CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Vitas knew he had to do something about stopping the blood trickling from the knife wound in his leg. He knew if he lost much more blood he might pass out. He already felt woozy. The pain was the only thing keeping him conscious. The Danforth bitch had bitten him right where the raccoon had wounded him. He reached for the pistol in his holster and pulled onto the shoulder of the highway.
“Take off your scarf,” Vitas growled at his passenger.
“My . . . why?” she asked, fingering the silk scarf draped around her neck.
Vitas narrowed his eyes and, for the first time, got a good look at her. She was moderately plump, but damned good looking, with green eyes and auburn-colored hair. Her clothes were expensive-looking. Her hair was coifed to perfection, and he figured she had fifty thousand dollars in jewelry on her hands and around her neck. Nice little bonus, he thought.
“Dammit! What is it with you American women?” Vitas shrieked. “You have more damn questions than sense. Ask one more fucking question and I will pull out this knife and stick it in your heart.”
She shrank even further away from him, her eyes a window to the terror he knew she felt. But she did as she was told and, with shaking hands, slipped the scarf from her neck. The fabric danced in her trembling hand.
“Now reach over here and tie it around my leg, above the knife. Tight!”
She knelt on the passenger seat to loop it around his thigh and tied it as tightly as she could. Then she backed away again, cowering like an abused dog.
The flow of blood immediately began to slow. Vitas waited a minute before he put his hand on the knife handle. Then, taking a deep breath and clenching his jaws, he jerked it free. White-hot pain surged through his leg. Even with the tourniquet tied above the wound, blood spurted across the console, spraying the woman and the window behind her with a fine red mist. She screeched like a banshee.
Vitas gasped. He suddenly felt even dizzier than before, his eye losing focus. He knew he was about to lose consciousness. Balling his fist, he struck the spot from where he’d just removed the knife, sending new shock waves of pain into his brain. The pain jarred him alert.
He glanced at the woman. Her eyes looked as though they might pop out of their sockets, and her high-pitched voice made the inside of Vitas’ brain feel as though it was full of broken glass. When she grabbed for the door handle, he smashed the back of his hand into her face. He felt the crunch of bone and cartilage. “Shut your damn mouth,” he yelled. But she kept screaming. Vitas leaned over the console and cold-cocked her with his closed fist. Her head bounced off the window and she slumped down in her seat. He looked at the blood on his knuckles and licked his hand, enjoying the sweet taste.
Vitas put the Suburban in gear and, at the first break in traffic, floored the accelerator. Horns blared and brakes screeched while he veered from lane to lane. At the first exit, he cut across three lanes and made it to the off-ramp. Nearly passing out from the pain in his leg, he sideswiped a black Cadillac limousine and sent it careening off the ramp and into some trees. He barreled into the intersection at the bottom of the off-ramp, and took a left turn on two wheels through the red light.
He found a pay phone in the parking lot of a closed-down convenience store. No one was around. When he opened the car door and put weight on his injured leg, the pain nearly killed him. The few feet to the phone seemed like a mile.
“Hello.”
“Paulus, it’s me.”
“I told you not to call me here. I–”
