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kneeled, his ear placed against the boards beside me. I twisted again and
gurgled a mixture of saliva and blood.
"I got you, Alex," Mercer said. "Hang tough, I'll get you out."
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The technician pushed back the enormous shell of the MRI machine that had
swallowed my entire body to take the images of my head and chest. "You can
open your eyes now. Was that okay for you?"
I had balked at the idea of going back inside such a confining enclosure, the
sense of claustrophobia still overwhelming me after the morning's experience.
I nodded without enthusiasm.
"What time is it now?" I asked, having spent a long afternoon in the
emergency room, being examined and completing a battery of X-rays before this
scan was ordered.
"Almost six o'clock."
"Will I be discharged now that you're done?"
"Dr. Schrem has admitted you, Miss Cooper."
I sat up and retied the hospital gown. "I'm really fine. The headache is
practically-"
"It wouldn't be smart to let you go without observing you overnight," he
said, motioning me to sit in the wheelchair. "You don't even know what the
object was that hit you on the head. A mild concussion alone would bear
watching."
This was the wrong guy with whom to argue. He handed my record to an older
gentleman whose sole job appeared to be to escort me from waiting area to
waiting area within New York University's massive medical center. My driver
took control of the handles and backed me through the double doors.
When they closed behind me and we started rolling down the corridor, Mike
jumped off a gurney he'd been sitting on and grabbed the wheelchair handles.
"Look, I'm sorry I-"
"I don't even want to see you tonight, Mr. Chapman. Get your hands off my
wheels-I wouldn't trust you to drive me from here to the cafeteria. I can't
believe that you went off and left me for dead. What were you thinking?
Where's Mercer?"
"Right here, Alex," he said, walking beside me and taking my hand in his.
"You know Mike isn't really a heartless son of a bitch. He's just not a
first-grader like I am. Might need to send him back to the Academy for a
refresher course in detection. Nobody was going to leave that park on my
watch."
"What's the room number, Pops?" Mike asked.
"Six-thirty. Elevator straight ahead."
"I want a drink."
"Not yet, kid. Doesn't mix with those painkillers the doc's got you on."
"Why can't I just take the medications and go home?"
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"'Cause whoever tried to put a hole in that thick skull," Mike said, "left a
sizable little lump that might have to be coated with peroxide if it sticks
out any farther on your scalp. I just knew we'd get to play doctor together
eventually."
I looked up at Mercer. "I'm not kidding. I really don't want him in my face
all night. I don't want him anywhere near me. He's bad for my blood pressure."
"You want an apology, blondie? That's what you want?"
"I want to be alone," I said, Garbo accent and all.
We got on the elevator and rode it up to six while Mike chattered. "You want
me to flog myself and put on a hair shirt for not having had the good sense to
think you were walled up behind a door or buried alive with a black cat.
Right? It just goes to prove my theory that this would never have happened if
you put on a little weight."
"Shut him up, Mercer."
"Fat people are harder to kidnap. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Wallace? You never
read in the paper that the victim of an abduction weighed in at three-fifty.
They're always skinny broads like you who get carted away. It's simply a fact,
and you can do something about it for the future, young lady."
We wheeled in front of the nurses' station and Mike put the brakes on the
chair. He lifted a bouquet of flowers from the top of the desk and dropped to
his knees in front of several doctors, nurses, and visitors who were passing
by.
"Coop, as long as I live I swear I'll never walk out on you again. I'll never
criticize your perfume or your heels or your hair color or your temper or-"
I unhitched the brake and pushed myself away from the onlookers toward the
wing that corresponded to the room number I had been assigned.
"I'll stop to look under the bed and inside the closet and even rip up the
floorboards next time I can't find you."
"So much for my anonymity," I said to Mercer, who had taken charge of pushing
me. "If they didn't know who I was before I got up here, I guess they'll
figure it out."
A nurse followed us into the room. "Need any help getting into the bed?" she
asked, taking my chart from the bewildered escort. "Stanley Schrem called.
He'll be by for rounds later this evening."
She waited until I settled back against the pillow and raised the bed's metal
railing before she and the escort left the room.
"Feel good?" Mercer asked.
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