"Mr. Kane, are you alright?" Seeing Josh suddenly coughing violently, both Linden Schneider and Dix asked with concern.
After all, Josh had become their only hope.
"Cough, cough, I'm fine, just choked on some saliva," Josh waved his hand to indicate that he was okay. He then turned his attention to Dix and began sizing him up.
So he was a good man.
He apologized for not recognizing him earlier.
It couldn't be helped; the hiding spot that night was several dozen meters away from the group, and it was the middle of the night. The streetlights in this era were extremely dim, so Josh couldn't have seen their faces. It was completely normal that he hadn't recognized them.
"Sir, is my situation putting you in a difficult position? It's okay, I can leave now. Mr. Linden Schneider has nothing to do with that case. Let him go surrender," Dix stood up and said when he noticed Josh staring at him.
"That's not necessary," Josh said thoughtfully. "If you have other cases, it might be troublesome, but it's not a big deal. If worse comes to worst, I'll help you get a boat, and you can go hide in Canada until the storm blows over."
If it had been before, Josh wouldn't have bothered with this big guy named Dix. If it weren't for Linden Schneider knowing his father, he wouldn't have cared. Besides, Dix had once pointed a gun at him.
But since Dix was the one who took the fall for him, it slightly improved Josh's opinion of him. What's more, his defense of Linden Schneider earlier really surprised Josh.
According to what Linden Schneider had just said, although Dix and his group were accomplices in the case, they had known each other for less than a week.
It was a simple employer-employee relationship — according to their agreement, the jewelry worth hundreds of thousands of dollars was entirely Linden Schneider's, and Dix and his group were just paid a fixed fee of $20,000 per person.
Yet, despite the $20,000 fee, Dix and the others had not shown any interest in the jewelry and had gone to great lengths to protect the old man Linden Schneider.
Even now, they were still defending him.
This was beyond Josh's expectations.
Is this how the thugs in this era are, so loyal?
Shouldn't the correct action for these kinds of thugs be to kill the old man Linden Schneider, and then run off with the jewels?
"Wouldn't this be too troublesome?" Dix was also surprised when he heard Josh's words.
"Normally, yes, it would be more troublesome, but in this case, you're not the focus. The focus is Mr. Schneider and the jewelry. As long as he surrenders, without the pressure from the Leibler family and the insurance company, the police would love to close the case right away. Once the martial law in the city is lifted, this matter will become simple. So before that, you'll need to lay low," Josh explained.
"If that's the case, then thank you very much, Mr. Kane," Dix, who had been on edge for the past day and night, finally let out a sigh of relief and sat back down on the couch.
But as soon as he sat down, he covered his waist and started sucking in cold air.
"You're injured?" Josh raised an eyebrow when he saw this. He then saw that the waist area of Dix' shirt, under his coat, was already soaked with a large patch of red.
"It's fine, just grazed by a bullet. I've already bandaged it before," Dix shook his head and said.
Josh didn't believe a word of it.
How could a graze cause that much bleeding? And how could it hurt so badly that it made him break out in cold sweat?
"Your wound can't be left untreated any longer. If you don't stop the bleeding, it could be a serious problem," Josh said, looking at Dix' wound. "But you're lucky."
With that, Josh walked into the bedroom, and not long after, he came out with a medical kit… Of course, only Josh knew that the kit had actually come from his system space.
As a time traveler, cherishing life was a basic practice.
Especially in this chaotic time, who knew what they might encounter?
Even in relatively stable America, it was never bad to prepare more.
Especially with his system space, he didn't have to worry about having too many things or worrying about things expiring.
Opening the medical kit, there were some basic tools and gauze, along with some medicines, including morphine and sulfa drugs.
No penicillin.
Although Alexander Fleming had already discovered penicillin in 1928, it had initially been ignored.
The true confirmation of penicillin's medicinal effect didn't happen until 1940.
And it wasn't until the year before, 1942, that American pharmaceutical companies began to plan its production.
Even now, penicillin was still in the clinical phase.
When penicillin was eventually released to the market, it was directly classified as a controlled substance by the federal government.
So, the best antibacterial drugs available on the market now were sulfa drugs.
The three big men in the room were not professional doctors, so their method of treating Dix' wound was simple and rough. They had him bite a cloth, sprinkled sulfa powder on the wound, gave him a 5-milligram dose of morphine for relief, and wrapped it with gauze.
Undoubtedly, morphine is highly addictive, but the dosage is very important.
According to later research, doses under 5 milligrams are relatively safe.
The reason so many soldiers became addicted during World War I and II was because of the massive doses, often 30-50 milligrams, given for survival.
"This is all I can do for now. You should rest here for a while. Later, I'll see if I can get a doctor to come over. Mr. Schneider, let's go meet Mr. Leibler," Josh said after quickly treating Dix' wound.
He had done what he could; now, it was up to Dix' luck.
"Thank you, sir!" Dix said, very sincerely.
"Heh, thank yourself," Josh smiled slightly, leaving Dix puzzled.
Josh didn't explain, and he took Schneider with him to leave.
However, before they left, Josh made a phone call to confirm John Leibler's location.
After all, this was not an ordinary theft case. It involved Emery, a famous top lawyer in Chicago, who was also a longtime partner of the Leibler family. So, it was important to inform Mr. Leibler beforehand.
Especially if Josh wanted to help Linden Schneider reduce his sentence, Mr. Leibler's attitude was crucial.
At that moment, John Leibler, still busy because of the theft case from the previous night, was not eager to meet with Josh when his secretary first reported the appointment.
However, after thinking about the scene Josh caused last night and the content of the newspaper he had seen this morning, he realized that Josh had already been elevated to the status of an anti-fascist hero. It seemed like the tide had turned in his favor.
After a moment of consideration, he agreed to meet with Josh.
What he didn't expect, though, was that Josh would bring such a huge surprise.