Working for Bigfoot by Jim Butcher Read Free Book Online Page A

mouse. They’ll never know I was there.”
    “I’m sorry,” he replied, “but I am not amenable to random investigators wandering the grounds.”
    I nodded seriously. “Okay. In that case, I’ll report to Doctor Pounder that you refused to allow her duly appointed representative to see her son, and that I cannot confirm his well-being. At which point I am confident that she will either radio for a plane to pick her up from her dig site, or else backpack her way out. I think the good doctor will view this with alarm and engage considerable maternal protective instinct.” I squinted at Fabio. “Have you actually met Doctor Pounder?”
    He scowled at me.
    “She’s about yay tall,” I said, putting a hand at the level of my temples. “And she works outdoors for a living. She looks like she could wrestle a Sasquatch.” Heh. Among other things.
    “Are you threatening me?” Doctor Fabio asked.
    I smiled. “I’m telling you that I’m way less of a disruption than Mama Bear will be. She’ll be a headache for weeks. Give me half an hour, and then I’m gone.”
    Fabio glowered at me.
     

     
    St. Mark’s infirmary was a spotless, well-ordered place, located immediately adjacent to its athletics building. I was walked there by a young man named Steve, who wore a spotless, well-ordered security uniform.
    Steve rapped his knuckles on the frame of the open doorway and said, “Visitor to see Mister Pounder.”
    A young woman who looked entirely too nice for the likes of Doctor Fabio and Steve looked up from a crossword puzzle. She had chestnut-colored hair, rimless glasses, and had a body that could be readily appreciated even beneath her cheerfully patterned scrubs.
    “Well,” I said. “Hello, nurse.”
    “I can’t think of a sexier first impression than a man quoting Yakko and Wakko Warner,” she said, her tone dry.
    I sauntered in and offered her my hand. “Me neither. Harry Dresden, PI.”
    “Jen Gerard. There are some letters that go after, but I used them all on the crossword.” She shook my hand and eyed Steve. “Everyone calls me Nurse Jen. The flying monkeys let you in, eh?”
    Steve looked professionally neutral. He folded his arms.
    Nurse Jen flipped her wrists at him. “Shoo, shoo. If I’m suddenly attacked I’ll scream like a girl.”
    “No visitors without a security presence,” Steve said firmly.
    “Unless they’re richer than a guy in a cheap suit,” Nurse Jen said archly. She smiled sweetly at Steve and shut the infirmary door. It all but bumped the end of his nose. She turned back to me and said, “Doctor Pounder sent you?”
    “She’s at a remote location,” I said. “She wanted someone to get eyes on her son and make sure he was okay. And for the record, it wasn’t cheap.”
    Nurse Jen snorted and said, “Yeah, I guess a guy your height doesn’t get to shop off the rack, does he.” She led me across the first room of the infirmary, which had a first aid station and an examination table, neither of which looked as though they got a lot of use. There were a couple of rooms attached. One was a bathroom. The other held what looked like the full gear of a hospital’s intensive care ward, including an automated bed.
    Bigfoot Irwin lay asleep on the bed. It had been a few years since I’d seen him, but I recognized him. He was fourteen years old and over six feet tall, filling the length of the bed, and he had the scrawny look of young things that aren’t done growing.
    Nurse Jen went to his side and shook his shoulder gently. The kid blinked his eyes open and muttered something. Then he looked at me.
    “Harry,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
    “Sup, kid,” I said. “I heard you were sick. Your mom asked me to stop by.”
    He smiled faintly. “Yeah. This is what I get for staying in Chicago instead of going up to British Columbia with her.”
    “And think of all the Spam you missed eating.”
    Irwin snorted, closed his eyes, and said, “Tell her I’m fine.