heart's stopped." Beth took a deep breath and prepared an injection. "I'll try some adrenaline. Get us the hell out of here. I don't want to get caught now. Move it."
Jerry put the ambulance into gear and drove slowly through the Emergency parking area to the street.
"Is she going to be all right?" he asked.
"I can't tell yet." Beth's voice was shaky. Her face was covered in sweat. "I've got a pulse, but it's erratic. Could go either way."
Jerry drove one-handed for as long as he could stand it. There was no way he could make it through three boroughs to reach the family home in Staten Island that way. He stopped, softened his fingertip, and tugged it, bleeding and swollen, from the ignition. He pulled a knife and electrical tape from one pocket and bent under the dash. "We'll be moving again in a minute," he said.
Beth sighed. "I can't believe I volunteered for this. If we get caught, I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands." Jerry brought the wires together with a tiny blue spark. The engine kicked to life. "I love you, too."
After taking Beth and Veronica home, Jerry drove the ambulance into Queens and abandoned it. He caught a cab back from there. It gave him a twinge of glee that Veronica had wound up in his projection room. She'd never have come there when they were dating. You were paying her to fuck you, he thought. It wasn't a date.
Beth was looking Veronica over when he walked in. "This isn't good, bro. They didn't use a gel-foam cushion under her while she was there."
It bothered him a little that she called him "bro," although he wasn't sure why. Jerry knew what a gel-foam cushion was only because it was a squishy bed covering he'd figured might have real erotic possibilities. "What's the problem?"
"She's got some ugly lesions on her bottom, and a couple are starting on her shoulders, too. They weren't looking after her well at all." Beth squeezed some antiseptic cream on a gloved hand and applied it carefully to Veronica's flesh. "'Lesions'?"
"Bedsores." Beth pulled off her gloves and tossed them into a trash can. "If she doesn't come around soon, we're going to have major complications."
Jerry snorted. "Over bedsores?"
"That's right. If they get bad enough, you have to do skin grafts to prevent life-threatening infections. That requires a plastic surgeon and anesthesiologist at the very least, assuming I can grow a few more limbs to take care of everything else." She walked past him and patted him on the shoulder. "Trust me."
"Shit," Jerry said, turning and following her out of the room. "How do you get somebody out of a coma?"
"You don't, really," Beth said, putting her arms around him. "I guess we'd better get some rest."
"Rest?"
"I'm afraid so," she said. "We'll need our energy to devote to Veronica." She kissed the end of his nose. "This is another reason I stopped being a nurse."
"You're so good," he said. "I don't know what I did to deserve you."
Beth laughed. "For his next trick, Jerry will put all of his self-esteem into a thimble."
Jerry slapped her ass. "Enough. Let's get some sleep."
"Veronica, I love you. You have to come back for me." Jerry stroked her hand, carefully avoiding the area where her I. V was attached. Saying he loved her was a lie, but he wasn't going to crucify himself for it at this point. "Hannah needs you. We all do." Veronica's chest rose and fell slowly. Her eyelids might as well have been carved in stone.
Beth walked into the room with two plates of food. "Fettuccine for two." She set the plates on the coffee table in front of the couch. "So much for the question `But can she cook?' Good men have plotzed for my Italian food since the dawn of time."
Jerry stood and stretched. He was glad Beth hadn't heard him telling Veronica he loved her. It would be too much trouble to explain right now. He walked on stiff legs over to the couch and sat down in front of the plate with the largest helping. It was weird having so much normal furniture in the room with a coma patient. "What time is it?"
"A little after seven." Beth took Jerry's seat next to Veronica and began bathing her with a fresh washcloth. Jerry fumbled for the TV remote control and punched the set to life. "Hot damn. I don't think I've missed much of it. Chrissie is