He pushed the door open, but as he stepped into the apartment something grabbed him from behind, yanking him off his feet, and in spite of his training and stealth skills, he screamed like a flaming wood duck.
Someone had Super Glued the key slot in the back door and Charlie had snapped his key off trying to get it open. There was some kind of arrow stuck on a string through the back of his leg and it hurt like hell—blood was filling up his shoe. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew it wasn’t good that the hellhounds were bouncing around him whimpering.
He pounded the door with both fists. “Open the goddamn door, Ray!”
Ray opened the door. “What?”
The hellhounds knocked them both down going through the door. Charlie jumped to his feet and limped after them, up the steps. Ray followed.
“Charlie, you’re bleeding.”
“I know.”
“Wait, you’re dragging some kind of line. Let me cut it.”
“Ray, I’ve got to go—”
Before Charlie could finish his sentence, Ray had pulled a knife from his back pocket, flicked it open, and cut the nylon line. “Used to carry this on the job to cut seat belts and stuff.”
Charlie nodded and headed up the steps. Sophie was standing in the kitchen, wrapped in a mint-green bath towel, shampoo horns still protruding from her head—she looked like a small, soapy version of the Statue of Liberty. “Dad, where were you? I wanted to get out.”
“Are you okay, honey?” He knelt in front of her and smoothed down her towel.
“I needed help on the rinse. That’s your responsibility, Dad.”
“I know, honey. I’m a horrible father.”
“Okay—” Sophie said. “Hi, Ray.”
Ray was topping the steps, holding a bloody arrow on the end of a string. “Charlie, this went through your leg.”
Charlie turned and looked at his calf for the first time, then sat on the floor, sure that he was going to pass out.
“Can I have it?” Sophie said, picking up the arrow.
Ray grabbed a dish towel from the counter and pressed it on Charlie’s wound. “Hold this on it. I’ll call 911.”
“No, I’m okay,” Charlie said, pretty sure now he was going to throw up.
“What happened out there?” Ray said.
“I don’t know, I was—”
Someone in the building started screaming like they were being deep-fried. Ray’s eyes went wide.
“Help me up,” Charlie said.
They ran through the apartment and out into the hall—the screaming was coming from the stairwell.
“Can you make it?” Ray said.
“Go. Go. I’m with you.” Charlie steadied himself against Ray’s shoulder and hopped up the stairs behind him.
The harsh screaming coming from Mrs. Ling’s apartment had dwindled to pleas for help in English, peppered with swearing in Mandarin. “No! Shiksas! Help! Back! Help!”
Charlie and Ray found the diminutive Chinese matron backed against her stove by Alvin and Mohammed, swinging a cleaver at them to keep them at bay while they barked salvos of strawberry-kiwi-flavored bubbles at her.
“Help! Shiksas try to take supper,” said Mrs. Ling.
Charlie saw the stockpot steaming on the stove, a pair of duck feet sticking out of it. “Mrs. Ling, is that duck wearing trousers?”
She looked quickly, then turned and took a swipe at the hellhounds with the cleaver. “Could be,” she said.
“Down, Alvin. Down, Mohammed,” Charlie commanded, which the hellhounds ignored completely. He turned to Ray. “Ray, would you go get Sophie?”
The ex-cop, who felt himself the master of all situations chaotic, said, “Huh?”
“They won’t back off unless she tells them to. Go get her, okay.” Charlie turned to Mrs. Ling. “Sophie will call them off, Mrs. Ling. I’m sorry.”
Mrs. Ling had been considering her dinner. She tried to shove the duck feet under the broth with her cleaver, but to little effect. “Is ancient Chinese recipe. We don’t tell White Devils about it so you don’t ruin it. You hear of paper-wrap chicken? This duck in pants.”
The hellhounds growled.
“Well, I’m sure it’s delicious,” Charlie said, leaning against her fridge so he didn’t fall over.
“You bleeding, Mr. Asher.”
“Yes, I am,” Charlie said.
Ray arrived, carrying the towel-wrapped Sophie. He set her down.
“Hi, Mrs. Ling,” Sophie said, then she stepped out of her towel, went to the hellhounds, and grabbed them by their collars. “You guys didn’t rinse,” she said. Then, buck naked, her hair still in shampoo spikes, Sophie led the hellhounds out of Mrs. Ling’s apartment.
“Uh, someone shot you, boss,” Ray said.
“Yes, they did,” said Charlie.
“You should get medical attention.”
“Yes, I should,” Charlie said. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slid down the front of Mrs. Ling’s refrigerator.
Charlie spent the entire night in the emergency room of St. Francis Memorial waiting for treatment. Ray Macy stayed with him the whole time. While Charlie enjoyed the screaming and whimpering from the other patients waiting for treatment, the retching and pervasive barf smell began to wear on him after a while. When he started to turn green, Ray tried to use his ex-cop status to gain favor with the head ER nurse, whom he had known in that old life.
“He’s hurt bad. Can’t you sneak him in somewhere? He’s a good guy, Betsy.”
Nurse Betsy grinned (which was the expression she used in lieu of telling people to fuck off) and scanned the waiting room to make sure that no one seemed particularly attentive. “Can you get him to the window?”
“Sure,” Ray said. He helped Charlie out of his chair and got him to the little bulletproof window. “This is Charlie Asher,” Ray said. “My friend.”
Charlie looked at Ray.
“I mean my boss,” Ray added quickly.
“Mr. Asher, are you going to die on me?”
“Hope not,” Charlie said. “But you might want to ask someone with more medical experience than me.”
Nurse Betsy grinned.
“He’s been shot,” Ray said, ever the advocate.
“I didn’t see who shot me,” Charlie said. “It’s a mystery.”
Nurse Betsy leaned into the window. “You know we have to report all gunshot wounds to the authorities. Are you sure you don’t want to take a veterinarian hostage and have him sew you up?”
“I don’t think my insurance will cover that,” Charlie said.
“Besides, it wasn’t a gunshot,” Ray added. “It was an arrow.”
Nurse Betsy nodded. “Let me see?”
Charlie started to roll up his pant leg and lift his leg up on the little counter. Nurse Betsy reached through the little window and knocked his foot off the shelf. “For Christ’s sakes, don’t let the others see I’m looking.”
“Ouch, sorry.”
“Is it still bleeding?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Hurt?”
“Like a bitch.”
“Big bitch or little bitch?”
“Extra large,” Charlie said.
“You allergic to any painkillers?”
“Nope.”
“Antibiotics?”
“Nope.”
Nurse Betsy reached into her uniform pocket and pulled out a handful of pills, picked out two round ones and one long one, and slid them through the little window. “By the power invested in me by Saint Francis of Assisi, I now pronounce you painless. The round ones are Percocet, the oval one is Cipro. I’ll put it on your chart.” She looked at Ray. “Fill out his papers for him, he’s going to be too fucked up to do it in a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Betsy.”
“You get any Prada or Gucci bags in that store where you work—they’re mine.”
“No problem,” Ray said. “Charlie owns the store.”
“Really?”
Charlie nodded.
“Free,” Betsy added. She slid another round pill across the counter. “For you, Ray.”
“I’m not hurt.”
“It’s a long wait. Anything could happen.” She grinned in lieu of telling him to fuck off.
An hour later the paperwork was done and Charlie was heaped in a fiberglass chair in a posture that seemed possible only if his bones had turned to marshmallow.