Page 54 of Nicoletta
I sure the fuck hope so, but I keep that to myself. Nicoletta is half out of it, but I know she can hear us.
“Call the Seashell make sure the doc is there,” I say to Diesel.
“Where the hell else is he gonna be?” Diesel smirks. “He owns the place and lives in the back.”
“Just call him,” I repeat.
Forty minutes later, Manny pulls up to the front of The Seashell, a squat single-story building a block off the beach. The air smells like salt and neglect, with a single light over the door and a neon sign half burnt out, making it The Sea*hell. Accurate description.
I ease out from under a now delirious Nicoletta and head for the front door as Manny pulls the SUV around the back.
At one in the morning, the bar is filled with washed-out surfers and locals with nowhere else to go. I pick out Dr. Ezra Callahan perched at the end of the bar with no problem. This guy has been patching me up since way before I was a Royal Bastard. He’s maybe fifty-five, salt-and-pepper scruff along his jaw, shaggy hair pulled into a long braid halfway down his back, and the bored expression of someone who’s seen too much of life.
I move to his side at the bar, and he turns to me. “What the hell are you all dressed up for?” Then looks me over. “You don’t look in need of a doctor.”
I haven’t seen the guy in over a year, and it’s like I just saw him yesterday.
“It ain’t me.” I jerk my chin to the back of the room. “Your patient is around back.”
He nods, slides off the barstool, and heads for the back of the bar.
I catch the bartender’s eye, then nod at the empty tumbler on the bar. “How many has he had?”
The bartender shrugs. “Not many.”
I push off the bar and catch up with Callahan. His pace seems steady, and he’s definitely in better shape than when he sewed me up last year. Fuckin’ guy could barely stand upright, but he managed twenty stitches in my forearm. Doesn’t matter though ‘cause right now, he’s our only choice for getting Nicoletta patched up.
I follow him into a room just past the restrooms. Then he unlocks the door leading out to the alley, and Diesel steps inside, cradling Nicoletta.
I move to her side. “We’re gonna get you all fixed up, babe.”
A pool table pushed against the far wall, its green felt surface draped with a surgical sheet, serves as an examining table. A rolling tray sits beside it, instruments laid out and covered in sterile wrapping with a neatness that doesn't match the dinginess of the bar. Stacked kegs sit in the corner, and a fadedZeppelinposter curls off the wall above the emergency exit. A surgical light — the real kind, adjustable arm, daylight bulb—is clamped to a shelf beside a basin of water.
Diesel eases Nicoletta onto the sheet, and when I stroke her arm, her eyes flicker open, wide and scared, then her head twists from side to side.
“It’s okay, babe. Doc is gonna help you.”
Callahan snaps on a pair of surgical gloves, then cuts away the rest of Nicoletta’s dress and tosses it to the floor.
“So much for giving Marisol back her gown,” Nicoletta mumbles.
“She’ll get over it,” Smoke says from the back of the room.
He covers Nicoletta’s lower body with a sheet then eases the surgical tape and the gauze away from the wound before gently probing the area. She squirms and winces, and my hands ball into fists. That bastard Williams is gonna pay for this one.
“We’re gonna take care of you, hun, but first I’ve got a few questions.” Callahan shines the light on the area. “Any numbness below the waist? Tingling?”
Nicoletta shakes her head.
“Does it hurt to breathe? Any pains in your chest?” He changes the direction of the gooseneck lamp.
Again, she shakes her head.
“Good.” He presses higher, closer to her ribs, then looks at the wound again. “You’re lucky the bullet went clear through.” He looks at me. “You did a good job dressing it. I’m thinking you’ve had as much practice with stabbings and gunshots as me.” He ends with a cocky grin, and if it were me on the table, I would’ve grinned back.
"How long ago did this happen?" he asks me.
I glance at my phone. “Little over an hour ago.”
