Crooks - A London Gangsters Tale | COMPLETED

Chapter Four

The pain had caused Wayne to throw up all down himself. Luckily, this didn't happen until he was safely in the ambulance, away from all those cameras. One of the paramedics injected him with a hefty dose of painkillers, and he began to calm a little.

From that point onward, the world had a kind of weird blur, and he felt as though he were moving in slow motion. He was lifted from the ambulance and laid out on a gurney.

"Wayne?" said a voice. "Can you hear me, Wayne?"

Wayne looked round and to his surprise saw that his dad was standing over him. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't. He just didn't have the energy.

"It's going to be alright, Wayne," said David. "Don't you worry, son."

But even in his doped-up state, Wayne wondered if his dad was telling the truth.

David watched as his barely-conscious son was wheeled into an operating theatre, out of his sight. A man in green surgical scrubs approached. "Mr. Carter? My name is Chowdhury, and I'll be performing the operation on your son."

"It's bad, isn't it," said David, absently. He did not even ask it as a question.

"Well," said Chowdhury, "the important thing is that we get started on the reduction surgery as soon as possible."

"Reduction surgery? What's that?"

"It means that we need to get the bones realigned. That will allow us to assess the damage."

"Listen, Chowdhury," David said, taking a step toward the surgeon, "he's going to be alright, isn't he? Up and about, and what-have-you?"

The surgeon was unfazed. "Your son has suffered a very serious injury. Unfortunately, we won't know the full extent of said injury until I get him under anaesthetic. My assistants are prepping him now, and then I'll get to work."

"But..."

"I'm aware that your son is a football player. With that in mind, I think you ought to prepare yourself for the worst."

"You mean you can't fix him?"

"I mean that I may have to put a couple of metal rods in there. Your son will be lucky if he doesn't walk with a limp for the rest of his life. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get ready to operate."

David stood dumbstruck, watching as the surgeon strode away. A dangerous cocktail of anger and impotence coursed through him. Things were spiralling out of control; events were running away from him. He was powerless for the first time in a long time, and he did not like it.

*

The sight that met Wayne's eyes when he regained consciousness was not an encouraging one. He was lying on crisp, white sheets, no doubt in the best medical facility money could buy. His right leg was suspended from the ceiling by a network of marionette-wires and cables, but he almost did not recognise it as his own. The flesh that was visible was purple. Not a healthy colour. It was also snared by a cage of interlaced metal rods. The last and most troubling fact was that it had no feeling whatsoever. Wayne looked at it the way he might look at a museum piece in a glass case. It might have been anybody else's leg, but certainly not his own.

On the plus side, it was certainly straighter than it had been when he last saw it. But that was about the only good thing he could say. It was well and truly mangled, even after hours of surgical treatment.

Hours? Days? He realised that he had lost all conception of time. A digital clock on top of the small bedside cabinet told him it was three in the afternoon. But which afternoon? He must have been fading in and out of consciousness for days.