(2012) Blood on Blood by Frank Zafiro Read Free Book Online Page B

places, right? Not keep them out.”
    He blinked at me, as if to say how he’s heard that one a hundred times this week. Then he turned his attention back to the paperwork I’d handed him. “Your prisoner, he is in da hospital wing.”
    “I know.”
    He slid the papers back under the glass window toward me. “Follow da blue line. Dey will help you dere.”
    I thought about asking why in the hell the last guy had sent me to François here in the first place, but could see that he didn’t care one way or the other. For all I knew, the guy at the other end of the blue line would send me right back here. I was there to visit a convict, so they figured jerking me around was just par for the course.
    Besides, what the hell was I doing? I wasn’t pissed at Hebert. Much. I was mostly pissed at the fact I was even standing in a fucking prison in the first place. To see the old man.
    Still, the whole pro-sess got my Irish up.
    “Thanks a lot,” I said. “And say hi to Kermit, you fucking frog.”
    Hebert’s eyes flashed in anger. His jaw clenched and set, but he said nothing. Frankly, I was surprised he showed me even that much. Must be a rookie.
    “Just follow da blue line,” he said.
    I turned and left.
     
    The hospital wing was clean and well lit. The smell of antiseptic cleaners overwhelmed something a little more rotten. It was like when you try to scrub cat piss out of a rug. It just won’t leave entirely, so you end up burning a candle instead. Or you get used to the stench. But either way, it’s still there.
    Doctor Bradford wasn’t around, but a male nurse led me to the bay where the old man was sleeping. The large room held at least eight beds, separated by privacy sheets. A couple of the patients lay still and asleep. One, a bald man in his fifties hooked up to a dialysis machine, gave me a lascivious look and flickered his tongue at me.
    “Hey, I get out soon, sweetie,” he cooed. “We could have a good time then.”
    I ignored him.
    “Keep it down, Sal,” the nurse said without turning toward him.
    “Nice ass,” Sal whispered as I walked past.
    We reached a drawn sheet in the corner of the room. The nurse slid it aside and it held it open for me.
    I hesitated, then realized that the time for hesitating had passed. I stepped through into my father’s bed area. The nurse followed.
    You think you’re prepared for something like this, but you never are. I figured seeing him again would be hard, whether that meant I got so pissed that I pummeled him or maybe broke down and bawled like a kid when he finds out Santa Claus is a racket. And I was right. It sucked the air out of my chest for a long ten seconds while I stared at him. I wasn’t sure what to call the emotion that was rushing in, but I could feel its intensity, whatever it was.
    There was something else, though, too. I was somewhat prepared to see him, but I had no idea he’d look this bad. He’d lost forty or fifty pounds since I saw him last. Maybe sixty. And though he was a large man, it had been all height and wiry muscle. Maybe a thin layer of fat during those times he was working a legitimate job and wasn’t on the run and up all hours.
    His ashen skin stretched across the bones of his face. Wisps of hair on his chin were all that remained from the thick goatee he used to wear. The hair on his head had turned white. It looked thin and brittle. His sunken eyes glared out at me with barely concealed hatred.
    “My eldest,” he rasped to the nurse. He waved a gnarled, bony finger toward me. “Not much to look at, is he?”
    The nurse checked his IV drip. “He’s here to see you in your last hours,” he said. “You should be glad for that. Some of our terminal patients die alone.”
    The old man coughed into his hands, but shook his head at the nurse’s comment.
    I stood, silent and waiting.
    The nurse finished checking things, turned and walked away, leaving us alone. We stared at each other without a word. His eyes burned with