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"Curbside service," Valentine said, taking out his pocketknife.
"My David, what are you going to do?"
"We're both going in wounded."
Valentine raked the knife twice across the outer side of his left hand. He'd been anticipating the pain, which made it all the worse.
"Defensive wounds," Valentine said.
"I hope we have no need for a real dressing. This is our last one," Ahn-Kha said.
"Just give me some surgical tape and a scissors. I'll close them with butterfly dressings. Those two in the ambulance might have noticed that I didn't have a big dressing on my hand."
"I will cut the tape. You're bleeding."
Valentine spattered a little of his own blood on his face to add to the effect.
Ahn-Kha deftly cut notches into each side of the surgical tape and handed the pieces to Valentine one at a time. A butterfly bandage used a minimal amount of tape directly over the wound, gripping the two sides of skin with its "wings." Valentine splashed on stinging disinfectant, then used three bandages on one cut, two on the other.
It took twenty minutes for the second ambulance to arrive-a gateless pickup truck painted white. The driver was a single, older man with a ring of flesh adding a paunch to his chin.
"You two're the walking wounded, I'll bet."
"That's us."
"Hop in the back. There's a water jug there, don't be afraid to use it. Bring your bike if you want."
A yellow plastic cooler with a cup tied to a string was stuck in one corner of the pickup with a bungee cord. Valentine put the bike in, then he and Ahn-Kha climbed into the bed. The truck sagged.
"Hoo-he's a big boy, your Grog. Now hold on, I'm going to drive gentle but I don't want to lose you when I turn."
The driver executed a neat three-point turn.
Valentine spoke to him through the open back window of the pickup. "I'm Tar Ayoob. What's your name, sir?"
"Beirlein, Grog-boy. I never seen his type before. He some special breed?"
"They got them up in Canada," Valentine said. "They're good in the snow. Big feet."
"Oh, Sasquatches is what he is, huh? What do you know."
"I'm told this is the best hospital south of Columbus," Valentine said. "Hope they're right. My friend's got a bullet in him."
"We'll patch him up. Don't worry."
The pickup negotiated the hairpin turn, climbed out of the gul-ley in second gear, then came out of the trees and Valentine finally saw Xanadu.
It filled all the flat ground in a punchbowl ring of wooded hills. Most of the structures were salmon-colored brick or concrete, save for some wooden outbuildings.
Duvalier was right; a triple line of fencing, one polite, two lethal, surrounded the campuslike huddle of structures. Guards at the gate made notations on a clipboard and handed Valentine and Ahn-Kha stickers with red crosses on them. In the farther corners of the expanse of grass between buildings and fence Valentine saw dairy cows. There looked to be a baseball diamond and a track closer to the gate.
The four biggest salmon-colored buildings looked like apartments Valentine had seen in Chicago, except those had been built with balconies, and large windows. Each one was as long as a city block, rectangular, and laid out so they formed a square. Valentine counted twelve stories.
A long, low, three-story building of darker brick extended from the four, and was joined to a concrete jumble, tiered like a wedding cake, that had ambulances and trucks parked in front of it.
The ambulance didn't stop in front of the hospital. It continued to drive around back, past what looked like three-story apartments.
"Hey, what about the emergency room?"
