“How can I help you, sir?”
She glanced at my hand, which was dripping blood, and then at the bullet hole in my leather jacket at the shoulder. Calmly, she took in the rest of my outfit, my gloves, my helmet, and my backpack. Her hand moved toward the phone.
“I know how this looks,” I said. “I’ve been shot, and I can’t go to the hospital because they’ll ask too many questions.”
“Yes,” she said, uncertainly. “Criminals come in looking like you.”
“What if I told you I’m not a bad guy?”
“They all say that,” she said, “and then they pull a gun on me.”
I looked around the waiting room. No one was there apart from her and me. I took my backpack from my shoulders and handed it to her. “The gun’s in there,” I said.
She took the pack and looked inside.
“Look,” I said. “I understand that you’re supposed to call the police, and I understand that you don’t know me, and don’t know what kind of man I am, so I’m just going to be straight with you.”
“Please do.”
“I do break the law from time to time.”
“No kidding.”
“But I don’t hurt people.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“And I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I see.”
“But I am asking you for your help. I got shot tonight, by a man who’s engaged to get married.”
“That doesn’t sound like a situation in which you’d usually get shot.”
“Well, he’s engaged to my girl. The woman I’m supposed to marry. Do you understand that? She’s the love of my life, she’s the air I breathe, and she was going to marry him. She’s my girl. I swear it.”
“Does she know that?”
“I think she does.”
“Then why is she engaged to the other guy?”
“Because I’ve been a fool. I hesitated when I should have made a move. I’ve been in love with her my entire life, but I didn’t have the balls to tell her when I should have.”
“That’s pretty stupid.”
“Yes, it is, but I’m fixing it now,” I said. “Step one was to tell her fiancé he couldn’t have her.”
“And he didn’t like that?”
“He put this bullet in my arm,” I said, “if that answers your question.”
“But how am I supposed to know that you’re the one she’s supposed to be with, and not the other guy?” the nurse said.
“I’ll tell you why,” I said. “Because I’m truly in love with her. I’ve been in love with her since the moment I set eyes on her, and that was a very long time ago. I’m thirty-eight years old, but I first met her when I was twenty-one. Her father took me in, trained me in my trade, and we both grew up in the same house.”
“So that’s why you never told her you loved her?”
“Yes, because we were supposed to be a family. But in my heart, she was always the one. I just couldn’t see it. I didn’t allow myself to see it. And I let her go from man to man, always selling herself short. None of the guys she was with were ever good to her. When I confronted her fiancé tonight, he was with another woman. His secretary.”
“He was cheating on her?”
“Yes.”
“And they aren’t even married yet?”
“That’s the God’s honest truth,” I said.
“And what are you going to do about it?”
I thought for a second. “Well, for a start, I’m going to tell her what a fool I’ve been. Then I’m going to make it up to her for everything that I’ve done wrong in the past seventeen years. Then I’m going to give her the life she deserves.”
“That’s a lot.”
“But I can’t do it while I’m losing half a quart of blood per hour,” I said, raising my arm.
She looked at my shoulder, then at my face. She sighed. “All right,” she said, “but you can’t ever tell anyone about this. My boss would lose his license if it got out.”
“I won’t be telling anyone,” I said. “Is your boss here?”
“No, he only comes in if there’s an emergency. I can take out the bullet and patch you up.”
“All right,” I said.
I followed her back to the operating room. There was a sedated dog on the bed, asleep.
“What’s wrong with him?” I said.
“He stepped on a piece of glass. Someone was inconsiderate enough to leave broken glass where a dog might step on it.”
I removed my jacket and shirt and lay back on the table next to the dog. I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists, and twenty minutes later the bullet was out of my shoulder and the hole was stitched up.
“I still recommend you see a real doctor,” the girl said.
“I’ll be fine.” I reached into my bag and pulled out ten hundred-dollar bills and handed them to her.
“This is too much.”
“It’s the least I can do,” I said.
As I made my way for the door she called after me. “Don’t you want to stay for a few hours and rest? That was a deep wound.”