Chapter 12: Chicago

I already had one in mind.

When I was a paramedic, there was an orthopedic surgeon who ran trauma call at the county hospital on the nights nobody wanted.

He used to meet my rig at the ambulance doors in his socks.

He taught me how to splint a femur in the back of a moving truck, and he yelled at me exactly once, when I was right and too polite about it.

Chicago hired him away three years ago. He fixes shoulders for a living now.

I called him from the hallway outside Doug's office.

He picked up on the second ring and said, "Molloy. Are you in jail?"

"Not yet. I need a favor."

Two days later Tate drove us down I-94 in his truck with his right arm in a sling.

I had the snacks. He had opinions about the snacks.

"You bought the pretzels with no salt."

"Your blood pressure's been through a lot."

"My blood pressure is a professional athlete."

"Your blood pressure is a healthy scratch."

He laughed so hard he had to put both hands on the wheel, and then remembered he couldn't, and swore.

We crossed the state line and he made me sing the Illinois song.

"There's no Illinois song."

"There's always a song. You make one up. The twins do it."

I made one up. It rhymed Illinois with annoy.

"That's the best one I've heard," he said. "Don't tell the twins."

The surgeon's office was on the eleventh floor of a glass tower near the lake.

He was shorter than I remembered, and grayer, and still wore no shoes behind his desk.

He looked at the outside MRI on his screen for a long time.

Then he examined Tate's shoulder with his thumbs while Tate stared at the ceiling and breathed through his nose.

"Who's been injecting this?"

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