There are certain sounds, certain smells associated with hospitals. The steady, comforting beep of the monitors. The chemical tang of antiseptic. The faint, barely detectible scent of human bodies as they go through the spasms of illness and injury. The soft, imperceptible trickle of the IV tube.
This wasn't a hospital, but those same things were present nonetheless.
The man on the bed was restrained with heavy leather straps. These straps were padded on the interior, and carefully applied so that every effort could be made to avoid injuring him; this did not mean that they were any less effective in keeping him confined to the bed, though. They were merely applied with love. There was also a gag over his mouth. He had an IV drip in his arm, but it didn't contain a sedative. It was just a saline drip. They didn't want him drugged. It might contaminate the finished product. There was a machine--a large machine--that sat on top of the bed, at approximately the level of his crotch. It extended beyond the bed, into the wall, and beyond the scope of the man on the bed. It whirred and hummed. An observer might have wondered what it was for, but there were no observers. Leo DeLuca was alone in the room.
"So, what's that for?" Mikal asked, as he removed the gag.
Leo opened his eyes and looked up. One got the feeling that he wasn't often called upon to exercise the muscles in his neck. When he spoke, one also got the feeling that he wasn't often called upon to do that either. "You. Bastard." Mikal waited for a follow-up, but there was none.
He smiled winningly. "Leo, you're a hard man to get a hold of, you know. I've been trying to get through to you for a follow-up call for days, and nothing doing. Your secretary kept saying you were retired, wouldn't see anyone; she wouldn't even tell me where you'd gone. I had to really work to find this private rest home." He sighed. "Threw my schedule to Gehenna and back." Then the smile returned. "So I'm here for a follow-up call, checking up on your wishes. I take it they went as planned?"
Leo looked at him, his expression something of a cross between shock, surprise, and inarticulate fury. He stammered for a moment or two, licking dry lips. "Planned?" he finally got out. "You thought this was my plan? Youuungh..." The machine hummed louder for a moment, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he gasped for breath. After a moment or two, he looked back at Mikal. "Are you fucking nuts?"
Mikal frowned in concern. "Alright, I can see we've got some issues here, Leo. Why don't you take this from where I stepped out of the picture?"
Leo grimaced. "You wanna know? Fine. It's all your damn fault anyway."
*****
I thought I was on top of the fucking world when you vanished. 'Lucky' Leo DeLuca, pulling off another of my big scores...and this time, I figured 'big score' pretty much summed it up. I mean, hey--how could you go wrong with wishes like mine, right? So my first step was to get Gina into the room. She'd been doing a little extra work on the side for a few months now, taking extra dick-tation, if ya know what I mean...I figured she'd be a nice test of the whole new package.
