'That's before I knew you was going to do it better than me,' Hawk said.
'Hey,' I said, 'Heckle and Jeckle. Don't you realize there's a wounded man in here?'
They appeared at the foot of the bed. Paul said, 'How do you feel?'
'Pretty good, I think. Where's Linda?'
'Home, asleep,' Hawk said. 'She about ready to fall over.'
'How long have I been sleeping?' I said.
'Day and a half,' Paul said. 'You woke up yesterday morning.'
'How bad am I?' I said to Hawk.
'This the Easter season for you, babe,' Hawk said. 'You was dead when we brought you in.'
'I know, Belson told me.'
'But you gonna make it.'
I looked at Paul. He nodded. 'You were in surgery for fifteen hours,' he said. 'You got a drain in your right side.'
I nodded very carefully. 'I figured that was what that was.'
And then I faded out again. And woke up in daylight again with a frizz-headed doctor looking at me.
'I just want you to know,' I said, 'that I'm opposed to socialized medicine.'
'Me too,' he said. 'My name is McCafferty, I did most of the work on your thoracic cavity when they brought you in here.'
'Too late now, but I think my health insurance lapsed,' I said.
He smiled. 'We'll find a way,' he said. 'Do you want the details of what happened to you medically?'
'Sure.'
'First, I've never seen anyone as dead as you were come back. You are one tough specimen.'
'But gentle of heart,' I said.
'Yes. Well, you took two bullets. Thirty-eight caliber. One went in here.' He touched my right side lightly, and for the next ten minutes told me in graphic detail what had happened to my thoracic cavity as a result of being hit with two .38-caliber bullets.
'And there's nothing permanent'?'
He shook his head. 'As far as I can tell, there is no permanently disabling condition. In two or three months you'll be as good as you ever were.'
'I was hoping for better,' I said.
'Settle for what you were,' he said. 'It was what enabled you to survive. Tell you the truth, I didn't think you'd make it either. The black man who brought you in was the only one. He said you'd come back.'
'I was a long ways away,' I said. 'Thank you.'
McCafferty smiled. 'My pleasure,' he said.
I closed my eyes, and began to drift. I could feel McCafferty still there. I half opened my eyes and he was looking down at me.
'Interesting,' he said half aloud. 'Interesting as hell.'
I closed my eyes again and drifted away.
CHAPTER 46
Linda came when she could. I was sitting up having some beef broth when she came an her lunch hour. The drain was still in my side, but most of the raw feeling was gone, and the IV apparatus was unhooked. She kissed me as hard as my condition permitted.
'Have you talked with Susan yet?' she said.
'No. She called and Paul told her I was out of town.'
'Why don't you tell her?'
'Because she'd come,' I said. 'She'd come because she'd feel I needed her, not because she simply wanted to be with me.'
'And that won't do?'
'No. When she wants to see me just because she wants to, not because I've been shot, or she might lose me, or she's afraid of something in her life, then I will want to see her.'
'She will,' Linda said.
'We'll see.'
'She will. I would.' I held her hand.
'I don't know what will become of us if that happens,' I said.
'You mean we might not be able to be lovers?'
