Read Denton - 01 - Dead Folks' Blues for Free Online

now I had an excuse to see Fletcher. But the more I thought of it, the better the idea seemed. Besides, if I went to the emergency room at the university medical center, my insurance would cover it. If I went to the local doc-in-a-box, it came out of my own pocket.
    It’s tough driving a straight shift car with a bum right leg. By now the ankle wouldn’t bend at all, so pressing the accelerator meant doing it all with hip and knee. The usual traffic out 21st Avenue didn’t help either. The university was still in session. It was a cool, clear night, and the streets were filled with freshly scrubbed little rich kids out for a stroll.
    The university area was one of my favorite parts of town, though. In a city full of automobiles, with lousy mass transit and few sidewalks, it was a delight to see strollers out enjoying the weather. It had turned into a beautiful evening.
    For once, my parking karma improved, and I was able to find a spot off 21st, barely a block from the emergency room. I limped up onto the walk and inched down to the huge glass doors, which slid open as I approached as if the building were hungry for another one. I checked in at the desk, described my problem, filled out paperwork for twenty minutes, then sat in a chair.
    Thank God I didn’t have a sucking chest wound.
    By nine o’clock, somebody deigned to see me. It was another hour before a doctor walked in and handed me the verdict. “Mr. Denton, we think you’re going to live,” he said.
    Typical E.R. humor. “Your X rays are fine. Nothing broken. I think it’s a bad sprain, maybe a pulled ligament. Nothing to take you down in the lower forty and shoot you over.”
    The doctor was young, fresh-faced, clean-cut, cheerful, with a white lab coat that had his name stenciled over the left pocket in green thread. He was obviously early enough in his shift that he could still put together a coherent sentence.
    “That’s great,” I said. “So what do I do with it?”
    “I’m going to wrap it for you,” he announced, pulling a chrome stool over to the foot of the table where I sat, bum leg dangling over the side. “Keep it elevated. Stay off it a few days. If the swelling hasn’t abated considerably in twenty-four hours, see your own doctor. Fair enough?”
    “Fair enough,” I said. The doctor unwrapped a flesh-colored elastic bandage—one the insurance company would probably be billed about a hundred bucks for—and started gently wrapping the softball attached to the end of my leg.
    “Say, Doc, I got a friend here in the hospital. He’s on staff and the med school faculty both. Conrad Fletcher.”
    I yelped as the gentle healing hand jerked my ankle about sixty degrees to the right.
    “Sorry,” the doctor said. “Hand slipped. Fletcher, you say?”
    “Yeah, Dr. Conrad Fletcher.” I couldn’t fail to notice that he was winding the bandage progressively tighter.
    “Yes, I know him. I did my surgical residency under him.”
    “Great. You wouldn’t happen to know if he’s around the hospital tonight, would you? I’d like to say hi.”
    The young doctor looked up at me, any trace of warmth gone from his face. “Check with the nurses’ station on the fourth floor. If he’s around anywhere, they’ll know.”
    He pushed two silver clips onto the bandage to secure it.He stood up, handed me some papers, and then was gone. A nurse came in after him with another set of papers for my signature. Then, thank heavens, my interface with the healthcare system was over.
    I asked for directions to the fourth floor nurses’ station.
    “East or west?” the blond, teenage candy striper asked. Again, I tried not to drool too loudly.
    “I don’t know. Whatever’s closest.”
    “Follow the yellow line down that hall. It’ll go left, then down another hall to a bunch of elevators. Grab one to the fourth floor and the nurses’ station should be right there.”
    “Great.” I limped away, following the yellow line down the hard linoleum as it