Do No Harm (2002) Read online

  "Are you done speaking with the other subjects?" David asked.

  "A few we're still running down. Nothing's rang the cherries."

  "He's so withdrawn," David said. "I'd say it's a long shot that he's had real contact with anybody."

  "Aside from you," Yale said. He flipped through his ever-present notepad. "He used surgical scalpels on the bird. Correct?"

  "Yes."

  "Any special kind?"

  David shook his head. "He had plenty of medical supplies at his apartment. Maybe he took them before he fled. The needle he wielded at Diane--I saw a similar one in his car. For all we know, he's got a Dr. Mengele funhouse in his trunk."

  "You were right about the urine sample," Yale said. "Our guy at County Med said his kidneys were clearing a lot of the stuff. He estimated something like a 2.3 blood level. That mean anything to you?"

  David nodded. "That's bad. Really bad. But if we're correct in our assumption that he's no longer taking lithium, it'll be lower by now. It must be, for him to have driven over and broken in." He paused and moistened his dry lips. "Some pretty dexterous maneuvering."

  "Why didn't he attack you? He's bigger and certainly a more capable fighter."

  David suspected the latter remark was intended as a dig, though he found it merely accurate. "I think he's more interested in scaring me. First the torture tape, then the attack on Diane, then this. The phonetic graffiti on my car is probably intended to humiliate me. Diminish me further."

  "Fits your theory," Dalton said. "Lucky for you, huh?"

  "Actually, I'd be thrilled to figure out a way to make him come after me more violently. Better likelihood of catching him."

  Dalton stood up and ran a hand through his already tousled hair, his cheap button-up shirt pulling untucked at the side. He chuckled to himself. "You've got balls, Doc," he said. "I'll give you that."

  "The key is to instigate him consciously and intelligently," David said.

  "I'd have to say you've been doing that from the get-go."

  "But if I could provoke him in a way we could channel . . . "

  "Then what?"

  Before David could answer, Yale did. "We could designate his next victim. The question is: How do we place a fitting stimulus to prompt him to make a move?"

  Dalton sat back down, the effort pushing a grunt out of him. "Female cops going UC as nurses?"

  "But where? We haven't turned up shit over in his neck of the woods, and as you said, he's gotta know we'll nail him if he steps on Med Center grounds again."

  "A nurse might be a step back for him," David said. "He's already attacked people further up the hierarchy of influence at the hospital."

  "Maybe he'll go after that bitchy chief of staff. Who's on her?"

  "Bicks and Perelli," Dalton said. "They'll have it covered. Perelli's the Police Olympics freehand shooting champ."

  "Clyde's not going to attack someone with visible police protection," David said. "He may be getting bolder, but he's still essentially a coward. And besides, I still think I'm a more appealing target. We could wait for him to contact me or come after me again."

  "Waiting," Dalton said, "sucks."

  "For the next few nights, I'm putting a unit on you," Yale said. "If Clyde calls again, make sure you record it. I assume it's okay with you if we start taking steps to trace your incoming calls?"

  "Yes. Fine. Can you do it immediately? I imagine he's gonna call to soak up my reaction to Stanley." At their blank looks, David added, "The bird."

  "You named your bird Stanley?" Dalton said.

  "My wife did. Clearly she had lapses in taste if she married me."

  Yale cracked a grin--the first David had seen. "Unfortunately, even with your approval, we have to jump hoops," Yale said. "Every major post-O. J. Simpson investigation's gotta squeak. With the political pressure on this one, we can't sneeze without the DA checking in. We'll have to subpoena the phone company, get a search warrant for subscriber information. A couple of days minimum."

  "Why didn't you start this already?"

  "We did."

  It was David's turn to smile. Dalton took a sip of coffee, his face showing he'd forgotten to refill the cup since yesterday. David emitted a monstrous yawn.

  "When the last time you slept?" Yale asked.

  "I'm fine."

  "I'm not asking if you're fine. I'm asking the last time you've strung together more than a few hours of sleep."

  "I don't know. Five, six days. I can handle it. During internship, I was on call every other day and every other weekend."

