Ch. 52 – Visiting Hours

Derrick rubbed his arm as he sat up in his bed. The chill morning air had seeped into Hack Alley, but he had to make a phone call, even before getting dressed. He flicked the lamp on and sat on the edge of his mattress, bag of money in between his feet.

“Tony? Are you there?” Derrick pressed the receiver tighter against his ear. The nurse in the background was offering Tony some sort of food, and the whooshes of air implied the phone was being waved around as Tony graciously accepted.

A few moments later, Tony’s voice came into focus.

“Derrick! I’ve gotten like five missed calls from you—“

The call cut out. The phone was warm against his palm, but the screen was totally dark. Derrick held the power button. No juice. Shit, where was that charger? Derrick untangled the cord stuck between his mattress and the wall, and plugged it into an outlet. But then the lights went out, and the humming and buzzing of the fans and the electronics throughout the shop gave way to silence.

The rumpling of the covers was unusually loud as Derrick threw them across his mattress and stood up. “Agh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Derrick yelled. The electric company had finally cut off their power, after months of them being behind on payments.

They had a tool for times like these. Derrick opened the door to the shop and groped around in the box in the corner. He griped the hard, sharp edges of the home-made hand crank generator and pulled it out. The thing was unnecessarily heavy because it was improvised, but at least it was durable. Derrick set his phone on the floor and plugged the charger into the generator, and then sat down on the floor himself. Leaning back onto his hands for support, Derrick brought his legs up and started pumping the —fortunately oversized for a hand-crank—pedals. It would be faster than using his hands. The generator jumped up and down with his wild pedaling, clacking against the floor. Derrick had to lift his legs and drag the generator back into place a few times to keep it from crushing his phone. And then, finally, his phone screen lit up and a symbol of an empty battery popped up on it. Alright, he would give it a few minutes, and then call Tony again.

#

Derrick wiped the sweat from his forehead and moved his slick hand back down for support. It shouldn’t have slipped—the tile flooring in the shop was meant to have high-traction for safety—but the puddle of sweat that had been dripping down his arm was enough to make anything slippery, and his hand smeared the sweat across the ground as he slipped and fell onto his side.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Derrick muttered to himself. His phone was probably five percent charged: enough to make a single call, surely. He dialed Tony’s number again, and someone picked up. “Tony?”

“Derrick! Now it’s me who’s been trying to call you. After all those missed calls, you made me worried, my boy. I wasn’t able to take your calls yesterday because they were running some tests on me. What happened over there, is the world ending or something?” he asked, in between bites of what sounded like a crunchy apple.

“Sorry about that, my call got cut off because my phone ran out of battery, and then I tried charging it, but they shut off our electricity—”

“Dammit, they cut the power?!”

“Yeah, this morning’s been a whole mess. But listen: I’ve got . . . some news for you. I figure we should maybe talk in person about it, so I want to come visit you soon. Do you know what time the care team is doing tests on you today?”

“Yesterday was busier than usual, so I’ll be here to talk today, don’t worry. Hm, the first fella usually comes in around two in the afternoon, so I should have some time before then.”

“Okay, great. I’ll talk to you soon,” Derrick said.

They said their goodbyes, and Derrick hung up the phone. He brought the bag of cash he had been clutching throughout the night to Tony’s room, and took out the secret box, where Tony’s bling was.

Unlocking it with the key behind the drawer, Derrick dropped the bills into the box, and slid it back into Tony’s hiding spot. It was probably time to invest in a proper safe.

And with that, he was off to the bus stop. The bus arrived, and the few people who had been waiting at the stop with him trudged up the steps. They looked so dead, so zombie-like, that Derrick felt like he was sticking out, like a nail about to be smashed with a hammer.

Shit. Do I look nervous? Just relax. Pretend you’re a sleep-deprived worker trying to get into the city.

But his eyes were slammed open. Every creak and groan of the bus registered to him, and the background music of a man’s phone game beat on his ears.

The hot air from a temperature control vent blew directly in his face. Derrick blinked rapidly and tears streaked down his cheek. He scooted over so the air wasn’t blowing directly on him anymore.

The scenery flew by on the bus, as the skyscrapers of New Shore City loomed closer and closer. What sort of bills would they pay off first? The rent, definitely, to get Bernard off their back. Hack Alley was trying to get the White Leopards off its back, but guess who also enforced evictions in Chinatown? The White Leopards. Bernard was getting closer and closer to pulling that trigger every day.

