"That's why some of us don't ever stop."
Silence. Nothing. Crickets.
"That was a joke," I say.
"I'll take your word for it. That's not all you called about, is it?"
"No. I'm calling about the bullets. You said you'd take them out when things calmed down. Things have."
"Okay. Come by today."
"When?"
"How about right now?"
WHEN I PULL into the minimall, Kinski is outside smoking a cigarette. I park the stolen Mercedes SLR McLaren at the rear of lot, behind a pizza delivery van. The McLaren's doors don't open out. They flip up like insect wings. Kinski drops his cigarette and grinds it out with his boot.
"You couldn't find anything more conspicuous to drive over here? Maybe a blimp or an ocean liner?"
"No one can see it from the street."
"I suppose. You ready for this?"
"Yeah. I'm sick of things banging around inside me every time I sneeze."
"All right, then. Let's get them out."
He leads me back into the clinic. Nothing has changed in the reception area. Even the magazines are sitting exactly where they were the last time I was here. If this was anybody else's office, I'd guess that he was a bookie or selling dope out the back door.
I wait while the doc washes his hands.
"Take off your shirt and lie down."
When I'm on the treatment table, I ask, "You going to use your magic glass rocks on me?"
"Not this time, I'm afraid. This is more of a hands-on procedure. I'm going to have to go in there and get those slugs out manually."
I watch him dry his hands on a small towel covered with pictures of palm trees. The word Orlando is printed in bright red letters in one corner.
"A Kissi ran his hands around inside me. I didn't like it."
"This won't be like that. For one thing, you won't feel it. I have some special salve that'll numb you up good."
"I like the sound of that."
"Let's just get started."
He takes a stoppered bottle from the counter, opens it, and pours something thick, like Karo syrup, in a line down my chest. Then he takes a sponge-headed brush and paints the stuff across my body, from my neck down to my stomach.
He puts the brush back on the counter and says, "Tell me when that stuff gets warm."
"I think it's there already."
"Close your eyes for a minute."
I close them and he says, "Feel that?"
"No. Did you already put your hand in my chest?"