Don took a bite of banana and David felt his impatience growing as he waited for him to chew and swallow. Don gestured with his hand, the banana peel flopping over his thumb. "Let's just give the devil his due, all right?"

Too disgusted to respond, David walked back toward the CWA. In the hall, Diane was talking Carson through the process of putting a shoulder back in joint, letting him use her arm to practice the motion. David passed the nearest doorway and saw a young man in a UCLA tank top on the gurney inside, cradling his right arm, the shoulder clearly out of joint. If the kid knew the medical student resetting his arm was practicing the gesture for the first time two feet from his line of sight, he probably would've gotten up and walked out of the building.

"I hear you ducked out of tying sutures again this morning, Dr. Donalds," David said.

Carson looked up sheepishly. "The kid was a little uneasy. I didn't want to cart out a big needle or anything and freak him out."

"Oh. So you used Dermabond for his benefit."

"Exactly."

David pointed at him, mock authoritatively. "You're going to be my first professional embarrassment if you don't learn to stitch by the end of this rotation. Next windshield job we get in here, you're tying every last suture."

Carson gloomily returned to practicing on Diane's arm. David saw her cringe when he rotated it too briskly, and felt a fresh wave of sympathy for the injured kid. Hands-on training. Despite its drawbacks, the only way to train doctors.

When David swung into the CWA, Don was fielding questions and folders from a flurry of clerks and nurses. Pat was holding Don's arm a little too firmly, her face drawn tight. "I really think you should give Lembeck in Three something for the pain."

Don tapped Pat's shoulder with the chart and gave her a brief smile. "If you want to fly the plane, you really oughta be a pilot." Using the chart, he pushed her gently toward the door. "We need a vaginitis whiff test in Exam Eight."

"Carson told the wrong Martinez she was pregnant," one of the clerks said.

"I did not," Carson yelled from the hall.

"Poor girl was only fifteen." The clerk imitated a girl's crying voice: "But I only kissed him," he wailed.

"Jesus," Don said. "Always double-check the Martinezes and the Ramirezes. They all lo- " He caught David's glare and cut off his sentence midthought.

Jill appeared before David out of nowhere. "Houston, we have a problem. Gunshot wound in Four. He claims he has no insurance and would like to pay in cash."

"A GSW?" She nodded, and David quickened his pace to keep up with her. "Location of the wound?"

She swung open the door, revealing a man with a clean-shaven head, lying facedown in a gown on the gurney. He did not look up.

"Rear end," Jill said.

Chapter 9

WHEN David closed the door, the man rolled onto his side and regarded him with red, mouselike eyes. Though his scalp was shaven clean, David could see from his eyebrows and the tint of the stubble that he was a redhead. The Kinko's hero.

"What's your position here?" he asked.

"Why?" David said. "Am I in trouble?"

"Are you the attending?"

"I am." David picked up the chart, noticing much of it was blank. "And you are…?"

The man glanced nervously at the closed door. "Ed Pinkerton."

"Ed Pinkerton," David said, writing it down. "That'll do."

"Look, I had an accident cleaning my gun and shot myself."

"In the ass?"

"Yes. In the ass. I would prefer that we handle this quickly, and with as few people as possible. Getting through the press outside made me nervous enough."

"Depending on how deeply that bullet is lodged, I may have to call surgery."

Ed swung his legs down, leaning heavily on his hands to keep the weight off his rear end, and found his feet. "I'm sorry," he said. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

He grabbed his shirt from the chair and started putting it on. The shirt had been covering a red book. The title caught David's eye-Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance. A bookmark with a logo that appeared to be a brain protruded from between the pages. Ed quickly draped his pants over the book, hiding it again.

David went to rest a hand on Ed's shoulder, then thought better of it. "Listen," he said, "let me take a look. Maybe I can handle it down here."

Ed held his eyes for a moment, as if deciding whether he could trust him. "You won't call PD?"

"I'm vaguely familiar with your history," David said. "This was a gruesome copy accident, correct?"