Banner O'Brien by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

“This is my colleague, Dr. O’Brien,” he said. “Will you show her where Lou’s room is, please?”
    Bessie tossed her head and looked Banner over with tolerance. “This way, Red,” she said, after a long and rather unsettling silence.
    Too proud to look back at Adam, Banner followed Bessie down an inside hallway lined with numbered doors. Room four was at the far end, and the prostitute rapped at it with unsympathetic vigor.
    “Lou!” she shrilled. “Hey, Lou! You decent? You got company.”
    “Come in,” wailed a pitiful voice.
    After drawing one deep, preparatory breath, Banner clasped the knob and turned it. The room was surprisingly clean, though dimly lit, and it smelled of some flowery perfume.
    On the bed, in a tumble of pink satin, her patient waited. The woman—in this light, she hardly looked older than Melissa—was crouched on her knees and elbows, with her plump, lawn-covered posterior pointing heavenward.
    Bessie muttered something and left, closing the door behind her.
    “I understand you have a boil,” Banner said, setting her bag down on a bedside table littered with crystal atomizers, pleated bon bon papers, and copies of dime novels like Melissa’s. Amid all this were printed business cards that read, Miss Lou, Room 4, Silver Shadow. Always a gentle welcome.
    “Who are you?” whined the enterprising Lou, turningher head to peer at Banner with miserable lavendar eyes.
    “My name is Dr. O’Brien. May I see the boil, please?”
    Lou hiked up her nightdress and lowered beribboned drawers. “Are—”
    “Yes,” Banner broke in crisply, bending to examine the offending lesion. It looked sore indeed, and the flesh surrounding it was inflamed. “I really am a doctor.”
    With the inevitable question answered, Lou was somewhat at a loss. “Where’s Adam?”
    Banner bit her lower lip and turned away to open her bag and rummage through for cotton, alcohol, a scalpel, and carbolic acid. “Dr. Corbin is aboard somewhere. Would you like to see him?”
    “No!” Lou cried quickly. “At least, not like this. It’s kind of nice to have a woman tend me.”
    Banner suppressed a smile and turned to look at the washstand on the far side of the room. There was a pitcher there, along with a basin and soap, but she doubted that the water would be hot.
    She took her own bar of soap from its wrapping of cheesecloth, after setting aside the items she would need for Lou’s actual treatment, and crossed the room to wash her hands.
    That done, she cleaned the scalpel carefully, with carbolic acid, and gave the boil a thorough dabbing with alcohol. “This will hurt a little,” she warned in a kindly voice.
    Lou’s bright purple eyes were squeezed shut in preparation. “I’m ready, Doc!”
    As gently as possible, Banner lanced the boil, drained and cleaned it, and then applied a clean bandage. While she disposed of the cloths she’d used, washed her hands, and then gave the scalpel another dousing with carbolic acid, Lou continuously bemoanedthe fact that she couldn’t very well work with a bunch of gauze stuck to her backside.
    Banner’s lips were quivering with barely concealed amusement. “I would think a little rest would be welcome,” she observed.
    Lou stretched out flat, winced a little, and arched her tiny, featherlike eyebrows. “I’ll get lonesome, lying in here all alone. How long will it be till I’m better?”
    “A few days,” replied Banner, closing her bag with an authoritive click. “And don’t you try to—to work before that wound is healed. If you think having the boil lanced was unpleasant, just let yourself get an infection.”
    Glumly, Lou promised to refrain from enterprise.
    “I’ll come by again in a couple of days,” Banner told her patient in parting. She was only a little surprised to find Adam waiting in the hallway, his back braced against the wall, his arms folded.
    Banner immediately noticed that he wasn’t wearing his suitcoat. “My patient is doing