Traffic (Complete two-hundred pages) (Moving to Kindle Vella in 30 Days! )

28

SURPRISE

"I paid you. Now leave," said Pat throwing a hand to the nurse and security guard who both looked high strung from the sudden exchange. They seemed to want to watch so as to ensure Pat would be in and out before the three thugs returned. "Go," said Pat. "You said two hours." He must have been referring to the time limit they would return. Dos horas.

The nurse and security guard looked at each other but finally stepped back out into the hall. The door shut but Pat went to lock it and threw down the shades. Extra cautious he even pulled the privacy curtain for second measure. He bent over to Penelope and got on one knee. He shook her arm. "Hey, wake up."

Penelope didn't budge. He shook her hard this time, and she made a face that hurt her at the scars. Her teeth gritted violently and she turned her chin to him. Her eyes flickered, under attack by the ceiling lights.

"How're you feeling?" said Pat with the least bit of sincerity. It was the most Penelope could do to keep her eyes open for even one more millisecond before they closed. Exhausted, she seemed to fall back asleep. Continuing to speak to her in case that she was still awake, Pat exclaimed, "They're coming for you in two hours. I'll have you out in one."

There was no response on Penelope's end.

Jack watched, as Pat seemed relieved she couldn't hear him. Pat said, reflectively, "You're not who I thought you were."

Jack tried not to make any movements outside, however, his squat position was turning his legs to iron and he could feel his wound in his shin bursting under his rain soaked pants. As Pat stood to leave, Jack heard his words echo in his head, You're not who I thought you were. What did that mean? That was when he realized Mr. Golem possibly sent him. And that Mr. Golem wanted Penelope home to LA before those three men got to her first.

Jack stood up to leave before Pat suddenly turned back on his heel. He'd forgotten something. Jack crouched quickly back into the shadows before Pat knelt down to touch Penelope's hand.

"Almost forgot this," Pat said, embarrassed of himself. He slipped his fingers under Penelope's dry and enclosed fingers, when he unexpectedly felt her palm and withdrew in astonishment. He stood erect. His face was pale. Wait, Jack could imagine Pat thinking as Jack touched the crinkling note that sat in his own pocket, where's the note that Mr. Golem told me to grab? Of course, Jack only assumed it was Mr. Golem who sent Pat. Pat quickly felt under Penelope's other enclosed palm but there was nothing there either.

Pat cursed. He threw off his hat and revealed he hadn't showered as his greasy hair dangled over his wet forehead. "Where the hell is it?" He shook as though his life were at stake.

Jack would've thought to help him of course. He'd simply hand over the note with the address. But the truth was Jack didn't know who Pat was anymore. Just like neither of them knew who Penelope was. But Jack looked at the pathetic look on Pat's face. He was frantic and desperate, whereas Penelope lay motionless and unbiased. Jack decided whose side he was on. For now.

"Penelope," Pat said to the nearly comatose woman. "Come on, where's the damn message? Show me the message." He was talking to himself.

He jerked Penelope's rolling bed away from the window without a care to her sleep. She shifted uncomfortably moaning. Pat ran behind the bed to see if the note fell off the edge. It had not. Pat cursed again and this time looked under her sheets. He paused for a moment. He perversely stared for a moment at Penelope's exposure. He then licked his lips and shook his head as to decide to stay focused.

Jack winced in disgust at the man for peeping at her.

Pat, having nowhere else to look, actually checked her hands again so as to flip them over and see if he missed the note. First he flipped over the hand by the window. Nothing. Then the other--

But this time what Pat saw made him stand up straight again. All color drained from his face and Jack stood as well when he saw what was there in Penelope's palm. Her entire hand, from the bottom of her palm radiating to the tips of her fingers, was painted black. And in the center of her black palm. . . was a big red dot. The paint was fresh for it had smeared onto her bedding underneath where her hand had rested and Pat quickly looked at his hands to see that it had wiped onto his fingers in a dark red black mix.

"He was right," was the last thing Pat said. And he shivered and ran quickly out the door. The lights were left on and Jack examined the mark on Penelope's hand and realized the paint was a message all its own. He felt the rain start to fall harder and a stroke of thunder build up over in the hills. He looked at Penelope one last time in case it was his last, and he stepped backward but slipped in the mud. Catching himself on his knee, which sank an inch in the bed of worms. He found his footing and wiped his knee against the brick wall of the hospital building. He heard the paper crinkle in his pocket and decided to run around the parking lot in the direction of the road. He sought to find the bus stop. And he would ask whoever he could for directions to Avenida Presidente Masaryk 390A. Wherever that was. He would go there. And he would go up to the Presidential Suite. 8th floor. And whomever he'd find up there, he'd spy on them, or demand and explanation. And if he had to, he'd kill every one of them except the man who knew the most. And once he got the information he was looking for, and had drained the man of any knowledge worth knowing, he'd kill him too. No trail. No nonsense. Jack had no friends. Just a co-worker to rescue. And a family to save.