“Fuck you, and hell yes it has,” Andrew says. “I’m too old for med school, and while my hand is all fucking healed up from the damage I did to it, it isn’t scalpel-wielding worthy.”
“I think Andrew does have a point,” Simon says.
“Agreed,” Lucifer says with a frown. “We’ll need to be on the lookout for candidates.”
I slap Andrew on the shoulder and say, “Let’s go, Andy. Time’s a wastin’ on that old fuck.”
There’s dead silence all around me yet again. Even Lucifer doesn’t make a sound.
“I’m going to castrate you like a fucking bull if you ever call me that again,” Andrew says to me.
“Good to know,” I say with a laugh.
Heading back over to the old man on the gurney, I ask, “So, Andrey, how’s life on the cot been?”
He mutters something in slurred Russian, and I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with my mother and a donkey.
Can’t be sure, but I think that’s what he said.
“English, asshole. No Russian. I hear a word of Russian, I take a rivet gun to your shinbones,” I warn as I stroll on past him.
Then I ask the guys around me, “Can two of you move him from the bed? Put him on the metal table. I need a firm surface to work on.”