Death of an Escort (17 page)

"It's an educated guess," I said. "And he
dropped that case of whatever by the door."

I could see now that it looked like a small,
black fishing tackle box. The male nurse opened it up.

"I've got the stuff here," he said. Then he
said something medical sounding that I didn't catch.

"What?" I asked.

"It's a strong sedative. And in extreme
quantities, it can stop a heart from beating."

"What can you do about it?" I asked.

"We've got to get you up to intensive care
now. I don't know how much he got into you, but if it was a lot,
we'll have to get you on a heart machine and respirator
quickly."

They were going to find my gun. That wouldn't
be good. Quickly I began scanning for some place I could stash it,
and then it came to me.

"Real quick," I said. "Can you hand me the
bundle of clothes my wife left me?" I pointed to the neat bundle
that sat on the chair by the bathroom door to the left.

The male nurse got it for me.

"How is she?" I said and indicated out in the
hall where the other two were still with the nurse that had been
knocked down.

As soon as he looked that direction, I
slipped the gun into the middle of the clothes, and then I tied the
shirt sleeves over top to make sure it wouldn't fall out.

"She'll be okay," he said. "I think we will
have to call the police on this one. It seems odd."

He took the bundle from me, and then started
wheeling me out of the room. The other nurses made way for us, and
I was pushed to the elevator. The bed was on wheels.

"How are you going to treat me," I asked.

The nurse pushed an elevator button. "We're
going to run a blood test to see how much you actually have in your
system. Since it's already in your bloodstream there is nothing we
can do to get it out. So, we'll hook you up to the machines to keep
your vitals pulsing. We'll hook you up to a fresh IV and flush your
system as much as possible. Once the drug has passed through your
system, you'll be fine."

"So, the ICU machines will keep me alive
while the drug tries to stop everything in my body?"

We got on the elevator. "Something like
that," he said.

I was feeling very relaxed. Too relaxed. The
sedative was working. Mickey had tried to have me snuffed out
again. I don't remember much more after that.

I woke up and had no idea where I was. For a
moment, I couldn't even think of who I was.

"You're awake?"

A female voice. I tried to think of who it
was but couldn't. Was it safe to talk? I didn't know.

"How do you feel?" she asked again. Now I saw
her face. She was a nurse.

I was in the hospital.

"What happened?" I asked.

"You were drugged," she said. "We took you up
to ICU. Do you remember?"

I did now. "Am I okay now?"

"You're fine," she said.

I waited for her to explain more, but she
didn't. "What happened?"

"You were drugged," she said repeating
herself.

"Was the guy caught?"

"Excuse me?"

"The guy who drugged me. Was he caught?"

"I'll have to call a doctor." She left.

I tried moving a little. There was pain, but
it wasn't much. The only surgery I'd had was removing the bullet
from my skin. The pain should be minimal, I thought. I could handle
it.

Staying here would be deadly. Mickey would
know I was alive, and he'd send someone else.

Screw that. I was going to go and teach
Mickey a lesson he wouldn't forget.

An older man stepped into the room. "Mr.
Crusafi?"

"Yes," I said. "Let's just cut to the chase.
I need to leave."

"You'd like to be discharged?"

"I need to leave."

"It would be my advice that you stay," he
said. "Your wounds need to heal."

"I can handle it," I said. "I need to
leave."

"Does this have something to do with the
mistaken dosage?" he asked.

I frowned. "Mistaken dosage?"

"My understanding is that you came from ICU.
You had an accidental dosage," he said. "The attendant was prepping
you for surgery, but he was in the wrong room."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"We are very sorry. I've been told by
management that the employee who made the mistake no longer works
for us, and we're crediting your entire stay. There will be no
expense for you, as long as you agree to the confidentiality
agreement."

"You're a doctor?" I asked.

"I am," he said. "And I'm a counselor for the
hospital too."

"You're a nut," I said. "Give me the
agreement to sign." This was unreal. They were offering me free
treatment in exchange for keeping my mouth shut. At the same time
they were feeding me this bull story. Whatever. I didn't care what
bull they wanted to shove. Getting this all free, however, I was
okay with that.

Why not? I was not sure how I was going to
pay the bills, but this made it easy.

He laid a tray, several papers, and a pen in
front of me. The type was tiny and covered page after page. It
bound me to lots of things and told me in short that I had to keep
my mouth shut about the hospital error.

"Come here," I said to the doctor. He bent
down. "So we're on the level. I'm not stupid. The guy that came
into my room didn't work here. I know that, and I know it wasn't a
mistake."

He cocked his head to one side. "Mr. Coker
did work here. I can assure you of that."

"Mr. Coker?"

"Did you see his face, Mr. Crusafi?"

"I did," I said.

"One moment," he said and he left.

I went back to studying the paperwork in
front of me. Several minutes later he came back in. He was holding
two things.

One was an ID badge. The other was a sheet of
paper. Both the paper and the ID badge had the picture of the man
on them. The man who'd drugged me and then ran.

Unreal.

He really was hospital staff. Mickey had
bribed hospital staff, and that was the scariest thing yet. If he'd
bribed one of them, who else had he bribed?

What would be coming next?

"I have to get out of here," I said. I signed
the papers saying that my hospital care was free if I was
quiet.

"I will discharge you," the doctor said. "But
it's against my medical advice. You'd be better off healing in
here."

"No," I said. "I really don't think so." I
sat up and tried my hardest not to visibly show the pain I
felt.

"Well, let's see if you can dress yourself.
If you're able to do that, then you will be released," he said. "If
you are unable, there is a pull cord in the restroom. Pull that to
call a nurse to help you. In that case, you will need to stay a bit
longer."

They, the doctor and nurse, excused
themselves from the room.

