* * * * *
The drive to the hospital was uneventful, except when Leo began shoutin' the Lord’s Prayer at the top of his lungs, and I had to reach back, slap him on the ass and threaten to kill him. After that he just groaned every now and then.
We pulled into the emergency room parking lot around 2:30 A.M. The Doc ran inside. After a few minutes, he came out and waved me in. I got out of my car and dragged the parson inside. Mrs. Randall just sat in front seat of the reverend’s car, staring off into space.
It was a weeknight, so things were sort of slow in the hospital. The Doc and I got on either side of McLardy and took him into the treatment room. There we met Dr. Randall’s partner, Dr. Sloan. Together, the three of us got the preacher on the table face down and jerked off his pants. He uttered a curse and a moan, but none of us really gave a damn, especially Randall.
In fifteen minutes, it was over. The bullet was pulled out of McLardy’s left buttock; the hole was stitched up; various shots were given to ward off infection and all done without any local anesthesia. Leo was crying like a baby by then, but I figured that Doc Randall was entitled to his fun. After all, it wasn’t like he was going to charge him a fee or anything. However, in order to make the good reverend a bit more docile and easier to push around as I took him home, I did manage to convince Dr. Sloan to give Leo a hefty shot of morphine after Randall was done.
Once we had finished treating Leo, I pulled Randall to one side and explained the rest of the plan.
“We’re going to put Leo in his car, and I’ll drive him to his home. You and your wife will follow me to his house, and after I drop him off, you can bring me back here to get my car. After that, you two are on your own. My advice is for you to go back to the motel, get your wife’s car, go home and go to bed.”
I looked directly at Dr. Randall.
“You wanted to know about your wife. Well, by damn, now you know. I’ll drop by your office tomorrow afternoon and give you my bill. Rest assured that it will be more than we agreed upon, but we aren’t going to have any problems paying it, are we?”
He looked at me for a moment, and I saw him get a bit red in the face. After all, in his little world he was king. No one ever talked to him like I just did, but he wasn’t in his world now. He was in mine, and he knew it.
He swallowed hard and nodded his head.
We wrestled the reverend into the backseat of his car. By then, the morphine was hitting him hard, and he was alternating between giggling and praying. Mrs. Randall told me that he lived in the parsonage next to his church. I told them to lead the way, and I’d follow.
As we drove home, Leo began to call me his personal John the Baptist, a stern taskmaster who has set him back on the road to righteousness. I had to slap the bastard in the ass again to shut him up.
We pulled up to his house. After I rang the doorbell a couple of times, Mrs. McLardy, dressed in a robe, opened the door. I really didn’t know what to expect from her. She was the weak link in this whole mess, the only person who was truly innocent. The last thing she probably expected to see at four in the morning was her husband with a bullet hole in his ass and whacked out on morphine. I was ready for her to fall apart on me, but the lady surprised me.
She looked at her husband. Her eyes flashed white hot.
“Is the bastard goddamn drunk? I told him that if he came home like this again, I was going to shove my foot up his fucking ass.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Handling nasty mouth bitches was a specialty of mine.
“Lady, either help me get him to bed, or I’ll just dump him here. You decide. I really don’t give a goddamn.”
She looked me up and down a bit, grunted and let me in.
“This way,” she pointed, “put him in the guest room. I don’t want the son-of-a-bitch in bed with me.”
I took Leo into the room and tossed him on to the bed. With a groan, he rolled over and passed out.
I shut the bedroom door and turned around to face her. By now, she’d calmed down a bit and was giving me the once over.
“Who the hell are you? I’ve never seen you before.”
“Let’s just say that I’m the man who saved your man from getting killed by a jealous husband, okay? Normally, I wouldn’t be so blunt, but it’s late, and I suspect that this isn’t the first time you’ve caught him screwing around, is it?”
She looked at me a second and then snorted.
“Who was it this time? It isn’t that waitress again is it? I told that bitch to find someone else to screw, or I was going to rip out her heart.”
I just shook my head and silently thanked God I wasn’t married to this broad. I almost felt sorry for Leo when he sobered up.
“No, and it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that an irate husband shot him in his ass, but I managed to get it fixed with no police interference. I’ll let your husband explain the rest. I advise you just to wait and hear the story from him.”
This sort of stunned her into silence. I spun around on my heel and got the hell out of there.
Dr. and Mrs. Randall were waiting for me, and we drove back to the hospital in silence.
We pulled up next to my car, and I said, “You two were lucky tonight. Randall, remember, I’ll be by tomorrow with my bill. Good night.”
I got out of the car and got into mine. I was home and in bed in less than an hour.
Chapter 5
Scrambled Hard-Boiled Page 10