Free The Coldest Mile by Tom Piccirilli

the thug the other day, but in the dark Bishop missed and caught Chase on the big toe. It hurt like fuck- all, but the only thing that mattered now was trying to get the gun.
    All of this but Bishop wasn't calling to anybody else in the house. He wanted to take care of it himself.
    Chase hooked too wide with his right and Bishop stepped inside and head- butted him. He'd been going for Chase's nose but instead caught his chin. Chase's teeth snapped together painfully and he felt a small sliver of his tongue come off as his mouth filled with blood. He turned and spit and the .44 was in his face again, the moonshine glinting off the highly polished metal.
    Lila said, Love, and Jonah said, You idiot, you never should've stabbed him in the hand, you should've gone for his throat.
    When the old man was right he was right, and there was nothing you could do.
    Blood oozed across his lips.
    Backing toward the door, Bishop reholstered the pistol and said, “Don't worry about anything. I like you, I really do. Maybe you didn't have anything to do with the merchandise, maybe you did. I'll find out. We'll settle up then. I'll even save you some bandages in the bathroom up the hall, okay?” He grabbed his leaking wrist with his good hand, the smile glowing. “Hey, how about if we go out for a beer sometime?”

A t eleven in the morning, the phone rang and the same voice that Chase didn't recognize told him he was to drive Miss Sherry to her theater group, which would be meeting at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in Manhattan. Like Chase might get it confused with another Winter Garden Theater on another Broadway in a different town.
    He was stiff as hell and the right arm was mostly useless. So was the left hand. The retaped fingers had turned a nasty purple. The piece of tongue he'd nipped off had been from the side and didn't seem to bother him much. He could talk fine and still managed to eat a late breakfast.
    Cessy saw his pain and said, “I got aspirin.” “I think I need something a little stronger.” “I got that too,” she told him, and left the kitchen to return with an unlabeled bottle of huge white pills. “Take two or three of these now. Don't take any more for at least four, maybe six hours, then you can have another two. No more than that tonight.They'll mellow you out and take away the hurt, but you'll still be able to think clearly and drive as fine as ever.”
    “Thanks.”
    She never mentioned what they were and he didn't ask. She looked at his fingers and said, “You wrapped them too tight. They must really hurt if you couldn't tell. They'll go numb and fall off.” He popped the pills and swallowed them down with a glass of milk while she cut the tape off. “You don't even have on any splints. What's the matter with you? You need a doctor, but I'll do what I can.”
    “I appreciate it. And while you're fixing me up I'll be able to drink in more of your beauty.”
    She got out more tape and bound his fingers together much better than he'd been able to do. It made him feel odd, being mothered by her, with the goofy getup on, the polka- dotted do- rag.
    “Can you get me something else?”
    “What?”
    “Antibiotics.”
    “For what?”
    “A wound that doesn't close.”
    “Let me see.”
    Chase took off his suit jacket, shirt, tie, and T-shirt. Cessy carefully peeled away the bandages and pulled a face when she got a look at the seeping gunshot wound. She probed it, and he grimaced and hissed through his teeth. She looked at the other recent damage, the pink scars and the purplish marks where the drains had been put in andtaken out again. Another bullet had taken him in the right side beneath the ribs and deflated his lung. The spiderweb of mottled tissue was courtesy of Earl Raymond's sister, Ellie, who hadn't gone down easy. Raymond's whole crew had been hard.
    Washing her hands in the sink, Cessy said, “I didn't know it was that bad. Take another two pills. I've got some speed, it'll