In Baba Yaga’s room there were two more goons, and a very well-dressed man with a smooth expressionless face, manicured fingernails, a Rolex flashing on his wrist, and sleek brown hair. Something about him made Franny think of otters. Of the other goons one had a shaved head that glittered under the fluorescent lights. The other sported a large ruby earring and a luxurious mustache. Franny started to say, Hey, the seventies called, they’d like their mustache back, but didn’t because Baba Yaga had turned those dead eyes on him and scornfully called him a hero. Then the screaming had started.

Baba Yaga’s command had been short and succinct. “Go. Check it out. Come back and tell me what you see.”

Franny had tried to argue. “Send one of your damn bully boys.”

“I’m not risking my guards and you caused this. Now go.”

“If I caused this then you know what it should be…”

The old woman had nodded at the Baldy and Franny found himself staring down the barrel of the guard’s Sig Sauer.

“Okay, persuasive reason why I should go.”

Franny had been dithering so long that the elevator doors started to close. He threw up an arm to hold them back, and was forcibly reminded that he had a recently sewn bullet wound in his side, and another in his shoulder. The room seemed to be ballooning in front of him. He knew he was pumped full of painkillers, but drugs alone couldn’t explain the creeping fear that was crawling up his spine and left his belly empty and shaking.

Shouts and sobs were coming down the corridor. Franny shuffled off the elevator, his paper slippers sussing and crackling on the linoleum. A pair of security guards went past. They were muscling an older woman in a nurse’s uniform who was screaming abuse while she tried to claw at their faces. Her face was a mask of rage, spittle formed white flecks on her lips, and the front of her dress was spattered with blood.

Franny pressed himself against the wall. The screaming was still continuing. More voices, bellows of rage. “Fuck this,” he whispered.

He was no longer under guard. He could just exit the hospital and find help. The absurdity of the plan soon presented itself. He didn’t speak the language, didn’t have any local money, or ID, and was dressed in a hospital gown. If he saw himself wandering around New York like this he’d arrest himself.

He forced himself back into motion. Heading toward the raised voices, the nexus of the uproar. Pressure tightened around Franny’s skull and it felt like something was crawling slowly down his nerve fibers. A low grotesque humming seemed to fill the air. Anger at Captain Mendelberg back in New York who hadn’t fucking listened and wouldn’t fucking help, thoughts of Abby constantly blowing him off even when he worked his ass off to help her. His fucking partner who left this pile of steaming shit on his desk and didn’t help until he made a halfhearted offer when it was too fucking late. The other cops at Fort Freak who couldn’t even give him one fucking little congratulation for making detective. Jealous assholes, all of them …