Chapter 18 of Princessa

Above the Fray

The hospital’s a very large, very old building, in a dark run down neighborhood. It’s been slated for demolition for years now, but with local politicians and citizen’s groups always saving it at the last moment with promises of budget expenditures for renovation or repair that always get slashed to nothing before any real improvement ever happens.

They approach the small parking lot from the rear of the building, seeing cop cars out front, one with its lights on, checking all vehicles coming and going. All other exits are barricaded shut. Andy parks up the street a ways and the three of them get out and trot across the snowy streets and grass and over to the back of the building. Down a flight of dark cement steps there’s a set of double metal doors, the service and maintenance entrance. Inside it’s dark, dirty, large pipes everywhere; steam, water, gas, conduit, pneumatics, all that sort of stuff running in all directions like a jungle. Sometimes you have to duck under one just to pass by.

They keep to the south wall, which is like a perimeter walk-around, meant for checking and accessing pipes and electrical conduit. Nice old building, thinks Andy. None of this computer monitoring gear that all the new or ‘re-commissioned’ buildings have where if some water pipe is below temperature in a bathroom, there’s a guy in front of a computer screen watching a blinking alarm indicating that the pilot light’s out on one of the hot water heaters several floors away. That sorta shit’s kinda wicked. Not that you couldn’t deal with that stuff too, disable or override alarms and so forth, but it’s tougher, trickier to do, slows you down.

These older buildings are a lot less intense. Halfway through the basement there’s a service elevator, with dim lights around it for night time, nothing else on. Just to the east of there, is laundry. Andy takes the elevator up to recon. Jori goes back outside to the parking lot. The girl waits there nervously alone in the big dark empty basement with the dim lonely blinking blue lights.

On the first floor, across from the elevator is the cafeteria, and kitchen beyond that. Down the hall to the left, through the locked wooden double doors, is emergency. Andy sees two chairs in front of Smet’s room. There’s a young cop in one of the chairs sitting there with his arms folded, listening to the heated conversation around the corner. Okay, he thinks to himself, then goes back down to the basement.

But upstairs there’s a big uniformed cop in front of the desk where an older doctor is arguing with a fat man in a tan striped suit. “Listen pal” says the man hotly “I got authorization to take this guy, and that’s just what I’m going to do!” “It’s not a problem” says the doctor “but he’s Dr. Leksyan’s patient, and… I can’t release him without his say so; and he’s in surgery”

He really isn’t, but it’s a usable line, at least until you can come up with something better. “I mean, the man could die” continues the doctor “I’d lose my license. They’d sue me, I’d lose everything.” “Hey, I’ll assume responsibility for all of that” says the man “you’re off the hook, okay.” “No” says the doctor “by law, you can’t. If you could... fine. But the law says, it’s on me. Nobody else… can just come in and just say they assume responsibility when, you can’t. It’s very clear.”

“Look goddamnit” says the man “we got a national e… security situation here. I don’t give a shit about your policies or your goddamn license either. You release that man to me; right now, or I got the hospital administrator on the phone. Is that clear?” “Then you’ll just have to call him” says the doctor “that’s fine, that’s okay, it’s… something anyway.”

It’s not easy for the federal guy to just push his way through everything here. The big cop at the counter is an older heavy-set man, Sgt. Barnitti, and not so easy to bluff or back him down with official talk and a fancy gold badge. Barnitti’d come to the hospital after being on-scene at the house in Westchester. They sent him here when the feds demanded immediate information on everyone admitted to all the area hospitals this evening. He wasn’t up at that house for very long, just one of a whole gang of police, detectives, lab, everybody, a whole gaggle of uniforms, suits, white coats, everywhere. But from what he’d seen, the whole mess looked pretty goddamn fishy, to him anyway, and with untraceable federal fingerprints all over it.

The fed guy here in the suit has a couple of men with him. They’re outside small-talking with a couple of Barnitti’s men. “Get me the hospital administrator” he says to the black woman at the desk. She scans through the numbers on her desk blotter “you think an eighty-year old man is a threat to our national security?” she asks. “Look lady, that’s obstruction. I can cite you… both of you, for obstructing justice. Just for fucking around, okay; you got it.”

She gives him the number, and adds “we don’t swear in the hospital, young man.” “How do you intend to move him” asks the doctor “he needs time, to recover, or else…” “I got a medevac helicopter coming. Okay... a doctor, nurses, whatever. There’re here in five; alright.”

