Do No Harm

"I can't do it unless I'm the psychiatrist on call. It'll smell bad. In the paperwork and in the courts."

"Who's on tonight?"

"Bickle. Asshole clock puncher."

"Are you on call tomorrow?"

"Seven A.M."

"Meet me at Clyde's room."

"I'm not promising anything, David."

"I understand that."

David hung up and looked over at Diane, who was watching him intently. "Dash will make an assessment in the morning. If he puts Clyde on psych hold, and if he wants him kept in four-points, we're in the clear."

"And if not?"

"I get into it with my lawyer friend and Sandy."

"What do we do now?"

David leaned back, accidentally knocking one of Diane's empties. It rolled off the hood and shattered on the ground. "Wait until morning."

Chapter 27

THERE is no nighttime in an emergency room. Day or night, the clean-scrubbed halls have the same feeling of perennial waking, of intrepid alertness tinged with exhaustion and suffering, like the rung of some ever-glowing Purgatory.

Behind the locked and guarded door, Clyde lay in his own private torment, awash in the screams of a boy in a room nearby. After David had left, the cops had turned the lights back on in his room, despite his pleas. He winced frequently and with regularity, his forehead wrinkling now and again as if to fend off the tightening jaws of a migraine.

Despite the soft lining of the leather restraints, his wrists and ankles had reddened from his constant tugging. He twisted, his bare and blistered chest arching to the harsh, ceaseless lights of the ceiling. He let out a grunt, then settled back, spread and defeated, a dog waxing passive, a turtle flipped, Prometheus bound.

Whatever they were doing to the boy ceased, for there were no more cries echoing through the halls. A shuffling past his door, but the bar handle did not turn. Sliding the restraint of his lowered hand along the rail until it was even with his hip, Clyde turned on his side. He managed to get ahold of the drawstring of his scrub bottoms and the waistband fell instantly loose, revealing his money clip tucked within the small interior pocket. Because it was flat, nestled on the inside of his hip, and soft-padded with several singles, the money clip had survived the brisk patdown outside. The fact that he'd been swathed in alkali-soaked material had discouraged a more vigorous search.

He swayed back and forth on his rear end to bring the pocket closer to his bound, gloved hand, his fingers straining pronged and stiff. He snagged the ragged edge of a bill between his second and middle fingers and managed to pull the clip halfway out, but it caught on the fabric pulled tight by his shifting motion. The tin square containing the lozenge, pressed beneath the clip in his pocket, dug into his thigh with a sharp corner.

He released the money clip and wiggled several more times before timing a better grab, his fat thumb and forefinger clamping shut around one of the rearing horses, fake turquoise against hammered brass. Breathing in small, repetitive grunts, he slid his body down as far as the restraints allowed, pressing his rear end down into the mattress so he'd drag his loose scrub bottoms with him.

The money clip popped free.

He rested for a few minutes, his face a red, sweaty globe. He shifted the money clip in his hand, then wriggled his thumbnail into the slender groove that lifted the blade from the clip. The blade pulled slightly open, then snapped shut. He tried again and again until his thumb ached near the cuticle from the pressure. He wasn't able to get the blade far enough open so it would hold until he could reshift his hand and thumb it the rest of the way.

Finally, he raised the blade just far enough to slide his index finger beneath it before it could snap shut. When he released his thumb, the spring pulled the blade home, slicing down through the thin latex glove and his flesh. He bit his lip, eyes watering, and quickly repositioned his thumb and flicked the blade fully open.

A stream of blood found its way from the neat slit of the wound down over his knuckle. He turned the money clip in his hand so the blade protruded down toward the restraint. The leather cuffs themselves were far too thick to cut through without better leverage and a serrated blade, but they were connected to the gurney rail by a thin band threaded through a small buckle and hasp.

With some effort, he slid the blade between the restraint and the band, and turned the sharp edge up until it tented the thin leather strip. Rocking gently on the mattress, he began to saw.

At 3:17 A.M., a gurgling scream from Exam Room Fourteen sent both officers rigid on their feet in Hallway One. One fumbled at the door handle as the other stood back, already searching for an ER nurse.