The scene as the electronic doors to the ER swung open was as familiar to Lou as his bedroom, only now he was on the fringes of the action looking in. He managed a thank-you to the team for their professionalism and kindness, just as nurses converged on the stretcher, and with quiet efficiency began the hookup to monitoring equipment, oxygen, and IV poles. Cap woke up moaning as four of them, using the sheet beneath him, transferred him to a bed with a stretcher lashed to the end of it to accommodate his splint.

Good stuff.

A stout, hard-looking ER nurse asked Lou to wait off to one side while the team went to work. It seemed as if everyone knew he was an ER doc, but how good an ER doc was anyone’s guess, and this wasn’t the time to find out. Clearly, Floyd Weems’s clothes did nothing to enhance their confidence in him.

He thought through how the team at Eisenhower would handle things if he were in charge. He’d order labs including a six-unit crossmatch, recheck Cap’s vitals and, ready to intubate him if his respiratory rate fell, administer enough pain medication to perform a decent exam before positioning him for x-rays. Arbor General was a top-notch academic hospital, and everyone here was speaking the same language as at Eisenhower—the language of competence and caring.

On a scale of ten, activity in the massive ER seemed to be perking along at about a four. Lou had heard enough to know that the place was abuzz over the ingenious in-field reduction of Cap’s compound fracture, and the fact that the patient himself had assisted in the procedure. Soon the hospital grapevine, assuming it was as efficient as the supersonic one at Eisenhower, would have carried the news to the remotest corners of the place.

Lou waited until the initial commotion had settled down, and moved over to the doc in charge, a handsome, broad-shouldered man with a Hollywood jaw and coppery skin, who looked as if his teenage years were not that far behind him. They moved out to the hallway, exchanged introductions, and agreed to use first names. Cap’s life was, for the moment, in the hands of Dr. Hal Garvey and his staff.

If Lou’s unusual attire registered, Hal Garvey didn’t show it. There wasn’t much any ER doc or nurse hadn’t seen in one form or another.

“You look like you could use some medical attention, yourself,” Garvey said, pointing to the gouge running down the side of Lou’s bruised and dirty face.

“I’m okay,” he said. “For the moment, all I’m worried about is my friend. His real name is Hank. Cap is something from his career as a prizefighter. Not many people call him anything other than that.”