Throwdown Read online

  Wagner paused for a moment, trying to decide what to say next. It was a mistake because Cunningham jumped in.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded.

  “I’m trying to tell you what happened, Ed. And keep your goddamn voice down because there are family members in here.”

  Cunningham looked around the waiting room, chastened.

  Wagner met his eyes when he looked back, then kept going.

  “Wheelock’s in the O.R. right now. He’s critical, two gunshot wounds. He may not make it.”

  Cunningham recoiled as if he’d been slapped, dropped backwards into one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. As far as Wagner knew there was no particular connection between Cunningham and Wheelock, but Strothwood being what it was there could be a lot of shared history there, complex personal and even family ties that Wagner had no way of knowing about. All this came to him too late and he watched Cunningham closely for any signs of a heart attack or stroke. He didn’t like the man much, had always thought Ed’s openly empathetic style had just been a sham for the voters, but looking at him now he wasn’t so sure. Cunningham was slumped in the chair, just staring at the floor.

  With everything going on right now the hospital staff was stretched razor thin and Wagner couldn’t bring himself to ask one of them to babysit a man who might or might not be headed for a cardiac event. Wagner sighed and lowered himself into a chair beside Cunningham, decided to spoon feed him the rest of it.

  • • •

  Ellen Tanner had literally gone from one operating room right into the other, like Wagner filling in the gaps until off-duty staff could be called in. The pace was very fast, even desperate, but somehow the few people on duty had held everything together until bleary-eyed reinforcements had arrived. Even so everyone was skating on a fine edge, three O.R.’s running at once, and at one time or another that night she’d been in every one of them.

  They’d been off balance from the start, nearly losing Sherry in the ambulance on the way in. Her mother was a pediatric nurse on the third floor, someone Ellen and virtually everyone else working that night had known for years. That had hit them hard and there was no time to recover before the previously routine night erupted into frantic activity.

  Now Ellen was standing in the corridor, staring at a blank wall scarred by countless gurney impacts. Residual adrenaline was still pumping through her system but she felt frozen in place, wondering at the sheer randomness of it all. Gunshot wounds, traffic accidents – whatever the causes were didn’t matter. Different outcomes pivoted on the head of a pin – terrible things happened or didn’t happen only because someone had turned left instead of right, gone out that night or stayed home, stepped off a curb or stayed on the sidewalk.

  She knew she was headed for a crash as soon as the adrenaline ran down, couldn’t let it happen. She glanced out into the waiting room, saw small knots of family members and friends, all either waiting for word or trying to absorb the impact of what they’d already been told. She was about to turn back inside and get back to work when she caught her breath, saw Frank Stallings slumped in a chair by himself. His clothes were covered in blood and she had a brief moment of anger, that it would be just like the stupid bastard to calmly sit down in the middle of a hospital and bleed to death while he waited his turn. Then she remembered what Slade had told her, that Frank and Billy Dancer had somehow kept three people alive long enough for the EMTs to get there. Maybe the blood was someone else’s.

  Ellen still had to make sure. She glanced back down the corridor, then walked into the waiting room.

  “Has anybody seen you yet?” she asked.

  She didn’t think Frank heard her the first time, was about to ask him again, when he finally looked up.

  “I’m okay,” he told her.

  His voice was a flat monotone and his eyes looked empty. Other than that and the blood she couldn’t see much sign of damage, and that put him way down on the depth chart of people she needed to be concerned about. She was about to turn away when she felt a hand on her arm.

  “I need to talk to this man.”

  Ed Cunningham’s face was flushed, his voice brittle and under exaggerated control. Jeff Wagner came up behind him, shrugged a sheepish apology for Cunningham’s imperious tone.

  Ellen Tanner had never had much time for Ed Cunningham and zero tolerance for self-important politicians in general. Cunningham didn’t wait for an answer, closed in on where Stallings was sitting. Too close, she thought, and she could tell from the look on Wagner’s face he was thinking the same thing.

  “I’m told,” Cunningham started out, “that you were there. You weren’t authorized to be there, you had no legal function there, but you were there anyway. Is that right?”

  Frank didn’t even look up. Cunningham’s face got even redder.

  “I asked you a question.”

  Frank didn’t seem to move, but suddenly he was up and standing nose to nose with Cunningham. For a wild irrational instant Ellen thought he was going to hit him, even hoped for it. Cunningham actually flinched but there were a lot of voters in the room and he tried to bluster his way out of it.

  “I need you to tell me what happened out there,” he said.

  Frank just stared at him, then finally looked over at Wagner.

  “Why don’t you tell him, Jeff?”

  “I already did,” Wagner said, “he didn’t want to listen.”

  “Well, if he didn’t want to listen to you I doubt if he’ll listen to me. And I don’t feel much like talking to him right now.”

  Frank brushed by Cunningham and walked out. Cunningham watched him go, then rounded on Wagner.

  “I still want some answers.”

  Wagner looked down at Ed Cunningham like he was something he’d just scraped off the sole of his shoe.

  “I told you what happened, Ed. If you want to go looking for a scapegoat look somewhere else. Maybe you should try a mirror.”

  Wagner just walked away. Might as well make it unanimous, Ellen thought. She turned her back on Cunningham and went back to work.

  About the Author

  Doug Sutherland is a producer, actor and director with many years of experience in the film industry. THROWDOWN is the second novel in his Frank Stallings series.

  Also by Doug Sutherland

  DANCER’S RAIN (Frank Stallings #1)