Do No Harm

"Precisely. Even when the presented cues-tone of voice, facial expression, conversational context-would lead an ordinary person to realize that the questioning is benign, even benevolent, he finds it antagonistic. Which means he finds himself constantly moving through a hostile landscape, where he perceives that people are antagonizing him. Imagine how that would be, if you thought people were always insulting you, attacking you. It would make you pretty aggressive."

A hint of irony crept into Ed's voice. "It sure would."

"He's also extraordinarily insecure and defensive, and he adamantly denies taking any drugs or pills, which leads me to believe he probably does. He seems simultaneously afraid and desirous of being alone, and betrays an intense fixation."

"On who?"

"On me."

"Better," Ed said. "Now we have a profile shaping up."

"So you'll help me?"

"No. I need more from you first. A fingerprint, decent photo, or at least a name."

"What can you do with that?"

"I have certain advantages over the police because I don't have to move through legal channels."

"I'm not asking you to do anything illegal or unethical," David said.

Ed's laugh echoed around the living room. "Everything's ethical. The question is: What kind of ethics?"

Ed reached over and plucked one of the items off the table at his side. He tossed it at David. David lost track of it in the darkness, and the object struck him in the chest and fell to the couch. "Ed? Ed?"

No sound in the darkness. David felt along the cushion, finally finding the thing Ed had thrown at him. A lightbulb.

David crossed the room, bumping into a lamp and nearly knocking it over, but he caught it by the thin metal post. He managed to remove the shade in the darkness and screw the lightbulb in place.

He turned the switch and was not surprised to find Ed gone.

Lying on the reading table were three other lightbulbs. Tucked under one of them was an unprinted business card, blank save for a phone number written across the bottom in black ink.

Sadly, it took one Jewish doctor more than ten minutes to screw in three lightbulbs. Afterward, David checked the doors and windows but was unable to find any signs of forced entry. No scratches on any of the locks. Whoever Ed Pinkerton was, he knew what he was doing.

Rather than sleep, David prepared a list of all Clyde's symptoms he had observed and then translated the more difficult terms into nonmedical phrases in case he had to show it to others. The list read: nystagmus-pupils jerking headaches difficulty concentrating clouding of consciousness dysarthria-slurred speech akathisia-restlessness ataxia-drunken walking

Beneath that, David wrote some potential diagnoses, including CNS lupus, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, brain tumor, Huntington's, Wilson's, metachromatic leukodystrophy, subdural hematoma, viral encephalitis or an obscure central nervous system infection, aqueductal stenosis, temporal lobe epilepsy, thyrotoxicosis, multiple sclerosis, drug toxicity, insecticide poisoning.

Given the vagueness of the information David currently had, it was impossible to narrow the list further.

He thought about Clyde's compulsive repetition, the counting backward from three. What did that represent?

David set down the pad of paper and checked his watch. It was close to midnight. He undressed in his bedroom. When he got into bed, he was struck by its vastness, and the empty space at his side.

He thought of his wife on the MICU bed, the monotonous hum of the monitor at her side. He thought of Clyde, an ugly, broken man shuffling through life, barely capable of looking other people in the face, and he wondered if he had a responsibility to emerge from the hibernation that had been his life for the past few years. His hard shell of Spartan regularity protected him, mostly, from the empty stretch of bed at his side. But it also shielded him from other, vital, things.

Though he'd been awake for nearly forty-five hours, his whole body was humming with energy. He lay for a few minutes with his thoughts, then threw back the sheets and got dressed again. The ride back to the hospital was dreamlike, the streets shimmering black and silver.

There was little activity in the ER lobby, and the examination rooms were mostly empty. Don had fallen asleep on a high stool in the CWA, slumped on the back counter. Nurses and interns lethargically filled out charts and shuttled them from tray to tray.

"Was there anything put in the property locker?" David asked, announcing his presence. "From Clyde?"

Don lazily raised his head, his eyelids heavy. "What?"

David continued, addressing the others. "Maybe something fell out of his pockets, or someone took something off him and stored it in the property lockers."

"Looking for clues, Dr. Spier?" one of the nurses asked. The others looked at him with barely concealed amusement.

"Was there?" he asked again.