Westlake, Donald E - Novel 32 Read Online Free PDF Page B

a big open space on the sidewalk,
moving out of the way of the ambulance. All I wanted was to get this over with
and go away somewhere for a while. The woman was wriggling and squirming like
an eel, a long black eel covered with blood and screaming with a voice like a
fingernail on a blackboard.
                 It
was one of those high-sided ambulances, a boxy van, and it carried four
attendants, two in front and two in the back, all dressed in white. But not for long. The four of them climbed out and came
running over to us and got hold of the woman. One of them said, “All right,
we’ve got her.”
                 “About
time you got here,” I said. I knew they’d been as fast as could be expected,
but the situation had me scared, and when I’m scared I get mad, and when I’m
mad I sound off.
                 They
didn’t pay any attention to me, which was the right thing to do. One of them
said to the woman, "‘Come on, honey, let’s fix the old arm.”
                 Their
being dressed in white had made a connection with the woman, because now she
started to yell, “I want my own doctor. You take me to my own doctor!”
                 The
four attendants hustled the woman to the ambulance, having as much trouble with
her as we’d had, and a second ambulance arrived, pulling in behind the first.
Two guys came out of this one, both also dressed in
white, and came over to us. One of them said, “Where’s the stiff?”
                 I
couldn’t say anything; I was having trouble breathing. I just pointed at the
building, and Paul said, “Third floor rear. In the kitchen. She really cut him to pieces.”
                 Two
more had come out of the back of the second ambulance, carrying a rolled-up
stretcher. The four of them went up the stoop and into the building. At the
same time, the first four were getting the woman into the first ambulance, with
some trouble. So much movement, so many flashing red lights, kept the crowd
from deciding to join in; they’d just be spectators this time.
                 Paul
and I were finished with this one, for right now. We still had to call in, and
later on there’d be forms to do at the station, but for the next couple of
minutes the action had moved away from us. And it hadn’t happened any too soon.
                 Excitement
carries you through the tense parts. It had been that way from the beginning,
from the first time I was around at a violent situation, which was a ten-year-
old kid hit by a cab on Central Park West. He was still alive, the kid, and
when you looked at him you wished he wasn’t But die excitement and noise and
movement had carried me through the whole scene, and it wasn’t until we were
driving away from it that I had Jerry, an older cop who was my first partner,
pull the cab over to the curb and stop so I could get out and up-chuck.
                 That’s
never changed, from that day to this. I don’t up-chuck any more, but the ran of
emotions is still the same; the excitement carries me through the tense part or
the ugly part or the violent part, and then there’s a sick queasy letdown that
comes after it
                 The
patrol car was across the street where we’d left it, with its engine off and
its flasher on. The two of us went over there, pushing our way through the
crowd, ignoring the questions they were asking us and ignoring what was going
on behind us. When we got to the car, we stood beside it a minute, not talking
or moving or doing anything. I don’t know what Paul was looking at; I was
looking at the car roof.
                 A
siren started again, I looked around, and the first ambulance was leaving,
taking the woman to Bellevue . I turned to look at Paul, and he had blood smeared all over his
shirt-front, and dotted on his face and arms like measles. “You got blood on you,”
I said.