Fire Trap

20 - Nursing buddies

Fortunately, the ambulance arrived before the police, as I was not in the mood to review my experience. The first drops of the pending storm fell on my face, as they wheeled me out and whisked me away to Davis Park Medical Center, while Lester followed in my car. It was just four days ago that I had walked out on Davis Park after my dunking in the Bay. I remembered them clearly, and, because of the fuss I'd made, they remembered me.

Lester caught up with me while I was waiting in line to check into the emergency room. There was a gunshot wound ahead of me, and a woman whose every breath sounded like a kid sucking on an empty milkshake glass with a clogged straw. Even I didn't feel my painful thigh was a priority. My leg was on fire, but somehow numb at the same time. I extracted my cell and rang Jean. She answered.

"Jean?"

"Randy?" She sounded miffed. "You said you'd call in a day or two. This is the same day. You're the last person I want to talk to. Go..."

"Wait," I pleaded. "I need your help, just as a friend."

"I'm not feeling friendly," she said, but there was a little less venom in her tone.

"I'm in San Francisco at Davis Park Medical Center. I was stabbed on Green Street by someone who..."

"Stabbed?"

"In the leg. I'm all right. I just need a few stitches.

"Stabbed?" she asked again.

"It's nothing, but I'm feeling a bit paranoid. Lester Roseman's with me, but he's worthless. My partner, Arnie, is coming down on the plane tomorrow, but I'd like some platonic company tonight. Someone with a gun in her purse." I couldn't decide if my plea was an excuse to see Jean again or the paranoia I purported it to be—probably both.

"Being your friend sounds dangerous. I'll be there in an hour."

I re-acquired my place in line and was rather quickly moved to a gurney in a blue-curtained alcove.

#

The nursing staff de-pantsed me in short order, to get at my leg, but they were distracted by the damage to my rear end. A large black nurse, who I remembered from my previous visit, looked at me critically.

"Weren't you here for hypothermia a few days ago?" she said. "How'd you hurt your backside?"

"A car bomb," I said, not expecting her to believe me.

"Dee Dee," she called to someone outside the curtain. A moment later another back nurse who was tall, with large eyes and a model's figure, came around the corner of the curtain. "I'd like you to meet Randy Justice. I'm going to put him on our top ten. Near drowning, car bomb, and a stabbing all within a week."

"You're a busy boy. What line of work?" Dee Dee asked.

"Insurance."

"I hope you've been buying what you're selling," she said, smiling and disappearing back around the curtain.

"Ain't that the truth," my nurse said.

Instead of correcting them about my job, I thought about insurance, while she cleaned the wound in my thigh. The blood only seeped now, even though she had removed the ambulance crew's temporary dressing. I guess Jerry's stiletto must have missed the major arteries in my leg—lucky me.

I had health insurance for Arnie, myself, and the kids. You'd think that there'd be a major premium adjustment upwards for insurance investigators, but that's not true. I guess that, statistically, private investigators aren't much more at risk than factory workers. Of course, I was single-handedly ruining those statistics.