“You’re doing great, pal,” Lou said to him. “You’re one tough customer, I’ll tell you that. You are really something.…”

Lou checked the youth’s blood pressure. One hundred.

Reasonable.

He continued the stream of encouraging banter.

“You’re doing just great, Joey … just great.…”

“Out!… Out! Okay, back off, everyone. Please.” Millie Neuland came rushing through the crowd. If she had aged since any of the dozens of photographs of her were taken, Lou could see no evidence of it. Gray, tousled hair, round wire-rimmed glasses, bright blue eyes, rouged cheeks, finely painted eyebrows, and a nearly perfectly round face. Her gingham dress, frilly half apron, and single strand of pearls completed the picture.

The quintessential grandmother.

Lou had begun wiping off the boy’s pallid cheeks.

Millie knelt next to him, mindless of the blood. “The ambulance is on the way,” she said to no one but Lou, a genteel Southern lilt in her speech. “If you’re not a doctor, son, you dang well should be. I’m Millie Neuland.”

“I guessed. Lou Welcome. I’m an ER doc at Eisenhower.”

“Lucky us. Oh, Joey! Can you hear me, baby? You got a doctor right here with you.”

Joey’s eyes fluttered open. “Hi … Ma.”

“Your son?” Lou asked.

“Might as well be. His name’s Joey Alderson. Been here at the restaurant for years. Looks twelve, but he’s near twenty-five.”

“Ma, I really messed up this time,” Joey managed in a hoarse whisper.

“How bad?” Millie asked Lou. There was emotion in her voice, but her tone was that of a woman used to being in charge and dealing with crisis.

“He put his hand under a knife that was chopping carrots. My father, the guy over there in green, and I were sitting just a few feet away.”

“How bad?” the restaurateur asked again, encouraging no mincing of words.

Lou glanced down at Joey, who appeared to have drifted off. “Reimplantation,” he said, sensing the word was one that the youth was unlikely to completely understand. “We have some wonderful hand surgeons at Eisenhower Memorial. I can make some calls and we can get him over there.”

“I don’t know you, and I don’t know any of the doctors at Eisenhower Memorial,” Millie replied, “but since you work at one of the big hospitals in the city, you might know that many folks out here consider a referral to there tantamount to a death sentence. We’re very proud of our hospital here. My restaurant is one of its biggest supporters. In fact, the surgical suite is named for me and this place. Joey’s a little … limited in some ways. He may frighten easily. The doctors at DeLand know him well. They know how to be sensitive to his needs.”

“I understand,” Lou said, now measuring every single word carefully. “The metropolitan hospitals in cities like D.C. all have the reputation you spoke about—mostly because people who are referred in are usually quite ill.”

From the distance, they could now hear the siren of an approaching ambulance. Lou knew that, assuming his concerns about DeLand Regional were on the mark, time was running out on his chances to get Joey Alderson into the city.