  "You were a young buck then. I'd guess you didn't look this shitty."

  "No," David said. "Probably not."

  "I'm gonna take you home to get a few z's. You're no good to us blurry."

  Dalton drew his hand down the front of his face wearily, distorting his features. "We have our own world of shit to get back to. Combing evidence from Clyde's apartment. Car tips. Ex-foster home kids. Drugstores. Trying to press something useful from Forensics."

  David's pager went off, beeping loudly. It was Sandy. His watch read 9:23. He'd missed his appearance before the board. "I have to return this," he said. "Sorry."

  He withdrew his cell phone from the pocket of his white coat, and walked a few paces off so he could have a semiprivate conversation.

  Sandy picked up the phone after a half ring. "Where the hell are you?"

  Two cops led a heavily drugged prostitute into a nearby interrogation room. She twisted in their grips and tried to bite them. "Things are . . . complicated right now."

  "Well, you've succeeded in making them more complicated. The board is rightly pissed off that you're not here. The meeting is progressing, whether you're here to defend yourself or not. And you're being depicted in even less flattering fashion than you deserve. And this morning's Times photo isn't exactly salve on our PR wounds." An angry pause. "You're doing an excellent job sabotaging what was shaping up to be a great career."

  "I appreciate your keeping me in the loop," he heard himself say. His voice was cold, clinical, detached. Sandy hung up without saying good-bye.

  He nodded to Yale and followed him down the stairs. The irritable black desk officer looked at David, then elbowed her counterpart--an obese man with a Wilford Brimley mustache--in the ribs.

  "Ask him," she said. When the man shook his head, it set his jowls jiggling.

  David and Yale passed the counter.

  The woman elbowed her partner again. "Ask him," she repeated.

  Wilford Brimley looked up with what David imagined was uncharacteristic shyness. "I got this heart murmur . . . " he said.

  David slid his stethoscope into place and leaned over the counter.

  David sat quietly in the passenger seat of Yale's car as they headed back to his house. Dalton had stayed at the station, running down leads on the phone. The sky was gray-brown, the clouds overhead indistinguishable from the haze of pollution. David tried to imagine his life if the Board voted for him to step down as division chief. He'd always lived with a presumption of irreproachability, probably a flaw he'd inherited from his mother. Events of the past week had knocked him from his armor, and dressed him in the trappings of visible failure. Maybe this was a good place from which to start over. To pick up the fragments and build something new from them.

  Not surprisingly, he next felt a mentor's pull to get Carson put back together.

  Yale said something, pulling David from his reverie.

  "Excuse me?" David asked.

  "I said, don't worry. We are gonna nail him. We have the whole department on the lookout for him and his vehicle. Ninety-eight hundred officers. He must have the vehicle hidden away, but every time he takes a drive or steps out in public, he's playing Russian roulette with five bullets."

  David's mind slowly caught up to Yale's words, taking a moment to awaken. "You're more confident than Dalton."

  "Dalton is accustomed to fate, chance, and the world conspiring to fuck him. I'm not. Clyde is no lo
nger an unknown suspect. He's now an identified, wanted, violent felon, and he's starting to unravel. He's taking bigger and bigger risks, like going to your house. He's playing an endgame now. There's no question we'll nail him, and in my mind, there's no question we'll nail him soon." His hands fisted the wheel, then loosened. "There's really only one major uncertainty."

  David rested his head against the glass. "What's that?"

  "How bloody it gets before it's over."

  They rode in silence the rest of the way to Brentwood. As they turned onto Marlboro, David recognized Ed's red Pathfinder across the street. The police cars had all left. "Want me to come in?" Yale asked. "Check for alkali throwers under the bed?"

  David glanced at Ed's Pathfinder warily. "Thank you, I'll be fine."

  "Do you have a weapon?"

  "No," David said, opening his door. "No."

  Yale leaned over so he could see David's face. "Keep your doors and windows locked. See about an alarm system. Call me with any sign of anything out of the ordinary. I'll check in with you every few hours. We'll have a car on you by nightfall."

  "Thank you," David said.

