Do No Harm

He went to the bathroom and urinated again, then drank three more glasses of water and got back into bed. His fingers tapped his chest several times, lightly, where the key usually rested. His breathing quickened into an animal's whine. He got back up and stood at the window, forehead and hands pressed to the pane, eyes searching the weedy strip below.

Within the hour, he was out hunting on his hands and knees, the beam of his flashlight playing like a small beacon through the tall blades of grass.

Chapter 13

CLYDE parked at a metered spot on Le Conte and walked up toward the Medical Plaza, turning so the construction workers across the street couldn't make out his face. He wore scrubs and a loose gray sweatshirt. His scrub bottoms, like most, had a hidden pocket inside the waist on the left side, a simple stitched flap of fabric designed to keep credit cards or prescription pads safe from grabbing hands and aortal spurts. Clyde had wedged his money clip inside.

One of his hands was hidden beneath the sweatshirt, causing it to bulge. He tugged on the bill of his blank navy-blue corduroy hat, pulling it low so it shadowed his features. The early-morning air was crisp, though there was little breeze.

Ducking behind some foliage near the PCHS lot, he watched the attendants in the kiosks about thirty yards away. For the most part, they kept their eyes on the cash registers and the incoming cars, paying little attention to the walkway that sloped down to the ambulance bay. Located at the rear of the small underground parking area, the actual entrance to the ER was not visible from street level.

A security guard emerged and headed up the walkway, whistling, his eyes on the bushes to his right. He reached the top of the slope and turned into the covered section of the PCHS lot, the section that led back into the hospital. There were no news vans in sight.

Clyde's latex-gloved hand emerged from beneath his sweatshirt, holding a Pyrex beaker, its gradations marked in white. It held a blue viscid liquid. Breathing heavily, he removed the foil covering, balled it up, and tossed it into the gutter. It rolled a few feet before falling down a sewer grate. Clyde withdrew back into the bushes, hidden by a cluster of palm fronds, and used his cheap digital watch to time the security guard's patrol.

It took the guard five minutes and twenty-four seconds to walk a full loop through the hospital and reappear. The guard emerged from the ambulance bay again, heading up the walkway, head swiveling like a dog tracking prey.

Pressing the beaker of alkali to his stomach, Clyde crouched in the bushes, waiting for the security guard to disappear once again into the larger lot. Then, mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, he stepped from the bushes. The rise and fall of his chest quickened.

He walked casually past the kiosk, keeping his eyes on the ground. A harried woman was loudly voicing her objections to the parking rates, pulled up so the black-and-white striped arm nearly rested across the hood of her Taurus. Neither of the parking attendants noticed Clyde.

One hand staying beneath his sweatshirt, Clyde shuffle-stepped down the walkway into the subterranean ambulance bay, careful not to sway too much. Three rivulets of sweat arced down his left cheek. At the bottom of the ramp, two ambulances had been left deserted along the curb. He slid between them and the wall.

A couple lingered by their car in the parking slots across the ambulance bay, and Clyde pressed his cheek against the cold metal side of the ambulance until their engine turned over. His breath came quick and pressured, like a sprinter's. The car chugged up the ramp toward the open sky and disappeared from sight.

The ambulance bay was silent.

The automatic glass doors to the ER stood about fifteen yards to his left. He watched the doors and waited, trying to get his breathing under control. He had about three more minutes before the security guard would reappear. He held the Pyrex beaker with both hands, gripping it so tightly his knuckles whitened. The blue liquid lapped up the sides as his hands trembled.

A sudden noise as the ER doors pushed open. He ducked, peering through the ambulance windows. The driver-side window was down, and the ambulance interior smelled of pine disinfectant.

An Asian woman emerged from the doors, her clogs echoing off the enclosed walls. She wore blue scrubs.

Clyde's nostrils flared as he drew breath. His eyes were dark and flat, stones smoothed in a river's bed. He did not blink.

Pulling a cigarette from a pack she kept hidden in the inside breast pocket of her scrub top, she lit it and inhaled deeply, throwing her head back. An indulgent moan accompanied her exhalation.