The old man groaned again, and I eased him upright on the seat so that his head was cradled back. He couldn’t hold his mouth shut, and a string of drizzle escaped and ran down his chin.
“Oh, what have I been doing,” Jack moaned.
“Just take it easy now,” I said. Murton approached hesitantly, not sure if he should grab hold of something or someone.
“Dispatch said you might need an assist?”
I hadn’t asked for assistance, and dispatch hadn’t put out the call…I would have heard the radio call. Murton had no reason to wander outside the village, either. But his intentions were good, so I didn’t bite his head off. “We’re just waiting on the ambulance,” I said, and about that time I could hear the siren in the distance.
“You want me to transport?”
I wasn’t sure that it was possible to educate J.J. Murton, but I made a stab at it. “No. He’s old and frail and seems to be suffering a little cardiac distress. The last thing you want is for him to crap out in the back seat of your patrol car.”
“Well, you got that right, Sheriff,” Murton replied.
“If you’d manage traffic for the ambulance, I’d appreciate it. They’re going to want to park right here.” I nodded at the southbound lane immediately beside the Cadillac. “You take north, I’ll take south.”
Murton nodded vigorously, perhaps a little relieved that I wasn’t going to go Marine Corps Sergeant on him. “You do the breathalyzer already?”
“No. He’s so high he’d probably break the scale. We’ll wait for the hospital to stabilize things before the law lands on him with both feet.”
“Damn good thing he pulled off the road when he did,” Murton observed. “Mighta killed someone.”
“True enough. His lucky day.” Lucky day or not, Jack’s tortured gut gave up just then. He managed to twist sideways just enough that when he tossed his cookies it didn’t spray all over the inside of the Cadillac-which meant that most of it was aimed at Murton and me. I danced sideways, damn near knocking Murton ass over teakettle. Then I just had time to dive forward and prevent Jack from collapsing headfirst out of the car.
“Oh, Jeez,” Murton bleated, making ineffectual little swipes at his trousers. His face had gone pale. Apparently he was one of those guys whose own stomach starts to gyrate with the permeating aroma of vomit.
The ambulance eased to a stop on the highway, a veritable eruption of colored lights.
I waved Murton away. “Take the highway,” I said, and he did so with alacrity.
I’m sure that handling drunks isn’t high on an EMT’s list of favorite things to do, but these two were too experienced to complain.
“Erratic pulse,” I explained to Jesse Tarrantino, and that was all the explanation the EMT needed. He and his partner, MaryAnne Buckley, packed up old Jack Newton with tender concern, taking half a second to clean his face first with an alcohol wipe before putting on the oxygen, talking to him all the time.
They lifted him out of the back seat as if he were a bundle of feathers, and had an IV going faster than I thought possible.
“I would guess that he consumed most of a 750 of bourbon,” I said, and Jesse grimaced. “I don’t know what his health issues are, but I think he needs the ride.”
“We’ll get him all straightened out,” Jesse said. He reached down to pat Jack’s thin shoulder even as they started to lift the gurney.
MaryAnne Buckley, a heavy-set girl with pleasant features, offered a smile as she passed. “Thank you, sir.” She sounded as if she really meant it.
“Lots of fun, huh,” I said. In a moment, Jack was all packaged, and the big diesel rescue vehicle eased away, found a wide spot in the road, and U-turned back toward town. I watched J.J. Murton officiously wave the ambulance by, and then he sauntered over toward me.
“He sure as hell stinks.” He shook his head in wonder.
“Drunks do that.”
He leaned a little closer, and the wash of his powerful aftershave smelled as if he’d walked into a bed of Pacific kelp. He jerked his head toward my car, and he couldn’t quite keep the leer off his face. “She ridin’ with you all day?”
“I’ll know that at the end of the day.”
Murton nodded sagely. “New hire?”
“Probably so.” I knew that in all likelihood J.J. Murton would have given his left nut to work for us-and just as likely that Sheriff Eduardo Salcido-or I-would shoot him before allowing that to ever happen. ‘Thanks for your help, J.J.” He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but evidently thought better of it
“Catch you later, sir,” he said, and walked back to his patrol cark, rubber-necking the attractive young lady in my county car as he did so.
As I slid into the driver’s seat, I grinned at Estelle. “This is a glamorous job, sweetheart.” The words were no sooner out than I realized that I had to be a little more circumspect in this new age of correctness, even if she was the grandniece of an old friend. What the hell. Let her sue me for discrimination. The smile of sympathy that I earned was entirely sweet, and she was young enough to be one of my daughters.
“Now, fates willing, we see what trouble Bobby Torrez has managed to get himself into. Notice how we’re able to stick with one thing from start to finish without interruption in this job. You’ll get used to being peripatetic.”
I started to pull the car into gear and just as quickly reversed the process, grumbling with impatience as I opened the car door. “Give 308 an update. ETA about eight minutes.” It took only a moment to start old Jack’s Caddy and ease it far off onto the flat of the shoulder, well away from the pavement. I locked it and pocketed the keys.
Back in the car, I took time for a long sigh. “Go ahead and tell dispatch that we’re ten-eight and that I have the keys to the disabled vehicle. I’ll drop them off at Nick’s place on the way back in. Probably an hour or two.”
She nodded and did so while I made a quick log entry.
“How will the legal process go with all this?” she asked.
“You mean will Mr. Newton be charged with DWI? That’s absolutely what will happen. But first, we take care of him. That’s the interesting thing about all this. You can chase the worst goddamned felon half way across the state, but when you have him in custody, you then become his guardian. You take his goddamn welfare in your hands, regardless of what he might have done, what pain and suffering he might have inflicted on others.” I shrugged and put the log book away. “In Mr. Newton’s case, we make sure that nothing we do contributes to his physical distress. That’s why he ended up in the ambulance and not in the back of my car. When he’s sober, when the docs are sure that he’s not going to drop dead in front of us…well, then we take up the legal issues.”
“They’ll revoke his license?”
I snorted with derision. “What the courts do, my friend, is another matter. My cynical guess is that Jack Newton will be behind the wheel of his car and making a stop at the liquor store so fast it makes our heads spin. That’s the way the system works.”
The car tires chirped as I pulled back out on the pavement. “What kind of doc is your fiancé studying for?”
Ms. Reyes didn’t correct my word choice. “Vascular surgery, sir.”
“Ah. Well, that’s good. Lots of plugged pipes around, my own included. He-what’s his name?”
Her natural reticence prompted a slight hesitation. “Francis Guzman.” Her delightful accent put the emphasis on the final syllable.
“Does young Doctor Guzman want to stay in the southwest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You said he has relatives in Mexico?”
“Yes. His entire family. Down in Veracruz.”
“No intentions of going back, though?”