Page 10 of A Breath of Life
“Check his pants.”
“Tallus.”
“Do it. He wants you to. He said so.”
“The man’s out of his fucking head. He doesn’t know what he wants.”
A siren blared in the distance, and the gentleman registered the noise. His trembling, bloody hand, still clinging to my T-shirt, tightened, balling the fabric as he enunciated, “Find… Take… Find… Take.”
“Find what, asshole? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“His pants, D. Check his pants.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I went through the front pockets of the man’s pants and found them empty. “There’s nothing here.”
I didn’t want to move him to check the ones in the back. On the verge of giving up, a pocket on the front of his vest caught my attention. I fished inside with two fingers and discovered a leather drawstring pouch, flat but not empty. Whatever it contained was only slightly larger than a business card and as hard as metal.
I held it between us, and the man’s eyes widened in fear—a greater fear than before.
“Is this it? Is this what you wanted?”
The gentleman moved his hand from my T-shirt to my wrist, pushing the object farther from his face. “Get… away. Throw… away.” Another wheezing gasp. The man’s blue lips stood out. His ghostly skin made the bruises appear darker.
Still, he continued to speak. “Throw… away… Bad.” He gawped and did what he could to pull oxygen, but the swelling around his throat had grown worse.
The ambulance was nearer. The wailing sirens bounced off the high buildings and rang through the night.
“I’m going to flag them down,” Tallus said. He left the takeout on the ground and handed me Echo’s leash since she wouldn’t leave my side. Then he ran.
The gentleman’s eyes closed, and the whistling of thin air entering his damaged throat stopped briefly.
If the ambulance didn’t hurry up, the man would suffocate.
He seemed to be unconscious, so I moved to return the leather pouch to his pocket—I was not interested in being accused of robbing him—but the man jolted, strained, and did all he could to suck in a final gasp of air.
The dying man shook his head. Again, he tried to speak, but the words were barely audible. “No… Throw… away.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I yelled.
His lips formed one final word.Please. Then he closed his eyes and stopped breathing.
Echo licked my cheek and pressed her weight against my side. My blood pressure was through the roof, and this freak from another century, in the throes of death, wasn’t making sense.
A clatter sounded from the far end of the alley.
“Hurry the fuck up,” I hollered. “He stopped breathing.”
In the seconds before the paramedics arrived, I stuffed the leather drawstring pouch into my pocket and moved out of the way, encouraging Echo to follow as the medical team surrounded the gentleman.
“His throat is swollen shut,” I explained. “He can’t get oxygen. He stopped breathing less than a minute ago.”
They wasted no time. First, they attempted to intubate without success. Then, they performed an emergency tracheotomy right there in the alley. The two-man crew worked fast and efficiently.
Tallus returned to my side, taking my hand and holding on for dear life.
The man did not die, at least not there in the alley, but it was a close one.
