Many Rivers to Cross

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188 25 they reached the dark floooed streets of the hospital district, they saw emergency lights blinking in the lobby of one of the medical buildings ahead. Duval urged Hodge on, his own legs beginning to wobble and strain under the freight of a much larger man. ru they waded closer to the building, gunfire erupted in the darkness, muzzle flashes that stopped them dead still in the middle of the street. A gang of looters was breaking through the lobby's glass doors, some on foot, others in a canoe. One of the looters was shouting through the doors at a loyal security guard intent on doing his job. "This is our house now, motherfucker! You better step off, fool." Duval knew what they were after. Phannaceuticals. Bins and bins of drugs, anything you wanted just sitting there on the long shelves of the hospital phannacy. Pills and powders, clean syringes. "Trippin'," he said, wanting no part of this scene. "We best bump on out of here." But the looters had already spotted them out in the street, a couple of wet civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. "Yo, man, hold uP!" A banger was yelling at them from the canoe. "Hey, where you going. niggah! Stay where you standing." "Got a old man here need medical attention," Duval shouted back, leading Hodge away from the violence. "Looking for a hospital , is alL" There were two young looters in the canoe and they paddled quickly, overtaking Hodge and Duval after a dozen gliding strokes. "What you niggahs holding?" asked the paddler in the rear. He was a lean shirtless teenager wearing a headband of Rasta colors and a string of shell beads around his neck. In the blinking light from the hospital lobby, Hodge could make out the CP3 tattoo on his foreann and a puckered scar stitched into the taut flesh of his belly. He'd seen enough bullet wounds in his day to know when a man had been gut shot. "Empty them pockets out and show us what you got," the Rastaman said, his gold incisors visible in the dark. Hodge studied the canoers. The one up front appeared to be a few years older and a few pounds heavier than his Rasta friend. A red kerchiefdo-rag covered his head with an Aunt Jemima twist tie, and his cutoff black T-shirt said WE BOUT OAT. The word DEFENSE was inked into his bicep below the tattoo of an AKA7, and the fat grip of a real .357 magnum was sticking out of his waistband. Of the two, he was the enforcer- the one to worry about. Duval held up his hands as if they'd already pulled the piece on him. "We don't have nothing, bruh," he said. "Lost it all when our boat tumped avec Billfolds, everything." "My dawg B Shocker is gonna merk your sorry ass if you don't empty them pockets out and throw what you got in the boat." Duval stuck his hands underwater into the pockets of his long baggy shorts and pulled them out like wet wadded rags, showing them he had nothing on him. "What about you, old man?" the Rastaman said. "How many pockets you got in them soldier pants?" Duval expected Hodge to cooperate so they could get this over with and move on. Instead, the old man lurched forward and grabbed the side of the canoe, saving himself from sinking down into the water. "Help me," he said, clutching his chest. "Help me, please. My heart." "HodgeJ" Duval said, seizing the back of his T-shirt, trying to hold him up. "Take it slow and easy now. We gonna get you to a hospitaL " 189 190 "This old fool gonna croak on us?" the Rastaman asked. "Got a weak heart," Duval said. "That's why he need a doctOl:" It looked as if Hodge was trying to pull himself aboard. The canoe listed badly, and the two occupants shifted their weight and cursed him. "What you doing, crazy old fool?" said the Rastaman, jabbing Hodge with his paddle. "Get on away from this boat 'fo B Shocker bust a magnum in your bumpy old head." "Please help me," Hodge said, hoisting himself halfWay into the canoe. "I cain't walk no fu'ther, son. Please take me to the ER." Duval was afraid they were going to...