‘Hello?’
It wasn’t. ‘Sean! You sound good. I hope you’re doing OK,’ came the too-friendly voice of my supervisor, Marty Genovese. This couldn’t be good.
‘I’m feeling fine, except for the hand.’ You know, the wound I received in the line of duty.
‘Yeah, we all hope you’re recovering quick. Anyway, I talked with Kathy from HR and she says you don’t have any more earned time, so she was wondering when you thought you could be back to work.’
Back to... Oh God, I hate private EMS.
‘Dude, I got cut with a knife on the job,’ I explained, slowly for ease of comprehension. ‘I have stitches. I can’t carry some three hundred pound welfare cheat with fake chest pain down three flights of Philips Mills switchback stairs. What the hell?’
‘I know. I hear ya,’ Marty oozed. ‘That’s what I told the chuckleheads at HQ, but you know how they are. I went to bat for you, and the upshot is, we’ll hold your job, but you aren’t gonna get paid any more until you come back, or your Long Term Disability kicks in. I told ’em that was ridiculous, that you’re good people, got hurt on the company business, but what are ya gonna do?’
This last phrase came out whaddayagunnado? Marty was a walking caricature. His dad was a professional Italian, an exaggerated stereotype, like a guy named Murphy who owns a pub and acts like every day is St Patrick’s. He was a big fish in the small pond of local politics, playing to the old neighborhood, and Marty had grown up on a steady diet of schmoozing and gangster movies. It was natural that his supervisory style was like a bad Tony Soprano impression.
I mean, it wasn’t even a bad Michael Corleone impression, as much as he wanted it to be.
Anyway, it was very important to Marty that I know how he was the one in my corner, because, you and me, we understand one another, but the suits, well... whaddayagunnado?
I sighed. ‘So what am I supposed to do here?’
‘Now, do I look out for you or what? I filled your shift tomorrow, so you’re all set there. If you can work Friday instead, that gives you three more days to heal, and you don’t lose any pay.’
‘You do realize I have a doctor’s note?’
‘All that means is they can’t fire you for taking time off,’ he replied. ‘They don’t have to pay you. Or you could go answer phones in dispatch, but you don’t want that, do you?’
Well, he was right, there. I didn’t. They didn’t want me to do that either, since I’m fine as a medic, off on my own with just one partner, but don’t play well up at headquarters.
‘So who’m I working with on Friday?’ I conceded.
‘I got you a good partner,’ he said, like he had somehow made the open shift wink into existence. ‘It’s with Monique.’
‘Cool. How’d a shift opposite her open up? No heterosexuals wanted to work on a Friday?’
‘Jim Burton offered to swap. He’s working your shift with Pete tomorrow.’
‘The spaz?’ I asked in shock. ‘Pete will kill him.’ Seriously. He might. Jim was way too wound up, got too excited, ran in before looking far too often, and said totally inappropriate things to patients, even by my lax standards. If he pulled that stuff with Pete more than once, Pete would just back over him in the garage.
‘Well, he’s more afraid of Monique,’ said Marty. ‘I guess she had words with him a few shifts ago. I saw her jabbing him in the chest with a finger while she explained things to him, and now he wants off the shift.’
So, I didn’t say, your favor to me is letting me solve your manpower issues since you have a crap employee nobody will work with, and you haven’t got the balls to fire, you fucking Guinea cliché. ‘Cool. I’m happy to work with Nique. Thanks for being there for me,’ I said. Don’t say it, I prayed, don’t—
‘Fuggeddaboutit,’ he said, ‘Just remember who’s got your back.’
One day, I thought, I will ask a favor. ‘Thanks, boss,’ I said and hung up, disgusted.
Hurt on the fucking clock, attacked on a call and good old FirstLine Ambulance was going to play cheap with my pay. Typical.
If I worked for a hospital service, I’d have more sick time than I could use in a year, and they’d write off my treatment. A fire service and I’d have my Union rep down there right now making waves on my behalf, and a reporter from the local paper penning a story with a headline like ‘Fatcats Deny Pay to Injured Hero.’
