The ER was mostly empty except for an old woman who sat hunched over her many years, eyes staring at nothing, lips moving as if in conversation but she made no sound. An orderly came to help her into a wheelchair.
Monk sat alone for another few minutes, then a male nurse came to fetch him. On the way to the examination bay, Monk tried to spot Patty, but all of the curtains were drawn.
“I need to get your blood pressure,” said the nurse. He was a soft, doughy guy somewhere in his thirties, but aging badly. Unhealthy complexion, watery-blue eyes, and a hypertensive flush on his cheeks like he’d run up four flights of stairs. The exact opposite of what you’d want in a medical professional. He looked like he should be having his own vitals taken. The name stitched on the pocket of his scrubs was O. Mäsiarka. Monk thought it should have been something like I. Schlub. The nurse held up the sphygmomanometer. “Mind removing your jacket?”
“I’m licensed to carry and am wearing a gun in a shoulder rig,” said Monk. While the nurse sorted out how to respond to that, Monk fished the laminated card from his wallet and held it up, watching the nurse’s lips form the words licensed bail bondsman and fugitive recovery agent.
Mäsiarka cleared his throat, and after a considerable pause asked aloud in an awed voice, “You’re a bounty hunter?”
Monk put the card away and didn’t answer.
“Like that guy on TV? Dog?”
Monk sighed.
“You here looking for someone?”
“I’m here because my hand’s bleeding all over the goddamn place, pal,” growled Monk, “so can we put some topspin on this?”
“Um … sure, sure, right. Sorry. Okay. Let’s get those vitals. Still need you to remove that jacket.”
“Sure,” said Monk, resisting the urge to sigh again. No matter who was there when he showed more of his body there was going to be some variation of the same set of interlocked reactions. He watched the nurse’s eyes when he slid out of the jacket. They damn near popped out of their sockets. Not because of the gun in the shoulder holster, but because of the tattoos visible on his arms and shoulders and chest. Everywhere the tank top didn’t cover. All those pale faces. Most of them were photo-real, as if his skin were a window they looked out of. Others were more stylized and clearly done by different artists. In every case, though, the eyes looked real. They watched, and people could feel them watching. Certain kinds of people anyway.
“Nice ink,” said Mäsiarka, but his voice nearly cracked saying it.
Monk said nothing, and the nurse finally busied himself taking his blood pressure, temperature, and also listened to Monk’s heart with a stethoscope. He entered the numbers on a computer that swung out from the wall on a metal arm. Then he cleared his throat again and tried to sound conversational. “I got a couple tats. A devil I got in college. Frat thing … you know how that is. And others I got in Arizona when I went to visit the Grand Canyon. Other places, too. Some people get bumper stickers, I get ink.” Like a lot of nurses he wore a long-sleeved Henley under his scrubs and didn’t offer to show the tattoos to Monk. Which was good, because Monk truly could not have cared less. He also disliked the man for calling them “tats” instead of tattoos.
The nurse gave up trying to be social and lapsed into asking the usual medical history questions—health insurance, address, age, weight, if he was on any meds. Monk’s answers were short, accurate, and left no conversational door open. The nurse typed it all into the computer, then went away, saying the doctor would be in to see him. Monk managed to forget Mäsiarka almost at once.
Instead he thought about what must be going on in Patty’s head. How much does a person have to drink to forget their child? Especially after what happened to the little girl. And with that sweet face tattooed on her own hand. That math made no sense to him and there was no scenario he could build that offered a framework of probability.
“Come on, Pats,” he said softly, “it’s Tuyet. Come on, now…”
The triage bay was silent around him and he conjured no answers.
Fifteen minutes later a slim figure materialized outside of the bay.
“Mr. Addison?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Dr. Argawal.” He looked like he was ten years old and was clearly right out of medical school. Mild Mumbai accent overlaid with the nasal tones of Philadelphia. He flashed a bright smile that showed none of the erosion that would sand the edges off it if he worked that gig for much longer. The smile flickered as he came around and saw the gun, but he made no comment. Clearly Mäsiarka had mentioned it, and was likely sharing the news with the police stationed at the hospital. There would be drama. But not from the doctor, who kept everything in neutral.
Monk nodded but said nothing.
The doctor’s eyes kept flicking to the faces on Monk’s arms and shoulders. He so wanted to ask questions, but wasn’t yet that kind of person. Monk watched him trying not to look as Argawal put on a pair of pale-blue plastic nitrile gloves.
“Let’s see what’s what,” said the doctor as he peeled away the bloody towel. The puncture had stopped bleeding but Monk’s whole hand was puffed and red and looked like it felt.
“How did you hurt your hand?”
“Working in my basement,” said Monk, repeating a lie he’d told the nurse. “Was punching holes in some sheet steel for a shed I’m building.”
Argawal frowned at the wound, flicked a glance at Monk, and then bent closer to take a second look at the puncture.
“Punch press?” the young doctor asked, trying his level best not to let a skeptical eyebrow rise, but he wasn’t practiced enough at it. Monk kept a smile off his face.
“Yeah. Very fine bit, almost like a needle,” said Monk. The punch press thing was a stupid idea that he’d pulled right out of his ass, but once it was said out loud he had to stick to it.
“There’s quite a lot of bruising.”
“Yeah, well, when I do something I do the hell out of it.”
Dr. Argawal gave him a small smile and sent him for X-rays. When the pictures came back negative for broken metacarpals, the doctor put six stitches in, all the time telling Monk how lucky he was he didn’t have a broken hand.
“Yeah,” said Monk sourly, “people are always telling me how lucky I am.”
“The stitches can come out in a week or so. I can prescribe something for the pain if—”
“How’s Patty?” interrupted Monk.
“Miss Trang?” asked Argawal, suddenly very polite and formal. “We’re running tests.”
“Didn’t ask what you were doing, Doc. I asked how she was.”
The doctor’s expression went from young and feckless to middle-aged suspicious in the space of a blink. Then shutters dropped behind his eyes.
“We’ll know more when we get the test results,” he said without inflection.
And that was that. The big nurse showed Monk to the waiting room and then Monk was alone again. For a long time.