Louie closed the door after them and reset the locks. “Can I get you anything? Drinks? Have you eaten?”
“Not just now, Louie,” John said. “This is a business call.”
Louie seemed almost disappointed. “Uh huh.”
He looked John over for a moment and then shook his head sadly. “Are you going to need help with that?”
John lifted his bag and passed it to him. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Very well, come on.”
Louie led them into the kitchen.
“Take your coat off,” Louie said as he set John’s bag on the counter and opened it.
What was going on?
“John?” Caitlin asked.
As he shrugged out of his trench coat, she saw the fresh blood stain that ran down his shirt.
“My God, were you shot?”
“Yeah. It’s not much.”
“Not much? You’ve been shot.”
“Yeah, I think we’ve determined that.”
He loosened the Velcro closures on his vest.
Caitlin stepped close to him and pushed his hands away. “Let me do that.”
She lifted the vest from his shoulders and was surprised by its weight. While he watched, she unbuttoned each button on his shirt and pulled its tail from his pants. She lifted it carefully off his shoulders and felt her stomach get queasy as the puckered wound was revealed.
It was a tiny thing, red and raw around the edges and surrounded by the darkening circle of a bruise. Blood still seeped from it and trickled down the outside of his arm.
Caitlin stepped behind him and gingerly pulled the shirt down his arms.
John examined the wound as she draped his shirt over the back of a chair.
“Not too bad,” Louie said.
Caitlin saw he was carrying a dark bottle and a gauze bandage.
“You should sit down if you want me to work on it.”
Caitlin pulled another chair from the table and held it for John.
“Thanks,” he said as he sat.
Louie soaked the bandage in something from the bottle that resembled iodine and used it to clean around the edges of the wound. He went back to John’s bag and returned with a small aerosol bottle and a sealed plastic bag that contained forceps. After shaking the bottle for a few seconds, he sprayed a fine stream of liquid into the center of the wound.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Topical anesthetic. It’ll cut some of the pain.”
He set the bottle to one side and raised the forceps.
Caitlin found herself staring at the floor.
“Hey.”
She looked up and met John’s gaze. “Yes?”
“You had better watch this.”
“Why?”
“Because you may have to do it yourself,” Louie said.
“What?” Caitlin asked.
“If you’re one of John’s clients then there’s always the possibility that something like this is going to come up again. You never can tell when you may have to learn a new skill.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“He’s serious, Caitlin. Now please watch, I don’t like doing this sort of thing either, but the ability comes in handy.”
Caitlin stepped closer. John raised his right hand, and she took it in both of hers.
Louie probed the interior of the wound and the forceps sunk more than two inches into John’s shoulder. Caitlin’s hands tightened around John’s.
He seemed so calm, so relaxed. He even smiled and gave her hands a light squeeze, but Caitlin could see a line of sweat beading up on his forehead. The anesthetic wasn’t blocking all the pain.
Caitlin tried to return his smile, but she didn’t feel much like smiling. It was her fault he’d been shot. She shouldn’t have involved him. She should have found someone else to help her.
“Caitlin, it’s what you’re paying me to do, protect you. I knew the risks before I agreed to help you.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. I didn’t have to bring this to you.”
“You wanted someone you could trust. You can trust me.” He grimaced as Louie expanded the forceps.
Caitlin stared into John’s eyes. They had softened. Earlier they had seemed so cold, so distant. Now they were soft and warm just as she remembered them. It brought a real smile to her face.
Another grimace went across his features, and the warmth fell away from his eyes.
Louie slowly drew the forceps from the wound. As he did, a small bloody, copper covered bullet appeared.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad. Must have been a short. A higher power bullet would have passed on through,” Louie said as he held the bullet up for them to see.
“You want it?” he asked John.
“No thanks, I don’t need a reminder.”
“How ‘bout you?”
Caitlin stared at it for a second, and then slowly shook her head.
“Oh well.” He carried it to a trashcan that stood in the corner. He dropped the bullet into it and went back to John’s bag.
When he returned, he was opening a small package that Caitlin saw contained a fishhook-like needle and sutures.
She forced herself to watch as Louie put three stitches into the wound to close it. He cleaned the outside of the wound one more time, then covered it with a small bandage.
He took one more package from John’s bag. It contained a syringe and a two-cell bottle.
“What’s that?” Caitlin asked.
He opened the package and held up the bottle. It had a powder in one side and a clear liquid in the other. He pressed the end of the bottle, and the liquid flowed into the powder.
He shook it, mixing the liquid, and powder. “Antibiotics. They’re freeze dried and have to be moistened before injection.”
After a minute, he filled the syringe and injected the contents into an already cleaned area of John’s upper arm.
“There, you’ll be as good as new in a week.”
“Yeah, good as new,” John agreed.
Caitlin got the impression that there was some private joke passing between them.
“Caitlin, there’s
