George tied off as many veins and arteries as he could tie off, and when her heart started to be-bop he had shot her full of Digitalin. Whole blood arrived. Cops brought it. Want to bring her up, doc? one of them had asked and George had told him not yet, and he got out the needle and stuck the juice to her like she was a junkie in dire need of a fix.

Then he let them take her up.

Then they had taken her back.

On the way she had awakened.

Then the weirdness started.

3

George gave her a shot of Demerol when the paras loaded her into the ambulance—she had begun to stir and cry out weakly. He gave her a boost hefty enough for him to be confident she would remain quiet until they got to Sisters of Mercy. He was ninety per cent sure she would still be with them when they got there, and that was one for the good guys.

Her eyes began to flutter while they were still six blocks from the hospital, however. She uttered a thick moan.

“We can shoot her up again, doc,” one of the paras said.

George was hardly aware this was the first time a paramedic had deigned to call him anything other than George or, worse, Georgie. “Are you nuts? I’d just as soon not confuse D.O.A. and O.D. if it’s all the same to you.”

The paramedic drew back.

George looked back at the young black woman and saw the eyes returning his gaze were awake and aware.

“What has happened to me?” she asked.

George remembered the man who had told another man about what the woman had supposedly said (how she was going to hunt the motherfucker down and kill his ass, etc., etc.). That man had been white. George decided now it had been pure invention, inspired either by that odd human urge to make naturally dramatic situations even more dramatic, or just race prejudice. This was a cultured, intelligent woman.

“You’ve had an accident,” he said. “You were—”

Her eyes slipped shut and he thought she was going to sleep again. Good. Let someone else tell her she had lost her legs. Someone who made more than $7,600 a year. He had shifted a little to the left, wanting to check her b.p. again, when she opened her eyes once more. When she did, George Shavers was looking at a different woman.

“Fuckah cut off mah laigs. I felt ’em go. Dis d’amblance?”

“Y-Y-Yes,” George said. Suddenly he needed something to drink. Not necessarily alcohol. Just something wet. His voice was dry. This was like watching Spencer Tracy in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, only for real.

“Dey get dat honkey mahfah?”

“No,” George said, thinking The guy got it right, goddam, the guy did actually get it right.

He was vaguely aware that the paramedics, who had been hovering (perhaps hoping he would do something wrong) were now backing off.