A Question of Will Page 19
"Get over here!" he barked.
The probie wheeled the gurney into position. Paul and Dondi reached down to the floor in tandem; a beat later they hauled up a bundled form in a bunker drag, using a blanket to avoid putting undue contact on the victim’s limbs. They laid their load on the gurney as gently and quickly as possible, then wrapped the edges of the blanket over to shield the body.
"CLEAR THE WAY!" Paul called out. The three men rolled across the lot and into the street, dodging rubble, charged hoses and other firefighters as best they could. The air was thick with the hiss and roar of water and fire; with stinking smoke, stinging spray and cacophonous blasts of sirens, with shouting and garbled radio crosstalk. With every bump and jostle, the victim moaned piteously.
They reached the Rescue One rig, which had set up on the outer periphery of the chaos. As the first unit on scene it had won the dubious honor of de facto way station for the evacuation of the injured. A cordon of police cruisers stretched past them to the end of the block, forming a convoy channel, lights strobing asymmetrically.
Andy Vasquez was on site as Paul and Dondi approached, filthy, raggedly out of breath. He was off shift, but had raced over to help.
"I caught the call on my scanner, got here as soon as I could," Andy said, then glanced around, looking for Tom and Joli. "Where’re the steroid twins?"
"Still inside." Dondi said, hocking a loogie of black spit onto the sidewalk.
"How bad is it?"
"Total cluster-fuck," Dondi said, shrugging out of his breathing apparatus. "Someone was cooking crystal on the second floor, and it went boom. Blast pancaked floors three and four. Two is gone."
Andy looked back at the blazing building. "How many vics?"
"Not sure," Paul said. "Too many." He stripped off his own gear, gestured to the bundle. The men gathered round, each grabbing a portion of the blanket. Wallace hovered nervously; "Grab the gurney," Paul told him. "When we lift, pull it out, quick." The probie nodded and grabbed ahold. The men heaved to, opening the blanket and lifting, as Wallace hauled the gurney out and wheeled it to the side. He turned back and stopped, in shock. "Jesus," he murmured.
The thing on the blanket was once young and female, but it was almost impossible to clearly discern age, gender, or even race. Her hair and most of her clothing were seared and scorched off the blistered, cindered flesh; fingers, toes, ears, nipples and facial features had gone molten-looking, lumpen, like a wax mannequin pulled from an oven. Wisps of rancid smoke wafted off ruined dermis. She was burned almost beyond recognition, unconscious, oblivious. But she was still breathing.
Wallace whirled and promptly vomited. Paul ignored him, checking for vitals as Andy grabbed the medbox and Dondi went to radio the Fire Chief. "Second and third degree," Paul said, "thermal and chemical burns."
Wallace recovered, looked at the men. "She gonna make it?"
Paul didn’t answer, scanning the scene. Other victims in varying states of destruction were bundled and huddled and waiting, a grim chorus line. "Christ," he muttered. "Where’re the fucking ambos?"
Just then, a distant whoop, as the first Jersey City ambulance turned the corner at the end of the block, coming up the flashing gauntlet. In the background, another dull thump shook the building; a chemical barrel going up like a fifty five gallon bottle rocket. Dondi came around the corner of the rig.
"Chief wants us to stay and pee gee the vics," he said. "Let the other crews transport."
"Fuck," Paul hissed, then looked to Andy. The ambulance was threading its way toward them. "Hit ‘em up," he said. "See what you can scrounge. We need more shit."
"You got it," Andy said, then took off to meet the incoming crew. Wallace looked to Dondi, confused. "What’s ‘pee gee’?" he asked.
Dondi looked from Paul to the kid.
"Play God," he replied.
~ * ~
Triage. Fourteenth century French, original meaning, ‘to sort according to quality’. A fancy term for playing eenie meenie miney moe with other people’s lives.
For the next forty-five minutes they worked down the line: prioritizing mortality. Paul headed the triage, Wallace in tow: laboring feverishly, trying to stay focused.
High Priority: breathing, stopped or labored... bleeding, severe or uncontrolled... head injuries, severe... cardiac arrest and stroke... shock, severe... abdominal or chest wounds, open...
