by W E DeVore
“No no no no,” she repeated, grabbing a cloth napkin and wrapping it tightly around his thigh. She shoved a knife beneath the knot and twisted it hard, trying to tie some semblance of a tourniquet.
“Me and my big mouth, huh?” he panted, breathless from the pain.
She twisted the knot harder and pressed her hands down on the wound to keep his precious blood inside, watching it pulse through her fingers with every heartbeat.
“Somebody help me!” she shrieked.
The waitress came running out holding a phone. “I called 911,” she said.
“Tell them an officer is down, we need an ambulance,” Q told her. She turned to Sanger, “Don’t you fucking die on me, Aaron Sanger.”
“I’m ok, Clementine.” Sanger grimaced.
“The asshole hit your artery. You’re not ok,” she cried, struggling to keep both Sanger’s leg and her wits together. “Please don’t die.”
“I’m not going to die, but I might pass out if you keep pressing that hard.”
“You’re going to bleed out, if I don’t.” She looked at his face and saw his eyes flutter as the early symptoms of shock took hold.
“You stay with me,” she commanded. “You fight. Please, baby. Try to stay awake.”
“I lied earlier, Clementine,” he said.
“Lied about what, baby?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“I want more than pancakes, you understand?”
She quickly nodded. “Good, so do I. Stay with me.”
Sanger’s eyes rolled back in his head at the same time his body went slack, and she yelled again, ““Somebody help me!” She pressed all her weight into the wound. “You wake up! Don’t you leave me. Aaron!”
She held onto his leg, her hands growing numb, screaming for him to wake up while sirens grew nearer.
◆◆◆
Q sat on a hard bench, her elbows resting on bouncing knees, staring at the Rorschach pattern in Sanger’s blood that ballooned on her Converse.
A nurse approached and gently tapped her on the shoulder, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She looked at him in confusion and he pointed to Q’s hands. Holding them up, she saw that they were covered in blood up to her elbows. She nodded and followed him to a nearby examination room.
Slowly washed herself in the sink, her eyes followed the blood as it swirled in the water and down the drain. As Sanger’s blood rinsed away, she noticed a large cut on her left palm. It had started to bleed again and she held a paper towel to it. She looked at herself in the mirror. More blood flecked her drawn face and neck. As she scrubbed it off, the wound on her hand began to bleed in earnest. She finally dried her face and ripped off a wad of paper towels to press against her palm.
Seeing the bloody mess of paper towels in her hand, the nurse said, “That looks like it needs some stitches. Come sit down.”
She sat in a nearby chair, returning to her Rorschach sneaker staring. The nurse pulled over a metal table and lifted Q’s hand onto it. She barely flinched when he injected a local anesthetic into her palm.
“You need to sit still,” he said.
She looked down to see both of her knees frantically bouncing. She forced her heels back to the floor. “Sorry.”
He took her good hand in his. “Your husband’s going to be ok.”
“My husband’s dead,” she said, confused.
“Don’t think that way, he’ll pull through. One of the best surgeons is with him.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze and returned to his work. Q watched the thread closing her wound in disinterest. When he brought down the lamp, the light glinted off her wedding bands and she understood how he’d made the mistake.
“Detective Sanger’s not my husband,” she admitted.
The nurse looked up from his work. “He’ll be in ICU after surgery. Only family is allowed up there. He have any family here?”
“Just me.”
He put in another stitch. “Well, if it were my friend, I wouldn’t want him to be alone. I won’t tell, if you won’t.”
He bandaged her hand and led her back to her bench. She sat and returned to her shoegazing, willing Sanger to stay alive.
Please, I’ll do anything. Just please don’t take him, too.
Coffee materialized between her palms and she looked up to find her godfather sitting beside her.
“He’ll be ok, Clementine,” Ernst said but worry aged his rich complexion, making him look every minute of his seventy years. “He’s young and strong.”
She sipped the coffee with shaking hands and nodded. Ernst patted her knee and she rested her head against his shoulder.
“What are you doing here, Uncle Ernst?” she asked.
“I’m still listed as his emergency contact at the precinct,” he explained. “There some reason the nurse at reception told me Aaron’s wife was waiting where you seem to be sitting?”
She gestured to her rings. “His heart stopped when we got here. I lost my shit. They made the wrong assumption.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me, Clementine.”
Q tried to block out the memory of the doctor straddling Sanger’s body, doing chest compressions as they raced the gurney away from her, leaving her standing alone in the loading dock.
Ernst sat quietly, sipping his coffee. Other officers soon joined them; standing in a silent vigil. When the surgeon finally emerged, the sea of blue parted, directing her to Q.
“Mrs. Sanger?” she asked.
Q hesitated before nodding in the affirmative, knowing that she couldn’t see Sanger if she wasn’t family.
