"THE BITTER ANGEL OF EAST SIDE DRIVE"
- Chapter 10 -
"Heroes Are Friends of the Heart"
Handsome Paul … the man Maggie had fantasized as the crippled, suffering and gentle hero … sat in the middle of the glass-strewn floor hugging his numbed and bloody hand to his chest. The string of epithets that came out of his mouth should not ever be witnessed in mixed company. Maggie, Ken and Richard cringed at the tirade's bold originality, and then burst into gentle laughter. Teasing, but caring. Unable to resist appreciative exasperation.
Paul looked up at them, blue eyes flashing sparks. "I'm bleeding like a stuck pig here … an' I'm gonna be about a quart low by the time we get this girl out of here. Is the meat wagon here yet? Shit! I'm no goddamn good with the cane in my left hand. That means a freakin' wheelchair. Crap! You'd think I'd learn to mind my own business …"
"House. You never mind your own business!" The gentle admonition came from Richard who was bending down to pick up the last two linen napkins in the box. "Here, wrap these around your hand to stop the bleeding. They're gonna have to give you another local at the hospital so they can sew you up … you know that, right?"
Paul snorted. "Not born yesterday, y'know …"
Standing to the side, Maggie was getting an earful. Her fantasy hero was a foul-mouthed idiot. He was a doctor, for God's sake! A healer. He had jabbed himself viciously in the unprotected palm of his hand and hadn't even realized it until he'd tried to push himself up with the hand. He'd bled all over himself and hadn't a clue. Worse than an intern!
What a joke! Maggie couldn't help herself. She cackled, standing there in the middle of this almost vacant room, watching three adult males and one unconscious girl paint a tableau and perform a scenario that rivaled any soap opera on the air.
At least Fancy Nancy … Suzanne … whoever she was … would recover … probably with very few scars. If he had done nothing else, Paul had at least persisted in her care until he had removed most of the glass fragments from her skin.
Ken McGruder was busy on his cell phone, punching up numbers, listening, saying a few words, then punching off, only to immediately punch in another number. Maggie wondered what on earth he was doing …
Now she was beginning to wonder how the hell they would get Paul out of here. His clothing was bloody and peppered with glass fragments. His hands were slippery almost to his elbows. He could not walk, and there was nowhere for him to sit down. They could not even take him out of here on a gurney in this condition. In fact, neither could they take Nancy without somehow protecting her body from further damage by the glass shards.
In front of her and off to the side, Ken McGruder was still on his cell phone. He spoke a few words and then rang off. He looked up and glanced at the others around him. When he spoke, it was mostly to Richard … Dr. Wilson …
"The 'meat wagon'," he said teasingly, "is on its way. The police finally intervened in the problem downtown, and most of the traffic snarl is untangled. I'm going downstairs to meet them, and I'll bring them up here. Should be about fifteen minutes until we can get you and Suzanne and Dr. House out of here. I'll take Luke with me and chase his sneaky little butt back upstairs. Are you all right with that?"
Wilson nodded. "Thank you."
From the floor: "Thanks."
McGruder nodded sharply. "They're bringing a high-powered shop-vac to pull the glass away so Gregg and Suzanne can be removed safely." He turned on his heel and was gone into the hallway.
Richard was down on his haunches beside Paul, one hand on the other man's shoulder, the other lightly touching the wrist of the injured hand. "Hey, House …you doin' okay?"
"Hey Wilson … yeah …" The blue eyes had softened in contact with the brown ones. "My ass feels like it's being stabbed by a thousand needles …"
"It probably is," the other man said softly. "If you want, I suppose I can massage it for you later …"
Maggie turned away to hide the flames heating up her face. They did not even remember she was still there. She turned around and walked over to the front window to stare down into the street and look across into the window of her own apartment. A few very strange things had come out of her voyeuristic experience. She wasn't sure if she felt glad or sorry.
As she watched, the ambulance pulled up out front with red lights flashing.
Maggie turned around to inform the men huddled together in the middle of the floor.
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After the EMT team removed Dr. House and Suzanne DiRocco on gurneys and took them to the hospital, Maggie looked around at the aftermath of the disaster in the luxury apartment.
Suzanne would be fine. Dr. House would be fine also. As Maggie thought about him, she smiled to herself, and rethought some of the things she originally assumed when she'd first come into contact with the "real" person. It was a disillusionment: something like seeing Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother morph into the Big Bad Wolf …
The little boy … "Scooter" … Luke … was the catalyst in this whole drama. As a rule, kids did not choose losers for their heroes. Most kids were smarter than that, and Luke was no exception. As a nurse, Maggie had worked with a lot of doctors in her day. Some she had liked and admired; some she had not cared for at all. But she had never before run into anyone quite like this screwball. "Dr. Gregg", however, must have something going for him. Something good and kind and brave and decent. She just couldn't quite figure out what it was.
"Richard" … James Wilson … was a sweetheart. What he saw in that grizzled smartass was beyond her, but he too must be looking very deeply below the surface. Somehow his devotion to the man was a rare and quintessentially logical thing. Good cop, bad cop.
Maggie sighed and took one last look around her. The gruesome devastation of the apartment's living area looked a little like Berlin in the aftermath of Dolittle's Raid. She walked out the front door and closed it firmly behind her. Took the elevator to the ground floor and walked outside.
She stood on the curb for a moment before crossing the street. The Doppler wail of the emergency siren flared for an instant, then faded quickly with distance.
Then she went home.
The binoculars didn't hold much fascination anymore …
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