MOMMA MIA
by ardavenport
- - - Part 4
A short, stout woman in an orange dress, poofy dark brown hair and white horned rim glasses met them at the glass doors of the entrance.
"He's right back here."
They followed her down a blue carpeted hallway. A few office workers warily peeked out of at them and whispered from open doors. It was an insurance company with people dressed in business attire, suits and ties, neat dresses in solid colors, names and titles like 'Actuary' and 'Accounts' on the pale wood veneer doors.
"It's over this way. We were afraid to move him. He said his back hurt something terrible." They turned right into a large open area of desks with offices along two walls and windows looking out on a green, landscaped parking lot.
"Can you tell us his name? And has someone called an ambulance?" Roy saw a man's feet on the floor between two desks. Chairs and waste baskets had been moved out of the way. Above, a frosted plastic covering hung open from the ceiling, with two dark florescent lights in the fixture. A crowd of mostly women, gathered around the desks, parted for them.
"His name's Frank O'Brien. He's the assistant manager. And I think Clara called an ambulance. or maybe it was Helen." She stopped and let them pass and Roy asked her to double check.
"Hello, Frank. I'm Roy DeSoto; this is my partner John Gage." Roy knelt down next to the man in shirt sleeves and dark tie. He looked like he was in his mid-forties with a receding hairline and a padded waistline. "I hear you hurt your back. How're you doing?"
He grimaced up at them. "I don't mean anything by this guys, but just you two walking through the front door means I'm not having a good day." Both paramedics had to smile a little at the truth of that.
"Can you tell us what happened, Frank?" Johnny knelt next to Roy, putting the drug box down on the carpet.
"It was that light up there. It got me!" Frank pointed. Roy took his arm while everyone else glanced up at the open fixture.
"Try not to move around too much. We don't want you to aggravate your injury."
"Sorry. Anyway, we called the building supervisor three weeks ago about it and then finally last week a guy brings the bulbs and then just leaves them. Says it wasn't his job to put them in. How many building supervisors does it take to screw in a lightbulb anyway?"
A couple of people in the gathered crowd laughed. Roy cracked a smile. "So, you decided to change it yourself."
"Yeah, you got me. I didn't have a ladder, but I thought I could just stand on the desk. And a few phone books."
Looking up, Johnny saw the long the box of bulbs and the abused phone books stacked on the desk next to them. "And it didn't work out."
"Yeah. The yellow pages did the walking this time. And I did the falling. Oooooh." Frank grimaced.
"Can you tell us exactly where it hurts? And where you fell?" Roy didn't see any obvious bruises.
"Oh, it was mostly the floor. But the edge of the desk got me on the way down." He pointed with his hand below his right hip. "But sorry, officer, I didn't get the license plate number on that desk."
Roy grinned again. While he questioned Frank about the feeling in his arms and legs, Johnny got up and reached for the phone. "Roy, I'm going to get the hospital on the land line."
"You need to dial 9 for an outside line." An older woman in a green dress and a beauty-parlor hardened head of styled, tinted hair came around the end of the desk to help. Roy took Frank's vital signs. BP and respiration were fine, but his pulse was a little rapid and even though he was in good humor, he looked a little pale. He had no pain, numbness or tingling in his extremities. Roy passed the vital signs on to Johnny who read them off to Rampart.
The first woman in the orange dress and horned rim glasses confirmed that an ambulance had been called.
"Oh, is he going to be all right?" The woman in the green dress crouched next to Roy, talking right in his ear. "He's not going to be paralyzed is he? I've read - - "
"No, Ma'am. He's going to be fine. Uh, can you please step back." He gestured to push her and the others away. "Please, just step back and give him some air. Please." The pack of females guiltily backed up a pace.
"Ten-four Rampart. D5W, five milligrams MS IV." Johnny handed him the drug box and the phone. "Roy, I'm going to get the backboard." He left while Roy took out the IV.
"I'm going to start an IV, give you something to help with that pain." He took out the tubing, pulled oft strips of tape, put them on his pants leg.
"Now, that's what I like to hear. Can I have ice with that?" Frank smiled around a grimace.
"Sorry, fresh out of ice. You'll have to take it neat."
"Oooooh, just when I thought I was getting some good service in this joint."
Roy could feel the crowd inching closer behind him as he swabbed Frank's arm and started the IV. He heard a siren outside.
"Frank! What happened?!"
Roy looked up from where he taped the IV down on Frank's arm. Three women stepped aside as a man in shirt and tie ran up to them. He was middle aged, round in the body and face with closely cut reddish hair. He stopped and looked up at the ceiling.
"Oh, Frank, you didn't?!"
"Yeah, I did. Hey, I'll do anything to meet new people. Meet my new buddy here, Roy."