The policeman at the door of Smet’s room is anxious for them to decide, one way or another, makes no nevermind to him. Just tired of wasting time sitting around this goddamned hospital when real stuff’s happening out in the real world. Stuff he’s supposed to be preventing. And every minute here means another minute that his peers out on the street are just that much more ahead of him, in the know, chasing leads while he’s here falling behind and have to be caught up on everything.

It’s the feeling like coming to work late with your pants unzipped when everyone else is already out on the job and you’re never gonna be able to catch up. And tonight’s buzz is the big one, the kinda stuff you make points on. Stuff that gets your heart racing and makes your whole body feel like charging forward full speed ahead. Unless you’re stuck in the mud on some sorta waste of time detail like this one.

He glances to his left and sees a beautiful little blond angel coming toward him in a wheelchair; like a vision. The chair pushed by some guy in greens peering up from his surgical mask and hat. The girl has a large bandage covering half her face and head, but below that just has on a thin little hospital gown scrunched up almost to her waist.

The chair stops and the man in greens picks up a chart to check something. The injured girl tries to stand up, but stumbles and collapses in front of the young cop. He’s indecisive, caught off guard, not ready for any of this. Unsure of whether just to catch the poor kid, or where to put his hands, or maybe get a quick glimse down the inside of that skimpy gown.

Then he’s out, as the numbing smell of a wet cloth around his mouth and nose is the last thing he remembers. He sits back down in the chair, arms folded, head slumped forward. Andy and Maria go into the room with the seconds ticking away in their heads. The girl adjusts the plastic IV clamp on the old man’s hands and then unlocks the wheels under the bed, just as they’d rehearsed. “Now” says Andy into the headset mouthpiece of one of Smet’s little cell phones.

Jori pushes a button on his phone and a huge explosion rocks the parking lot. An empty cop car flips up end over end, upside down and bursts into flames, glaring red, yellow and blue fire spurting out against the black night sky. He runs back to the van and without lights, drives it up over the snowy curb and across the grass. Then backs it up to the service door of the kitchen.

Andy pulls all the monitor cables from the machines and sets them down on top the old man’s chest. Maria does the same with the IV bags and removes the oxygen tubes from the man’s nose. Then they wheel the bed out into the hallway. The hospital security guard runs from the break room without his coffee and danish he was gonna get for himself and the other cop, and sees the man in greens.

“Outside! Go!” Andy yells at him, motioning with his hand. The man runs down the hall, barely noticing the cop in the chair and the young girl in the hospital gown who is bent over talking to him.

When he’s gone, Maria runs ahead and holds the double doors open, then the doors to the cafeteria, kitchen, and finally meets Jori holding the outside door open. He and the girl get the front end of the heavy hospital bed as Andy lifts and holds it from the back. It’s so dark out here, even after racing through the dimly lit rooms, and so cold too, out in the wind. But they manage the bed down the short flight of steps. At ground level the three of them lift the mattress and the old man into the back of the mini-van.

Then they’re off, back across the grass, down the curb, and quietly up the little dark streets behind the big old building. It’s hot in the van with the heater running full blast; Maria’s in the back with Smet. He blinks open his eyes “I’m cold” he says. “Don’t worry” says Andy looking back over his shoulder “we’ll be home soon.”

He calmly drives back to Manhattan. Happy elated overjoyed and all at peace with everything. Wanting nothing more than to crack open the window and have a smoke, but even that doesn’t really matter. Maria’s holding the old man’s hand, checking his pulse, trying to counts his breaths, hoping she’s doing everything right. Jori’s watching the streets, keen to detect any enemy around or beside or behind them. But there’s nothing, just all smooth sailing.

Back at the hotel, Andy pulls up to the side door leading to the garage level. The three of them carefully place the old man into a wheelchair and carry it down the steps. Jori goes back to take care of the van and some other chores. Maria checks the elevator. Andy follows behind her pushing the sleeping old man in the chair. They get him to the room and onto the bed, hanging the IV’s from the lampshade.

“How you feeling” asks Andy. “Good” says Smet, groggy foggy-headed coming out of the anesthesia. “There’s little cupcake” he says, smiling fondly, lovingly. Looking at Maria like seeing her at the end of a long tunnel “isn’t she cute… in her little dress; like a little doll with such pretty white legs.”

