White Night

Chapter 10

The motel room smelled like a homeless person had lived there, or died there. Sand-colored stains on both the worn carpet and the bedspread confirmed Michael would be sleeping in his clothes tonight. If he slept at all. The clock radio flashed 12:00 on the nightstand and late-night TV blasted through the cardboard walls of the adjacent rooms. Three hours since he was shot and he was still alive, but sweating, cold, and thirsty as hell.

After the scare with the cops, he had found a drugstore, smothered his secret under a musty shirt he'd found on the floor of the truck and a heavy waterproof jacket, and kept his eyes down while he bought gauze, tape, disinfectant, even painkillers. Extra strength painkillers for a gunshot wound...no chance they'd kill the pain, but he'd take any relief from the roaring in his shoulder.

He'd paid by credit card. A stupid mistake, but nothing he could do about it now. The motel room was paid in cash and his cell phone was off. For tonight at least he was untraceable.

His nervous landlady had called earlier and left a message on his cell that confirmed his worst fears. Mrs. B had received a knock at the door, which she didn't answer—she never did after dark—then two phone calls, neither of which resulted in a message on the answering machine.

It had confirmed his decision to stay away from home, although the forty-five-minute drive to Queens and the stomach-twisting threat of encountering more cops already had him searching his phone for motels.

He headed straight to the bathroom with his medical supplies and cursed quietly as he pulled his T-shirt over his head. The soaked wad of shop towels fell to the floor with a heavy splat and he was afraid to look at what they'd been hiding. Brown dried blood and bright new blood were mixed together on his body like an overpriced piece of art. There in his shoulder was a neat dark hole, steadily oozing new paint.

A shiver ran across his skin. The bathroom was cold. Management probably didn't bother heating the empty rooms. Not in this two-star shitbox. He sat on the edge of the tub and turned on the faucet, which choked and spluttered water. He was probably one of the few guests stupid enough to take a bath here.

Looking around the room at the blackening grout and yellowing shower curtain, he suddenly became concerned about infection. According to his landlady's World War Two stories, "shock and infection took just as many men in the field as bullets did," and the old bathroom had plenty of opportunities for it, but he had to be around surfaces he could easily clean up.

His hands shook as he removed the rest of his clothes. He could barely move his right hand, but he didn't have long to focus on it as the tremors started spreading through his body.

His throat began to close. Trying to stay alive was a mistake. He'd been calm when he was prepared to bleed out in the truck. Now he was in a crappy motel room, naked, cold, bleeding, and suddenly afraid to die.

His body trembled as he focused hard on breathing. In...and...out, steady.

He dumped his haul from the drugstore onto the floor and eased himself into the bath, the warm water feeling good on his body. Tiny swirls of red flowed around him as the sticky mess on his torso transferred into the tub.

Using one of the gauze pads, he cleaned the blood around the bullet hole, then poured disinfectant on a second pad and held it an inch away from his shoulder. His breath stuck inside him. He'd collapsed the last time he tried to touch the wound. If he passed out now, he could drown in the grimy tub.

Get on with it, Michael. "Shock and infection took as many men..."

He inhaled again and pressed the pad of disinfectant to his shoulder. His nerves seared as the disinfectant met his damaged flesh. Raw agony knocked the breath out of him and watered his eyes as he coughed his pain into the cracked subway tile surround, before finally letting his head rest on the cool ceramic.

Pain quickly turned to anger. Whatever this was, it wasn't his fault. It was projected at him at a million miles an hour through an old window. The second time his life had been blown apart by someone else, but Hansen would pay this time.

The warmth of the water slowly settled his shaking body and new blood only slowly filled the clean gauze. He might survive this yet.

Nausea crept up his throat and his stomach twisted at the memory that he'd killed someone. Even if he survived this, he was still a killer...except he wasn't.

Violent as a young man, Michael had been given a second chance by Angelo after years of temporary jobs and sublets. No one wanted to hire a twenty-year-old with a record, especially for assault.

He'd lost everything after that nose-flattening punch. It never occurred to him he had anything left to lose. His father died when he was seven, and then when Michael was eighteen Victor Hansen took the last of his family, ending his mother's life and shattering his. Deemed old enough by the court to take care of himself, he was lost and furious.

After being fired from his first few jobs when his temper blew, it had taken him years to find Angelo. Construction guys pranked each other relentlessly, but he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Plymouth Rock back then. Catching Michael squaring up to another worker one day, Angelo intervened.

"Mikey, why you so angry?"

There were reasons: he'd lost his parents when he was young and been charged with assault by the man that wrecked his life. As usual, his words abandoned him that day, but as he retrieved his belongings to leave, Angelo'd stopped him, putting a hand on his arm and smiling at him. "You okay, Mikey. Get back to work."

Five years later, he was a skilled tradesman and one of the foremen for AG Construction. He'd worked his ass off, but Angelo had given him the chance, a chance that was gone now too.

He couldn't stay in the city or the country. Cops were looking for him and he had to get out of their reach. Probably best to stay here for a day or two, then leave the city once he was sure he could handle the drive. He would go to Mexico; his life here was over. Years to rebuild after the assault charges and gone in less than an hour.

The water cooled and the shaking returned to his body. Time to get out. His shoulder felt like it was trapped in a vise, but the searing pain had finally subsided to a mind-numbing ache.

The room spun when he stood, his head weightless and everything whirling around him like a carnival ride. Stepping onto the tile floor, his foot skidded and his ass landed hard on the cold ceramic edge of the tub. He collapsed forward, his stomach lurching up and sending vomit across the bathroom floor.

Bile filled his mouth and clung to his teeth as his face ended up barely a foot above the rancid mess on the tile.

Life officially stank.