“A Christmas turkey, my friend.”
“That deep?”
“Yup.” No need to mention that the bone was showing through and blood was pumping out in a steady stream. “I’ve got to rescrub. I’ll be right back.”
After he hit the sink, Manny snapped on a pair of gloves, sat back down, and went for a glass bottle of lidocaine.
Big, Blond, and Bleeding stopped him. “Don’t worry about the pain, Doc. Stitch me up and treat my brothers—they need it more than I do. I’d take care of it myself, but Jane won’t let me.”
Manny paused. “You’d sew yourself up.”
“Done it for more decades than you’ve been alive, Doc.”
Manny shook his head and muttered under his breath. “Sorry, tough guy. I’m not running the risk of you jerking right when I’m working on your leak.”
“Doc—”
Manny pointed his syringe right into the stunningly handsome face of his patient. “Shut it and lie back. You should be put out cold for this, so don’t worry—there’s going to be plenty to suck up and be a hero about.”
Another pause. “Okay, okay, Doc. Don’t get your thong in a wad. Just get through me . . . and help them.”
Hard not to respect the guy’s loyalty.
Working fast, Manny numbed the area as best he could, pushing the needle into the flesh in a controlled circle. Christ, this took him back to medical school and, in a strange way, brought him alive in a manner that the operations he’d been doing lately didn’t.
This was . . . reality with the volume turned way up. And damn him if he didn’t like the sound of it.
Grabbing a stack of clean towels, he shoved them under the leg and rinsed the wound out. As his patient hissed and stiffened, he said, “Easy, big guy. We’re just getting it cleaned.”
“No . . . problem . . .”
The hell it wasn’t, and Manny wished he could have done more in the pain-control realm, but there was no time. There were compound fractures to deal with: Stabilize. Move on.
As someone moaned and yet another string of curses rang out over on the left, Manny took care of a minute tear in the artery; then he closed the muscle and moved on to the fascia and the skin. “You’re doing great,” he murmured as he noticed those whiteknuckled fists.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Right, right . . . your brothers.” Manny paused for a split second. “You’re all right, you know that.”
“Fuck . . . that . . .” The fighter smiled, flashing fangs. “I’m . . . perfect.”
Then the guy closed his eyes and lay back, his jaw so tight it was a wonder he could swallow.
Manny worked as quickly as he could without sacrificing quality. And just as he was swiping down his line of sixty sutures with a gauze cloth, he heard Jane cry out.
Jacking his head around, he muttered, “Fucking hell.”
In the doorway to the exam room, Jane’s husband was draped in the arms of Red Sox, looking like he’d been run over by a car: His skin was pasty, his eyes had rolled back in his head, and . . . holy hell, his boot—shitkicker—was facing the wrong way.
Manny called out for the nurse. “Could you bandage this?” Glancing at his current patient, he said, “I’ve got to go look at—”
“Go.” The guy slapped his shoulder. “And thanks, Doc. I won’t forget this.”
As he headed for the newest arrival, Manny had to wonder whether that goateed big-mouth was going to let him operate. Because that leg? It looked utterly destroyed even from across the damn room.
Vishous was lapsing in and out of consciousness by the time Butch got him to the exam room. That knee and hip combo of his was beyond agony and into some other kind of territory, and the overwhelming sensations were sapping his strength and his thought processes.
He wasn’t the only one in bad shape, however. As Butch lurched weakly through the doorway, he knocked V’s head against the jamb.