Sex & Mayhem 05 Red Hot (24 page)

Chapter 26

Red Jack’s hands were slippery with sweat, and he probably stank like a pig from all the nerves evaporating off his body. He couldn’t care less though, if the surgery was to work. He had no idea what kind of future he would have with Loki, but he couldn’t imagine one without him. They fit together like a bullet and a gun. Loki took his fits with understanding yet could also speak his mind and give Red Jack hell. As awful as it was at the time, Red Jack loved the thrill of being with someone who spoke their mind like that and wasn’t afraid. Who, even with a serious illness, decided to go all out to get what they wanted from life instead of wasting away while clinging to useless treatments.

But right now, it was Red Jack who wanted Loki to do any and all treatments the world had to offer. It would be the worst type of karma if Red Jack was to go soft for someone only to lose them. It was by sheer luck that Red Jack had found out about Doctor Arvelo.

Red Jack was sceptical about the amount of money he had to pay for the procedure. Arvelo claimed that the bulk of his earnings was donated to local charities, but even if he drove a Porsche at home and lived in a mansion, Red Jack didn’t care as long as the surgery improved Loki’s health. Who knew, maybe this would end up as one of the miracles when yet another PET scan revealed a brain free of cancer, surprising all the licensed doctors? Those things happened sometimes.

Red Jack discretely looked around the full waiting room. There was no A/C in the small alternative medicine centre, and so the air was a mixture of sweat, sharp-smelling ointments, and infected flesh. The waiting list held over fifty names, but the moment Red Jack opened his wallet and pulled out a wad of cash, Loki only had to wait for thirty minutes or so before walking off to the pre-treatment room. It had been two hours since then, and Red Jack’s nerves were slowly exploding with tension. He’d been told Loki would have to go through a special bath, inhale a concoction that would make his body more
ripe
for the surgery, whatever that meant, and cleanse on top of that. The whole thing was bound to last long. Red Jack would stay the night if necessary.

The hangaround who’d mentioned Arvelo to Jack claimed he permanently cured her of migraines just by holding his hands on her head. Headaches were one thing, but what got Red Jack truly intrigued was the person who referred the girl to Arvelo, her uncle whom Arvelo had cured of cancer. Maybe there was a chance the doctor’s abilities could help Loki as well?.

Sweat dripped down Red Jack’s neck, but he’d let it be blood if that was to help Loki in any way. Christian sacrifice or some shit. Whatever it took. And didn’t Loki deserve to be healed? He’d survived an ordeal that was yet to be fully avenged. How much was one guy supposed to take in his life when other fuckers were born into BMWs and mansions? Red Jack knew very well that life wasn’t fair. He’d had to climb up the financial ladder himself, learn to fake confidence in the spotty skin God gave him, work his ginger mane to his advantage. But there was no way Loki could ‘work’ with brain cancer. How fucked-up was that? Red Jack couldn’t even pinpoint when he’d started caring so much. Was it when Loki shot him? Maybe he’d made some permanent indent in Red Jack’s soul?

A loud sob wouldn’t be enough to take Red Jack out of his own thoughts in a room where pretty much everyone was either in pain or scared, but the way the constant noise of whispering voices died down made him look up. A short woman dressed in a long black skirt and matching T-shirt was covering her wrinkled face with one hand. Some of her faded hair slipped out of a loose ponytail at the back of her head, adding to the image of utter misery.

One of the staff, who helped the doctor prepare the patients, walked up to her and gently pulled her toward the door, whispering. Red Jack had talked to her before, and according to her badge, her name was Jenny.

The old woman pushed her away with surprising force. “No, I need to speak to the doctor. Now!”

Red Jack sat up straight. He was not about to let anyone interrupt Loki’s surgery. He’d throw the woman out himself if need be. He relaxed when a male attendant with bright gray eyes joined his colleague and took the old woman by the hand.

“Please, calm down. Doctor Arvelo is performing a complicated procedure and can’t be disturbed at the moment. You may have a word with him when he’s done,” he said softly.

“I can prepare some tea for you. It’ll help you relax,” said Jenny, but the old woman snarled at her, showing her incomplete teeth.

“I don’t need tea! My son’s surgery was botched! He died less than a day after coming back home. I demand to speak to the doctor
now
!”

