Do No Harm

Beside the books, stubbed-out cigarettes lay clustered on a small plate, a few wayward butts scattered across the table like shriveled white worms. Most of them were mashed together in twos, as if they'd been smoked that way. Clyde had probably developed a heavy dependence on nicotine to reduce his anxiety and improve his concentration. Two cigarettes at a time would certainly maximize those effects.

David leaned over a sheet of notes that Clyde had scrawled, most of it phrases he'd evidently culled from the med textbooks. Clearly, much of the reading was above his level; Clyde had drawn up lists of words he didn't understand. David studied his writing, considering whether Clyde was dyslexic. At the bottom of the page were several phrases. Nic wether toda. Helo ther. Hav a nice dae. Variant spellings of dae were written beneath-day, daye, da.

Clyde's desperate attempt to wear a mask of sanity.

Beneath the table was a large metal footlocker. David shook it, and it gave off a metallic jingle. There was a smudge of blue liquid near one of the built-in locks, which David took to be alkali. He hadn't sighted DrainEze in the kitchen or bathroom; Clyde probably kept it secured in the footlocker. Searching for the footlocker key in the messy apartment would be hopeless. Instead, David pulled a toothpick from one of the bread sculptures on the kitchen counter, jammed it in the footlocker keyhole, and snapped it off. That should be enough to keep Clyde away from the alkali until the police arrived.

Near Clyde's bed, on an upended orange crate that served as a nightstand, David found a rusted numeral-the 1 he'd noticed missing from the Pearson Home's address. It served as a paperweight, pinning down a yellowed, damaged photograph of Happy Horizons. The house had not been significantly altered over the years. These fetishized objects from Clyde's childhood home-how did they fit into his psychopathology?

Taped to the wall by the bed, a headline torn from the LA Times proclaimed fear courses through ucla medical center. Clyde's goal accomplished. Staring at the headline, David wondered how sincere Clyde's attempts to cure himself were.

The longer David was in the apartment, the more acutely he sensed his own approaching panic. He was breathing hard, glancing at the door every few seconds, and feeling an immense urgency to leave, but the information he was uncovering was riveting and invaluable. He had no idea when Clyde was coming back; he shouldn't push his luck.

He turned, regarding the rest of the room to see if there was anything else he might have missed. In the corner, a desiccated snapdragon leaned from an ice-cream carton, soil spilled around its base. Something seemed odd about it, and it took David a moment to figure out what. The stalks and leaves were angled toward the kitchen rather than the window. The plant should have been leaning in the direction of its sunlight source, not toward the dark apartment interior. It must have been recently moved.

David walked over and crouched above the plant, pulling it away from the wall. It hid a heating vent set into the crumbling plaster. The vent cover tilted from the hole easily, revealing an orange bottle of pills. Falling to his knees, David reached inside and removed it. He lined the arrows and popped the white top. It was full of pale yellow pills. Eskalith. 450 mg.

Clyde's self-consciousness about taking meds was so great, he hid them even within his own apartment. As if he couldn't bear to have them in plain view.

David replaced the meds, set the vent cover back into its hole, slid the plant into place, and headed for the window. He heard a key hit the lock of the front door and felt his gut go slack. One bolt turned, followed by another slide of the key, and then the second. David was halfway to the window before it hit him that he didn't have nearly enough time to get out. There was nothing big enough to conceal him, so he flattened himself against the wall behind the bed, in the shadowed corner beside the window. Save the darkness, David was in clear view.

The third dead bolt slid with a thunk and the door swung open. Clyde's outline filled the doorway, a few swirling locks of hair framing his head like a halo set afire. He swayed a moment on his feet, then stepped inside.

David remained completely inert, afraid even to exhale.

Clyde shuffled in, slamming the door behind him and throwing a dead bolt, and headed directly for David. If he turned on a light, David would be completely exposed. Clyde's pace quickened as he neared David, then he lunged forward. David fought the urge to draw his arms up protectively, but Clyde fell to the bed, face pressed to the mattress, and lay still. After a few moments, he began to draw ragged, uneven breaths.

David remained in a panic freeze, head drawn back to the wall. A bit of light from the distant Healton's sign fell across Clyde's back, making the chain around his neck glint. David eased out a breath.