Roy stopped Frank from moving the arm with the IV.
"Oh, I'm Ed Wazleveck. I'm the office manager and this clown is supposed to be my assistant." He leaned forward, arms up in exasperation. "I don't believe it, I leave for a half hour and I come back to this?" His expression changed to worry at the sight of IV bag Roy held up. "Hey, he's not really hurt is he?"
"He hit his back on the desk when he fell. We're just going to take him to the hospital where they can take some x-rays and check him out."
"Oooh, Frank. You could've waited for those guys to fix that." Ed looked around at the crowd. "Hey, what are you all standing around here for? Show's over." He clapped his hands. "Get back to work."
A few of them muttering, they started to shuffle off. Ed pointed at the woman in the horned rimmed glasses. "Betty, did you call Mary?" From her suddenly worried expression, she obviously hadn't. "What? Didn't anyone think to call Frank's wife about this?"
Johnny came hurrying in with the backboard, two ambulance attendants and a gurney. With Ed herding everyone back to their desks, the two paramedics and the attendants eased Frank onto the backboard, fastened the straps, then lifted that onto the gurney. Roy stood, still holding the IV bag.
"I'll go in with him."
They started to move off but Frank raised his free arm.
"Hey, wait. Buddy, come here."
Surprised, Johnny crouched next to the gurney. "Yeah?" Frank signed for him to come closer. Roy didn't catch what Frank whispered to him. "Yeah?" He nodded and sat back again. "Okay, thanks." He stood and stepped back.
They took Frank out to the ambulance and got him inside. The doors closed and the siren started up.
"How're feeling?" Roy sat next to Frank whose coloring had definitely improved. Carl, one of the ambulance attendants, sat by the door.
Frank grimaced. "Oh, well. A little better. But my back is still there. Say, d'ya think the doctors can take that out? Save me a lot of pain that way."
"Well, backs. . . .you can't live with them. You can't live without 'em." He patted Frank on the shoulder. "Say, what was that you said to my partner back there?"
"Oh, that? I don't think you noticed back there, but I saw Peggy follow him out and come back in. I could see her man radar was out. I told him to stay away if she gave him her number. She's nothing but trouble."
"Yeah?" Roy had not noticed. There had been three or four young pretty women in the office who might have been Peggy.
Frank nodded. "Yeah. She's already got a boyfriend. A big guy. A bouncer at a bar. But one's not enough for Peggy. And she just loves to have men fight over her." He shook his head slowly. "Yeah, she's caused a little soap opera in the office a few times. But . . . . good typist. Hundred twenty words a minute. Accurate, too."
Roy hoped that his partner was smart enough to take sound advice. Johnny liked women. He liked looking at them. He liked talking to them. He liked dating them. But Roy was pretty certain that he never wanted to fight over them. Frank, who was married and wanted to stay that way kept Peggy at arm's length. He admitted she was nice to look at, but his wife, Mary, was the woman coming to see him at the hospital. That mattered a lot more than a pretty face and a good time. Roy, thinking about his own wife, Joanne, knew just how he felt. Carl only shrugged; he wasn't married.
When they got to the hospital, Frank was taken right away to Treatment Room Three. Doctor Early examined him, checked him for spinal injuries, asked him what happened, asked Roy what happened, and ordered x-rays. And Early laughed when Frank told him he was struck by a hit-and-run desk. Roy left Frank to the doctor's care. Frank waved a farewell with one free hand and offered to sell him insurance any time.
He found Johnny at the Rampart base station talking to Dixie McCall, the head nurse and a very handsome woman herself.
"Hey Roy," Johnny put a hand on his shoulder, "for as much pain that guy was in, wouldn't you say Frank was funny?"
Roy grinned. "Oh, yeah. I wish all our victims could be that upbeat. But, hey, he told me he gave you a little advice, too."
"Huh?"
"About a woman in his office. Thought she might make a pass at you."
"Oh, yeah." He reached up to his left breast pocket and took out a folded yellow piece of paper.
Dixie looked appreciative. "Oh, really? I guess the girls just can't stay away from you, Johnny."
"It does seem that way." Johnny grinned cockily and Roy frowned down at the paper. There was a name with a little heart drawn after it and a phone number. Johnny gazed down at it, sighed, folded it up again and tore it in half. Then quarters.
Dixie raised her eyebrows. "Not interested? I didn't think that was possible."
His hand closed on the paper. "Well, Frank told me she was a little high maintenance. And then when I was going out, that other guy, Ed, said the same thing. But it's still nice to be appreciated." The crumpled paper held between thumb and index finger, poised for a shot at the trash can, he leaned over the counter,. Dixie took it and threw it away for him.
Roy patted him on the back. "Let's get back to the station. It's time for lunch. See ya, Dix."
- - - End Part 4