I sighed and walked over to the liquor cabinet.
This was tough. I needed to work, because as amazing as my powers might be, they didn’t make me any money, and this was one of the few jobs that I could work easily, so I did want to keep it. And my hand really wasn’t all that bad. But dealing with the corporate side of the job grated on me.
I will admit to a blind spot as far as money is concerned. In theory, I should have been able to put away some money and let it accrue interest and be all set, but that never seemed to work out. After ages as a soldier I just got used to spending my pay, taking the necessities like food, clothing and quarters as part of the job. Not much point in opening a nice traceable bank account when I might have had to walk away from it. I had a few emergency stashes of cash in case I ever did need to go on the run, but I didn’t touch those for anything else. Better to be a week late on the rent and sweet-talk the landlord, or have the lights cut off, than have to go on the lam without any funds.
There were, I reflected, dropping into my favorite chair with three fingers of whisky, different kinds of courage. There was the kind you needed to stand fast with a bayonet fixed and one round in your musket while the point of the enemy’s lance got closer and more distinct and you felt the pounding hooves vibrating in your chest, and you held your fire for the perfect moment because the only thing that would keep you alive was the well timed volley and there wouldn’t be time to reload. That took courage, and discipline and trust in the men to either side of you because if one man ran, the whole company would disintegrate. But that was quick courage, courage for a few moments, after which either a wave of euphoric, exultant relief washed over you, or you were dead. Either way, you didn’t need to be brave very long, and if you lived there’d be medals and bagpipes and starry-eyed women.
Then there was the long, slow kind of courage. Courage that kept you dragging to work day after day, not stabbing your spaz partner or calling the boss on his shit or storming into HR with a machete. Just to keep the job so you could collect a pittance to keep the bill collectors from the door and keep up a carefully constructed facade.
As easy as it might be to say in a warm living room with the booze blazing a trail down to my stomach, spending the night in a shallow trench scraped into a frozen hillside in Korea while angry Chinese soldiers swarmed in the darkness with grenades and burp guns was looking better than enduring one of Marty’s famous pats on the back and greasy smiles.
Christ.
I was halfway through my drink and my mood was mellowing from anger to general disgust when the phone rang again.
Fuck you, Marty, I’m not interested in another favor, I thought, letting the machine pick up.
Hi, Sean, this is Sarah. Deyermond. I was just wondering—
‘Hello!’ I lunged across the room, dislodging the cat and nearly spilling my drink. Pity to do that to a whisky that survived twelve years in a sherry cask on a Scottish hillside, but this woman did things to my brain. ‘Hi, I was on the other side of the apartment,’ I lied. ‘Screening my calls,’ I admitted.
She laughed. ‘Well, I’m free earlier than I thought and wondered if you still wanted to grab some dinner? If that sounds like something you’d like to do?’
What would I like to do? I thought. Well, for starters, I’d like to run my fingers through those long blonde curls, and kiss those full, pouty lips and that white neck, and then I’d like to tear your clothes off and touch and kiss and caress every inch of your body. I want to feel you and smell you and taste you. I want to kiss my way down over those perky breasts and soft smooth belly and over the curve
of your hips and down those long, perfect legs and back up. I want to lick and tease and stroke you with my lips and tongue while my hands play over your breasts and buttocks until I hear you scream with desire and then, after I’ve done all that, just to prove that my feelings aren’t more than nine-tenths pure lust, I want to make love to you and then hold you all night.
‘Dinner sounds great,’ I managed.
‘So,’ she said, a bit awkwardly, ‘is there somewhere you’d like to meet, or...?’
I considered my finances, what with my good buddies at FirstLine messing with my pay, and thought of the kind of meal I’d like to buy her. ‘You know what?’ I said, ‘Let me cook you dinner.’
‘Really?’ She sounded surprised. ‘You want to cook for me?’
‘I’ll be honest. I can’t afford to take you to the kind of place you deserve, but I am a decent cook. Unless that sounds too forward. Or too broke.’
‘No, no. Not at all. It’s kind of sweet. Where’s your apartment?’
I gave her directions.
