Limbo by Steve Brewer

I snapped awake on a cold autopsy table.

A white-haired man with rimless eyeglasses stood over me, a scalpel in his hand, poised to slice my bare chest. I grabbed his wrist before he could break the skin.

The surprise was too much for the old man. The color drained from his face until he was as white as the smock he wore. His wide blue eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed, his arm tearing free from my grasp as he crumpled to the floor.

I sat up and looked around. The room was chilly and close, lit only by one bright lamp that dangled above my aching head. The shiny steel table had a drain built into it. Shudder.

I was naked and, except for the headache, seemed uninjured. The usual chunky, hairy body. “Semper Fi” tattoo on my forearm. Football scar on my knee.

I dropped my legs off the side of the table and my feet reached the cold concrete floor. I bent and checked the old guy’s neck for a pulse, but I could tell at a glance that he was gone. Served him right, the son of bitch. Trying to cut me open-

As I straightened up, a glimmer of light caught my eye, off to the left. I looked over my shoulder, but found nothing. Feeling unsteady, I turned all the way around, searching for the source of the light, but it stayed just past my field of vision.

A washing-up sink stood in the corner. Above it hung a round mirror, and I stepped over the dead guy to reach it. My face looked the same, flat-nosed and square-jawed and dinged from a lifetime of fist-fights. I needed a shave.

A shaft of yellow light beamed from my head, just above my left ear. What the hell? I reached up and let the light play on the palm of my hand. Where was it coming from? Gingerly, I pressed my hand against my scalp, covering the beam, feeling for its source.

That’s when I found the bullet hole.

I nearly joined the dead man on the floor. What the fuck was happening here? No blood, not much pain, but there was no doubt about the hole in my skull. I dipped a fingertip into it. A neat round hole, felt like a.38. When I pulled my finger away, yellow light poured out.

I didn’t like that. Made me feel dizzy, weak. I covered the hole with my hand. Looked in the mirror. Lifted my hand away. Light beamed from the gunshot wound. I covered it again.

“I’m light-headed,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. Neither of us laughed.

Good to hear that my voice still worked. Clearly, I had survived getting shot in the head. The light must be a hallucination or brain damage.

Maybe I was simply dreaming. With my free hand, I slapped my own cheek. I felt the impact, but it didn’t sting, didn’t burn the way it should. I did it again. Nothing changed.

I leaned toward the mirror. I seemed pale, like maybe I’d lost a lot of blood when I got shot in the head.

It dawned on me to check my own pulse. I felt my throat, then my chest. No heartbeat, no familiar thump-thump. Frantic, I took my hand away from my scalp long enough to feel my wrist. Still no pulse.

Jesus Christ. I was dead. Up walking around, feeling okay except for a headache and the weird light beaming out of my skull. But dead.

That explained the autopsy room. I looked at the coroner sprawled on the floor. He’d just been doing his job. No wonder he keeled over when the corpse’s eyes popped open. I wished he were still alive. Maybe he could explain the sunbeam pouring from my head.

I went to a white metal cabinet in the corner and opened the doors. Medical supplies. I pawed through stuff, locating gauze and adhesive tape. Light streamed out of my head while I used both hands to put together a bandage. I slapped the bandage over the hole and pressed the white tape against my bristly hair. The bandage glowed from inside. I stuck more strips of tape over it until no light seeped through. I didn’t know what that internal light was all about, but it seemed important that I not lose it all.

The windowless room was small, old, clearly not part of a hospital. Must be in a little town or a rural area, someplace where the local doc acted as coroner. But how did I get here? Had there been an ambulance? Cops? I couldn’t remember.

One thing was certain: I needed to get the hell out of here. Somebody would come looking for the coroner eventually, and I might get blamed for-

Wait a minute. What could they do to me? I was already dead. A ghost, a zombie, an angel, something. Okay, probably not an angel, not with the life I’d led. But whatever the explanation, nothing worse could happen to me. Right?

Still, I didn’t want to get caught. I didn’t know how long this situation would last. I had things to do.

I searched the room, but couldn’t find my clothes. The cops must’ve taken them as evidence, along with my wallet and my keys and whatever gun I’d been packing. Christ, I was starting from scratch.

A hat and overcoat hung on pegs next to the door. I reached for them, then stopped. It was a knee-length coat, but I couldn’t go around without pants or shoes. It was winter, I remembered that much.

The dead coroner and I were about the same size. He was a little taller, a little leaner, but close enough.

I checked the mirror to make sure my bandage wasn’t leaking light, then went to work, stripping the doctor of his clothes. The checked shirt he wore under his smock fit pretty well. The gray slacks were only a little long. Best of all, the wingtip shoes were my size. His wallet contained forty-seven dollars and a couple of credit cards. I took it-hell, he didn’t need it anymore-and I pocketed his keys. Finally, I lifted the overcoat off the peg. It was an expensive coat, dark brown wool with a nice drape. The felt hat was brown, too, what they used to call a porkpie. I faced the mirror and gave the hat brim a rakish tilt to hide the bandage above my ear. I looked like a gangster in an old movie.

I picked up the scalpel from the floor and put it in my coat pocket. I always feel a little naked without a gun on me, but a blade was better than nothing.

Then I slipped out of the clinic, into the frigid night, with one mission in mind: to find the son of a bitch who killed me.

THE coroner’s keys fit a late-model Buick. After a few blocks, I reached the main road and recognized where I was: a little upstate burg called LaPorte. Picture postcard of a place, with evergreens and little cottages and an icy river snaking through the middle. Patches of snow glowed under the streetlamps.

Gino D’Ambrozio had a clapboard cabin near here, overlooking a small lake. Never could understand why a Brooklyn boy like Gino would love a place as rustic as a summer camp. He and his pals often spent weekends there, playing cards and drinking beer without their wives ragging them.

I must’ve come up here to meet with Gino. No other reason for me to be in LaPorte. I still couldn’t recall what had happened to me, but I remembered the way to Gino’s house. I pointed the Buick north and zoomed out of town.

I was never one of Gino’s boys, though I’d dealt with him off and on over the years. Always freelance, always for decent money. I was never going to be on the inside, not with a name like Mercer. The Guidos only embrace guys whose names end in vowels. But sometimes they need a go-between.

You can’t put competing gangs in the same room without the tension getting to somebody and guns being pulled. The Guidos hate the Ivans and the Jamaicans hate the Puerto Ricans and the fucking Colombians hate everybody. But they need to do business occasionally or discuss territorial issues. Then they need a guy like me-tough, practical, unaffiliated, expendable-to occupy the middle ground and sort shit out.

Nobody owns me, but they all know they can trust me. I never talk to the cops. I keep their secrets. I’m a pro.