“Oh, Lord,” I said to Dano. “Buzz will pass out if he has to deal with that Pansy, the evil incarnate who’s in there.”
Dano chuckled.
“It’s not funny. He’s such a wimp. Why on earth would she want to talk to him?”
“They’re pretty tight. She hired him and kinda took him under her wing. More like a mother figure, if you can believe that a Sterling could have maternal feelings.”
“Ah.” That’s why he was so upset to visit her the last time.
Before I could say a thing, Dano had his cell phone out and was ordering Buzz to get his ass over here.
I looked at Jagger. “What?”
He smiled. “This is gonna be better than Leno’s monologue.”
I punched his arm, turned, and punched Dano. “You were thinking the same thing,” I said when he looked at me all confused.
But in the back of my mind, I worried that poor Buzz Lightyear would not survive on his own.
I needn’t have worried about dear Buzz last night I thought as I fixed my horrible tea in the TLC lounge. By the time he’d gotten to the hospital—looking much paler than Pansy herself—curiously enough, she’d gone back into a coma.
Self-induced?
No one could be sure, but darling Buzz and I were off the hook.
Jagger, Dano, and I had waited to go in with him, and when he came down the hallway with tears in his eyes, I was glad we all had. The guys were shits at times, but each had a heart of gold, and both would rather kill themselves than admit it.
“Morning, Pauline,” Buzz said, coming up from behind me in the lounge.
I touched his arm. “Oh, hey, how are you today?”
“I’m fine, ma’am.” He spilled a droplet of coffee on my clog.
We both looked down at the same time to see it spread out like a California wildfire on my white shoe. Before he could do his usual apology, I said, “Don’t worry about it,” but in seconds, he was down on all fours wiping away.
Yes, I felt stupid and sorry for him all at the same time.
“Bu…Jeremy.” I touched his shoulder.
He stood up and threw the paper towel toward the trashcan.
It landed on ER Dano’s shoe.
Yikes. I hurried over and said, “Hey, morning,” so he wouldn’t take it out on poor Buzz, who was now bending down to pick it off Dano’s very worn black boots. They had character in themselves, and I’m sure some stories to tell.
Thank goodness Lilla sashayed into the room at that very moment before Dano punted Buzz across the room.
She gave Buzz a big smile.
He seemed more nervous than usual, but she sat next to him and gave him a big smile.
“Talk about the odd couple,” Dano muttered.
I slugged his arm and said, “Shut up,” just as #456 came over the intercom. “Ten fifty-four on 442 Lincoln Street.
Dano, Buzz, and I threw our mugs down on the table and hurried out. Lilla wished us luck, and in her Canadian accent I thought she sounded so cool.
Buzz was blushing from ear to ear when we got to the ambulance, where we all stuck on rain gear since a monsoon had decided the flowers needed watering. Dano insisted on driving—with me up front.
Darling Buzz didn’t argue, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I think the sweetie actually winked at me!
Dano drove #456 like it was a multi-million dollar Rolls. No one took corners as smoothly or got us to our destination as quickly. On the way, he’d explained to me that the call was a teenager who supposedly was having a panic attack of some sorts according to the caller, a neighbor.
“Might be drugs,” Dano said, as we pulled down Lincoln Street.
“Over there,” I said, pointing to a green and beige three-story, old house with two cop cars parked in front. “Cops?”
Dano jumped out, and Buzz already was there getting the bag. “Neighbors didn’t tell dispatch everything,” he growled.
We ran toward the back of the house where the two cops were standing. Just our luck that the rain seemed to pour harder, which seemed impossible. I could barely see with the hood of my yellow slicker up and no windshield wipers to keep my vision clear.
Dano yelled to the cop, “What’s up?”
The one nearest the door pointed toward the house. “She’s in there. Be careful.”
Careful? Did he mean that she was in such bad shape that we had to take care not to let her die or—
Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream followed by ripe cursing came from the house.
Dano shook his head, “Shit. Nutcase.”
I wanted to chastise him, but we didn’t have time. First he yelled to the cops to stay out in front, in case any family members came home or neighbors came by to gawk. Then we all hurried in, slipping and sliding on the hardwood floors.
“You fuckers get the hell out of my house!” the voice came from what must have been the bathroom because there was a shower running.
“You think she’s going to commit suicide?” Buzz asked.
Dano looked at him for a second. “If I could see through the freaking walls, I’d let you know.”
And she said, “It’s the end.”
With that he ran down the hallway and shoved open the door to the bathroom after shouting, “What’s wrong, ma’am?”
Dano’s shoulder must have hurt, was all I could think as he broke the door open.
We all took a step forward and stopped.
There in the shower stall was a teenage girl, about fifteen or sixteen, with her underwear on, standing in the middle of the tub with steaming hot water pulsating down on her, holding a soggy stuffed Snoopy doll. Even her legs were beet red from the heat. In the other hand she held a knife.
God, how I hated knives.
But at least this one looked like a butter knife, which made me feel a lot better. In seconds, Dano had it out of her hand and had her in his grasp and out of the hot water.
I reached over to turn it off, and she kicked and screamed, nearly shoving me into the tub, which had the stopper in so it was full of hot water.