“Your husband’s alright. He’s in recovery.”
She collapsed off the bench, falling to her knees and crying with relief. The doctor knelt in front of her, taking her hand to explain the details of the surgery. “He’s resting comfortably. You should go home. Take a shower and get some rest, too. He’ll be asleep for a few hours at least.”
Q shoved her tears away with her palm. “No. I need to see him. Please.”
The doctor agreed and helped Ernst lift Q to standing. Ernst wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her upright as they followed the surgeon up to ICU. Sanger was still intubated. She listened to the bellows as it measured each breath, watching his steady heartbeat on the monitor to confirm he was still alive.
“We’ll remove the breathing tube soon. We’re just helping him a little,” the surgeon said, reading her worried thoughts. “I’ll give you a few minutes.”
Q rushed to Sanger and took his hand in both of hers, kissing his fingertips. “I want a uniform on that door,” she instructed Ernst. “Whoever sent that gunman isn’t going to stop.”
“What good is that going to do?” he asked. “They were after you, not Aaron.”
She leaned over Sanger face, brushing away an errant curl before kissing his temple. She set her jaw, making her decision, and evaporating her fear. “Doesn’t matter. I’m going to go find the motherfucker.”
When she stood to leave, Ernst held her arm. “Clementine, you’re not thinking clearly.”
“No, I’m thinking clearly for the first time in ten months. If he wakes up before I get back, tell him…” she paused.
“Tell him what?” Ernst asked, peering into her eyes.
“Tell him he doesn’t have my permission to die.”
He put his hands on his hips and gazed down at her face. “You gonna tell me where it is you think you’re going?”
“To see the man I’d hire if I wanted me dead.”
◆◆◆
Q stalked through the halls of the hospital and out the Emergency Room doors, catching a cab to the French Quarter. The taxi driver eyed her in the rear-view mirror, “You alright, Miss?”
“Just drive.”
He let her out on the corner of Ursuline and Dauphine and she ran to the large iron gate in the center of the block. She pressed and held the buzzer until Karen Galanos appeared in the doorway, audibly gasping when she saw Q. “Oh my god, what happ
ened to you?”
She shoved her hands into her pockets. “I need to see Urian. Now. It’s business.”
Karen wordlessly nodded and opened the gate. Q followed her through the open living room to the kitchen. Urian Galanos, probable decedent of Adonis and definite underworld kingpin, was pacing the floor, speaking Greek into his cell phone. When he saw Q, he held up one finger and continued his conversation. Q folded her arms around herself, feeling a junky in desperate need of a fix. Karen watched her with trepidation and finally gave Urian a wide-eyed exasperated tilt of her head. Urian took a good look at Q and lost his train of thought. He quickly ended the conversation and put his phone into pocket.
“Beautiful girl, are you hurt? Who did this to you?” he asked, horrified.
“You fucking tell me.” She stormed forward and moved to strike him. He caught her wrist in his hand and wrenched it back down.
“You knew someone was trying to kill me…All these months. And you didn’t do anything?” she demanded. “Tell me!”
“Karen, darling,” he purred in his rich Mediterranean accent. “Why don’t you get Q something to wear. And make sure the guest room has some fresh towels. Our friend looks like she could use a shower and some rest,” Urian’s voice was calm. He waited until his wife had left the room before he let go of Q’s wrist.
“Come sit, beautiful girl. I’ll make you some tea.” He led her through the open living room to the long bar that bordered the front of a galley kitchen and gestured to a stool. “Sit. Please.”
Q rubbed her aching wrist and complied. She was in no position to argue, whatever her adrenaline was trying to convince her brain to do.
He filled a kettle and placed it on the burner of the gas stove. “I didn’t know he would try again,” he said, turning on the heat. The blue flames licked at the kettle. “The boys he hired were amateurs, but nobody would touch the job. No man would go after a friend of mine, at least, not while she was pregnant… not for the kind of money he was offering.”
Turning to rest his back against the counter, he folded his arms. “I thought he was done. Surely, a botched job like that would stop him. Surely, he took enough from you to be satisfied. I warned your detective friend. Warned him, just in case. But this man… something set him off again. He hired a man from out of town to kill you and your detective. Shoot him. Torture you to death. Video it even. Sick fuck,” he spat.
The kettle whistled and he pulled it off the burner. He filled a mug and dropped a tea bag inside. He slid the cup to her and wrapped her hands around it before resuming his earlier posture.
“What about the bomb?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I saw it on the news. I hadn’t heard about it through my usual channels. Maybe he did a little Googling. It’s not hard to rig a car to explode.” He pointed to her bloody clothes and asked, “What happened?”
She took a quick sip of tea. “Aaron. Detective Sanger and I…. We were at breakfast... I must have been followed when I went to his house last night. A man started shooting at us. Sanger killed him, but not before a bullet hit his femoral artery. He was in surgery almost all day.”
