WHEN David closed the door, the man rolled onto his side and regarded him with red, mouselike eyes. Though his scalp was shaven clean, David could see from his eyebrows and the tint of the stubble that he was a redhead. The Kinko's hero.
"What's your position here?" he asked.
"Why?" David said. "Am I in trouble?"
"Are you the attending?"
"I am." David picked up the chart, noticing much of it was blank. "And you are…?"
The man glanced nervously at the closed door. "Ed Pinkerton."
"Ed Pinkerton," David said, writing it down. "That'll do."
"Look, I had an accident cleaning my gun and shot myself."
"In the ass?"
"Yes. In the ass. I would prefer that we handle this quickly, and with as few people as possible. Getting through the press outside made me nervous enough."
"Depending on how deeply that bullet is lodged, I may have to call surgery."
Ed swung his legs down, leaning heavily on his hands to keep the weight off his rear end, and found his feet. "I'm sorry," he said. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."
He grabbed his shirt from the chair and started putting it on. The shirt had been covering a red book. The title caught David's eye-Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance. A bookmark with a logo that appeared to be a brain protruded from between the pages. Ed quickly draped his pants over the book, hiding it again.
David went to rest a hand on Ed's shoulder, then thought better of it. "Listen," he said, "let me take a look. Maybe I can handle it down here."
Ed held his eyes for a moment, as if deciding whether he could trust him. "You won't call PD?"
"I'm vaguely familiar with your history," David said. "This was a gruesome copy accident, correct?"
Ed grimaced. "A day at Kinko's gone terribly awry." His skin was almost impossibly pale; the blue cubital veins forked through the soft underside of his forearm like roads on a map. Ed studied the ceiling for a moment. "I won't bullshit you," he finally said. "I'm on parole, and I've been making good for me and my little girl. I shouldn't have gotten involved the way I did, breaking up that robbery. I wanted to protect the workers in there, but I don't know how this'll play to my PO. It'll probably be fine, given the eyewitnesses and all, but I'm not eager to find out. I'd appreciate your help here."
David studied his face, searching for signs of dishonesty. He decided he liked what he saw. "If I report the gunshot wound, you're going to limp out of here before the cops show up. Given that your injury was sustained on the right side of the law, I'd rather have you walk out upright." He nodded once, slowly. "Deal?"
Ed ran a hand over his bald scalp. "Deal."
He lay back down and David parted the gown in the back and examined the wound. "Someone's been prying at this," David said.
"My buddy got the slug out with a pair of snub-nosed pliers."