I felt a hand on my back and looked to see Buzz pulling me back up. “You all right, Miss Pauline?”
“Fine.” I turned to see the girl slug Dano in the groin, him yelp, and let her go—so she took off running down the hallway.
Dano looked at me. “Shit. Why is it that I always attract the whackos?”
Since I didn’t have time to answer, or agree with Dano (although I did), we ran out, following Buzz who was following the patient. I wanted to throw a robe on her since her underwear had now become quite transparent.
When we got to the doorway, the cops were gone. Dano muttered a few curses and said they better just be in front as he’d told them to wait, and we both looked up.
Buzz was running and sliding in the wet grass like Bambi on ice. The girl, however, seemed to have better traction with her bare feet, which I guessed were very used to no shoes. Calluses probably helped.
“Leave me the hell alone!” she shouted.
Several neighbors came to the fence and one yelled, “Rebecca is not supposed to even be here. Her old man took her to the mental hospital yesterday. Guess she got out.”
Dano and I looked at each other.
“You go left,” he ordered.
I followed his suggestion, but when I got close enough to grab her, I ended up in a heap on top of Buzz, not even sure what went wrong other than the girl was slick. And not just because she was wet.
I could see Dano get close enough to grab her, but he hesitated. No loose clothing to grab on to. The underwear clung like a second skin, and obviously Dano didn’t want to grab just anything.
“Can’t you get one little lady?” the burly cop rounding the corner of the house called out to Dano.
I heard a new curse word this time and thought the guy was taking his life into his hands, and I wouldn’t want to be in his black boots once Dano had Rebecca secure on the stretcher.
The other cop came up behind him, and they started laughing. I looked to see Dano and Buzz trying to grab the girl like a proverbial greased pig—but to no avail.
“Come on, Nightingale. Get your ass over here!” Dano shouted.
I got up, couldn’t help but wipe some recently cut grass from my raincoat, and ran toward where he pointed, trying to ignore the squish of my shoes and the mud that dotted my outfit.
After what seemed like we’d tackled each other and not the patient until the fourth quarter of a football game, we came at Rebecca from three directions and all landed in a heap in the middle of the yard.
She looked at me and said, “Hey, my name is Rebecca. What’s yours?”
I bit my tongue while Dano took off his raincoat to cover the girl.
Wow. How sweet.
And my heart did a little end zone touchdown happy dance.
We got Rebecca safely to the hospital. Dano followed the ER doctor’s orders en route to medicate her since she’d freaked out. Dano and I took her in while Buzz was to clean up the ambulance. When we stood talking to the doctor, he came in and handed Dano the half vial of medication used on Rebecca to get a new one, then Buzz went back out to the ambulance.
I watched the nurse throw what was left out and give Dano the new one to replace in his box. In Room 3, I could hear poor Rebecca screaming and wanted to go hug her. I did step in and try to talk to her until she tried to bite me. With that I looked at the staff, wished them well, and was out the door to find the guys.
“Got a chest pain,” Buzz yelled in the doorway.
Dano and I hurried out the doorway and off to another run. This job was truly exhausting, and I could see how someone in it year after year could burn out. I’d been there, done that in medicine myself.
One could only take watching the suffering of human beings for so long.
Still, as evidenced by Dano covering up Rebecca, the guy had kept his smarts about him and his heart.
If he stayed at TLC much longer…who knew what he’d end up like?
Buzz seemed delighted to be driving, and when we got to the address of the eighty-four-year-old woman with chest pain, he went to call in on the radio. Dano and I jumped out and hurried to the front door where an elderly man stood—nearly in tears.
We worked on Helen, the lovely woman who didn’t seem in any real distress. I gathered her chest pain was muscular, and the monitor said the same. But we still started an IV, gave her oxygen, and got her into the ambulance with the cardiac monitor attached.
Helen was a peach. She giggled like she was back in the thirties. After she said the pain was gone, she talked non-stop in the sweetest little old lady voice.
And she had a penchant for Dano.
I winked at him a few times while he carried on a conversation with the darling woman.
Thump!
Dano and I looked at each other then toward the back door where the sound had come from.
“What the hell?” he said, staring.
A sparrow glared back at him.
Dano and I looked at each other then at the bird whose wing must have gotten caught in the crack of the doors.
Dano banged on the window and told Buzz to stop for a second. Thank goodness Helen didn’t look to be in any distress. Suddenly Dano and I must have thought of the absurdity of the scene at the same time and both broke out in laughter. The bird, too, didn’t seem to be in any distress.
“What’s wrong, Boss?” Buzz asked.
“Stop this thing. There’s a bird caught in the door.”
As usual, Buzz kept up his questioning. I’d noticed he always had to find out details. Well, I guessed being a detail man was good for this profession, but I also wondered if Buzz would really survive it.
“How do you know?” Buzz asked, still not pulling over.
I thought Dano would explode. “‘Cause he’s looking at me!” he shouted then he and I started to laugh uncontrollably.
Suddenly Helen waved a knobby finger at the two of us. “You two should be ashamed!” She went into a tirade about how we shouldn’t find it humorous that one of God’s creatures was stuck in the door.