Maria comes over to him and takes his hand. “Kiss me” he says “little cupcake” all smiley and happy. “I’m still man enough to handle… a little wench like you.” The girl laughs and looks over at Andy. He’s smiling too, listening to the old man rambling on. “It’s so good to be home, at last” he says. “I was in battle, you know, and they shot me... here; and it hurt, not so much really. Then… I don’t remember; but somehow, out of nowhere, this little angel came and picked me up and brought me here.”

The old man’s eyes move around the room. “But this isn’t my house. No, it’s… must be Roma, I think; the Vatican, yes, huh. And this must be the pope’s bedroom. Look how fancy it all is. But where’s he going to sleep?”

Andy finally gives in and lights up a cigarette. Maria’s holding Smet’s hand and shaking her head, trying not to laugh at him. “The pope’s saying a mass for you” says Andy “you’re a hero, you know.” “Ah, yes” says the old man. Then adds “funny isn’t it, that that’s all they give you; some priest saying prayers for you.”

He looks around trying to figure it all out, all the various random thoughts coming to him at once, like his mind’d been on hold, now all of it working at hyper-speed. “I met him once, you know. John, the... twenty-third I think; a nice old guy, small fat man. We talked and… he told me something… what was it? Something important, I think. Seems like a long time ago, for some reason; I dunno.”

He feels all lost for a moment, like can’t remember where he is, or anything; searching through cobwebs for memories or trying to get a hold something to hang on to, feel safe again. “Ah yes, here it is. He told me we have to forgive… and forget; forgive our enemies. And I thought about that for awhile. Thought maybe he’s got something there. But then I said to him… we have to kill them first. Plenty of time to forgive them, after that.” He looks up at Maria smiling and then over to Andy “but the young girls” he says “that’s what makes it all worthwhile, for us soldiers.”

Jori finally comes in, feeling on top of the world, like everything went off so smoothly, like silk, and without any hitches, just as they’d planned it; well, mostly anyway. “How’s he doing?”

The young girl turns her head with her hand over her mouth as Smet playfully squeezes her other hand. “It’s okay” says Smet “don’t be bashful. Come, lie down beside me.” Andy looks at the boy, smiling. “He’s resting in the pope’s bedroom. Got his hands on a sweet young princessa.” “Must be nice” says Jori, trying to follow what they’re talking about.

“You have to fight, first” Smet tells him motioning at the girl “both of you, back to the front. I’ll join you later; in the morning; go on now.” He smiles and closes his eyes and drifts back off to sleep into his drugged dream world which is a very pleasant place to be. The girl frees her hand and goes to get a cigarette. “He’s as goofy as you are” she says to Jori, thinking that it doesn’t seem to matter what age these guys are, young or old, just all of ‘em trying to hit on young girls whenever they get the chance.

Andy gets a rollaway and they transfer the old man onto it. He looks up at them and smiles and then drifts away again. Jori carries Smet’s big heavy duffel bag over to a corner, by the drape, and sets it down there so they can keep an eye on it. He’d brought it from the car, along with whatever else was important, registration and so forth, stuff from the glove compartment. Lugged all that stuff all the way up to the room.

“I parked the van back where it was. Oh, and I left the mattress and some other things out on a street corner a couple a blocks from here. And you wouldn’t believe it, man, there was just stacks and stacks of junk and black garbage bags, piled up everywhere. Like by this little all night deli on the corner; and even like brand new stuff, a bed frame and stuff like that. Man, the things people throw away in this town.”

“What about the car?” asks Andy. “Smet’s car” says the boy “I parked it a few blocks over, under a streetlamp, and I stripped it first of course, and left the keys in the ignition and the cell phones on the dash.” “Good” says Andy, and running things through his mind, trying to think of any other loose ends “is that it, then?”

“Well, let’s see” says the boy “we got the princessa,” looking over at the girl, who smiles. “And we got Smet… what about, Smet’s house?” “Yeah” says Andy “I’d like to check that out sometime too. See who’s maybe hangin around there or watchin the place. Do that tomorrow, I guess, right now… I’m just beat.”

He drops down onto the big soft bed and closes his eyes. Maria comes over and jumps on top of him, then Jori jumps in beside her. Well, this oughtta be fun, he thinks. But eventually they all get undressed and settle into the nice soft bed, with Maria in the middle and Andy on the side facing Smet, just to keep watch on him in case he might need something during the night.

The IV’s are running at a slow steady drip, extra’s they’d picked up at the hospital, just the big bag of saline and a couple of little bags of Keflex, a standard antibiotic for infection. Not a bad night’s work, thinks Andy, before drifting away, with Smet and two kids all safe and warm in this grand palace high above the big city.