  A new lock greeted David at his front door, which stood slightly ajar. When he entered his house, Ed was on all fours behind the ficus wearing a woman's halter top--nicely filled out--and a leather miniskirt. A pair of patent leather pumps sat at the edge of the carpet. Next to two Nextel phones on the counter lay a Kate Spade purse.

  Ed turned toward David, revealing a faceful of makeup and a luxuriant blond wig. "Not a word, not a fucking word," he said. He spliced two wires together and attached them to a keypad.

  "Darling," David said. "Your mascara is running."

  Adjusting his wig, Ed stood and approached David. He moved differently--high on his toes, shoulders drawn slightly back, chin raised. Feminine. When he went undercover, he really went all out. "I was on a job. I came straight over."

  "What, on Santa Monica Boulevard?"

  "Bomb threat at a drag rave. I know, it sounds like a Roger Corman movie."

  David laughed. "Everything under control?"

  Ed shrugged. "Nothing happened. That's what I get for taking a job from worked-up queens."

  "At least you got to get dressed up."

  Ed's face registered that he found little humorous about the situation.

  David pointed to his wig. "I think it's safe to say you can remove that now."

  "Oh. Oh yeah." Ed pulled off the wig and flung it on the carpet. "I came over as soon as the cops left, so put the brakes on your commentary. Now listen, here's what we did. I switched your Schlage locks to Medeco--double-cylinder, one-inch hardened dead bolts with six-pin tumblers and brass revolving collars. I set up a triangular-patterned, infrared, dual-beam break around the perimeter of your property line. It'll give off a beep to let you know when someone's on your property."

  He paused to glare at David. "Keep your eyes off my tits and pay attention. Next, we have a Radionics security system setup, run off this keypad. It employs passive infrared through the interior and at the windows, which are also outfitted with glass-shatter sensors. Delayed entry and exit is not to exceed forty seconds. If the system is breached, it'll call out on POTS--plain old telephone system--with a backup cellular dial in case someone takes out your hard line. Your code is your birthday, including the four-digit year, plus the number seven. Got it?"

  David nodded.

  "Your little shrub collection out front provides excellent concealment for intruders. I'd rather you went with a cleaner look."

  "You do landscape design?"

  Ed pulled a compact out of the purse and began vigorously removing his eye shadow. "Honey, I do it all."

  "What about the phones? The cops can't get the paperwork through to trace calls for a few days. Can you get a tap on the line?"

  "Yeah. As soon as I go back in time to the 1950s." Ed picked up one of the Nextels and punched in a number, shaking his head. "Nobody uses taps anymore. I have a Lucent technologist on the inside." He changed his voice to a drawl. "Yeah, hey there. Your baby brother calling. Listen, I'm trying to find mom's new phone number. Here's her old one: 310-555-4771." David's telephone number. "I'm gonna stay with her about a week. . . . No, to be safe, I'd like to stay with her a week--twenty-four hours isn't enough time for us to catch up. . . . Thanks, bro." He hung up and smiled at David. "Your number's red-flagged for seven days."

  "Shouldn't we let the police know we've done this?"

  The smile left Ed's face instantaneously. "Absolutely not. This is an inside guy I'm using. I have to keep his ass covered. We're trading legality for speed, here." Ed screwed the keypad into the wall behind the ficus and slipped into his stilettos with a pained grimace. "If Clyde calls, let me know immediately and we'll be able to trace the location he called from."

  "Thank you," David said. "I . . . thank you."

  Ed nodded at him on his way to the door. "I'll send you a bill. You'll send me a money order."

  "How much?"

  Ed turned, touched two manicured fingers to his lipsticked mouth, and blew David a kiss. "Honey, you don't want to know."

  David retrieved the morning paper, sitting in his leather chair and reading the two front-page articles on "The Westwood Acid Thrower." He noted with amusement that they'd selected a less-than-flattering photograph of himself, captured mid-sentence during his speech at the resident meet-and-greet, to go along with Clyde's.

