Bloody River Blues

Taurus swept around a curve, and the car braked to a stop beside him. It was the first car he had seen on this road all night.
    “WHAT YOU’RE EXPERIENCING is called phantom pain.”
    “Like Ghostbusters,” Donnie Buffett said.
    The woman smiled.
    Buffett shook his head as he laughed at his own tiny joke. Mostly, though, he was studying her. All right, she was a doctor and she was a woman. Well, Buffett knew better than to think it was weird that Dr. Weiser, this famous SCI specialist, wasn’t a man. But he could not get over what kind of woman shewas: young, early thirties, a sleek, pretty face, short, punky auburn hair, a pug nose, a chin dimple. Fingernails painted glossy white. Lipstick red as a stop sign. Under a white lab coat was a silk blouse printed with red and green and blue geometric shapes. And—in addition to dark stockings and black ankle boots that had hooks, not eyes, for the laces, she wore a black leather skirt. Almost a miniskirt.
    When she’d entered the room, the woman had stuck her hand out, firmly shook his, and said, “Wendy Weiser. Your SCI doctor. You’re the cop, right?”
    Buffett had cocked his head, brushed off the surprise, and said, “Hope you don’t mind if I don’t stand up.”
    “There you go,” she had said. “Today’s men. No chivalry to speak of.”
    Then Weiser had plopped down in a chair and started right off talking, flashing her green eyes at him. She repeated a lot of what Dr. Gould had said. She didn’t use the word “nonambulatory,” though her message was no better than his.
    She explained the pain he had been feeling in his legs was common in SCI trauma and was called “phantom pain.” That’s when he had made the Ghostbusters comment.
    Now, as Buffett studied her outfit, Weiser suddenly hopped up. She strode to the door and swung it closed, then returned. “There are rules, but . . . what’s life without risks, huh?”
    “I’m a pretty safe man to be in a closed room with, wouldn’t you say? I mean, I can’t exactly chase you around the room. When I get a wheelchair you better watch out.”
    “You and me, we’ll race someday.” She examined him with a curious smile. “Sounds like the gunman didn’t get your sense of humor.”
    “Hey, Doctor.” Buffett looked overtly grave. “If you’re gonna help me I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna teach you to speak cop.”
    “I say something wrong?”
    “Shooter.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Not gunman.”
    “Oh. You don’t say gunman?”
    “On TV they say gunman. We say shooter. Or perp.”
    “Perq?”
    “ Perp etrator. Perp.”
    “That’s great.” Her eyes widened. Buffett did not for a minute believe this enthusiasm but he appreciated it anyway. She added, “I’ll have to use that sometime. Perp. Would a perp also rob somebody? Like a burglar?”
    “Yup. Perp equals bad guy.”
    “So my ex-husband is a perp.”
    “Could be,” Buffett said. “And, while I’m giving you a lesson. He doesn’t shoot. He smokes them. Or dusts them. Or he lays the hammer on somebody. And if he kills them, he offs them or ices them or whacks or does them.”
    “You have to learn all this in cop school, huh?”
    “It’s more your postgraduate work.”
    “Officer . . .”
    “Donnie.”
    “And I’m Wendy. Everybody calls me Wendy.” She looked at him with mystified, amused eyes. “Donnie,I’ve got to say that most people aren’t quite so chipper after they’ve been through what you have.”
    He waved his arm vaguely toward his feet, signifying his injury. “This goes with the job description. You’re not willing to accept it you don’t sign on in the first place. Doesn’t mean I like it.”
    Could he really call her Wendy? She was a doctor . Then again, she was wearing earrings in the shape of tiny hamburgers.
    Weiser opened her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes; a lighter was stuffed efficiently into the cellophane wrapper of the pack. “You mind?”
    “No.”
    She asked, “You want one?”
    “No.”
    “Don’t tell,” Weiser said.
    “I don’t work vice.” Buffett realized he hadn’t shaved since he had been in the hospital. He guessed he looked like shit. Well, that was her problem. He didn’t have to look at himself.
    Weiser pulled the gray chair closer, inhaled deeply on the cigarette several times. She crossed her legs and bent down to stub out the cigarette on her boot heel. She dropped the butt in her pocket.
    “Evidence,” she said. She straightened up,