Gasps and murmurs went through the waiting room, but Red Jack was the only one to actually get up. His heart stopped beating and got stuck in his throat. Could he have made a horrible mistake by coming here?

“What happened to him?” he asked as he walked up to the three people standing.

Jenny looked back, her mouth open. “Please, sir, calm down. We don’t know anything about this yet.”

“No? The surgery was just days ago, and you were the one to put us on the list!” yelled the old woman, sobbing yet still determined to get her justice.

Gray Eyes shook his head. “Please, calm down. The doctor will review your claims once he’s done. There’s many things that play a role, and even the best of surgeons can’t keep a patient alive if his body’s too weak.”

“How do you fucking know if someone’s body is ‘too weak’, when you clearly don’t?” Red Jack was on the verge of wheezing, and grabbed the man’s arm.

Jenny raised her hands, wide-eyed. “Sir, any procedure carries a risk. That’s why all patients have to sign the consent form, as in any other clinic.”

Red Jack let go of Gray Eyes, just to grab the woman by the collar of her white coat. “If my cousin dies in there, I’ll stick that consent form up your ass myself!”

Gray Eyes let go of the old woman and turned to Red Jack. “Let her go. Please, calm down, nothing’s gonna happen.”

“That’s what they told
me
,” hissed the old woman, her pale eyes zeroed in on Red Jack.

He shoved Jenny at her desk and rushed down the corridor where he’d seen Loki taken. “I think I’ll go see the doctor myself.”

“Sir, I’ll be calling the police if you don’t return to your seat!” she called after him, but Red Jack didn’t hear anyone following him. Wise choice.

His pulse drummed in Red Jack’s ears as he went all the way to the end of the corridor, past a colorful curtain, and faced two doors, both painted bright red, with yellow fingerprints all over. He exhaled, wondering which to go for, but when he noticed a low, mechanical pulsing from behind one of them, he made his decision.

Red Jack gently opened the door on the right and was glad about the hum. If the doctor was still working, he shouldn’t be distracted by the sound of someone coming in. The last thing he wanted was to have a scalpel slipping into Loki’s eye. His breath caught in his throat when a loud, slick sound resonated through the room from the direction of a table covered by white cloth. The air carried a dense, herby scent, which must have originated from the thick candles spread around the operating table in the center.

The white walls of the room, combined with the bright light and clean tiles, reminded Red Jack of an alien abduction porn movie he’d seen. He sneered at the memory of the large glass speculum being inserted into the ‘patient’s’ ass.

The doctor was hunched over Loki, so all Red Jack could see was Arvelo’s back, but he stiffened when he noticed dark stains on the sheet, where Arvelo was wiping his hands.

Loki tensed under the sheet at yet another strange sound that, Red Jack only now realized, came from a laptop standing on a low desk next to the doctor. He closed the door and watched, completely out of his depth. Loki had some of his hair shaved above his forehead on the left, and while his eyes were covered by a white sleeping mask, he was clearly conscious.

There was a graph on the computer, and each time a loud sound came, it was synchronized with spikes on the diagram. As Red Jack watched, the doctor snaked his hand into a bowl at his side, retrieving a scrap of ugly meat, which he then slipped against Loki’s skin.

“Easy now,” said Arvelo as Loki curled his feet under the sheet.

Red Jack frowned and grabbed his own wrist, unsure what to make of this, but when blood from the raw meat dripped down the part of Loki’s face he could actually see, it became clear Arvelo was pretending to pull that piece of guts out of him. Red Jack was too stunned to act right away and watched, as his last hope, his desperate idea for bringing Loki back to health was proved to be as dead as the pieces of meat in Arvelo’s bowl.

Loki made a choking noise and heaved, as if he were about to puke, and only calmed down when the doctor dropped the scrap into a different bowl. “You‘re doing good. Breathe. I’ve got
half of it out
.”

Those last words pushed Red Jack into action. Half of it out? The fucker had
nothing
out. This was pure, unadulterated bullshit, and Red Jack could now hardly believe he’d been desperate enough to fall for it. It was as if someone poured cold water over him and jerked him out of the stupor by adding electricity. He took two steps forward and grabbed Arvelo’s wrist when the fake doctor was about to shove another piece of chicken guts against Loki’s nose.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you shitstain?”

