He removes the oxygen mask.“What’s yours, honey?”His eyes flick to my name badge.
“Don’t be a dick.”I frown.“What’s your name?I need to record your visit and report a gunshot wound to the police.”
He huffs.“I don’t think so.”
“It’s the law.”
He lifts his right hand and taps his worn leather cut, indicating a diamond-shaped patch.“I don’t play by the rules of the law.”
“That may be the case, sir,” I say.“But I do, and I have to report this, otherwise I will be in breach.Now what’s your name and where do you live?”
“You gonna stitch me up now?”
“Not yet, I need to apply pressure for a bit longer.”
“Gives me time to look at your pretty face.”
“Have you always been a cheesy talker or is it just since you got shot?”
He laughs then groans and drops his head back to the pillow.
I replace the oxygen mask.
The two bikers behind me also chuckle.“Not the first time he’s been shot and won’t be the last,” one of them tells me.
“Even more reason to call the cops,” I say and glare at my patient.
Despite his battered state, he really is quite handsome—if I were into the rugged-hard-bastard-neck-tats look, that was.
Which I’m not.
No way.
He lifts his head and once more removes the oxygen mask.
“Keep still and keep that oxygen on.”
He ignores me.“No fucking cops, you hear me?I don’t want them anywhere near me as much as they don’t want to mess with my shit.No good will ever come from any of that.”
“Yeah, this is our business, Doc.”One of the bikers steps forward, I notice the ink on his right cheek is the image of an AK47.“All you got to do is stop him bleeding out.Nothing else.”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“And I’m grateful,” my patient says in a low dark rumble.“Just like I’m grateful you’re going to keep your pretty mouth shut about this ...aren’t you?”
He speaks like someone who is used to being obeyed.That pisses me off.But when I look into his eyes again, it’s as if he is seeing right into me.As though my past is on show to him, even though I’ve been so careful to hide it from everyone for so long.
“No notes, no deets on a computer, just fix me up and I’ll go, be out of your hair.”Still, he studies me.
“You know that’s not how hospitals work?”
“It is tonight.”His left eyebrow twitches.“Got it?”
Todd rushes in and begins to set up an intravenous drip.My patient doesn’t flinch when Todd accesses a vein in his arm.I check the wound again and am able to identify the main bleeding point.
With practiced movements I open a suture pack and put three stitches into the culprit.Immediately the flow is stemmed.It was a big vessel, not likely to have sealed up on its own anytime soon.
“You’re a lucky man,” I say, slapping on a dressing.“Another fraction of an inch to your right and you’d be in surgery having a bullet dug out of your intestines.”