The injured screamed or moaned or sat, rocking with shock and shivering in the cold. There were plenty to go around - a ragtag assemblage of the lost and the worthless: dealers, pipe heads, needle monkeys and quim queens, bound by bad luck and bad habits, their newfound value assigned by rude logic that dictated, the worst come first...
Secondary injuries: burns... multiple fractures, open or closed... spinal injuries...
Ambulances came and went in a steady stream, loading as many as each could haul before howling off into the night. Paul assessed and moved, assessed and moved, tagging those they could treat, queuing those he couldn’t, working his way down...
Low priority: minor fractures... minor cuts and bruises...
...until the process came perversely full circle, and Paul found himself at the proverbial end of the triage line: the lowest of low priorities. It was the point rescue crews called ‘paramagic’, because there was nothing short of miracles left to do...
Lowest Priority: Injuries so severe that death appears certain or has already occurred...
And no one embodied that concept more starkly than the burned girl.
"Holy shit," Paul knelt beside her, motioning to Dondi; Dondi hustled over as fast as his bulk and exhaustion would allow. If they had had time to think, which they didn’t, they would have thought she had already died. But the girl rasped weakly, tenuous life clinging stubbornly in the face of doom.
"She going out?" Dondi asked.
Paul shook his head. "I think she’s coming to," he said.
"No way," Dondi countered.
"Way," Paul said, stripping off his coat and placing a stethoscope to her chest. The dermis had gone sticky with lymph secretions, the body desperately trying to cloak its ravaged vulnerability; scorched and sightless eyes fluttered, consciousness swimming up from oblivion. The girl began to moan.
"Shit," Paul hissed. Death was a forgone conclusion, but the mere idea of awareness returning to such pain was beyond comprehension. He saw Andy’s medbox, the name VASQUEZ stenciled in black across its top. He turned to Wallace. "Check Andy’s box for a stinger," he said urgently.
Wallace looked at him like, huh?, then dug into the medbox, came up empty. Paul pushed him out of the way, delved inside and withdrew a small plastic packet with a short, capped needle attached -- morphine, military-issue, completely illegal, courtesy of Vasquez’ Army Reserve contacts.
Paul uncapped the needle, found a spot of relatively uncharred thigh, stuck her up. The girl moaned again as the drug kicked in, less a cry than a final exhalation. They watched as she seemed to visibly deflate, narcotic dreams overtaking the nightmare of her final moments. Two hours before she was a street ho trading blowjobs for blow, somebody’s wayward wife or mother or sister or daughter. Not anymore.
Paul covered her body with the blanket and stood wearily; Dondi patted him tiredly on the back. In the background the inferno was at last yielding to the efforts of the various crews. The roof of the building collapsed inward under the weight of tons of pressurized water, sending up a vast fireball of sparks, the flames winnowing down to smoke and hiss and char. Paul told Wallace to get a body bag off the rig; as he hustled off, Tom and Joli came around the side, damp and dirty and high on adrenaline and fatigue, in obscenely good cheer.
"Man oh man oh man what a motherfucker," Tom chortled. "D’ja see that thing go?"
Wallace came back bearing a bundle of thick black zippered plastic. Paul took it, started unfolding the bag on the ground. As he did a stray gust of chill air blew the edge of the blanket, exposing incinerated skin. "Damn," Tom whistled low.
The men snickered and groaned. Paul stood. And punched Joli square in the face.
The blow landed hard, crunching brittle bone and cartilage, knocking Joli flat on his beefy ass. Joli’s nose geysered blood; he grabbed it in shock. "Jethuth Chrith!" he bellowed, through mashed sinuses. "Kelly, you thyco fuck! You bwoke my nothe!"
"Shut up," Paul growled. "Just shut up."
Joli leaped to his feet; Paul stood his ground. Dondi, Tom and Wallace instinctively placed themselves between the two, holding them back. "Knock it off!" Dondi warned, pushing Joli back.
"Me?!" Joli bitched. "It wath a fuckin’ joke!" He glared at Paul, pissed and hurt; Paul glared back coldly. Dondi grabbed Joli, checked his hammered schnozz. "You’ll live," he said, then turned to Tom. "Take care of him," he ordered, then to Wallace, "Start policing up the gear. Now!"