  For the first time in several months, he turned on the television, but news updates of the manhunt cut into the programming every fifteen minutes and he finally turned it off and gazed at the blank space where his mother's de Kooning used to hang. His exhaustion was too charged to give way to sleep.

  He sat quietly, snipping and removing the stitches from his healed knuckle. When the phone rang, it nearly startled him off the chair. He dashed back to his bedroom so he could record the call if necessary. After taking an instant to catch his breath, he picked up the phone with a trembling hand. It was only the dry cleaner calling to remind him he'd had clothes ready for pickup since last Monday.

  He hung up, gazing at the light swirl of fingerprint powder on the plastic receiver. After trying to sleep, then disconsolately flipping through the latest New England Journal of Medicine, David called the ER. Carson still had not come in.

  David couldn't rest. He was well on his way to his first glaring professional setback, and Clyde was still on the loose. At least there was one thing David could fix. People stared at him from their cars as he drove up to Carson's building; he wondered why until he saw his car's reflection in a store window, ashole lettered across the side in red. He couldn't help but laugh at the expressions of pedestrians and other drivers.

  The newsman on the car radio cheerily announced, "Dr. David Spier's position as UCLA ER division chief has become tenuous. Apparently, the board convened this morning over allegations that he attacked a fellow physician. The hospital has not issued a statement. Spier has been at the controversial center of . . . " David's lack of irritation and unease about the report surprised him pleasantly.

  He managed to find Carson's apartment easily this time. Wearing boxers and a ripped T-shirt, Carson opened the door. His face, unshaven and darkened with exhaustion, showed little reaction. David followed him inside wordlessly, and they sat on the floor of the living room again, facing each other. Near the window stood a large bong, which through some tacit agreement, he and Carson pretended not to notice.

  "When are you coming back?" David asked.

  "I don't know that I am," Carson said softly. "I'm not sure I'm cut out for this." He looked away, his face striped with the shadows of the cheap venetian blinds. "Who's gonna want me to work on them now? If they knew, if patients knew, they'd never want to be in my hands. Under my care." His fingers slid up into his mop of blond hair, disappearing. He held his head and studied the light filtering through the window.

  "Forgive me for being harsh," David finally said, breaking the silence. He
brought his hands together and laced them into a temple. "But you need to pull your head out of your ass."

  Carson blinked several times in rapid succession.

  "This self-indulgent wallowing is for lovesick schoolboys. You're a physician. Your job is and will be to make difficult calls in the face of life and death and to live with them. I've seen hundreds, maybe even thousands of young doctors, and I know who's cut out for this and who isn't. If you walk away, you'll grow to hate yourself by small, vicious increments."

  Carson's lips quivered, ever so slightly.

  David continued, "When we spoke the other day, you expressed ambivalence about your return. I've decided I'm not going to leave that decision to you. You need to come back. It's your responsibility to the division and to yourself. Recent events have forced me to learn anew that the world can be a miserable, difficult place. We can't afford to lose a good physician. Not ever, but especially not this week."

  Carson looked at him, his eyes moist.

  "I'm taking a few days off, starting now," David continued. "I want to know that you're in the ER in my absence." He stood up and dusted his hands. "I'm not leaving until you get dressed, get in your car, and start your drive to the hospital."

  Carson stared at him for a very long time. Then he rose and headed back to his bedroom to change into scrubs.

  Chapter 66

  DAVID sat in the still of his bedroom, back against the headboard, files and papers scattered across his lap. He watched the palm frond shadows wave across the newly scoured blood-tinged wall at the base of his bed, and knew with a sudden and vehement certainty that the telephone was about to ring. He watched the bobbing shadows of the plants and waited, breathing softly, as the clock ticked on.

  The phone rang and he set aside Connolly's abstract, which he'd been rereading. His voice was surprisingly calm when he answered. "Yes, Clyde?"

  The voice, low and sloppy, rattled with phlegm. "You saw. You saw what I left you?"

  David's voice was entirely calm. "I did. And?"

  A confused pause.

  "If you think sneaking into my house and killing a canary are gonna get me upset, you have another think coming. You're gonna have to do a lot more to scare me, Clyde."