Twice Dying Read Online Free PDF Page B

to unveil herself to him.
    Alison Chapley might not like fighting dirty, but she surely knew how.
    Monks got back to the hospital a little before midnight. Fatigue had settled on him, and he had decided on a nap before taking on charts-In the old days, thirty-six hours on his feet had been routine, but now half that was pushing it. He walked to the ER physicians’ office, a room just big enough to hold a desk, sink, and cot, and unlocked the door quietly, not wanting to wake another doc who might have beat him to it.
    The interior was dim, and it took him perhaps three seconds to absorb the tiny bytes of visual information. There was a figure on the cot, but not sleeping: sitting upright. A man with a youngish face topped by straw-colored hair. He stared back at Monks, mouth open in dismay.
    Vernon Dickhaut.
    A second figure, wearing the top half of an ER nurse’s magenta uniform, was crouched between his splayed legs, fingers positioned as if gripping a clarinet. Her head swiveled, eyes flaring like those of a deer caught in headlights. There was a faint wet popping sound and a glimpse of glistening pink flesh.
    Monks coughed. “Excuse me. I just need to grab this.” He scooped his daypack from thedesk, keeping his back turned to the frozen figures, and closed the door quietly behind him.
    Nothing like crisis to bring out that life-affirming instinct, he thought, and trudged out to the Bronco to cry to catch some sleep.

Chapter 3
        
    T he next morning, Monks sat in the physicians’ office washing down ibuprofen with night-old coffee and dictating charts in standardized medical format.
    ESPOSITO, ISMAEL
    CHIEF COMPLAINT
    Multiple gunshot wounds to chest and abdomen.
    HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS
    Mr. Esposito is in his mid teens
—
    Monks’s mouth twitched at the use of present tense, but this was catch-up work, theoreticallydone before the outcome was known.
    —
with no history in this hospital. Approximately 30 minutes before admission, he was wounded in a street gunfight.
    The desk phone rang.
    “Carroll! What the fuck are we, Mother Teresa? Surgery alone is going to be five thousand bucks!”
    The voice was a familiar one, blending elements of growl and shout: Baird Necker, the hospital’s chief financial officer, who presumably had just arrived and found the incident report on his desk. As expected, neither of the gunshot casualties had either cash or insurance. There would be minimal compensation from the city and possibly bits from MediCal. Not nearly enough to cover the costs.
    “I think everybody involved was aware that this wasn’t a money-making situation,” Monks said. “You know, the people who were up to their elbows in mesentery?”
    A pause. Monks waited patiently. Baird looked and behaved something like a boxer dog, a fierce-presenting alpha male, but he could never last long without lapsing into fundamental decency.
    More sedately, he said, “I understand our obligation, Carroll. But we’ve got to find a way to control this kind of thing. It’ll drive us under.”
    “They’re not going to stop shooting each other, Baird. They seem to like it.”
    “We can’t help anybody if we’re out of business,right?” A wheedling tone had crept in.
    “Next time Triage Base calls,
you
tell them no.”
    A longer pause, and at last, a heavy exhalation. “Okay, I’ll try to split the damage up so everybody gets fucked equally.”
    The phone slammed down, then rang again instantly. “Sorry about the kid,” Baird said, and hung up.
    Monks gave a final glance at the chart of Ismael Esposito, then stood and poured another half cup from the urn. It gave off a burnt smell. Ismael had lasted less than an hour. When the surgeons went in, they found two finger-sized holes in the abdominal aorta, a situation that allowed them approximately one minute after deflation of the MAST suit before the heart emptied of blood. They managed to clamp the aorta in time, but could not have known that the