Tom and Wallace nodded and headed off, taking the wounded Joli, still holding his nose. As they left, Dondi turned to Paul.
"Jesus, Paulie," he said. "What’s your fucking problem?"
"Sorry," Paul muttered, feeling suddenly embarrassed, exposed.
"Yeah, well, sometimes ‘sorry’ doesn’t cut it," Dondi replied sternly. "You were outta line."
Paul nodded; he knew. "I’m gonna have to write this up," Dondi said. "Sorry..."
"Yeah," Paul sighed. He looked away; in the distance, the last of the survivors were being packed off. The auxiliary Engine and Ladder companies were packing it in, rolling hoses and stowing gear, their task, for the moment, done. The disaster was finally, if tacitly, under control.
Which was more than Paul could say for himself.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Paul swung a hard right, fist landing with a heavy thud. Then a left-right-left combination, followed by a flurry of jabs. Sweat flecked off his back and shoulders as his arms pistoned onto target, the low ceiling beam from which the heavy bag hung creaking with impact. He was back on Marley Street, getting himself in the mood for the next round. And he was pissed.
Truth be told, mostly at himself. He still wasn’t sure why he snapped like that - he knew as well as any of them that Joli’s joke was born not of malice, but of adrenaline. Joli was an overgrown child, and lame humor was just his way of blowing off steam, soul Teflon. Like his morbid fascination with slasher movies: make-believe horrors, to keep the real ones at bay. Juvenile, but harmless.
"Stupid," Paul hissed. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..."
He slammed the bag again and again, punctuating words with blows. Joli could afford to be an idiot: Paul had no such luxury. That he had lost it was irrefutable, and the ride back to the station house had been marked by a tense and awkward silence. Later they’d made amends, Paul apologizing to everyone in the sincerest of terms; Joli sniffed through taped proboscis and shrugged it off, even joked that it might earn him some sympathy points with lithe Liza the next time they rolled into St. Anthony’s. They’d shaken hands and embraced, replete with standard issue male bonding two-pat back slaps, and all was forgiven. But Paul saw the look in their eyes - a fleeting hint of distrust.
And that was inexcusable.
Paul stopped swinging, mopped his brow with a towel. His breathing and heart rate were up, thudding in his skull; he took a series of long deep breaths, willed himself calm. As he did he vowed, he would not be so careless again. He could not afford to make mistakes. And whatever was going to happen next, must occur quickly. The bag twisted on its chain, winding and unwinding from the violent momentum. Paul watched it until his heart rate leveled off; then donned his shirt and combed his hair.
"That’s it," he muttered. "No more fucking around."
Paul grabbed ahold of the bag, made it stop.
Then turned his attention to the box.
~ * ~
CHAPTER VIII: HUMILIATION
Cases may arise in which the interviewer encounters continued resistance from the subject despite best efforts and application of less invasive techniques. In such instances, strategic use of humiliation may be desired before resorting to more irrevocable physical force.
Maximum exploitation of humiliation depends upon a basic knowledge of the subject’s cultural and moral biases. Techniques range from simple verbal abuse, to more elaborate psychological and physical violations. But while effectiveness can only be truly ascertained by careful study of the subject, certain techniques can be universally applied, such as stripping, forced contact with urine or feces, or various forms of disfigurement, ranging from temporary to permanent [see appendix viii]. While the mere threat of such action is often sufficient, with particularly determined or recalcitrant subjects, action may be considered a must.
~ * ~
A soft click, as a ventilator fan kicked in. Then, lights: blinding behind recessed wire mesh. Paul entered, carrying a paper bag and his spare medbox.
Will winced and sat up on the bunk, dazed and confused. He was a shadow of his former badass self - lupine features drawn even deeper by captivity, black hair matted and disheveled. His clothing was gone, lean form clad only in dirty underwear and a coarse but threadbare wool blanket. He had long since lost all sense of time, the solitude punctuated by random and jarring sonic assaults, clanging alarm bells, sounds of explosions, car crashes, screams, machines grinding, babies crying. All part of the calculated effort to break him down.
