Louis didn't know who he expected to come get him. He vaguely remembered that there were people who took care of this sort of thing when you were a member of a mob family, something that was also somehow easy to forget. He remembered it now, though, now that every approaching figure made him flinch and worry he'd be recognized. This was the worst time in the world for his ersatz celebrity. Was his blood the reason why they'd taken him? Or beaten him? Or whatever it was that had ended with him burned and bloody in a filthy alleyway?
He sat with his head resting on his knees, just shrouded enough in the blanket he'd salvaged from a nearby dumpster to cover himself up. He'd done such a very good job in the last year or so of carrying on the front of strength, with an exception or two. He'd grown harder and more difficult to crack, if brittle. He'd become harsher, and had seen enough terrible things that he was eventually sure nothing could faze him anymore.
Waking up in the alley had cut through to his weakest point, to sense memories of being disoriented, bloody, and on his own when he was young. Still, he had not been paralyzed with fear. He had summoned the wherewithal to find something to cover up, and to scavenge a few quarters from the gutter. When he spotted the pay phone at the end of the alley, he assumed luck, or perhaps scheming on the part of his attackers, a sick joke. No doubt they had dropped him there so he might more easily call for help. But when he noticed the sign of the club across the street, he had gone cold and still. Luck, maybe. Luck, or providence.
While he'd been on the phone with Sam, someone had come up the sidewalk toward him, and the windows had blackened in an instant, like a curtain dropped over a cage. It was then that he'd squeezed his eyes shut, like he could blink the vision from him, shake his head, get it together.
He didn't open them again until he heard a voice, and turned sharply to look and see who was approaching. The edges of his knees could be seen through the glass side of the phone booth, his form huddled in the corner, shadowed. Responding to the man outside was a gamble.
"Yes," came the thin voice from the phone booth. The blackness on the glass had gone, and he could see out, now. The panes had never really gone dark at all, of course. Just a figment, a hope. He didn't recognize the broad blond with the bruised cheek standing next to the truck, didn't know they had spoken before on the journals. He only saw someone who looked capable, strong, and like the sort of person his sister would send.
He struggled to his feet, one long hand gripped tight on the blanket, keeping it up against his stomach enough to cover his nakedness. His bare chest was a mess of signs and symbols in brackish, flaking blood. The white bird painted on his stomach was just barely visible. It bore more than a passing resemblance to the bird on the sign across the street.
He pressed the phone booth door open, one hand on the inside wall, looking out at Russ with as much wary stiffness as he could muster. It was a funny thing, that humiliation could almost win out over fear and anger. Rescue or not, he refused to be made a victim of. He stepped out of the phone booth. Ridiculous and upsetting as his appearance might be, he could walk on his own. "Is it far?" he asked, gray eyes sharp but wavering. His feet were bare, and the sidewalk was gritty and cool under his feet. He watched, as he stepped forward, for glass. It seemed the sensible thing.