Ch. 33 – Good Afternoon

The stuffiness woke Derrick up. He must have been sleeping in his room for a long time.

Derrick tried rolling over on the mattress to grab his phone off the nightstand, but a sharp pain in his back made him spasm and flop back onto the bed. Everything was sore, which made sense, considering he had been operating or moving almost non-stop throughout the night. Everything except for his prosthesis—which he hadn’t bothered to remove before passing out—but even the interface on his stump had a dull ache around it.

A good ten minutes later of lying still, and then curling up into a ball, he had loosened up his back, and was able to roll off the mattress and onto the floor. It was hard and unyielding, but easier to move on compared to the mattress, as it didn’t deform around his movements. He had been asleep for around twelve hours. He put on a comfortable hoodie and sweatpants. It would be too stupidly ironic if he went outside in his pajamas again, and then had to spend another night running around in them and freezing his ass off while dealing with a life or death situation.

It was quiet, thankfully. No one was sneaking around the shop, at least that he could hear. Derrick undid the lock on the door to his room, and eased it open, peering through the crack. The afternoon sun shone through the empty doorframe. That was probably his first order of business, if he wanted there to still be a shop that Tony could come back to. The drifters and gangsters were probably still hiding out after the large fight the night before, but they would come around to make trouble eventually. Leaving your door open overnight in Chinatown was always a mistake.

Derrick propped the door up against the frame, shoved it in, and then duct-taped it so that it looked fully attached from the outside. That would have to do until he had the chance to take out the power drill and reattach the door to the frame.

Closing the door behind him, he waited a moment to see if it fell into the shop. It stood firm, and he walked backwards, avoiding a puddle, until he had reached the street entrance to the alley.

“Keep yourself together, alright?” he said, partly to himself, and partly to the door.

Derrick turned around, and nearly tripped on something hard. It was one of many misshapen chunks of brick scattered near the side of the street.

The walls.

The two walls left and right of the alleyway were pocked with bullet marks, and crumbled in places. The shards of brick had exploded from the walls, and fallen onto the ground. Derrick knit his eyebrows at the sight, and took a deep breath. The gang fighting had almost made it up to Hack Alley’s front door. The thunderous storm that night was probably the reason why Derrick and Tony hadn’t heard the walls shatter under gunfire. The fight had passed, and yet he couldn’t stop glaring at the bullet marks, at the broken walls in front of his home.

It was a small relief that there were no bodies lying amid the brick shards or along the street . . . none that were in sight, anyhow.

Derrick kicked the shards of brick up against the wall and out of the way—they would make it hard for people to walk the streets—and then made his way over to the bus stop. A few passengers’ Beacons chirped out in a cheery tone as they walked off the bus. Derrick got on the bus, which was decently crowded in the afternoon, and stared out the window, letting his mind go blank in between transfers on the two hour journey.

#

He finally arrived at the hospital, and walked up the reception desk. “Hello, I’m here to visit a patient. Tony Yu.”

The receptionist nodded and checked on his computer, asking Derrick for his information: standard routine at the hospital. “Looks like that ICU already has a few visitors, so don’t bring anyone else in there with you, okay?”

“ . . . Do you know who else is in there?” Derrick asked, glancing around in the corners of his vision. In the waiting room there were only some bored-looking people wearing street clothes shifting around on the plastic chairs. He whispered to the receptionist. “Are there any gangsters there?”

“No, thank god. I wasn’t on shift last night, but I heard about what happened.” His eyes widened. “Wait, are you the guy who came in with the White Leopards last night?”

Derrick nodded.

“I heard you operated on one of them, and saw the whole thing go down with Devito.”

“. . . Yeah, that was me.”

“Jesus, well I’m glad you got out of that alive. We don’t usually have this much trouble with gangsters. No, it’s fine in there. In this ICU, there’s currently an old couple who came in with a bouquet of flowers, and then a young woman, maybe in her twenties or so. Asian. Was carrying a large bag.”

Derrick breathed a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t be able to make sense of things with Tony if they were surrounded by White Leopards scrutinizing their every word. Tony hadn’t heard the whole discussion with Theo, and he needed to know if they were going to be working for gangsters; the future of Hack Alley was at stake. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

The receptionist nodded and gave Derrick the directions to find the hospital room.

Derrick forced a big, toothy smile as he walked through the hallways, passing by doctors and nurses. They either avoided his gaze, or smirked, but he kept it up, trying to make the smile reach the corners of his eyes as well. Body and mind were inherently linked, after all. Smiling was supposed to release endorphins that made you happier, and happiness was contagious, to an extent.

Tony needed some cheering up. He had been stabbed, and was all by himself in the hospital. Sure, if you got lucky the nurses could be nice, but laying there, naked except for your hospital gown, feeling too weak to move, and feeling pain when you did move. That was scary. Derrick was probably the only one who’d come to see Tony, given that the man didn’t have many friends, and never told his parents anything. So it was Derrick’s job to cheer Tony up.

