seymoure

Rest and Recovery.

"I had my first Major League at-bat off him in 1995. He struck me out. But I think that helped me out in seeing some pitches, and I know he's aggressive and always come after you."

-Mark Loretta

I had some vague memory of being asked to move onto a gurney and a bit later into a bed. The interval between those instances was of an indeterminate length, but I’m sure there were drugs involved here also.

For a short stay, this seemed eternal. When you have no company but beeping machines, time telescopes in ways only Einstein could truly understand.

I dropped in and out of sleep for the day, but finally noticed that the sky outside my window had given up on sunshine and was submerged in a sea of blackness interrupted by distant blinking lights. So I was in some suburban area. If I had been in downtown L.A. night would be only a rumor. It is another city that doesn’t sleep.

I would find out later that Chester had ordered that I been sent somewhere outside the city limits. Even when he had been in a blast, the guy was looking out for me.

I decided to just let go and try to get some sleep, since the plan to was release me in the morning.

Sleep has always been elusive for me.

For many years my moments of real rest have been few and far between. After my wife passed it got worse. And two other factors put the death knoll to slumber, being away from home and being in a hospital.

After years on the road I had still never gotten over the unfriendly bed. It was a cold mistress with no willingness to enfold me in its arms and bring repose. Sleep, that most intimate time, could not be shared with strangers.

Hospitals only made dormancy more remote. It’s like trying to sing a happy tune in the midst of a funeral procession. That only works if you are always in the midst of New Orleans, and then only on the last half of the march.

Put it all together and the only thing that brings the sand to my eyes in medicinal. Still, regularly, I partially woke through a haze of drugged semi-consciousness.

It was through this mental shower curtain that I viewed the following play.

The opening curtain could have been the finale, as it was seen through a heavy pillow. Luck would have it that I was near enough to awake that I fought back. The arms pressing against my face were strong, and they were sure. This guy had done this before and knew just how to put his weight on the edges of the pillow so as not to leave impressions in the skin other than the pillow itself. Sometimes they can get caught because they leave enough pressure on the linen to leave epithelials and get tracked down.

As my strength was failing along with my air supply, the entire thing changed. Someone lifted the barrier and let the air rush back in.

Before I could access who was trying to kill me I thought I saw Hugo flying across the room.

The air rushed coarsely back into my lungs, but I was not going to be able to get up amid the metal bars around the bed and the tubes from everywhere.

Then I detected that it wasn’t Hugo, but Max McKraken, the one man I knew who could stand against the big man and nearly take him punch for punch.

His opponent, my nominated assassin, had taken a Glock from someplace and was pistol whipping the big guy. He then turned and drew dead aim at me. There would be no missing, with that firepower and at this range. But he didn’t get the shot off. Max was up and had lifted the smaller man off the floor using his shoulders as a handle and throwing him against the wall.

I didn’t hear the guy hit the wall. The sound was drowned out by the air exploding out of his body as he smacked against the wall. He then did an impression of a rag dog and slid down the wall and crumpled on the floor.

Max leapt to my side and checked to see that I was alive. He may have been a touch premature. The man intent on killing me was still strong enough to pull the trigger. This is why cops always kick the gun away before they do anything else.

One bullet went straight through Max’s side and hit me in the leg. The searing pain was familiar. I was pretty sure that the bone was broken. But that wouldn’t matter if he got off another shot.

He didn’t

Chester was in the door and put a .45 slug though the fellow’s chest, and then snapped off another through the guy’s forehead.

This hit man had ended his last victim.

The doctors rushed in while my mind slipped out.

“Damn,” the last thought rushed through my head, “Another night in the hospital.”

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Continue on to Chapter 20