Do No Harm

Dalton had one hand on the door handle, but Yale tapped it and waved a slender finger. "Don't jump him. Could be a diversionary tactic. Grover, are you there?"

They heard the rattle of the shopping cart when Grover broke in. "In the lot right above your heads. I'm on my way. Hard to move fast in these old motherfucking shoes."

"Don't move too fast," Dalton growled.

"Suspect is moving in, taking a closer look," Blake said.

A vein throbbed in Yale's temple when he spoke. "Can you see what he has beneath his sweatshirt?"

Dalton turned to Yale with pleading eyes. "Let's go, let's go," he hissed.

"Blake, call Jenkins and Bronner, tell them to move into position behind him on Le Conte in case he bolts," Yale said into the radio. He swung open the back door and stepped out into the fresh air, inhaling deeply. "Let's go take a look."

The two gardeners continued to work the ditch, removing a pipe of some kind, and Clyde waited in the shade of the trees, his cheeks puckering as he sucked on a lozenge. One of them glanced up briefly in his direction, then bent back down and adjusted something with a wrench.

Clyde gazed back toward Le Conte and took a few steps in that direction before a woman pushing a stroller came into view on the sidewalk ahead. Backing up until his shoulders pressed against the concrete wall of the PCHS structure, he watched her. His gloved hand fondled the Pyrex beaker, making masturbatory bulges beneath his sweatshirt, until she disappeared from view. He turned back to the hospital, his wide jaw set, and took a few tentative steps toward the ambulance bay, his hands shaking.

When he stepped from the cover of the bushes, he froze, his eyes tracking the homeless man pushing a shopping cart along the far edge of the drive-through. The man crossed behind the kiosks, heading his way. One of the gardeners spoke down into his chest, and then two men in shirts and ties broke from the shadows of the ambulance bay, one of them wearing dark sunglasses.

Emitting a stifled yelp, Clyde scurried back toward Le Conte just as a patrol car pulled up to the curb. A tall, lean officer jumped out, one hand reaching for his pistol.

When Clyde turned back to the hospital, the men in ties and the homeless man were heading for him in a dead sprint, and he shrieked and stumbled through the bushes along the side of the parking structure, losing his hat.

Shouts filled the air and a police badge caught the sun and gleamed, and he ran, leaves whipping against his face, heading for the car ramp that led up onto one of the exposed lots. His jarring footsteps caused the alkali to lap up the sides of the Pyrex beaker, and then his sweatshirt spotted in the front and he screamed, his foot catching a tree root. He pitched forward and couldn't get his hand untangled from his sweatshirt to break his fall, so he struck the ground forcefully with his chest and cheek, the Pyrex beaker shattering beneath him.

Wailing, hands scrabbling over his sweatshirt, he curled and writhed on the dirt at the base of a pine tree, and then they were there, tall discordant figures blocking out the sun and pointing guns-men in suits, a parking attendant, police officers, a homeless man. The sweatshirt pulled tight across his fat stomach, and every time it shifted, shards of Pyrex dug into his flesh, the alkali eating into healthy skin and open wounds alike.

Hands reached out at him, but he fought them, clawing, and then a policeman's boot came hard in his side and he was screaming and jerking on the ground, yanking in vain at the sweatshirt.

Loud, stabbing voices.

"Don't touch him!"

"He's got lye all over himself!"

"Gloves! Gloves!"

"Frisk him."

"Grab that arm. Somebody grab that arm!"

"I don't want to get the shit on me."

"Call HazMat. Call Animal Control."

He was flipped over onto his stomach and he bellowed, his mouth bent wide, dry lips cracking. A thread of saliva connected the corner of his mouth to a pine cone near his cheek. Cuffs clamped down hard around his wrists. A knee pinned his shoulder to the ground on either side and hands fluttered all around him-up the lengths of his legs, under his arms, in his crotch. Glass crunched beneath him, against his gut and chest.

A cluster of onlookers gathered on the sidewalk at Le Conte.

"Check the scrub top-there's a hidden pocket inside the breast."

A hand scrabbling over his breast, darting into his inside pocket. Empty. "Ow, shit!" The man jumped back, wiping blue liquid off his hand.

"Stand back! Stand back! Grab his arms. Stay clear of the sweatshirt. It's doused."

One of the uniformed cops pressed a pistol to the back of Clyde's head and Clyde closed his eyes, but someone grabbed the barrel, pulling it away. "Are you fucking crazy? You can't do that."

"Watch me."

A scuffle. Someone fell. Searing pain.

"You can't do it. It's too obvious."

"There's press around."

Hurwitz, Gregg

Do No Harm (2002)

"Do we haul him in?"

"There are civilians watching."