“He couldn’t hire someone local,” Urian explained. “All the local talent wants to stay as far away as possible from this job. No one is stupid enough to go after a woman who shares her bed with the NOPD and who’s friends with me.” He held up his hand. “You see, if he had gone local, I would have stopped it this time.”
She brushed away a tear with her fingertips.
“Will he make it, your detective?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“The man who’s after you has lost all grasp of proportion. He wants you dead. He’s blind with it,” he said. “He’s like a rabid dog. He needs to be put down.”
“How do you know?” she asked.
“Because Gus Multer just hired me to kill you, beautiful girl.”
Revenge
Q picked up her mug and threw the steaming contents at Urian. He cursed as he dodged it and she jumped off the barstool, running towards the front door.
Urian caught her and dragged her back, wrapping his large arms around her waist to lock her arms at her sides. Q screamed as he pulled her onto the floor.
“Beautiful girl! Listen to me,” he yelled. “I’m not going to do it. I had to take the job or you’d be dead by morning. He was trying to hire an arsonist to burn you in your bed. Listen to me,” he pleaded. “I am your friend.”
She panted, blood roaring in her ears as a panic attack whirled inside her skull. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped.
Karen rushed in. “Urian, what in the hell’s going on?”
“Misunderstanding,” he said. He picked Q up and carried her to the back of the living room and down a long hall with his wife following behind. In the room at the end, he abruptly set Q down on a neat wrought iron bed next to some folded towels and clothes.
She sat still, gulping for air.
Karen hurried to the bathroom and returned with a cool washcloth, laying it on the back of Q’s neck.
“Q, honey, take a shower and change your clothes. Lay down and rest if you want. I’m going to get some dinner going,” Karen said. She squeezed her shoulder and left the room.
“I won’t hurt you, beautiful girl. You have to trust me,” Urian said gently. “Gus Multer is a monster. This was the only way I could protect you. You have to trust me.”
He closed the door.
She debated calling Ernst and telling him to arrest Gus Multer. But then she remembered his trial. The way the D.A. had questioned her. If Multer got off the hook, she’d never be free and either her or Sanger would end up dead. Even if he went back to prison, old Louisiana money spent just as well from behind bars and Multer was bound to figure that out.
Urian had found the man responsible and said he was willing to help, but she wasn’t sure she could trust him. She needed to think. Locking the bedroom door, she took a towel into the bathroom to shower. As the water rinsed away the residual traces of Sanger’s blood on her body, within the steam of a mobster’s guest room shower, she felt her back stiffen. A strange lightness filled her with a single thought.
If Urian doesn’t kill me, I’m going to kill Gus Multer.
Q turned off the water and dried herself, sliding into Karen Galanos’s borrowed jeans and t-shirt. She walked into the main room to find Urian and Karen quietly cooking dinner. The cognitive dissonance of seeing such a domesticated Urian Galanos, made her relax somewhat. She decided she had no choice but to trust him. If he was going to kill her, she’d be dead before she could go for help, anyway, so there was no other choice but to remain calm. She resumed her seat at the counter.
Karen looked up from the salad she was making. “Clothes fit okay?”
She nodded.
“Karen, darling…” Urian started.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ll be in my studio.” She set down her knife and walked out of the room and up the stairs.
“She know what you do?” Q asked.
“She knows enough to know she doesn’t want to know,” Urian replied. “She’s smart like that. She’s not my first wife.”
“No?”
Urian poured a glass of wine into a juice glass and handed it to Q. “My first wife was tortured. Killed. Because the man I was working for didn't like that I was two days late with his money.”
Q drained the glass and set it on the counter. Urian refilled it and went back to sautéing vegetables.
“So,” he said, casually. “I find this man. And I kill him. Then, I take his business.” He took a sip of wine from his own glass on the counter nearby. “When she died - my sweet wife -everything was pain. But then, when the big boss was on his knees, begging me to spare his life and I pulled that trigger…”
He turned to Q, pointed his fingers like a gun at her head before making a gunshot noise with his mouth. “Peace.” He stared at her hard. “I’ll put down your rabid dog for you, no charge. It would be my pleasure
. Him putting a hit on a cop is going to make life hard on everyone. But, I thought I’d offer you a choice because I am your friend and I feel I owe you a favor for clearing up that misunderstanding with the ATF about Mike Ackerman and his guns.”
Remorse churned inside Q’s stomach and she considered leaving. Urian folded his arms, continuing to study her face.
“I’ll do it for you,” he said. “Put down this dog and clear up all this trouble; or you can put down the dog that bit you yourself and know the same kind of peace that I have. Do you want to know that same kind of peace, beautiful girl?”
