Do No Harm

Clyde watched him, rigid and sweating.

"The way you feel, the pain you feel-the women who you threw alkali on feel that also. That same pain."

Clyde's eyes watered. Tears beaded and stuck to his thick lashes. "My head hurts," he said.

David wondered what thoughts rattled through the corridors of Clyde's mind. "I need to go see some other patients. I'll check on you later."

Clyde turned his face away, staring darkly at the wall. "No you won't," he said.

David left him bound in the semidarkness.

Chapter 26

YALE was waiting for David outside Clyde's room, his arms spread. "Well, we're ready to take him off your hands. Press is cordoned, transport vehicle's waiting in the ambulance bay." He thrust a clipboard at David. "Please sign him out."

Diane paced the hall behind Yale, hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans. His face still flushed, Jenkins congregated with a few officers farther down by the lobby doors. Murmuring to one another and shifting on their feet, they directed their stares toward David and the closed door of Clyde's room. Waiting like jackals for a whisper of opportunity.

David felt the crush of an ugly dilemma. What was already a difficult, complex decision was now enflamed by the agitation of the hospital board, the press, an angry city. He felt the myriad pressures in the heat rising to his face, and he fought to find the correct response. Something flared in him, bright and sharp, and he found himself saying to Yale, "I'm afraid the patient is not ready to be released."

The clipboard smacked against Yale's thigh. "No?" He flicked his wrist and the Rolex appeared. "Eight-fifteen. Your shift is over. Who's the next attending on call?"

"The patient is not improving at a rate that indicates he'll be ready to be moved tonight."

Yale opened his mouth, then closed it. He scratched his forehead with two fingers. Diane was watching David, a puzzled expression on her face.

"When is the earliest he'll be ready?" Yale asked.

"Eight tomorrow morning."

"And it's just a coincidence that that's when your next shift begins?"

"Yes. I'll brief the next attending to contact me in the event of any change in Clyde's condition, no matter the hour. If he has a miraculous recovery in the night that enables him to be moved, I'll come in immediately and sign off on him."

One of the clerks stuck her head out of the CWA but withdrew it quickly when David looked at her. Two nurses whispered to each other in the doorway of Twelve.

"You said you thought he'd be ready to be moved by now," Yale said.

"My patients don't always abide my expectations."

Yale dropped the clipboard on the tiled floor, where it made a startlingly loud bang. "If you insist, I suppose we have little choice."

Jenkins and the other officers stood in a flying wedge at the hall's end, looking foolishly formal.

A grin flashed across Yale's imperturbable face and vanished instantaneously. "We'll be here waiting."

Diane paced tight circles while David signed out to Dr. Nelson, a young attending who'd trained under him. She walked swiftly to keep up with David as he headed through the hospital toward the lobby, avoiding the ambulance bay so he wouldn't have to pass Jenkins.

"What are you doing, David?" she said. It clearly was an effort for her not to raise her voice. "We've released patients to custody in worse shape than that."

"If I release him," David said, "he's likely to die."

"Nobody dies of that kind of alkali burn."

David looked at her, his stomach twisted into a knot. "I'm not talking about the burns."

Removing his cell phone from his pocket, he ducked into the empty fluoroscopy room and had the operator put him through to the University Police. Diane sat on a gurney, waiting patiently.

"I need to reach Officer Blake. Urgently… Yes, I would appreciate it if you'd page him to this number." David rattled off his cell phone number. "No, I'd rather not say what this is regarding, but please tell him it's extremely important."

He snapped his phone shut and faced Diane. She made a circular gesture with her hand. "I'll just ask when this is over," she said.

He glanced at her clothes. "What are you doing here anyway? It's your day off. I'm not used to seeing you dressed."

"I'll take that the way it was intended."

It had been a long time since he'd smiled, and it felt good.

"With all the shit that went down this morning, how could I not come in?" Diane said. "I wanted to make sure you were still in one piece."

"And am I?"

Judging by her expression, he must have looked like something someone coughed up. He fisted his stethoscope on either side of his neck and tugged on it like a scarf. "That bad?" His phone rang.

"Blake here."

"Officer Blake, this is David Spier, the physician who treated Clyde when he came in."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Can I help you?"

"Where are you?"

"Can I help you with something?"

"Yes, I'd like to have an off-the-record conversation with you."

A pause. "Where would you like to not meet?"

"Are you in the area?"

"Yeah, I'm still on campus."

"Can you meet me right now?"