‘Great. Eight-ish?’
‘I’ll see you then.’
I went through my kitchen and did a quick inventory, seeing what I could make for two. One of the perils of cooking for one is that you often don’t have enough of any one given thing to make a meal for two. I was in luck tonight, since I’d recently stocked up, figuring on being home for a week, nursing my injured hand. I took out some chicken breasts and started marinating them in a little balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
I actually am a good cook within narrow parameters. I’ve always considered food one of life’s great pleasures, and the best way to ensure you’ll have access to your favorite meals is to learn how to cook them.
I chopped together a quick salad, then cleaned up the place a bit. At around seven-thirty I took down a saucepan, poured a good splash of olive oil in the bottom and set it on a low heat. I chopped a clove of garlic very fine and scraped it from the cutting board into the oil with the back of my knife.
I have definite views on garlic. The garlic press is a tool of the devil, garlic powder is for the lazy, and the jarred stuff is an abomination. If you can’t be bothered to chop it, you don’t deserve garlic.
When the garlic started to go translucent, but before it caramelized, I took a half stick of butter and broke it up into the pan. As it melted I peeled and chopped up a tomato. I took a stick of good French bread that I’d bought on the way home, figuring on a few days of sandwiches, cut some slices, dipped them in the garlic butter and then put them aside on a rack for the oven. I scraped the tomato into the pot, followed it with a dash of salt, a handful of parsley and a splash of wine. I simmered it, letting the tomato dissolve into the sauce.
I heard the doorbell, buzzed Sarah in, then turned on the oven, spooned some tomato on the bread, sprinkled some cheese, parsley and basil on it, then opened the door to her knock.
‘Hi.’ She smiled. ‘I stopped to pick up some wine, but they wouldn’t sell me a six-pack of it, so I got us some beer. I hope that’s OK.’
‘I’ll try to carry on, somehow,’ I replied. ‘Come in, let me take your coat.’
I ushered her in and took her jacket. She had put a lot of effort into looking casually gorgeous. She wore a pair of dark jeans and a deep purple blouse that went very well with her coloring. Unlike earlier at her office, she was wearing makeup, but it was carefully toned down. Her hair was shining, brushed and completely devoid of pens.
I took the proffered six-pack, complimented a very nice French manicure—which drew a raised eyebrow—and waved a hand to indicate my humble domain.
‘Make yourself at home for a sec, I need to put a pot on the stove, then I can give you the two-dollar tour.’
I set a pot of water on high heat to boil, and turned back to find her studying my bookcase. It’s an eclectic collection, to say the least.
‘Is this really a signed Mark Twain? And are you really keeping it out in the open?’
‘Probably a forgery,’ I lied, ‘but it’s the only copy I found with those shorts in it, and it’s some of his best stuff. I want it where I can read it at a moment’s notice. I got it cheap at a yard sale.’
‘Holy crap,’ she exclaimed. ‘You have a hundred-year-old printing of The Three Musketeers! In French!’
‘Sentimental value,’ I replied, which was true enough. I liked Dumas.
Missed the old bastard. ‘My Mémère gave it to me when I was younger. She found it in a box in the attic. I was always interested in swashbucklers, and she figured it would get me to learn French. It was her father’s or uncle’s originally. I knew it was old, but have no idea when it was printed.’
She finished her examination of my bookcase and I showed her around the apartment. It didn’t take very long. She glossed over my record collection, smiled at the pictures on the walls, and won big points by dropping down to scratch the cat under the chin. He turned to me as though to say ‘this one’s alright.’
The oven timer chimed. I pulled the bruschetta out and set the tray on the table, found two pint glasses and a bottle opener and decanted two of the beers she’d brought. I dropped some pasta in the pot of boiling water.
‘Dig in,’ I said, ‘I still have about ten minutes of cooking. Some things need to be done à la minute, can’t leave ’em to simmer.’ I put a pan on the stove, drizzled some oil into it.
She raised an eyebrow again. I liked the look, and seemed to be good at provoking it.
She took a bite of the bruschetta. ‘Oh, wow. That’s good.’
