hyperpyrexia and the massively elevated potassium level.”
“I doubt we’ll ever know,” Dr. Dayal said. “I agree with you about the admin wanting to keep this quiet. But if Khajan wants to talk to me, tell him I’m here at the hospital and can be paged.”
Dr. Krishna waved over his shoulder to indicate he’d heard. He was about to turn down the short corridor to the room’s door to the hall when his eyes passed over Raj. Reflexively they snapped back to the statue-like nurse. “My gosh, son, I forgot all about you. Come with me!” Dr. Krishna waved for Raj to follow, then preceded him out the door.
Vainly hoping he would have continued to be ignored as if he were invisible, Raj reluctantly followed the surgeon. Once again, his heart was racing. He had no idea of what to expect, but it was going to be bad.
Out in the hall, Dr. Krishna had waited for him. “Sorry to have ignored you, young man,” the surgeon said. “I’ve been seriously preoccupied, but now I recognize you. I saw you this morning when I stopped down here to check on Lucas. You’re the day nurse, if I’m not mistaken. What was your name again?”
“Raj Khatwani,” Raj hesitantly said.
“Oh, yes, Raj! My, you have long hours.”
“I’m not working. I get off after three.”
“You’re still here at the hospital and you certainly look like you are working, uniform and all.”
“I came back to the hospital to use the library. I wanted to learn about the surgery you did on Mr. Lucas. Obesity surgery was not included in our nursing-school curricula.”
“That’s very impressive! You remind me of myself when I was a student your age! Self-motivation is key to success in medicine. Come, walk with me down to the central desk.”
The two men began walking, with Raj having trouble resisting the temptation to flee. He knew that the longer he stayed and the more he said, the more apt he was to incriminate himself. He could even feel the succinylcholine syringe in his pants pocket, pressing against his thigh.
“Did your research result in any questions I might answer for you?”
Desperately, Raj tried to think up a question he could ask to make it seem believable that he’d truly been studying. “Umm . . .” he voiced. “How do you know how small to make the stomach?”
“Good question,” Dr. Krishna said, switching to a professional mien as he answered it with the help of elaborate hand gestures. He caught Raj’s eyes longingly taking in the stairwell door, which they were passing. The surgeon stopped, interrupting himself. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you have to be someplace?”
“I do have to get home,” Raj said.
“Don’t let me hold you up,” Dr. Krishna said. “But I do have a question. How was it you were in Mr. Lucas’s room just when he suffered his terminal event?”
Raj’s mind desperately raced for an explanation. Making the tension even worse, he knew that every moment he hesitated, the less convincing he would be. “After the reading I’d done, I had some questions for the patient. But the second I got into his room, I knew there was something seriously wrong.”
“Was he conscious?”
“I don’t know. He was writhing around as if in pain.”
“That was probably the heart attack. It’s what usually kills these overweight patients. Well, you almost saved the day. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Raj said with a gulp, almost giving himself away. He couldn’t believe he was being thanked.
“I have some good journal articles on obesity surgery I can loan you if you’d like.”
“That would be terrific,” Raj managed.
After a quick shake of hands, the two men parted, Raj disappearing into the stairwell and Dr. Krishna heading for the central desk to fill out the death certificate and call the care manager and Khajan Chawdhry.
Once inside the stairwell, Raj had to pause. His heart was beating at such a rate that he felt mildly dizzy. Squatting down on his haunches for twenty or so seconds relieved the dizziness, and after wiping the cold sweat from his forehead he stood back up, holding on to the handrail. Relieved, he took a few steps down, and when he sensed he was back to normal, he let himself run down the rest of the stairs to the lobby floor.
Pleased that the lobby was as deserted as it was, Raj half ran across the room to the main exit door and left the building. Outside, he forced himself to slow to a rapid walk, finding it difficult not to give in to his panic and bolt. He felt like a bank robber exiting a bank with all the cash and every eye on him. At any moment he half expected to hear a shrill whistle and a shouted command to stop.
Reaching the still-crowded street, Raj hailed an auto rickshaw, and it wasn’t until the Aesculapian Medical Center faded from view out the small rear window that he could begin to relax. Facing forward in a near trance, Raj terrorized himself by rehashing the whole unfortunate episode. He was afraid to tell the others, but he was more afraid not to tell them, unsure of what the ultimate fallout was going to be.
After passing through the front door of the bungalow, Raj stopped to listen. He could feel the vibration of the large sub-woofer of the video system pumping out the bass in the formal living room, so he headed in that direction. He found Cal, Durell, Petra, and Santana, along with Veena, Samira, and two other nurses, watching a taut action DVD. Durell was enthusiastically into it and cheering on the protagonists, who were facing insurmountable odds.
Raj went up behind Cal, and after a moment’s hesitation gently shook his shoulder.
Tense from the movie, Cal jumped when he felt the nudge, took one look at who’d caught his attention, and then paused the movie. “Raj! We’re glad to see you back. How did it go?”
“I’m afraid it did not go well at all,” Raj admitted, and dropped his eyes from Cal’s to the floor. “It was a disaster.”
There was a moment of silence as all eyes regarded Raj.
“I thought we shouldn’t have gone ahead with another so soon,” Veena blurted out. “You should have listened to me!”
Cal raised his hand to quiet her. “I think we should hear from Raj before we jump to any conclusions. Tell us what happened, Raj. Don’t spare the details.”
Without much embellishment, Raj told the whole story, from colliding with the doctor to being thanked by the doctor in the hospital corridor after the failed resuscitation attempt. When he was finished he fell silent, still looking down at the floor and avoiding eye contact with anyone.
“That was it?” Cal asked, after a brief silence. Cal was relieved. He and everyone else had expected something a lot worse, like Raj being accused of doing what he in reality did do. “And let me review. The working diagnosis was heart attack and stroke of some sort. That’s what will be on the death certificate?”
Raj nodded. “That’s my understanding.”
“And you heard nothing about an inquest, an autopsy, or any investigation?”
“No. Nothing like that. What I did overhear from the surgeon was that an e-mail had come out that obligated him to call the hospital CEO and report the death immediately. Apparently there’s concern because of the two deaths at the Queen Victoria Hospital causing international attention. They are going to want to suppress any attention toward tonight’s death.”
“That sounds almost too good to me,” Cal said. “Under the circumstances I can’t imagine that this kind of potential disaster could have any better outcome. Raj, it seems as if you did a terrific job.”
Raj began to perk up. He even made eye contact with several people. Led by Cal, there was even spontaneous applause. “Let’s get a bunch of Kingfisher from the fridge and make a toast to Raj,” Cal said.
“What about stopping any more episodes?” Veena questioned. “I think we should decide now to stop them, at least for a few days. Let’s not push our luck.”
“That seems reasonable,” Cal said, “but let’s get full advantage of this one. Did you get the patient’s hospital record?” Cal asked Raj. Raj went into one of his pockets and pulled out his USB storage device and the succinylcholine syringe. Cal took the storage device and handed it to Santana. “Let’s get this death episode right to CNN. With the failed resuscitation attempt, it should make good copy and have even more impact. Encourage them to get it on the air ASAP.”
Santana took the storage device. “It will only take me a few minutes, then I’ll be back for that beer. How about waiting.”
