Who Is Brian Quinn?

Gary

The doctor wore a thin smock and gloves, a surgical mask pulled down to his chin. "It's gone quite deep." He shook his head. "We'll need to operate to remove that slug. What caliber did you say it was?"

"Not sure." Hiram lay on a rickety hospital bed. "Maybe a forty-five."

"I see. We can get it out, I assure you. Won't be a walk in the park," remarked the doctor.

Hiram grimaced.

The doctor sighed and checked a warped clipboard held between his gloved fingers. "In about an hour we'll be back to take you down. Meanwhile, sit tight and relax. The medication should keep the pain relatively bearable."

Earlier, Reggie had tried to remove the bullet from Hiram's hip. Sitting in the back office of Hiram's shop with iodine and some rags, a bottle of Old Crow and a pair of pliers, the two had only managed to aggravate the wound, sending the bullet deeper. Hiram had begun to lose consciousness there in the back of his shop and Reggie figured they'd better find a doctor. He trundled Hiram out into the station wagon and raced through town all the while thinking of the body that lay in the back of the car wrapped in plastic. Reggie pictured the boy's face, eyes staring icy and unmoving. Hiram breathed hard, his face a mask of pain, sweating in the seat beside him. "You need to get rid of that body," he whispered. "Get that boy's body down to the river."

Reggie turned. He could see the beads of sweat standing out on Hiram's forehead and temples. His eyes were hazy like those of a fish in a bucket, like a man who carries a terrible secret.

Reggie's hand touched the cold steel weapon in his pocket. He slid it out, the coal black muzzle of Hiram's revolver shinning black in his hand.

Hiram closed his eyes then blinked them open. "They'll come looking for us. For the boy." He reached out a tremulous hand taking the gun from Reggie, hiding it in his jacket. "They could be here already for all we know."

"Hiram," whispered Reggie. "Sorry I couldn't get that bullet out."

Hiram gripped the door handle of his seat looking into Reggie's eyes. "Doesn't matter, Reggie. Take the boy," his voice urgent. "Throw him in the river. Do it."

Reggie nodded.

Arriving at the ER he'd bundled Hiram into a  wheelchair and rolled him through the double doors. As nurses surrounded him he clutched his coat to himself and stumbled out the sliding doors into the night.

Now here in a triage room Hiram gritted his teeth and tried to raise himself off the bed. It groaned beneath him, the thick rubber wheels creaking. Reggie would take care of the body. No doubts there. But Dale's death wouldn't go undetected. And the fact remained that the boy had been a Quinn. Whatever that meant. He was certain they would be coming for him. Whoever they were.

Hiram twisted himself around on the bed reaching for his jacket that lay slung on a chair beside the bed. He would be ready when they came. In his mind Hiram suspected everyone, even the doctor. The whole works, the hospital, the city, the entire world seemed infected somehow, unsafe and suspect. The violence with Dale and those rings, Madge's disappearance and this Quinn, whoever he was, had succeeded in pealing away the layers like an onion with no center making everything feel manic and surreal. Reaching the jacket he rifled through and brought out the small revolver. He looked up.

A man wearing scrubs stood in the doorway of the tiny hospital room. He breathed heavily as though he'd been running up stairs or crossing a river. Hiram had the feeling he was face to face with a man stranded for years on a deserted island unable to escape but nonetheless working urgently to find his way off this lonely rock. His eyes held a certain ferocity, the restrained hysteria of a hunted man, alone and desperate.