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Chapter thirty-three
Porter
Iamanidiot,and I didn't think. I knew Nico couldn't go to hospital when he was sick, I should have known he couldn’t just waltz in here and visit Gavriil. Now we really can't find Nico. The storeroom I directed him to is locked and there is no sign of him.
Knox's phone starts ringing and he answers it as prompt as always.
"I have to go," he calls to me. "Keep looking for him and I'll send Caeo up to help you."
"I understand." He has to fix my mess. "I'll be fine."
I know this is serious when he walks off without giving me a kiss goodbye. It's fine. I've only lost his favourite boy and dug a hole so big I need a ladder to get out.
I head to a side ward near the cupboard. It's crowded and unsuitable for hiding in, but Nico had very little energy.
"What are you looking for, boy?" Instantly one of the patients spots me; Nico would have fled at the first sign of attention.
"No, sorry. I'm in the wrong ward."
"Fair enough. I thought you'd be one of them foreigners."
"Foreigners? Did you see Nico?" I can't help the little burst of excitement.
"Is that the little fellow's name?"
"Yeah, scruffy, with plaster cast around his wrist." I jump forward expectantly. "We were here to visit his - I don't know - the guy who raised him. But the police chased us off."
"You look like a friend."
"I am. I was with him when Gravel… We were separated." The idea of losing him has my eyes welling with tears.
"The nurse let him take a nap on the empty bed at the end there." The kind old man smiles at me, and I wonder how many people bother to visit him. He seems lonely, and I stand for a brief moment pondering over the idea of using my club as a social place for the elderly during the day. It wouldn't work if the upstairs is a mob hospital, but maybe mobsters get old and need a special kind of nursing home. The kind where pole dancers provide entertainment and Knox provides the pain relief. Who am I kidding; mobsters don't get old. Right?
"Your away with the fairies just like the boy was," the old man chuckles.
"Good grief!" I splutter, relieved that the words strippers and blow didn't come out of my mouth instead. "Thank you so much."
I hurry down the ward to the bed at the end with the curtains pulled around.
"Just a moment," another patient calls to me from the bedspace opposite. I look at another lonely man in the chair beside his bed. "That boy has nightmares."
"I know. He's just lost his…" His what? Friend. Father figure. Work colleague. A little bit of everything.
"He's been screaming. I wrote it down, in case it's important." The man helpfully holds out a sheet of paper.
I take it politely. These men hid Nico and protected him, I owe him a polite response, and maybe I should send flowers, or chocolates, or weed brownies. No, just a basket of Gladys ‘muffins. I need to get Knox's drugs off my mind before I get into trouble. Pretending to be interested in the note, I open the folded sheet and read the words.
"Car turn. Turn bridge. Bar stood sun. Rich man."
"It doesn't make much sense, but I thought maybe to you or his folks it might."
"It does. Thank you." It makes so much more sense when written plainly as Nico heard it, rather than his verbal attempt at finding sense in his memory. I know what they were asking him. I need to call Mum.
"Porter, there you are." Caeo draws my attention with his call and a wave. "Knox will be popping back here to meet you. I have to go-"
"Change of plan." I walk towards him. "Can you drop me home quickly and ask Knox to pick up Nico from the ward here."
"I can, but why?"