The power and water were the next obvious things to make headway on. They could finally get their equipment maintained, since they’ve been putting maintenance off for a while. They could finally replace the consumables they’d been short on: personal protective equipment, compressed gases and anesthetics. They could make payments on the loans they had taken out to buy and replace equipment. There was so much they could do with sixteen thousand and five hundred dollars. Maybe it was better to round it down to sixteen thousand dollars, though; there was sure to be some unexpected expense that they would need to throw a few hundred dollars at.

There were a few more legs to the bus trip, but Derrick finally ended up at Sacred Oath Hospital. Visiting was much nicer when there wasn’t someone bleeding out on stretcher right next to him.

#

“Derrick!” Tony called out, his face brightening as Derrick sidled up against the wall to let a nurse pass by.

“You look better. Way better,” Derrick said to Tony. It was true, and not just a mark of encouragement. Tony’s face seemed fresh, and almost younger even. The lines on his forehead and dark bags under his eyes were gone, and although he still had quite a lot of facial fat, his face was less bloated. There was a sort of side benefit to his hospital stay, in that he couldn’t drink any booze. Derrick sighed inside. If only they could keep it that way.

“Yeah, I feel pretty good, actually. Sally keeps me company from time to time, sweetheart that she is.”

“So, when can you come home?” Derrick asked.

“The doc’s saying a few weeks from now, just to be safe. No heavy lifting or straining myself when I get back, but I’ll be able to watch the shop and look at our finances. But anyways—” Tony sat up and peeked past his curtain. The nurses were all occupied at the other end of the room.

Derrick sat on the edge of Tony’s bed at his beckoning, and lowered his head, so Tony could whisper in his ear.

Derrick said, whispering himself. Hopefully if they spoke Chinese, there was a lower chance of Tony’s nurse catching a snippet of their conversation if she walked by.

Tony grunted.

Tony waved his hand.

Tony whispered with a grin.

Tony squeezed Derrick’s shoulder, his eyes wide.

Derrick glanced around. Large curtains were hung up around Tony’s bed, giving him some modicum of privacy, but the front was open so that nurses and doctors could have easy access. Talk about gangs might make the hospital staff nervous.

Tony asked.

Derrick helped Tony off his bed, and they walked down the hall toward one of the lockable bathrooms. Tony wobbled as they went, leaning on, and tugging away from Derrick in alternation. But he didn’t grunt or wince in pain, humming a tune instead, which was good.

They shut the thick wooden door behind them and locked it, and then they were alone. The bathroom was relatively clean, and, most importantly free of any microphones, and with very few fixtures in which a microphone or other recording device could be hidden.

Derrick whispered. He recounted the jobs that he had done for the Chinatown elderly, and then Xavier’s sudden reappearance. Tony nodded along, mouth open wide in shock as Derrick described their hare-brained plan to retrieve Xavier’s login credentials for the home automation account that controlled his ability to ejaculate.

Tony grumbled.

Derrick gulped. he asked. The media was always drawing connections between the terrorists and various groups around the country. These groups were the new bogeymen now, and you were instantly scarier if people lumped you together with them.

Tony shrugged.

Derrick stopped. Actually, when he replayed the events of the job from the start . . .

Tony sighed.

Derrick stared at the tiles on the bathroom floor, avoiding Tony’s weary gaze. Derrick had known the risks before he took the job. He had had to make the decision on his own. It wasn’t Tony’s fault, and Derrick should have kept a tighter leash on Xavier to avoid starting that whole mess with the Dixies. But Derrick had done something big for Hack Alley, and got paid a whole lotta cash.

Derrick asked.

Tony chuckled. But then his voice became deep and low.

Tony took a deep breath. Tony grinned wide.

Derrick said. Derrick smiled, and a smile crept onto Tony’s face as well.

Derrick asked.

Tony said.

Derrick asked.

Tony said.

Derrick offered.

Tony said. He patted his belly.

Tony said, slapping his leg.

Derrick asked.

Tony said, smirking.

Tony said.

Derrick said.

They spent a good ten minutes confirming the other spending priorities so that Tony was happy. With Derrick’s list all worked out, he opened the bathroom door for Tony, and they went back to the hospital room where Tony’s bed was.

Tony settled back into his bed, and started drowsing off as Derrick sat by his bed.

Tony whispered. He shifted slightly on his bed as Derrick got up and stretched. It was time to put Tony’s priorities into action.

Derrick said.

Derrick gave Tony’s hand a squeeze before fixing his sheets. He said a quick hello to the nurse before heading to the hospital’s lobby to charge his phone back to its full capacity, and then went to go wait for the bus.