The Fall-Down Artist by Thomas Lipinski Page B

miserably short. Patients, mostly violent trauma victims, were abundant, and the most popular insurance was the Department of Public Welfare card. At times the emergency room resembled a battlefield aid station, echoing with the screams of the injured and filled with a rush of interns and residents in blood-smeared white smocks. And yet Dorsey knew Gretchen embraced it as the finest classroom she had ever entered.
    In a misting rain Dorsey drove through the hospital’s parking lot and saw Gretchen at the ER door, examining her reflection in the glass. She was dressed in her customary working clothes: the Reebok shoes that allowed her to stay on her feet for hours, corduroy slacks, button-down oxford shirt, and white smock with nameplate. Dorsey could see that a twenty-four-hour on-call shift had done little to disturb her professional appearance. Tall, just a fraction under six feet, with slim legs and hips and just a hint of breasts, she looked striking and dignified.
    Dorsey pulled up and tooted the horn. A short black man in a security guard’s uniform joined Gretchen at the doorwith an umbrella and led her out to the car, opening the passenger door.
    â€œYou late again,” the security guard said. “You always late. Take care with this woman. She’ll leave your ass behind.”
    â€œThank you, Henry.” Gretchen slipped into the car and brushed a drop of rainwater from her hair, which was short and tightly curled. “Let’s hope he learns in time. Have a nice evening.”
    â€œ ’Night, Dr. Keller.” Henry returned to his station inside the ER door.
    â€œSorry, I really am.” Dorsey put the car in drive and started back through the lot. “My father called and wanted to see me.” From the car’s tape deck, Sinatra sang “A New Kind of Love.”
    â€œAnd the Celtics and Atlanta went into overtime.” Gretchen smiled and jabbed a finger in his shoulder. “The residents’ lounge has cable TV. We do get an occasional break.” She gave him another jab, then settled into her seat. “But you said your father called. That’s something different.”
    â€œWell, actually he didn’t call. Ironbox Boyle did the calling. She said that although he refuses to feed me he was willing and even interested in speaking with me.”
    â€œWhat was on his mind?” Gretchen looked off at the water as the car started across the Tenth Street bridge, heading for the flats of South Side.
    â€œSays he wants to make me rich.”
    â€œThat would be a decided improvement.” Gretchen leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. A grin worked its way across her face. “After he puts you in the chips, you can send a limo to pick me up twenty minutes late.”
    â€œThe shift was a bad one, huh?” Dorsey asked. “You said so in your message.”
    â€œA madhouse,” she said, letting the other matter drop. “Oh, the first six or seven hours were smooth enough. I even got a few hours’ sleep in the lounge. But then thingsstarted downhill. About ten this morning we got an eight-year-old boy with a broken left arm. The fracture was about midshaft in the ulna, and it was a clean one. No shattering and no splintering. We didn’t even bother with the orthopedic resident; I did the setting myself. Plastered myself, too. Well, halfway through the casting the cops come in with this guy for detox and he’s in the absolute depths of the DTs. The whole deal, seeing snakes and slapping at the bugs he says are swarming on his pants. Next thing you know, and I’m not sure how it happened, he breaks loose from the cops—one of which was a female, you’ll be pleased to hear.”
    â€œThere’s nothing wrong with female police officers.” Dorsey turned onto Wharton Street. “It’s just that most of them look more like female impersonators than female police