The Last Hot Time Read Free

waiting room.
    It had the usual litter of old magazines, empty cardboard cups, and smokers' debris, and an unmanned counter of ancient varnished wood. The room smelled both musty and of disinfectant. As he started to feed change to the drinks dispenser, a woman's voice said, "Don't do that. Even if you are near a hospital."
    A muscular, dark-haired woman in surgical scrubs, stethoscope draped around her neck, was standing in a doorway. "You're Doc Hallownight?"
    "Daniel—uh, yeah."
    "Lucy Estevez. I'm the lucky bozo in charge of the Knife and Gun Club tonight. It was pretty quiet until you got here." She held out a hand and Danny shook it. "Come on back and have some actual coffee. It's probably just as toxic as the machine stuff, but at least it's free."
    They went back to a nurses' station, facing a row of a dozen curtained cubicles, about half of them with signs of occupancy. Dr. Estevez poured coffee from a heavily stained pot into two mugs bearing the names of drug companies; one was advertising an antihypertensive, the other a stool softener.
    It was real coffee, as strong as he'd ever tasted it. It made Danny's chest burn and his head stand up and cheer. "Thanks."
    "McCain said you were a paramedic."
    "Yeah."
    "Hey, relax." She told him a story about a motorcycle decapitation, down to the last splintered vertebra and drop of O-negative. He told her one about a disk-harrow accident. He'd had the conversation before, at Adair County. He relaxed. He knew this place.
    Dr. Estevez got a bottle of peroxide and a towel to take the blood off Danny's denim jacket. She fingered his blue chambray shirt. "I think this one's had it. Mind accepting a loaner?"
    'Sure." He was given a blue scrub shirt, found a bathroom to

    change in. In the mirror, there was more blood on him than he'd realized. He rinsed his chest and slipped the shirt over his head. It was Stamped STOLEN FROM MICHAEL REESE HOSPITAL.
    When he came out, Dr. Estevez was emerging from a cubicle. "The young lady ought to make it," she said. "You do good work."
    Danny nodded.
    "I mean that. You did it all dark?"
    "There was light in the back seat."
    "I mean, you didn't use any magic."
    "Huh?"
    "Never mind. You're from the country?"
    "Duz it show s'much?" he drawled.
    "When you came in, you said, 'We've got a woman.' One of the local people would have said, 'white female.' "
    Danny thought hard about that. Things were going to be different here. People were going to be different, in more ways than one.
    Dr. Estevez said, "I don't suppose you're looking for a job. W 7 e can always use another van jockey."
    "Well, actually, I just got here, and ... I guess a job sounds pretty good."
    "The pay's fair, but I guarantee the hours stink worse than anything you're used to. And you know the New Paradigm?"
    "No."
    "There are never enough of us, so if you bring somebody in and don't have another call right away, you can get drafted as an ED assistant. OR too, sometimes. And you do know which end of the baby to grab?"
    "Did it for real once."
    "Good enough. Anyway, it's all the fun of being a first-year trauma resident, without ever getting to be a doctor."
    "We did all that at home. We didn't have a name for it."
    McCain appeared from somewhere in the back of the ward. "Mr. Patrise wants to see you, Doc."
    "Offer's open," Dr. Estevez said, and went into one of the cubicles.
    McCain led Danny to another cubicle. ( 'loudhuntcr u as waiting

    outside, holding a hand inside his coat. Danny had no doubt there was a weapon tucked away there. The elf opened the curtain and Danny went in.
    Patrise was sitting up on a bed, his shirt off. His chest and arms were very thin, and his dark brown skin had the blue-gray cast of heart disease. EKG wires ran to a monitor; Danny saw a slightly abnormal rhythm, probably valvular trouble.
    On Patrise's right chest was a black bruise the size of Danny's palm.
    "You didn't tell me you'd been hurt."
    "A ricochet. My coat stopped it." Patrise tilted his