Crossroads Shadowland by Keta Diablo Page A

followed the
screaming ambulance to the hospital. Sister Francoise stood near the entrance of the emergency room,
cross in hand.
    "What happened?" Tears
filled the eyes that no longer looked clear blue and wintry, but reminded Frank of an unrepentant
arctic wind.
    "Beaten within an inch of
his life, but alive enough to whisper a name." She put her hand up. "Don't repeat it. The Lord will be most
displeased with me if I curse
it."
    "Valmont led me to him."
    For the first time since he'd met her, the
Sister looked bewildered.
    "I'll explain later."
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Doctors and nurses merged
in a blur of frenetic motion. Carts rolled and IV stands clattered down the halls until the entire cubicle
hummed with frenzied action to save Rand's
life. Frank paced and the Sister prayed as the tense minutes passed on the wall clock in the tiny waiting
room.
    Finally a man appeared
under the archway, his face somber. "I'll need to speak with his next of kin."
    The words severed Frank at
the knees. "His mother and sister are in flight as we speak."
    "Broken jaw, three broken
ribs, countless stitches, and a dislocated shoulder. Going to need surgery to wire that jaw
shut."
    "He isn't going to die?"
    With a rush of air through
his lips the man glanced from Sister Francoise to him. "He's stabilized now, but another ten
minutes in that abandoned building..." He
shook his head. "Would have lost him."
    Frank clicked the talk
button on his cell phone on the first ring. "Emily, thank God. They
need your permission to take Rand into surgery." He handed the phone to the doctor. "Rand's
mother."
    The man ran through a
series of quick questions for Emily and then passed the phone back to Frank. "We're going into the OR now.
Expect him out in several hours. We've got
an orthodontic surgeon scrubbing. He'll wire the jaw, and we'll fix the shoulder and ribs, and sew
up his face."
    Frank didn't remember
thanking the man after he walked away. He could think of only two things right now.
    Martin and justice, his kind of justice.
     
    * * * * *
     
    From behind a wide
streetlamp post, Frank waited in the employee parking lot of the Provincial Hotel with his shoulder bag. An
hour before daylight, Martin pulled his
rat-trap of a car into an empty space and cut the engine.
    Before the skunk had a
chance to exit, Frank yanked open the passenger door, pointed the Glock at his face and said one word.
"Drive."
    "It wasn't me, Mr. McGuire,
I swear. Ringo had a snub-nose, forced me to drive the car. That's all I did."
    "Ringo? That scum-bag I saw
you talking to the other day in the hallway?"
    Martin's eyelids went into
an overdrive of rapid blinks. "That's him, and I swear I had no idea he hated fagg...gays."
    "Drive to his house."
    "Then what?" he asked, his voice
shaking.
    "Then you and I are going
to walk up to his door and ask him to join us for a little ride."
    "I begged him to stop; told him he'd kill
Rand if he kept punching him."
    "So you did do more than
drive? You stood by and watched, did nothing?"
    The Adam's apple in his
scrawny neck bobbed up and down when he swallowed hard. "Is-is he dead?"
    Frank wanted him to squirm,
wanted him to suffer like Rand had. "Where's this asshole live?"
    "Down the block. We're almost there."
    "Once he answers the door,
tell him you need to talk to him in private— in the car."
    Martin pulled up to the
curb in front of the house and nodded. With darkness at his back and Martin in front of him, Frank
escorted the quaking- kneed man to the stoop and stood off to the
side.
    Long minutes later, Ringo
opened the front door while scratching his head. "What the fuck, man. It's five in the
morning."
    "Something's come up. We
need to talk in private." Martin shagged his head toward the car.
    "This better be important."
    The second Ringo cleared
the last step, Frank pushed the gun into his back and fell in behind him. "Oh, trust me, fat boy, it's
important."
    Frank climbed into the back seat with Ringo
and Martin in front.