Chapter 1

“Jack!” the tall, blonde, voluptuous woman screamed when she entered her backstage office/dressing room, finding her longtime lover sprawled on the floor. She immediately went to her phone.

“Don’t,” he murmured.

“I’m just calling an ambulance,” she sniffled.

“You can’t,” he insisted. “Just drive me to my place.”

“You want me to carry you? I don’t even know if you should move.”

He tried lifting himself with his hand on the floor and winced, giving up. “You’re probably right. Give me a pen and a post-it.

She did as asked and he wrote down a long distance phone number. “Go to our place and call this on the land line. Tell them your name and I need help. Tell them to find me in your office.”

“You sure?”

“You trust me?”

“Okay.”

“You should stay there.”

“Won’t I need to let them in?”

“Probably right,” he sighed. “Meet them at the back entrance.”

“How will I know...”

“They’ll know your real last name.”

“But nobody...”

“I know. Sorry.”

“Don’t die,” she sniffled and darted out the door.

Honey waited in her late model Mustang, a beige she liked to think of as her unostentatious version of honey colored, the top up but the window opened taking in the slight chill of the Las Vegas night, crushing out her second Lucky Strike when an ambulance backed up to the back door and the uniformed driver hopped out and approached her. “Miss Hoglund?” he asked still at a distance.

She hopped out and went to the back door, unlocking it. “Follow me,” she told him. “And you’ll need a gurney.”

“I was afraid of that,” the man muttered, waving back to the ambulance.

She let the two men into her office where they quickly lifted Jack onto the gurney and rolled him out. “Can I come?” she pleaded.

The two exchanged glances and shrugs. “Come on,” said the driver.

At the back of the ambulance another man waited. Once secured and the door closed, the driver returned to driving while the other man remained in the back area. “Sit,” he ordered, pointing to a chair in the corner with a seat belt. She nodded and strapped in while the two men worked on Jack, legs wide to adjust to the movement of the ambulance. The second of the men who entered her club used shears to cut away Jack’s clothes while the man Honey assumed to be the doctor attached a bag of blood and shoved a needle into Jack’s arm.

“Mmm,” Jack murmured painfully. Honey noticed he was awake.

“Sedative sound good?” the doctor asked.

“Please,” Jack groaned.

“I need to check things first,” the doctor said. “Sorry.”

While checking his eyes his assistant attached a cuff to his arm and switched on a machine that showed his heartbeat and blood pressure.

The doctor shook his head. “Concussion. I’m afraid local anesthesia will have to do. Beaten were you?” the man palpitated his stomach with concern.

“Sliced but not stabbed,” Jack added.

“I can see that.”

“And shot in the back.”

“You might have led with that. Let’s bandage these quick and turn him over.”

After a few butterfly bandages were applied they turned him over, finding a small bloody hole on his lower left side.

The doctor immediately shot Jack up with what Honey presumed was Novocain. Though blood oozed out, it wasn’t like threatening. After a couple minutes, presumably for the numbing to take effect, the doctor dug in with clamp device and eventually pulled out a small bullet.

“Twenty-two?” the man asked, dropping it into a tray held by his assistant/nurse.

“A derringer I think,” said Jack.

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“A lady’s gun.”

“Or a proper gentleman’s.”

“Your friend, Miss Hoglund...”

“Honey,” Honey corrected.

“Honey. She had to make the call.”

“He couldn’t move,” Honey explained.

“Lights!” yelled the doctor and the ambulance picked up its pace and the siren was heard.

After cleaning the wound and sewing it up, they turned Jack over again.

“Internal hemorrhage?” his nurse asked.

“Or swelling of the brain. Or both.”

“Nice to hear,” Jack muttered.

“Quiet, tough guy,” said the doctor. “Let’s get these lacerations sown.”

Honey wept.

Honey had no idea where she was except for being some fancy clinic. When she finally went outside, exiting from the back where the ambulance had parked, to smoke a much needed cigarette, she could see the campus of UNLV nearby.

She crushed it out on the parking lot pavement when the door opened, and the man who had been the nurse came out. “Can I get you a ride home?” he asked.

“How is he?” she asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. I wish I did. It appears he took quite a beating. Even the shot he suffered isn’t the most worrisome thing. That appears to have not struck anything vital.”

“Internal hemorrhaging and swelling of the brain.”

“Yes, but we’ll get a good look inside him and see how bad it is.”

“You don’t mince words,” she chuckled darkly.

“Would you rather?”

“No. I ... just can’t lose him.”

“Understood,” he nodded. “Trust me he’ll get the best treatment possible.” As he said it, a helicopter arrived. “Speaking of which...”