Dr. Knox Read Online Free PDF Page A

the jeans were sliced away, the gunshot wounds—a messy but uncomplicated through-and-through of the left glute, and a deep furrow in the right quad—were flushed with saline. Coagulant powder went into the ass wound, then pressure, then dressings. The thigh wound got sutures. After that, a slug of prophylactic antibiotics—Ancef would do the trick—and then a tetanus booster.
    All the while, the garbage bags filled up with the shreds of Teddy’s pants, bandage wrappers, bloody gauze pads, bits of tape. The music played, I tapped my foot, and now and then paused to check Teddy’s pulse and BP, which, along with his color, stabilized and then improved. And Teddy—with loopy morphine logic and a steadily thickening voice, and despite my insistence that I wasn’t interested, that I really didn’t want to know—talked and talked and talked. About how hard it was to get a business off the ground, about how much he hated the Valley, about what a cheap prick his father was, but mostly about his very bad day.
    “You even know where Tujunga is? It’s past Pacoima, for fuck’s sake. That’s like the ass of nowhere. You drive farther east, you’re in New York or something. Took me fucking forever to get there. And I’m at this…I don’t know what the hell it was. One of those self-store things, where people keep the garbage the garbage man won’t take. It’s up on this hill, and I’m waiting for…for some people. I’m standing by my car, looking down at Foothill. There’s a big-ass truck jackknifed across most of the street, and there’s melons or something rolling around everywhere, and some insane backup, and then this dick in a Hummer—he leans on his horn, pulls out of the crowd, and drives up on the fucking sidewalk. Must be doing fifty at least, and people are waving and jumping out of the way. I take a couple of steps forward, ’cause I know there’s gonna be a serious crunch and I wanna see, and then it’s like somebody kicks me—and I mean fuckin’
hard
—right in the ass. I thought I was going down that hill, for chrissakes. And then there was another kick, and I was on the ground, and my pants were wet. And not in a good way.”
    Teddy thought this was funny, and he chuckled to himself, and noticed Sutter leaning in the doorway.
    Sutter held up the little cooler full of blood. “You gonna top off the tank?” he asked me.
    “Not yet.”
    Teddy squinted at him for a while. “Who’re you?”
    “The nurse,” Sutter said. Astrid smiled at that, and Sutter smiled back and winked at her.
    Teddy scowled, but the morphine and the ebbing of his own terror were making him drowsier by the moment. He shook his head. “You sure? You don’t look like a nurse.” Sutter chuckled softly, and Teddy scowled more and went back to his story.
    “Then I’m down on my belly, and I just want to get the hell out of there, so I drag myself to the car. I get in and get down to the street somehow. I couldn’t feel anything then—my leg was practically numb—but by the time I get on 134 my ass is like on fire. I don’t know how I made it back in one piece.”
    Sutter nodded sympathetically. “The holes I saw in your Porsche—you were lucky to make it out at all. What were you doin’ there in the first place?”
    Astrid shot Teddy a warning look, which he didn’t recognize. “Doing?” Teddy said. “I was supposed to meet some people is what I was doing.”
    Another concerned nod. “Business meet?” Sutter asked.
    “Should’ve been no trouble,” Teddy said. “A simple swap. Now I don’t know—”
    Astrid coughed elaborately. “Teddy, babe, you should take it easy. Right, doc? Shouldn’t he keep quiet?”
    I didn’t look up from my suturing. “That’s never bad advice,” I said.
    Teddy yawned and looked at Sutter. “You’re not really a nurse, are you?”
    “What gave it away?”
    “You—”
    “Teddy!” Astrid said sharply. “You’re fucking high on pain meds. How about you keep