Chapter 3 - The Ghost In The Ward
For thirty-six hours, the third floor of St. Jude’s Hospital became the most heavily monitored perimeter in the state.
Two uniformed police officers sat outside Room 318 twenty-four hours a day, while Detective Miller made his base of operations in a small consultation room down the hall. The press had gathered on the street below like vultures waiting for a carcass to stop twitching. News vans lined the curb, their tall satellite dishes pointed toward the sky, broadcasting endless commentary on the viral photo of the "Mafia Hound."
Inside Room 318, the world was reduced to the rhythmic, hypnotic sounds of medical machinery.
Puff... Hiss... Beep...
The ventilator pushed air into Tony's damaged lungs. The IV drip delivered a steady stream of strong narcotics, antibiotics, and saline into his veins.
Bruno had not slept.
The dog lay on a blue hospital blanket that Elena, the paramedic, had brought him on her break. He refused to eat the canned dog food the nurses brought up from the basement kitchen, drinking only small laps of water from a plastic basin when Miller placed it directly beneath his nose. His eyes were constantly tracking the doorway, his ears twitching at every footsteps in the corridor.
At 3:14 AM on the second night, the main hallway fell into a deep, unnatural quiet.
The two uniformed officers sitting outside the door—a pair of tired rookies who had been on shift for twelve straight hours—were leaning back in their plastic chairs, their heads nodding softly against the wall.
Down at the end of the hall, the service elevator let out a quiet ding.
A man dressed in the light blue scrubs of a night shift sanitation worker stepped out onto the polished floor. He was carrying a heavy yellow mop bucket and a long handle, his face concealed behind a blue paper surgical mask and a white paper cap pulled down low over his brows.
He did not push the mop. He walked with a light, purposeful stride that didn't match the heavy work boots he wore.
As he passed the security desk, he reached into his front pocket and pulled out a small, aerosol canister designed for industrial pest control.
He stepped up to the two sleeping officers. Before either of them could open their eyes, the man pressed the valve, spraying a thick, odorless cloud of concentrated sedative directly into their faces.
The officers gasped, reached instinctively for their belts, and slumped completely limp in their chairs within five seconds, their chins dropping to their chests.
The man in the scrubs didn't hesitate. He pulled a heavy, suppressed semi-automatic pistol from the deep pocket of his apron.
He turned the handle of Room 318 and slipped inside.
The room was dark, lit only by the green glow of the heart monitor and the faint yellow light filtering through the window blinds from the city below.
The hitman stepped toward the bed, raising the suppressed pistol toward the back of Tony's head.
He didn't notice the shadow moving in the corner.
A silent, ninety-pound wall of muscle, fur, and teeth launched itself from the floor with terrifying speed.
Bruno didn't growl. He didn't bark. He gave no warning whatsoever.
He slammed his front paws directly into the hitman's chest, his jaw locking onto the man's right forearm with the bone-crushing force of three hundred pounds per square inch.
The suppressed pistol went off with a quiet thwip, the bullet tearing through the ceiling tile and showering plaster dust over the bed.
The hitman screamed—a muffled, horrified sound behind his paper mask—as Bruno dragged him violently to the floor. The mop bucket overturned with a loud crash, spilling soapy water across the linoleum.
"Get off me! Get off!" the man shrieked, kicking wildly with his heavy steel-toed boots.
One of his boots caught Bruno squarely in his injured rear hip—the exact spot where the old bullet scar remained.
A sharp, agonizing pain shot through the dog's body. Bruno let out a high-pitched yelp, his jaw loosening for a fraction of a second.
The hitman scrambled backward across the wet floor, blood dripping heavily from his mangled forearm. He raised the gun with his left hand, aiming directly between the dog's intelligent, amber eyes.
"Die, you damn brute," the hitman snarled.
From the bed, a hand reached out.
It was pale, covered in medical tape and IV lines, and shaking violently with pure, unadulterated rage.
Tony Marcone had opened his eyes.
Through the fog of the heavy medical coma, through the blinding pain in his shattered shoulder, Tony had heard his dog yelp. It was the one sound in the universe capable of tearing him out of the dark void.
Tony grabbed the heavy chrome IV pole beside his bed and swung it downward with everything he had left in his failing body.
The thick metal pole struck the hitman across the side of his neck with a sickening crack.
The man went limp, his gun clattering across the wet floor and sliding beneath the radiator.
Tony collapsed back onto his pillows, his chest heaving, blood leaking through the white bandages on his shoulder as the heart monitor let out a frantic sequence of high-pitched alarms.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!
The door banged open. Detective Miller rushed in with his gun drawn, his flashlight beam swinging wildly across the room.
He saw the hitman lying unconscious in a puddle of soapy water and blood. He saw the bullet hole in the ceiling. He saw Tony, conscious, gasping for air on the bed.
And he saw Bruno, trembling from the pain in his hip, standing directly over the fallen hitman, his jaws dripping, his tail giving a single, exhausted thump as he saw that his master was still breathing.
Miller lowered his gun slowly, staring at the scene in absolute disbelief.
"You really are something else, aren't you?" Miller whispered, looking at the dog.
Tony pulled off his oxygen mask with his good hand, his voice raspy, dry, and tasting like copper.
"It was... Marco..." Tony choked out, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, ancient fire. "It was Marco... who sent him."
Miller walked over to the hitman, pulled off his surgical mask, and pulled a wallet from his back pocket. He opened the ID card.
"It's one of Marco's top enforcers," Miller confirmed, his face turning to stone. "He tried to finish the job."
Tony looked down at Bruno, who crawled carefully back to the side of the bed, resting his scarred head on Tony's leg despite his own pain.
"Miller," Tony rasped, grabbing the detective's sleeve with a grip that was surprisingly strong for a man who had been legally dead forty-eight hours ago. "Get my dog out of here. They won't stop... until he's dead."
"I'm not leaving you here unprotected, Marcone," Miller said.
"I have my own people coming... real loyal ones," Tony said through his teeth. "Take Bruno to your place. Keep him safe. If anything happens to him... I'll tear this city down brick by brick."
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Miller looked at the dog. He looked at the mob boss who was offering his own safety just to protect an animal.
"All right," Miller agreed quietly. "All right, Tony. I'll take him."
