Marty didn’t wait for the two men to decide. He immediately stepped aside, out of the narrow field of fire.
“Sounds good to me,” Marty reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Let me just settle my bill first.”
He put some money on the counter then turned back to the woman. “Lead the way.”
She walked out and Marty followed, not waiting to see how, or if, Buck and Drillface resolved their standoff.
N oon, Wednesday
A few blocks west, the grounds of Fairfax High School had become a field hospital, with hundreds of patients laid out on stretchers, sprawled on the grass, or sitting on the pavement, either waiting to be seen or silently enduring their pain. At this point, only the most critically injured were receiving treatment, and they were inside the enormous tents. Helicopters constantly took off and landed, unloading fresh casualties and going off in search of more. It wasn’t a war, and this wasn’t an army encampment, but Marty couldn’t get the theme from M*A*S*H out of his head anyway.
Marty was lying on a cot, watching the blood flow into a plastic bag from the tube in the soft depression of his elbow. There were other donors nearby-Drillface from the store, a Hasidic Jew muttering to himself in Hebrew, and an enormous, fat woman wearing all her finest jewelry, two rings to a finger, twenty necklaces around her throat. Marty assumed Buck was out there somewhere, giving a pint.
The Red Cross woman, Angie, had asked Marty lots of questions about his medical history, but she had to take his answers on faith before sticking him with the needle. With several hospitals destroyed, blood banks depleted, and thousands injured, Angie told him there was a critical need for blood and no time to test it for anything beyond its type. And they were getting to the point where they didn’t even have time to do that.
Angie was forced to go out looking for anyone who was healthy enough to spare a pint of blood. She’d managed to recruit dozens of donors, but it wasn’t nearly enough to fill the growing need. As soon as Marty, and the donors around him, finished giving their pint, she’d go out hunting for blood again.
She came over to Marty now and leaned down to check his blood bag. “How are you doing?”
“Fine.”
Angie wasn’t wearing a bra and he was ashamed of himself for noticing. He was on his way home to his wife in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in history. Beth could be dead, or critically injured. What kind of guy would leer at a woman’s breasts at a time like this?
Any guy.
Marty shifted his gaze to her face, hoping she didn’t notice where it was before. “I never got a chance to thank you.”
“For what?” she smiled.
Leaning over. “Saving my life. I could have gotten shot back there.”
“It’s what you deserve,” Drillface lisped. “Scumbag.”
Marty turned to him. “I paid for the damn shoes, and I would have paid for them whether you showed up with a shotgun or not.” He looked at Angie again and lowered his voice. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“No,” she said. “And I don’t care one way or the other.”
“As long as you get my blood.”
“Yep.”
“Well, I’m still grateful to you.”
“We’re even.” She gently brushed the hair away from the gash on his forehead and studied the wound. “That’s a nasty cut. Were you unconscious for any period of time?”
“I think so. It’s hard to say.” Especially with her breasts in his face again. He tried to look somewhere else, but his eyeballs were caught by the tractor beam shooting out of her cleavage.
“Uh-huh,” she reached over to a medical kit, poured something on a cotton ball, and dabbed at his cut. That broke the tractor beam.
“Ouch!” Marty squirmed. “Is that soaked with alcohol or bleach?”
“Sit still. Have you experienced any blurred or abnormal vision?”
“Yeah,” he winced.
“Pussy,” Buck said. “A real man would put a horsehair in the wound, cherish the sweet pain of infection, and wear the scar with pride.”
Marty opened his eyes and saw Buck standing beside him, munching a handful of Oreos.
“I’m glad I’m not a real man,” Marty replied. “I’ll live longer.”
Angie dabbed at his wound some more. “Is that what you were trying to prove back there? That you’re a real man?”
“I just wanted to buy a new pair of shoes,” Marty glanced back at Drillface, who sneered at him.
“And what about the guns?” she asked.
Marty glanced at Buck. “That wasn’t my idea.”
She leaned back, looking at him with concern. “Have you experienced dizziness, poor balance, or nausea?”
“Not in the last few minutes, but yeah, I have.”
“I don’t like the look of that laceration, or the bruising and swelling. I wish I’d examined it closer before, I wouldn’t have taken your blood.”
“It looks worse than it is,” Marty said. “It didn’t bleed that much.”
Marty didn’t mention the gunshot wound. His jacket was so torn and dirty, she must not have noticed the bloody rip in his shoulder. If he pointed it out, she’d probably tell the nearest police officer, and then he’d be stuck here for hours.
Besides, it’s just a flesh wound, right?
“I’m going to clean that cut, stitch it up, then give you a tetanus shot. After that, you should stay put for a while.”
“Eat my cookies and juice, I know.”
“I meant until a doctor can take a look at you.”
“I thought a doctor was.”
“I’m a nurse practitioner.”
Buck snorted. “A real man would crawl into an earthen shelter and apply a poultice of cow dung, bacon fat, and crushed leaves. Fuck this cotton ball shit.”
“Ignore him,” Marty told Angie.
“I think you may have a concussion,” she gave him a grave look. As grave looks go, it was pretty good, but Marty still wasn’t worried. He didn’t know anything about medicine, but he was an experienced TV viewer.
“Mannix had thousands of them. All he did was rub the back of his neck and jump into his convertible. How serious could it be?”
“Nothing five Advil and a beer can’t cure,” Buck opined.
She sighed. Not just any sigh, but one that expressed her deep disapproval, frustration, and scorn. Women were particularly good at the sigh. Marty figured it must be genetic, that Neanderthal women sighed in exactly the same way as their mates returned to the cave.
“You really should wait and see a doctor,” Angie said.
“I can’t. I’ve got to get home.”
“Where’s that?”
“Calabasas.”
“That’s too far. You shouldn’t be walking, not until you’ve had a neurological exam.”
“And how many days until that happens?”
Angie didn’t say anything, which told him all he needed to know. She sighed, a completely different sigh than the one before. This one signaled her reluctant acceptance. Marty motioned to the helicopter idling on the field.
“If you’re so concerned about my health, how about having one of those choppers drop me off at home next time they pass over the valley?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not a taxi service. I wish it was.”
“Where would you go?”
“My mother lives in Marina del Rey. A condo two blocks from the beach. They say the ground under everything turned into quicksand.”
“I’m sorry.”
Angie shrugged. “I’m sure she’s alive. I would feel it if she wasn’t, know what I mean?”
Marty nodded, wanting to believe that was true, not only for her, but for himself.
Angie removed the needle in his arm, taped a cotton ball against the pin-prick, and told him she’d come back to take care of his forehead in a few minutes. She left Marty with a pack of Oreos and a small carton of orange juice.
Buck watched her go. “Did you see how she was trying not to look at me?”
“She was ignoring you. There’s a difference.” Marty wasn’t in the mood for Buck right now.