Page 56 of Prophet
He believed that he knew her?
“Tell me where Jewel is?” she whispered.
“A jewel by any other name would never…” A tear rolled from his eye. “I am sorry Mat, I have done bad things,” he said as he looked delirious. “Maxim took her under the trash bin. Such a beautiful girl…” His voice faded away as his eyes closed.
“Under the trash bin?” I exclaimed. “What the hell does that even mean?” I moved over to the bed and grabbed him up by his forearms to shake him just like I did before. “Wake up, you bastard!”
“Cowboy!” Ma called out. “Set him down, now!”
I froze and fought the need to thrash him against the bed until he woke up again. Instead, I let go of him.
Still unconscious, he slumped back onto the bed.
“Gibberish,” Wildcat said as he shook his head.
Stepping back, I felt like we had come to the end. He had told us nothing. Time was running out and we had nothing but what Wildcat had just said. Fucking gibberish.
Ma checked his pulse and paused. “He’s still with us, maybe we can get more out of him in a bit.”
“We don’t have a bit, Ma,” I gritted the words out. “And what he said was pure...” I paused as even angry as I felt, I wouldn’t take it out on her.
With a sigh, she stood from the chair. “I know this is killing you Prophet,” she again used a soft voice. “But often, the truth is hard to see when you are blinded.” Then her voice changed to a hard reprimanding tone, “You are lettin’ your temper get the best of your brain, Cowboy. Did you ride them bulls without your brain workin’? Nah, you wouldn’t be alive today had ya done that. Maybe the man did just babble nonsense, but sometimes there’s truth to words no matter how jumbled they are. So get your head on straight, boy.” With that, she sat back down in her chair and grabbed her kit again to take care of the other cuts on her patient’s face.
I stood there as I just got dressed down by Ma Walker. I released my curled fingers that had formed fists of my hands and let out a long breath. I walked back over to the wall where I’d stood at before. She was right, as usual. My head was as far from clear as a muddy pond.
Redemption came in and looked over at the bed to see Ma doing her thing, then he looked over at me.
I met his gaze for a few seconds then again moved my focus to the loser on the bed.
He moved in to stand next to me. “I gather, he hasn’t talked.”
I slowly shook my head.” No, he did but it was more bullshit.”
“Like what?”
I had been trying to calm my mind and my body but more angst came at me as I replied, “That same line about a jewel by any other name crap.”
“Did he say anything else?” Redemption asked.
“He called Ma Mat and acted like he knew her.”
“It means mother,” Ma spoke up as she heard what we said.
“You understand Russian?” Wildcat asked her.
“A little, I’ve been learning it from Katya, Talon’s girl.” She closed her kit and stood from the chair. “That’s why he talked to me, I’m thinking. He was confessing to his Mama.”
“So, him telling you about this guy Maxim and the trash bin thing,” Wildcat said. “Could be him telling us something true?”
Nodding, Ma now looked squarely at me. “Son, did you see a trash bin? Today, I mean when you was chasing them?”
I froze and sucked in a deep breath. “Holy fuck,” I whispered as it hit me like a freight train. I swallowed heavily as I dug into my pocket and retrieved my comm device. My hands shook a little as I tapped it. “Talon!” I nearly shouted into it as I was already rushing from the room.
“Yeah?” he came back.
I fit the device onto my ear as I ran through the hall. “The lot!”
“What?” Talon asked. “Come back?”