Derrick stopped in front of the ICU room where Tony was staying. A nurse had just closed the door, and was on her way out when she noticed Derrick coming up to her.

“Hello, I’m here to visit Tony Yu.”

“Oh, another one? Tony’s awake, but don’t stay too long. He needs time to rest and recover.” She smiled.

Another one? “Uh . . . of course. Thanks for taking care of him.”

The nurse rushed away before Derrick had the chance to ask her about the other visitor. Well, only one way to find out who it is.

He knocked on the door to the ICU, waiting a few moments to give Tony time to prepare, and then opened it. Right in front was an elderly patient, sleeping on a bed, and wrapped in layers of sheets. An assortment of monitoring equipment extended out from behind the bed. Derrick paced down a row of similar beds spread throughout the ICU room. It was relatively silent, which as a good thing; lots of noisy alarms meant people were dying. He passed the elderly couple with the bouquet, which meant the only other visitor he had heard from of the receptionist was . . .

Tony was in an alcove at the far end of the room, with his own set of monitoring equipment behind him. And in front of him, a thin girl sat in a chair, her bangs hiding her face as she paged through the magazine in her lap.

Tony’s eyes were closed, but they cracked open as Derrick approached.

“Derrick. Why’d you leave me here all alone? Sally’s all I’ve got for company. She’s a sight for sore eyes, sure, but it’s really uncomfortable getting an erection while I’m hooked up to all this equipment.”

It was Sally. The bargirl that Tony had been taking home. Derrick had woken up late in the afternoon, and the bargirl had beaten him to go see Tony.

Sally scoffed and raised a hand up towards Tony’s foot, only to slap the side of the bed instead. “You’re lucky you’re injured right now, or I wouldn’t let that pass.”

Tony chuckled. “Lucky me.”

Sally turned to look Derrick in the eyes, and then glanced away. “Hi . . . Derrick. Good to see you again.”

Some bar girls have dedication to the craft, huh? Visiting their clients in the hospital has got to earn big points. “You too,” Derrick said. “What—uh, when did you get here?”

“Just a few hours ago, and gosh was it a journey,” Sally said, eyes widening, and raising her voice to a loud whisper. “Tony was supposed to meet me to go shopping in the morning, and I was waiting there all excited . . . but he didn’t show up for like an hour! He’s never late, so I knew something was wrong.”

Funny. Tony would show up to work late all the time.

“So I went around to all the shops to ask if they had seen him, but none of them had. And then I came by the shop, but the door was busted open! And there were bullet marks all over the walls! I couldn’t find Tony, or you, or anyone else in the shop, and I was worried sick, so I called a few hospitals—there aren’t many around Chinatown—and ended up finding him here.”

“I, um, wow. Sorry I didn’t hear you, I was like deep asleep in the morning. Tony probably told you what happened, right?” It was still a shock that Sally had even come to the hospital at all. Tony wasn’t well enough to spend money at the bars, or go shopping with Sally, and he probably wouldn’t be for a while. There was nothing in it for her. Not to mention she had actually gone looking for Tony and ended up getting here . . . before Derrick did.

“Yes! My god! And I really wish I could’ve been there yesterday to help.” Sally stood up and brushed her bangs out of her face. “Next time Tony’s life is on the line, don’t forget to call me, okay? I might not be able to do much, but I can at least do something. If he had died . . . well, that would’ve just sucked, you know?” She looked back at Tony, who gazed up at her, a crooked smile on his face.

There was an awkward silence, as Derrick stood there, unable to pierce the contented atmosphere surrounding the two of them. “Um. I can come back late, there’s nothing really urgent. I just wanted to see if you were okay, Tony—”

“—Come over here, Derrick,” Sally said, getting out of her chair. “Why don’t you sit and talk with Tony a bit while I get you guys some water?”

“Okay,” Derrick said, circling the chair to the right, as Sally went around it to the left toward the door. She leaned her skinny frame back to pull the door open, but the handle slipped out of her hand and she stumbled back.

“Careful!” Tony said, before grunting in pain and falling back onto the bed.

“I’m fine—I’m fine,” Sally said, brushing her bangs out of her face. Her right arm hung limply by her side as she pulled the door open with her left hand this time instead. “No worrying about me until you get better. That’s the rule!”

Derrick raised his eyebrows at Tony’s pained expression, which then gave way to a sickly sweet one.

“She’s barely able to pull herself together, and she wants to fuss over me?” Tony chuckled. “That’s not a bad feeling, to be honest.”

“Hey, who takes care of you when you’re dead drunk and throwing up all over the shop?” Derrick said. “Don’t I get any thanks?”

Tony reached out towards Derrick with an arm, but settled for patting the hospital bed instead of Derrick’s back. “Of course, I’m thankful to you too, my boy. It’s just . . . this is new. With Sally, I mean.” Tony sighed and closed his eyes, a blissful smile on his face.