‘Thanks. Within my limits, I’m not a bad cook.’ I took the chicken breasts out of the marinade and laid them in the hot oil. ‘These need about four minutes a side.’
‘Did you ever work as a chef?’
‘Hmm? Oh, no. Way too much stress.’
She laughed. ‘Aren’t you a paramedic? Don’t you guys deal with life-threatening emergencies?’
‘Well, sure.’ I turned the chicken. ‘But they can’t send my IVs back if they don’t like them.’
She laughed again.
‘Seriously, though, I work best on my own. All day on my feet at a hot stove with a manager behind me? I’ll take ten minutes in a syringe-strewn alley with a stabbing victim.’
‘So you don’t play well with others?’ She smiled. ‘You don’t seem tough to get along with.’
‘I don’t take direction well,’ I said. ‘I have a job where I can pretty much do whatever I need to get the patient to a better place, so long as I can justify my actions after the fact. I become impatient when somebody’s backseat-driving my decisions.’ The timer chimed and I took the pasta pot off the stove and dumped it into a colander.
‘Make sure to shake the strainer so you get all the water out,’ she said.
I turned to see her grinning evilly over the rim of her glass. I felt that tightness again.
I dropped the pasta into the sauce to finish, fished the chicken out of the pan, laid it on the plates, then added the pasta.
‘Bon appetit,’ I said. ‘Let me know if you like it. Please, be honest.’
She took a bite, closed her eyes reverently as she chewed, then swallowed and said ‘That’s delicious.’
‘My thanks.’
‘I’ll have to have you over for dinner sometime.’ She took another bite. ‘I have a wide variety of take-out menus, and all the best places on speed dial.’
We finished dinner and retired to the living room. We talked for hours. It was an interesting contrast of worlds. I told stories about my colleagues, the ragtag band of misfit adrenaline junkies who worked the ambulance because they were unfit for normal employment, and the spectrum of patients from the homeless, the drug-addicted and the shot-up gang members to the pushy home health aides from the Visiting Nurses Association and bosses who thought a fly-by-night ambulance company could be run like the Gambino crime family. She laughed in all the right places and responded with observations on working in a detached little world filled with young ide
alists and jaded professors, a place where people really could read Karl Marx and Lord Byron and actually think they were on to something.
She was very funny, and had a dry, quick, cutting sense of humor. She’d learned to look at stupidity and naiveté and arrogance and find humor in them rather than screaming and tearing her hair out. She was smiling over her drink, those big green eyes shining over the top of her glasses. We were sitting close, and I figured the chemistry was there. I set my own glass on the coffee table.
I leaned in and kissed her. Lightly, just by way of reconnaissance. She tilted her head as I came in.
I felt a tiny spark as our lips met, which roared into blazing life as her lips parted under mine and I tasted her tongue. She grasped the back of my head and moved in close, pressing her body against me. She made an attempt to put her half-empty glass on the table, missed by a foot, and wrapped her arm around me, holding tight.
Feeling her nails through my shirt, I kissed her along the jaw from her ear down the side of her neck, then swept her up with a growl and carried her to the bedroom.
My head was spinning with desire, blood pounding in my temples. Sarah moaned in my ear, then bit the side of my neck. I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hair.
We landed on the bed, and managed to undress almost without letting go.
It was intense. I was more turned on than I had been in a long time, and she reacted with an urgency that surprised me. I put forth my best effort, and she seemed to appreciate it.
Being a good lover is all about being able to read a woman and respond. Being able to read a body’s rhythms below the surface is helpful.
Cheating? Maybe. But nobody’s complained yet.
We fell asleep tangled together, her head resting on my chest, a lazy smile on her lips. I drifted off with a warm glow in the pit of my stomach.
Chapter 9
THE AIR WAS STILL BITTERLY COLD. I hunched my shoulders in my parka and wiggled my toes to keep the blood moving. I’d thrown away my Shoepak boots, which trapped the sweat when you moved and let it freeze when you stopped, and just wore a pair of regular leather boots a size too large with an extra pair of wool socks. I was cold, but not frostbitten.
Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) Page 6