Will withdrew into a defensive fetal position as Paul put the box down, looked around. The rim of the toilet was crusted with filth and vomit; even with the ventilator humming, the air inside was thick with the stench of body funk and fear. Thin smears of blood greased the walls. Paul made a tsk-tsk sound.
"Stinks in here," he said, almost conversationally. Paul pulled a little remote control from his pocket, thumbed a button. The lights dimmed a notch, enough for the boy not to have to shield his eyes. Will did not look up, but his eyes warily tracked Paul’s every move.
"Din-din," Paul said, tossing Will the paper bag: out fell another miserable little sandwich and a little carton of juice. The boy hesitated a moment, then hunger overtook him. Paul watched as he wolfed down the food and gulped juice, then produced a small paper cup of varied colored pills.
"Vitamins, and antibiotics," he explained. He held out the cup, rattling it. Will didn’t move. "We can do this easy, or hard," Paul admonished. "Up to you."
Wells reluctantly took the cup. Paul smiled thinly as he swallowed the pills. "Very good," he said. "Now, get in the chair."
Will regarded him suspiciously. Paul explained. "Rule number one: you do what I say, when I say. It’s not negotiable." He softened somewhat, adding, "Besides, I need to check you out. No good you dying from infection before we’re done. Now, move."
Will glared at him for a heartbeat, then got up from his bunk, legs unsteady, and sat in the chair. As he did, Paul grabbed his arm, began securing it with the leather strap. Will freaked, tried to struggle.
"Hold still," Paul ordered, then reached for his other wrist as Wells strained. It was no contest. Paul strapped his other arm down, then reached into the box. The boy’s eyes widened with fear, but Paul came up with an innocuous first aid kit. He squatted on his haunches and looked at the boy’s knuckles: the skin was raw and abraded.
"Beating the walls again?" he said. Will said nothing. Paul shrugged, applying antiseptic to the scrapes.
"Not gonna do you any good," he continued, "I built this. The walls are two inches thick. The chair? Built that, too. Anchor bolts are three inches long." Paul pulled out a stethoscope, checking his pulse and respiration. "You could beat on it ‘til the cows come home; it ain’t going anywhere. And neither are you. Not until we’ve had a nice, long talk."
Paul put the stethoscope away, then looked Will right in the eye, trying to remain emotionally level. "So, tell me, Will," he said. "Why did you do what you did to my little girl?"
Wells looked up, met his gaze. Suddenly the boy hocked deeply, a
nd spat in Paul’s face. Paul turned just as the wad hit, thin spittle grazing his cheek and trailing off in a ropey string He stood and pulled out a handkerchief, wiped it off calmly. Then punched Will once - a short, sharp jab to the solar plexus.
He pulled the punch at the last second, the blow landing less to inflict pain than to make a point. But Wells sucked wind and wheezed, torso crumpling in on itself. Paul’s jaw clenched, then he exhaled deeply, composing himself.
"Rule number two," he said flatly. "You get back what you give out. And then some."
Paul reached into his box, pulled out a blood pressure cuff, strapping it onto the boy’s bicep. As he pumped it up, he continued. "Now that was a perfect example of non-productive communication," Paul told him. "We can go round and round like that all night if you like. But remember rule number two..."
Wells wheezed some more, trying to shake it off; when his head cleared, he glared at Paul with a hatred cold enough to freeze marrow. Paul unwrapped the blood pressure gauge, then stood. He was frustrated, tried hard not to show it. Paul ran a hand through his hair, sighed deeply.
"Let’s try this again, shall we?" he said, turning to the boy. "I have questions. You have answers. And make no mistake, before you leave here, you’ll tell me."
Wells’ eyes flared, then he looked away sullenly. "I ain’t telling you shit," he muttered, staring at the wall.
Paul grabbed him by the chin, pulled his face around.
"Wrong answer," he said.
~ * ~
A bright, tinny buzz sounded, harsh and electric, as the battery powered clippers cut an inch-wide swath of pale through black. The swath arced up and over, like a mower dividing a field, then returned to the base, widening the gap. The boy squirmed, shorn locks tumbling and curling on the floor like little question marks.