“Yeah, I can tell,” Derrick said. He sighed himself. “I hate to ruin the moment, but I think we should talk about what happened last night.”

Tony’s eyes opened, and he was once again the weary old mod-doc Derrick had known for years. It was almost sad how quickly the transition happened. “I’m so tired right now, I don’t even want to think about it.”

“Yeah, but we can’t just ignore what happened and hope it’ll go away,” Derrick said.

Tony sighed deep, and breathed deeper, his large belly rising underneath the sheets.

“There’s some happy news that came out of all this mess. You saved my life, from what the doc told me,” Tony said. “I woke up, and some guy was stabbing me. Next thing I knew you were dragging me to the operating room. If you had driven me to the hospital, I might’ve died there. Makes me proud that you work in my shop. ”

Derrick flushed up to his ears, but kept a straight face. “Well, I just tried to follow my training. Tried to remember what you had done, when people would show up on our doorstep all fucked up. No way I would just give up on you when we had an operating room right there.”

Tony closed his eyes and smiled, reaching an arm out to pat Derrick on the shoulder, but settling for patting his hand instead. “Okay. So what happened while I was out?” Tony asked. “Who was the guy who stabbed me? What did he want? I know we rode in a car with the White Leopards, but it all seemed like a fevered dream to me.”

“Do you remember the two White Leopards who led the group that brought Ah Jun into our shop earlier that night? One of them was named Alan: the guy who stabbed you.”

“That bastard! He seemed like an overbearing asshole. Where is he? Did he get away?”

Derrick shook his head. “He was apparently planning to betray the White Leopards, and they caught him in the act. So I guess they’re holding him right now. Not sure what’ll happen to him.”

Tony closed his eyes again. The bags underneath them were deep and dark. “So lay it on me, my boy. What does this mean for our shop?”

“Well, the White Leopards fronted part of the initial costs for your medical treatment. But they’re leaving us with the bill for the ongoing treatment. Oh yeah, and they waived the protection money as per your agreement with them, but the other guy Theo threatened to revoke that unless we helped them out with some other jobs, which he didn’t elaborate on.”

“So they’ve trying to force us to work for them, eh?” Tony said.

“It seems like it.”

“Did they say what the jobs were going to be like?”

“No. I’ve got no clue what they’d involve.”

Tony harumphed. “This Theo kid. He knows we can’t afford to pay for an extended hospital stay, so he’s blackmailing us, and going back on an agreement that I’d already negotiated with him.”

“I’m not sure what to do, Tony,” Derrick said. “If we turn down their offer, then I don’t think we could afford to keep you here. And you just had a major surgery.”

Tony nodded. “You’re right. We can barely pay the bills, after all.”

Just hearing those words made Derrick tear up. If only they had the money. “Sorry to bother you with this after you just got stabbed like a bazillion times, but I just . . . thought you ought to know,” Derrick said.

“Well,” Tony said, before sighing and leaning back in his bed. “God. Dammit. I’m so tired of this. I hate those bastards, but . . . what the hell, I’ll leave the decision to you. If you’ve got a bad feeling about one of their jobs, you don’t have to do their dirty work. But otherwise . . . what else can we do? I can have you sell off some of my things, but we’ll still need more money.”

“I . . .” Derrick began, before shutting his mouth.

Sally arrived back with the water for Derrick and Tony. Derrick gulped his down—getting to the hospital by bus had been thirsty work—and Tony took measured sips. Tony coughed, and then choked the rest of his water down.

“Tony! Take your time with that,” Sally said. “Are you tired?”

Tony swayed side to side a bit as he nodded, eyes closed. “Yeah, a bit.”

Derrick stood up from the chair and placed it gingerly back where Sally had been sitting before. “Alright, well I guess I won’t bother you two any more,” Derrick said. “I hope you get better soon, Tony.”

“Thanks Derrick,” Tony said, squinting as he struggled to open his eyes. “And really, thank you for saving my life.”

“Don’t mention it, man. I owe you everything.”

Derrick waved goodbye at the both of them, and left the ICU.

His stomach started hurting as he rode the bus back home, and he curled up into a ball, ignoring the stares from the other passengers as he twisted and turned in his seat while clutched his belly. He hadn’t been this nervous since the night of the fire, when he was about to spark the inferno.

Tony was weak, and ripe for the White Leopards to take advantage of. This game that Theo was playing: it had to be way more trouble than it was worth. If the ‘jobs’ were just some routine maintenance for White Leopard members, the gangster would’ve said so.

But they had no money. Which meant that Derrick would have to try and make enough to pay for Tony’s hospital stay before Theo came calling with his first job. And pay the rent. And pay the utilities. And with no gangsters to supply him with work, he would have to do it the old fashioned way, seeking out and accepting jobs from regular customers.

Derrick swallowed hard to keep down the vomit that was rising up into the back of his throat. Tony was safe, and Derrick was going to keep him that way.