Do No Harm

Clyde's face trembled; he was still pulling himself back from the edge of sobbing. Raising the torn leg of his scrub bottoms, he rubbed a red patch on his calf. "He shocked me. Knocked us both down. I hit him on the head. He got still." He slapped his head, and the noise rang around the room. "He hurt me, and I've gotta… I've gotta take it out of him." He began mumbling incoherently.

The current of electricity from the stun gun must have shorted out the digital transmitter. Which meant the shock had somehow run through Peter's left leg brace. "Can I step forward and look at his body?" David asked. He spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child.

The pistol snapped back up at his head. "It's a trick. You're here to trick me and-shit, shit… " Clyde began to rock his upper torso, his eyes pressing closed. "Three two one the door back from the

… "

David's head was humming. "Clyde. I'm going to take another step forward. And I'm going to look at Peter. I'm going to do this now." There was something comforting in the knowledge that all his words were being transmitted through the hidden wire to the police officers. It made him feel less alone. Even so, he wondered what was taking them so long to arrive.

Clyde continued to rock, his lips moving silently, but his eyes were open again. David eased slowly forward, and Peter's body came into view behind the desk.

Rage and sorrow mingled, rising from David's gut. He crouched over Peter and raised one eyelid, then the other. He was relieved to see both pupils dilate. Resting two fingers on Peter's neck, he counted his pulse for ten seconds, then multiplied by six. Slightly elevated, around seventy-five beats per minute. He walked his fingers along the back of Peter's head until he found a boggy spot near the base of his skull. A cursory feel revealed it to be a basic hematoma. Peter was going to be fine.

Clyde's body odor hung in the room. The smell was cut with something else, something bitter and medicinal, though David could not place it.

David's lips parted, trembling. He closed his eyes, not wanting to speak, afraid of what he might say. He needed hours to process the scene before him and find the correct words, but he had barely seconds.

David caught a glimpse of guilt and anguish in Clyde's face. Clyde became aware of David's gaze, and anger intensified in the flat stones of his eyes, the change so sudden it was as if he'd donned a mask. "He hurt me, the cripple." He crouched over Peter's head, leering down at him. "You weakling. You got it good." He rubbed the swollen spot on his leg.

David kept his body angled slightly away from Clyde, as if turning from a live bomb.

Clyde looked up at David, his cheeks glistening with sweat. He was breathing hard. "I promised I'd teach you about fear," he said. "It's deep and dark, like a well. I'm gonna put you in it."

David drew one hand slowly behind his back. He had just grasped the shaft of the otoscope when Clyde's eyes snapped back into focus.

"What are you doing? What are you reaching for? Turn around. Turn around! "

As David turned, Clyde shoved him against the window, his hand grazing the wound in David's side. David's forehead banged the glass, and his hands gripped the blinds, bending them. He stifled a cry of pain. Clyde ripped the otoscope from the band of David's pants, and David tensed, waiting for it to be brought down on his head.

But instead, Clyde's voice came, low and amused. "You were gonna hit me with a doctor's toy."

Through the bent blinds, David saw the carpet cleaning van in the alley across the street. Two flashlights dancing on the third floor of the building opposite them. David felt a sinking in his gut when he realized Jenkins, Bronner, and the other units had gone to Peter's old procedure suite-the one that was functional and directory listed. Like Peter's new suite, it was also on the corner of Westwood and Le Conte, so David's directions hadn't helped. If he could mention his true location, the mike would convey it to the cops in the field. Watching the flashlight beams play across the dark rooms across the street, David tried to figure out some way of mentioning his location that Clyde wouldn't find unusual. The cops would never spot his gesturing through the dark window. He only prayed Clyde wouldn't notice the flashlight beams in the other building.

A clicking noise as Clyde played with the otoscope, and then a beam of light on the back of David's head.

Clyde's voice was jumbled in his throat. "I'm talking to you."

David turned his head to the side so the intense light shone across his profile, through the bent blinds, and out the window. He hoped Jenkins and Bronner would spot it. "Yes, Clyde?" He turned his head slightly so the edge of his cheek caught the beam, then moved his head again, creating a flickering light to better catch the cops' attention.

Clyde clicked off the otoscope and tossed it aside. "Were you gonna hurt me with this?"