Arvelo’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth wide. “What are you doing here? I’m in the middle of a procedure!”

Loki coughed and turned his blood-stained face toward Red Jack, whispering his name.

“What fucking procedure, huh?” Red Jack laughed, but it turned out weak. “Tell me what you were doing, you useless cunt!”

Another slick sound came from the computer, and Loki pulled off the blindfold, squinting. One of his eyebrows was gone, and with some of his hair chopped off and the blood spread all over his face, he looked like the victim of some weird ritual. “What’s going on?”

“Security!” called Arvelo, pushing his hands against Red Jack.

Red Jack looked at Loki with his heart being put through the shredder. “This human garbage is a fucking scammer!” It sounded more hurt than he’d like. “One of his patients died just yesterday!” He grabbed Arvelo’s arm and twisted it to his back so hard, the man howled in pain.

Loki stared at him, only to glance at the two bowls of bloodied meat. “Fucking fuck,” he said with a shudder.

“I-it’s not true. I faith-heal! Those are just special effects so that the patient’s own belief can assist my work!” hissed Arvelo, struggling to pull away from Red Jack. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with here!”

“There was no talk of special effects! Your assistants said you pull out the illness, and all I see is this fucking shit!” Red Jack kicked the small side table so hard that one of the bowls fell down to the floor, exploding at their feet. He then pushed Arvelo to his knees, not minding the hiss of pain that came when the man must have met the broken glass. Red Jack placed the other bowl in front of him. If it wasn’t for all the witnesses here, he’d kill the motherfucker on the spot. “You’re gonna make all this ‘illness’ disappear. Eat up!”

Loki slid off the bed and hit Arvelo right in the head. The man’s head bounced against Red Jack, and he screamed in pain.

“I think we should help him,” hissed Loki, picking up the bowl.

Arvelo tried to get up with a groan, so Red Jack pushed on the man’s back with his knee. “Go on, make him eat it, see how he fucking likes it.” At least the violence gave Red Jack’s anger and hopelessness a way out of his body, without exploding with blind rage.

Loki showed Arvelo his teeth, dug his hand into the bloody pulp and pushed his fist against the doctor’s mouth. Arvelo turned away.

“Stop this nonsense! I can still finish your surgery!”

Loki trembled so hard Red Jack could see it without touching him. “Yeah? If you don’t open your mouth, you’ll be the one in need of surgery, you sick fuck!”

Arvelo must have given up, because Red Jack could feel his body slump. “Do as he says,” Red Jack hissed and pulled on the man’s arm hard enough to elicit a scream. Loki instantly used the opportunity to push some of the meat into Arvelo’s mouth. Red Jack couldn’t take his eyes off Loki’s blood-stained face. Even without an eyebrow, and the crazy bald little square above his forehead, he was the image of perfection, so beautiful in his rage. Red Jack could get hard right now, just watching the tension in Loki’s lean muscles and the violence in his eyes. They were meant to be together. Loki had told him that, and Red Jack had laughed at him. Not anymore.

The process of feeding raw meat to Arvelo was slow and gut-churning, but even after Arvelo vomited some of it on the tiles, Loki still forced almost the whole bowl down his throat, breathing hard as he watched the doctor struggle with revulsion. He washed his face as Red Jack strapped the doctor to the operating table, and they kissed as soon as Loki returned to Red Jack, fully dressed and ready to go. Blood buzzed in their ears, and it somehow made the failure less sour.

“If I ever hear that you’re back in California, you’re a dead man,” Red Jack spat before they walked out into a deserted waiting room. The staff was still there, huddled in a small room next door, watching Red Jack from behind their twin desks. They made the wise choice not to protest and returned his money with an extra on top of it. Red Jack was pretty confident that a scammer like Arvelo would not be reporting shit to the police. Fucker was lucky to come out of it with as little damage as he did.

On the way to the car, Loki’s hand hovered next to Red Jack’s, but he wouldn’t take it in a public place. They got inside, and the first thing Loki did was to turn the rearview mirror his way. He scowled. “Fucking hell. The charm’s gone. I don’t think I’m good-looking enough to still be in your league.”

Red Jack pulled out a small knife he carried in his pocket and without thinking much, he scraped his own eyebrow off. “There,” he rasped, still riding the wave of adrenaline.