Using the railing on the left side of the
bed, I pulled myself out. My bundle of clothes was still there, and
I took them into the restroom.

I tried to bend down, and that hurt too much.
I decided to walk around the room for a minute. Leaving the
bathroom, I walked around the small room for a moment.

Little by little, it started to feel a little
more normal to walk. That was it. I needed to move around.

Next, I tried making the bed. That I couldn't
do. I left it looking lumpy with the sheet bunched up. As I stepped
away from it, looking at it, it kind of looked like someone was
still in it. That made me smile a bit, and I went back to the
bathroom to tackle getting dressed by myself.

I had managed to get my pants on when I heard
the door to the room open and then close outside. Silently I opened
the door to my bathroom and looked out.

Someone was standing over the bed with his or
her back to me. I turned around and gripped the gun, but I held it
out of view.

I saw the person move the sheets backward.
The person seemed startled to find no one in the bed.

"Excuse me?" I said.

The person started and turned around quickly.
It was a guy, someone I'd never seen before. He held some kind of
sharp surgical instrument, and he held it like a dagger. As if he
was going to stab someone.

He saw me and started to move at me. I
brought the gun into view. He stopped.

"Get out," I said.

He looked undecided.

"I'll shoot you," I said. "Now get out."

Backing up, to keep his eyes on me, he backed
up to the door. There he let himself out and disappeared.

Mickey was such a dead man when I get out of
here. I left the bathroom door open, and I finished getting
dressed. It took longer than normal as I didn't want to rip any of
my small sutures open.

After getting fully dressed, I shoved the gun
into my waistband and let my shirt hang out to cover it.

I made my way outside to the nurse station
and eventually I was discharged from the hospital. In a sealed box,
they returned my belongings, including my weapons.

My car was still at the office, and there I
walked. I wasn't practicing clear thinking. I was barely thinking
at all.

All I could think of was how I was going to
kill Mickey. At the office, there was a construction crew. They
must have been repairing what had been my office.

I got into my car and I started driving to
the east side of town and the industrial park. I figured I'd do him
right in his office.

No gun. I'd use my hands. It would feel
better that way. Not to mention it would be less messy.

Something caught my eye as I sped along the
main highway that went through town. One of the stores that had
prime space on the main drag was a statue place. They did things in
concrete and sometimes stone.

Outside the store and in the front of the
parking lot was a full-sized statue of Mary the mother of
Jesus.

My foot came off the gas, and my car started
to lose speed. It made me think of what I had told the priest about
working to give up violence. Not only that, but murder was
wrong.

But this was self-defense, I told myself.

That wasn't true, and I knew it. Self-defense
would be protecting myself from the actual attacks. This guy, this
worm Mickey, wasn't actually trying to kill me himself.

In short, it would be wrong to kill him. I
felt disappointed in myself. I felt weak, but I knew I couldn't do
the wrong thing.

Instead I changed direction and drove to the
church. I wasn't planning to talk to anyone. I wanted to be alone
and to pray.

I needed wisdom to know what to do next.

On the way, I thought more about Mickey. If
Kelly Brandt had indeed been murdered, clear thinking said it was
unlikely that it was Mickey.

In no way was it impossible, but it was
unlikely. He was videoing the last night she was alive. It was very
likely that he caught the actual deed on camera by mistake.

He wouldn't have been videoing himself
committing a crime. That would be stupid.

And furthermore, if he'd done it, he
certainly wouldn't post the thing online. It seemed that the video
had indeed been up online for a short time. Then it was pulled
down, but the page that went with it remained up until I reminded
him of that fact.

Then it came down too.

He was definitely a man with a lot to lose.
There was no question that he wanted me dead because he thought I
could be the key to undoing him, but by focusing my attention on
him, I was distracting myself from my real purpose.

I needed to find the truth of what happened
to Kelly. It was time to stop playing games with Mickey. He was
merely a distraction.

At the church, I pulled up and parked. Only
one other car was in the lot. No one had been following me. Yes, I
had been checking.

However, to be safe, the gun was still
concealed on my person.

As always, the church doors were open. I let
myself inside and went and knelt in one of the back pews. The
kneeling bench was already down and I situated myself on it.

I began to pray. At least I tried as best I
could.

I didn't grow up religious. As a teenager and
young adult, I hated anything Christian. Then incidents occurred
that forced me to go on the run and take on personas that weren't
me.

The one I was now was Ray Crusafi. I was
Italian, or at least I pretended to be. I dyed my hair black (all
of my body hair), and I took up Catholicism. In the beginning it
was an act. It was part of the persona, and I thought it made me
even harder to spot because originally the real me had been so
anti-religion, and that was no secret.

But something strange happened. I found God.
I realized that I had faith.

I'd become a Christian. It was no longer an
act.

It was spooky to me, but there was no denying
it. The outward Ray was Catholic because he'd grown up that way,
but the inner me was now a true believer like the outward show.

I attended mass every week.

Honestly, I was a lousy Christian. Many, many
bad habits followed me. They were ingrained into who I was. Like
the whole killing people thing.

It was as much a part of me as breathing, and
working to overcome that was a real struggle, but I did struggle
with it. I was trying.

I sat there in the slightly darkened church
for hours. Candles burned up at the front, and I remained in the
shadows at the back. There I prayed as best I could.

Night time came, but I didn't leave yet.
There was no one to go home to, and I still wasn't sure what to do
about Mickey. I needed to get him off my back, but now I didn't
feel right about jamming a 9mm bullet in his head either.

A little past midnight, I realized what had
to be done, and I got up. The candles up front had burnt low, and
no light was coming in from outside, as it was night out.

In the deep shadows, I stretched the
stiffness out of my muscles, and I walked back to my car.