around.”
“What about Dr. Filstrup at the Physician Wellness Office?”
Lou groaned. In terms of insight and verbal sparring, Emily was her mother’s daughter.
So much for Welcome’s Law.
Lou’s affiliation with the PWO went back nine years-to the day when his medical license was suspended for self-prescribing amphetamines. He had always been a heavier-than-average drinker, but speed, which he took to handle the sleep-deprivation of working two moonlighting jobs, quickly brought him to his knees. Enter the PWO, an organization devoted to helping doctors with mental illness, physical illness, substance abuse, and behavioral problems. The PWO director arranged for an immediate admission to a rehab facility in Georgia, and kept in close contact with Lou’s caseworkers and counselors until his discharge six months later. After that, a PWO monitor met with him weekly, then monthly, and supervised his recovery and urine screens for alcohol and other drugs of abuse. After a spotless year, his license was restored and he returned to work at Eisenhower Memorial. Three years after that, he was hired as the second of two PWO monitors. For the next year, things went perfectly. Then Walter Filstrup was brought in by the PWO board to head up the program.
“You know, bucko,” Lou said to his daughter, “sometimes you’re too smart for your own good.”
Although he seldom went out of his way to discuss his job frustrations with his child, neither was Lou ever one to measure his words. And the kid was a sponge.
“All right,” he said. “Consider my current position with PWO the exception that proves the law. Now, let’s get out there and see some patients. You ready to stay in school?”
Emily cocked her head thoughtfully. “For the moment,” she said.
“That’s all I can ask for. So, let’s not fall behind. In the ER business, you never know when something’s going to come out of left field and slam you against the wall.”
CHAPTER 2
With a nurse, the licensed nurse’s aide, and the resident busy with the old man in one of the back examining rooms, Lou handled an ear infection in a toddler, an upper respiratory virus in an elderly woman, and a cracked finger bone in a fifteen-year-old high school shortstop, who was dangerously close to losing an entire limb if he didn’t stop leering at the doctor’s daughter.
Sixty minutes to go.
It may have been a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reason, but Take Your Kid to Work Day was proving to be a total success.
The nurse clinician, a newlywed named Barbara Waldman, appeared behind a wheelchair at the door to the treatment room. The man in the chair was someone Lou knew well-a sixty-two-year-old who lived in various doorways near the Annex.
“Desmond!” Lou exclaimed, helping the man onto the examining table and out of his tattered air force jacket. “That gang again?”
Desmond Carter dabbed at his bleeding nostrils with a rag and nodded.
For most of the homeless in the area, being beaten for sport by any of several gangs who roamed the neighborhood was routine. Usually, though, the attacks occurred at night. Desmond, though black, was known for playing Irish tunes on a battered pennywhistle. When the music business was slow, he cashed in bottles. A Vietnam vet, he was rail thin, but with eyes that never betrayed the hardship of his life. Today, his face was swollen and bruised, with a split lip and the bloody nose. His oily trousers were shredded at the knees, revealing deep abrasions. One shoe was missing.
“Good to see you, Dr. Lou,” Desmond said.
“Sorry this keeps happening, my friend. Want us to send for the police?”
“Ain’t worth it. Just some bandages and fix my nose if it’s broken. How you been?”
“Doing fine.”
“Still at the gym?”
“When I have time. A little sparring, some training when one of the up-and-comers asks for it. Listen, we got to get you undressed and cleaned up. Then we’ll check you over and get an X-ray of your nose and any other part that needs it. Desmond, that gorgeous young woman over there is my daughter, Emily. She’s here helping us out for the day.”
“Ms. Emily,” Desmond said, nodding and managing a weak, toothless grin. “It’s fine with me if you want to stay.”
Lou considered the situation and shook his head.
“Yeah,” Emily said. “You walk around your apartment all the time in your boxers.”
Had Barbara Waldman been chewing gum, she would have swallowed it.
“You have your hands full with that one, Dr. Welcome,” she managed.
“Listen, Em,” Lou said, “I don’t think so. Why don’t you wait in the lounge until we get Desmond taken care of.”
He missed his daughter’s glare as she left the room.
Nurse and doc gently stripped the vet down and helped him into a pair of disposable scrub pants and a johnny. He had absorbed a pounding, but it was hardly the first time. His abdominal wall was a road map of scars- the result of wounds, Lou had learned, that had led to two Purple Hearts.
Lou clenched his jaw. He had encountered more than enough violence and depravity to have developed something of an immunity, but in truth, he knew he would never be inured-especially when the victim was a guy like Desmond Carter.
He was preparing to examine the man when he heard the soft clearing of a throat from the doorway. Emily was standing there, hands on her hips, looking incredibly like her mother.
“Dad, you know how much I hate being treated like a baby,” she said. “I’ve seen street people before and black people, and even hurt people. It’s okay for me to watch-I promise you. You’re not protecting me from anything.”
Lou looked up at the ceiling and then the wall-anyplace but at his daughter’s wonderful face. He had been outmatched by her from the day she was born. Besides, exposing her to Desmond Carter this way seemed right. Still, it was probably something he should discuss with Renee. He envisioned his ex after the fact, arms folded, tapping her foot in exasperation, and heard her reminding him that she did, in fact, have a cell phone.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission, he decided.
“Barbara, does Desmond have a record of an HIV test?”
“Negative test drawn here four months ago,” she said.
“Em, you can come in,” he heard himself say. “But stand over there by the wall. Barbara, how about getting her into double gloves and a gown. Might as well give her a face shield as well.”
Swimming in her gown and looking like a teenager from outer space, Emily inched forward and watched as Lou packed both Desmond’s nostrils and explained what he was searching for in each segment of his physical exam. He could see her eyes widen at the man’s scars.
“Desmond, are you sure about no police?” Lou asked.
“Next time, maybe. I got a caseworker. I’ll tell her.”
“Barbara,” Lou said, turning to the nurse, “how about ordering a chest film and nasal bones? Maybe get a CBC as well. Then we’ll do whatever we have to, to fix that schnoz.”
“Okay. Then I’m going to stop in the back and see if Gordo and Roz are all right with that poor old man. I think they’re going to transfer him.”
“No problem,” Lou said.
Moments later, the receptionist appeared at the doorway.
“Dr. Welcome, there’s a Dr. Filstrup on the line for you-he says it’s urgent.”
Lou suppressed a smile.
