CHAPTER 93

WHEN HE OPENED HIS EYES, he noticed the asphalt heating his face. He was still there, on Fifth Avenue, with Tony lying next to him, unconscious. His sense of emergency injected adrenaline into his blood and, in a leap, he jumped to his feet and pulled his friend back onto his shoulder. He saw a few people running or wandering aimlessly in front of him, and many crying or trying to help those closest to him who were in distress.

Curious, Carl looked back and saw that the crowd was close to the stage, many of them still climbing the platform like animals trying to escape from a corral, trampling themselves, in an inexplicable scene under any existing theory.

His goal was to save Tony... — he remembered pulling him like a war wounded man he once was, being carried by Gregory Evans in the middle of the Vietnamese fields...

Damn memory...

In the end, even with so many obstacles, he reached the few paramedics who resisted insanity in the name of the mission and, even under the same circumstances as everyone else, insisted on treating the wounded. Many were treated around the medical units, sitting on the floor or on whatever they could sit on.

The worst were on stretchers.

They put Tony's body on a stretcher and began the procedure with heroic speed. The situation was so urgent that they asked him few questions before attending to him.

Benedetti just pulled out another cigarette and tried to find a lighter in his blood-soaked jacket, while watching the doctors' actions.

Why always the damn lighter? — he was indignant.

One of Tony's men appeared.

— What was all this that happened? — the henchman asked. — I lost sight of you and I've been looking for you all the time!

— Just everything I couldn't — he replied.

— Is this Tony? — the henchman asked, seeing the dying man on the stretcher in the ambulance.

— Would I be here if it was someone else? — Benedetti scoffed.

— No... that's not it, I just want to understand what happened…

— Look, kid, stay here and accompany him to the hospital — Benedetti said, finally finding the lighter in one of his pockets. — Make sure he gets care and is protected, I don't want to break the promise I made to Francesco.

— And what are you going to do?

— This gentleman is going to kick some kid's skinny ass! I'm going, I have an important matter to resolve before the end of the day…

Benedetti took off his jacket, looked at his decrepit state, dirty with asphalt and covered in blood that was already starting to dry, and left it right there.

Damn, I wasn't planning on buying another one now...

He turned and walked away through the crowd, saying to the confused henchman:

— You better not disappear again, kid...