Even when I tried to assure her that the bird didn’t look injured, she spat words at me that I don’t think ER Dano even knew!
After a few minutes I was ready to medicate Helen with whatever Dano had given Rebecca just to shut Helen up!
Buzz had pulled over.
Dano opened the door.
The sparrow happily flew away.
And we hit the siren and lights to get Helen to the hospital ASAP—or I think Dano would have slugged her!
The sweet, little, old lady had turned into a tyrant right before our eyes. We dropped her off, restocked, didn’t go say goodbye to her for fear we’d upset her more, and headed back to TLC—where I fixed myself a much needed cup of stale tea.
And when I sat down to sip it, I realized that life was strange, people even stranger, and looking over the room of paramedics and EMTs, wondered if there was a murderer among us.
Dano, Buzz, and I had the worst day on record. After two more calls, one for a child who had a toy hatchet stuck up his nose and couldn’t breath well, and the other for a construction worker who fell off the scaffolding and broke his back, we drove down through the worst section of Hope Valley with Buzz at the wheel.
He’d bothered Dano so much about being able to drive, Dano gave in, I’m sure just to shut up the eager “Sparkie.”
I leaned against the back wall of the ambulance and shut my eyes, trying to think out the case. This one had turned out to be a doozie. Way too many types of fraud to pinpoint anyone right off the bat. And I knew, just knew, that the murder and attempt on Pansy’s life were all related. I also knew money had to be the root of it all. Why else commit the fraud?
I tried to think of what I knew about the employees at TLC and whether anyone had new “toys” like a car that would warrant looking into. Just then, the ambulance jolted and my head swung forward and back, smacking the wall. “Ouch!”
Buzz’s voice came through the open window with, “Did you see that oil truck pull out in front of me?”
Dano’s disgusted voice yelled, “It’s parked, you jerk!”
“Oh,” Buzz mumbled.
I had to smile to myself, knowing we were alright. I got out to see Dano already looking at the front of the ambulance to assess the damage.
He turned to me, and I gave him a weak smile hoping that would help, yet not knowing what the heck it would help. “Just a minor scratch. Get in,” Dano muttered. We looked around.
No Buzz Lightyear.
Dano cursed. “Where the f—”
I pointed to the window in the house we’d “stopped” in front of. Through the curtainless window, we could see three disreputable looking guys—and sparkling, wrinkle-free Buzz Lightyear in the house of crack.
“Oh, Jesus,” Dano muttered, “they’ll surely kill him once he opens his mouth.” Then he turned to walk toward the house. “Stay in the back,” he ordered, and I sure didn’t want to get on his bad side right now.
Soon Buzz, looking very sheepish, came out with Dano right behind, looking as if he wanted to smack Buzz in the back of the head like a father and son.
Once they were safely inside, Dano said, “Why the hell would you have gone into a crack house?”
“To use the phone.” I thought Buzz sounded as if what he’d just said made perfect sense.
I could see Dano shake his head and decided to stay out of it. “We have a radio in here,” was all he said.
Buzz hesitated.
“What?” Dano said. “Get going!”
“I can’t just pull out. I need to back up.”
“Then back the hell up,” Dano said very gruffly.
“The rule is that you, the passenger, are supposed to get out and guide me.”
Oh boy. I had to give Buzz credit for having guts to stand up to ER Dano, who wasn’t in a very good mood, but Buzz was correct. The other person was supposed to get out to guide the driver.
But Dano turned to him and in a very threatening voice said, “Back this f’n thing up and let’s get back so we can go home today. That’s what you have side view mirrors for. You need to learn if you’re gonna continue in this job.”
Buzz put the ambulance in reverse.
I looked out the back window to see if I could help. Nothing. Coast clear. Thank the good Lord.
Smash!
There was a moment of silence from the cab of the ambulance. I stood to look out the window, flabbergasted that Buzz managed to find a cement pole, ones that were used to tie horses up to in the olden days and was now melded with the back of the ambulance. It had been much lower than my original sight of vision—and obviously Buzz’s too.
I couldn’t even imagine what would happen next.
Once the wrecker got the ambulance free, and once we were picked up by ambulance #277 and taken back to TLC, I sat in the lounge waiting for Dano—but I also had second thoughts about that one. Maybe I should get the hell out of there before he came out, since I was sure he wasn’t going to be his jolly self.
“Don’t even get close to me,” I heard Dano say.
But, and it didn’t surprise me, I also heard Buzz’s voice, “You didn’t have to do that for me. I’m touched.”
Yikes!
I hurried out into the hallway before Dano really “touched” Buzz.
Dano looked at me. “I’ll call you.” And then he was out the door.
I looked at Buzz.
He never took his eyes off of Dano’s back. “He covered for me. He said it was his fault, so I wouldn’t get in trouble.” Buzz turned to me. “I’ve had a few close calls before.”
I wanted to say, “Gee, what a surprise,” but knew better. Besides, the kid needed to vent. “So what happens to him?”
Buzz turned to me. “He’s so senior around here, they only gave him a day off…without pay.”
Oh…my…god.