Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

the hospital, we were taken right in to the ER. I knew this was because our attackers would be brought in right after us and that Augie and I would have to be kept separate from them.
    I was led to an examination area by the paramedics and helped up onto the bed. They did the same with Augie, only they took him to the other end of the ER so we couldn’t talk. After a few minutes two uniformed cops approached Augie. I watched as he talked to them for a while. Every now and then he nodded toward me, and whenever he did the cops would glance over their shoulders at me, then turn back to Augie. Eventually an ER doctor in green scrubs showed up and the cops stepped away. The doctor drew the curtain closed around himself and Augie. The cops just looked at me then, till finally they started toward me. Before they could get to me, though, someone came into my area and drew the curtain closed around me, cutting them off.
    I expected a doctor, but instead it was a nurse named Gale Nolan.
    She had short dark hair and was taller than I by a few inches and older by ten years. She had been my night nurse a few years back when a slug from a .45 crushed my collarbone during the last of my foolish favors for people. I’d made the papers then, and Gale kept the reporters away for the month I was laid up in the hospital. She was big on celebrity gossip and visited me often and talked to me about people I had never heard of. It was nice to just listen, to be with someone and not have to talk. She seemed accepting of me, more so than others, and she didn’t ask a lot of questions about me or my past. I got the sense that she knew enough.
    “Gale,” I said.
    “I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again,” she teased. She stepped directly in front of me to examine the cut on my forehead.
    “I stayed away for as long as I could.”
    “I’m a magnet, aren’t I?” She lifted the bandage, her eyes squinting as she studied the wound. “You play too rough. Mac.” She removed the bloodied bandage and then tossed it into a garbage can. It landed inside with a light slapping sound. “You’re going to need a few stitches. There are easier ways to see me, you know.”
    “I don’t have any money, Gale. I can’t pay.”
    “Actually, your big friend over there says Frank Gannon is paying. Is that true? Are you mixed up with Gannon? I thought you were smarter than that.”
    “I’m not mixed up with anyone, Gale.”
    “But you’re working for him?”
    “It was just a one-time thing,” I lied. “I needed the money.”
    “I can get you a job here, you know that. We need orderlies, especially in the emergency room on weekends.”
    “I need more than what that kind of job would pay. You know what it’s like out here.”
    She unwrapped a fresh gauze, then carefully pressed it to my cut. I felt a sharp pinch.
    “Just when I stopped worrying about you, you waltz right back in here and get me started all over again.”
    “I hardly think I waltzed, Gale.”
    She paused, busying herself with examining my wounds, then said, “Someone told me you saw someone get killed tonight, and that you almost got yourself killed in the process. Is that true?”
    I nodded.
    “You play too rough, Mac. Have I mentioned that?”
    “Like I said, it was a one-time thing.”
    “I take it you haven’t heard, then.”
    “Heard what?”
    “The cops were talking. One of their own got killed tonight.”
    “When?”
    “Just a little while ago, as they were bringing in one of the men who ran you off the road. The guy had a broken hand or something, his wrist was all swollen, so the cop didn’t cuff him. On the way in the guy started convulsing in the back, and the cop pulled over to check him out. But it was a trick. Somehow the guy got hold of the cop’s gun and killed him. They found the patrol car a few minutes ago, empty. Every cop in town is out on the road now, looking for the killer. They’re going to want to talk to you, find out what you know about this guy.”
    “I don’t know anything. I never even got a good look at him.”
    “Who’s your big friend?”
    “His name is Augie.”
    “What do you know about him?”
    “Not much. Why?”
    “He’s got two healed-over gunshot wounds. That’s one more than you. In my book that makes him double trouble.”
    “In my book it makes him lucky.”
    “Maybe. One thing I’ve learned from this job is you can gauge a man’s judgment by the condition of his body. So my guess is you