Although Eric was sure that, like most people, he dreamed almost every night, it was rare for him to wake up with any notion of what the dream had been about. This morning, though, the images were vivid and terrifying. He was in the emergency room, directing a resuscitation, issuing orders to an army of residents and nurses. Then, suddenly, he was dressed in a tattered overcoat, wandering across the Common, a bottle of cheap wine protruding from his pocket. Children passed by, pointing and laughing. A band of teenagers knocked him down and began kicking him. Shielding his face with his arms, he rolled away, trying to escape their blows. all at once he toppled over the edge of a precipice and was plummeting through a heavy blackness, screaming as he fell.
He twisted and turned, hurtling through the void.
Then suddenly he became aware of the hideous electronic voice, droning over and over again: '… Refuse to help us now, and we guarantee that you will be off the staff of White Memorial before the month is out. -..'
His alarm clock brought the dream to an abrupt end. Eric lay naked on his bed, drenched in perspiration, his covers and pillow on the floor beside him.
Several minutes passed before he was able to sort the nightmare from the actual events of the night just passed. One moment, it seemed, everything.was in order in his life. He was counting down the days until his promotion. Then, just a beat later, everything had changed.
It was as if a spell had been cast over him.
There was still time, he thought. Time to get to the hospital.
Time, somehow, to let Caduceus know that he wanted in, that he was willing to do whatever they asked. He leaped out of bed, toweled off, and was frantically dressing when the phone began ringing.
Thank you, he thought. Whoever you are, thank you for calling back, for giving me a second chance.
He snatched up the receiver. 'Hello?'
'Good morning,' Laura said. 'I hope I didn't wake you.' Eric felt instantly deflated.
'No, no,' he said, 'I've been up for a while.'
He sank to the edge of his bed and rubbed at what remained of the sleep in his eyes. He felt dizzy, disoriented.
'I'm sorry I ran away last night,' she said. 'I really didn't want to leave you, but I was getting so upset thinking about Scott, and I was caught completely off guard by what happened between us.'
'I understand.'
'But in spite of everything, I did have a wonderful night.
'Me too.'
'You sound a little distracted. Are you okay?'
'I'm fine,' Eric said, sensing the ungodly tension in his body beginning to lessen. 'There's been a lot going on in my life, that's all. I'll explain when I see you.
'Then we're still on for breakfast?'
Eric glanced over at his clinic coat, hanging on his bedroom door.
The pin was gone, and so, in all likelihood, was the future he had so carefully laid out for himself. But in that moment he sensed relief sweep over him. He had done what he had done, and now, as advertised, his life was already moving on a new, irrevocable path.
'We're still on,' he said with sudden enthusiasm.
'Terrific,' she said. 'They don't have room service in this place, but if you want to come over, I'll pick up some coffee and croissants or something.'
'I'll be there,' Eric said. 'You can count on it.'
Najarian not working today. He has revoked his commitment to us, and will be dealt with.
Until a suitable- replacement can be found, you must handle things just as you did with numbers 105, 106, and 107. The enclosed is our way of thanking you for your continued efforts.
C.
The note was in a sealed envelope on Norma Cullinet's desk when she arrived for work at seven.
Included were ten $100 bills. The nursing supervisor read the note once, and then again. Then she shredded it angrily and threw it into her wastebasket. As much as she loved her involvement with Caduceus, as much as she delighted in living on the edge, she detested taking unnecessary chances. And now, for the fourth time since the firing and subsequent disappearance of Craig Worrell, ghe was being asked to take a fairly big one.
Actually, she acknowledged, two of the three cases she had been forced to handle hadn't really been that risky. The retarded teen on the ward on Men-iman 7 had been pronounced dead by his resident and turned over to her without so much as an attempt at resuscitation; and pitiful Gary Kaiser had been so flustered and incompetent in trying to revive the drift diver that he had no inkling the man was receiving ten times the adrenaline dose Kaiser was ordering.
Norma's performance that day had been flawless. still, the arrival at the hospital of Laura Enders and her posters pointed out that the system devised by Caduceus was not. Although it made little sense, given the description of Scott Enders as a computer expert, Norma was almost certain that the derelict and the woman's brother were one and the same. And if that was so, then clearly the patient had lied in every piece of information he had told her about himself. Given that, surely no one in Caduceus could criticize her for the break in protocol. And now the whole business seemed to have blown over.
Cullinet slipped the bills into her wallet. A thousand dollars for less than an hour's work. She smiled.
At least someone was willing to pay her what she was worth. She checked to be sure her office door was locked, and then from her desk withdrew the Xerox copy of an emergency-room admission sheet. The patient, a woman, had been treated at White Memorial forty-eight hours before. Two items on the sheet were marked with a
yellow highlighter: AGE, and NEXT OF KIN-NONE.
Nlorrna drew a circle around the woman's phone number. Her pulse began to quicken as she dialed and then listened. two… three… four… five..
She counted each ring out loud.
'… seven… eight… nine… ten..
Four cases, four thousand dollars, she thought.
And that was just a token of what was in store for her if the work of Caduceus proved as profitable as she had been assured it would be. fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… the twentieth ring Norma hung up. Loretta Leone was not going to answer her phone… not now, not ever. She checked the Boston directory, took a deep, carring breath, and dialed the police.
'Hello, police?' she said, affecting the halting, cracked voice of a much older woman. 'I've been expecting a call from a friend of mine, Miss Loretta Leone. That's L-e-o-n-e. I was supposed to take her to her doctor's appointment later this morning, but she hasn't called and I can't get an answer at her apartment. She never misses an appointment, but she's not well, you know, and I'm afraid something might have happened to… No, no I haven't gone over there myself. Her appointment's not uptil eleven, and I have a terrible back condition that… Oh, it's Three-fifteen East Harcourt Street, apartment six.' … Thank you, young man. You're very nice. Thank you very much.'
Norma set the receiver down just as the police officer was asking for her name. She then straightened her desk and carefully destroyed the Xerox.
Finally, she unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk and brought out a small metal box, secured by a combination lock. Inside the box were some vials, small jars of powder, and a number of already-loaded syringes. They were labeled NORMAL SALINE, but that was hardly what they contained.
Norma slid one of the syringes into her uniform pocket. If Eric Najarian wasn't on duty in the E.R then almost certainly Reed Marshall was. And although Najarian was more flamboyant, and probably the better all-around physician of the two, Marshall was damn good, and certainly more meticulous. She would have to be exceedingly careful to keep everything looking smooth and steady for as long as he wanted to continue the resuscitation.
She replaced the strongbox and made a final check to be sure she had put everything away. Then she left the office to begin morning rounds. It would be close to an
hour before the police checked on her call, the rescue squad did their thing, and the Priority One was called into the E.R.
Her attention turned to Reed Marshall and the way he handled Code 99 resuscitations. liked to direct things
