Tall, Dark & Hungry(51)

"It's just a bee, man," Bastien said bracingly. He was almost embarrassed for the fellow—hopping around, screaming like a girl, and all over a little insect. The editor would wet his pants at this rate. "You're a thousand times bigger than it. Get a hold of yourself."

"He's allergic to bees," Vincent explained in a hush.

"Oh." Bastien grunted, understanding a little better. "Well, hell," he added as the bee decided to settle on the editor's nose. "This can't be good."

"Oh, God," C.K. whimpered.

"How allergic are you?" Terri sounded concerned. Her expression turned to outright panic, however, when rather than answer, Chris stuck his lower lip out to blow upward at his nose in an effort to encourage the bee to leave. "Don't blow at it! I read somewhere that blowing at them annoys them and makes them—"

"Ow!" C.K. cried.

"—sting," Terri finished in horror. Apparently, the bee had decided it had finally had enough, and had done just that. She turned sharply on Vincent. "How allergic is he?"

"How should I know?"

"Well, you knew he was allergic!"

"Well, he said he was, when the bee came flying out of one of the arrangements," the actor explained. "But he was busy hopping around at the time, trying to get away from it. He didn't stop to go into detail."

"Oh, dear."

When Terri turned to him, Bastien raised an eyebrow.

"I think we'd better call an ambulance," she said.

"Maybe he has one of those shot things," Vincent suggested, drawing Terri's attention back to him. "I worked with a gal once who was allergic to peanuts, and she carried a shot of adrenaline or something."

Bastien ignored the two as they continued to debate what to do. He had been watching the editor for reactions, and was alarmed at the speed with which the man's nose was swelling and his color changing. The man needed care right away, and an ambulance wouldn't do. It wouldn't be quick enough. Unless Chris had one of those shots Vincent mentioned, getting him in the car and to the hospital at once was top priority.

"Do you have a shot?" he asked, kneeling beside the editor. When C.K. shook his head, Bastien nodded and scooped him up in his arms. "Can someone grab my car keys off the coffee table?" he asked as he strode out of the living room.

There was silence for a minute, then a sudden rush of sound and movement behind Bastien. By the time he had pushed the elevator button and the doors slid open, Vincent and a breathless Terri were at his side.

"I got your keys," Vincent assured him. They all crowded onto the elevator, pushing Bastien and his bundle ahead of them.

"And I grabbed a pen," Terri added.

"A pen?" Vincent turned from pushing the button for the parking garage to peer at her.

"Yes. You know. In case we have to do one of those throat thingies," she explained.

"Throat thingies?" When Vincent glanced to Bastien in bewilderment, Bastien merely shook his head. He hadn't a clue what she was talking about.

"You know. If his throat closes up and he can't breathe, you have to slice a hole in his windpipe and stick the tube of the pen in for him to breathe through."

A stifled moan drew Bastien's gaze to the editor's now gray face. The man was looking pretty ghastly. He was almost a green color. Bastien couldn't decide if that was because he was having trouble breathing, or because Terri had just unintentionally scared the spit right out of him.

"Oh. A tracheotomy." Vincent nodded. "That could be necessary."

"Don't worry, Chris." Terri patted the editor's arm in an effort to soothe him. "We won't let you die. We'll do whatever it takes to keep you alive."

Though the man didn't say anything, Bastien got the impression that Terri's reassurance was more terrifying to Chris than the fact that he was starting to have definite difficulty breathing.

As the elevator doors opened onto the parking garage, Bastien raced to his Mercedes.



"How are you feeling?" Terri asked as Bastien set Chris back on the couch several hours later.

"Let me die in peace," he said. At least that's what Terri thought he said. It was difficult to tell with his voice as garbled as it was. The editor's face was swollen and an angry red. It looked as if he'd been in a bad fight—and lost. She simply could not believe that the hospital had released him. He looked like they should have kept him at least a week. And his labored efforts at breathing were not reassuring. Yet the doctor had pumped him full of something, made them all sit about for hours so they could "observe" C.K., then assured them he would be fine; he'd got to the hospital in time to save his life.