I zipped through twelve miles of valley suburbia: Encino; Tarzana (only in L.A. could a bedroom community be named after the apeman); Woodland Hills. Keyed up and bright-eyed, I kept both hands on the wheel, too edgy to listen to music.
Just before Topanga the blackness of night surrendered to an explosion of colour, a winking panoply of scarlet, amber, and cobalt blue. It was as if a gigantic Christmas tree had been planted in the middle of the freeway. Mirage or not, I braked to a halt.
Few vehicles had been cruising the freeway at that hour. But there were enough of them - log jammed and static, bumper to bumper - to create a 4:00 A.M. traffic jam.
I sat for a while with the motor idling, then realised that the other drivers had turned off their engines. Some had exited and could be seen leaning against trunks and hoods, smoking cigarettes, chatting, or simply gazing up at the stars. Their pessimism was overwhelming, and I turned off the Seville. In front of me was a silver Porsche Targa. I got out and walked up to it. A ginger-haired man in his late thirties sat in the driver's seat, chewing on a cold pipestem and perusing a legal journal.
'Excuse me, could you tell me what's going on?'
The Porsche driver raised his eyes from the magazine and looked up at me pleasantly. From the smell of things it wasn't tobacco that filled the pipe.
'Smash-up. All lanes are blocked.'
'How long have you been here?'
A quick look at a Rolex.
'Half hour.'
'Any idea when it'll clear up?'
'Nope. It's a nasty one.' He put his pipe back in his mouth, smiled, and returned to an article on maritime shipping contracts.
I continued walking along the left shoulder of the freeway, past half a dozen rows of cold engines. Rubbernecking had slowed traffic on the opposite side to a crawl. The stench of gasoline grew stronger, and my ears picked up an electric chant: multiple police radios barking in independent counterpoint. A few yards more, and the entire scene was visible.
A huge truck - twin transport trailers over eighteen wheels - had jackknifed across the freeway. One trailer remained upright and was positioned perpendicular to the dotted white lines; the other had flipped on its side, a good third of it suspended over the side of the highway. The linkage between the two vans was a severed sprig of twisted mesh. Pinned beneath the sprawling metal carcass was a shiny red compact car crushed like a used beer can. A few feet away sat a larger sedan, a brown Ford, its windows blown out, its front end an accordion.
The lights and noise came from a pair of hook and ladders, half a dozen ambulances, and a platoon of fire department and highway patrol cars. Half a dozen uniforms huddled around the Ford, and a strange-looking machine outfitted at the snout with oversized tongs made repeated passes at its crumpled passenger door. Blanketed bodies on stretchers were being loaded into ambulances. Some were hooked up to intravenous bottles and handled gingerly. Others, encased in body bags, were treated like luggage. From one of the ambulances came a moan, unmistakably human. The freeway was littered with glass, fuel, and blood.
A line of CHP officers stood at parade rest, shifting their attention constantly from the carnage to the waiting motorists. One of them saw me and motioned me back with a curt hand wave. When I didn't comply, he marched forward, grim-faced.
'Go back to your car immediately, sir.' Up close he was
young and big with a long red face, a skimpy fawn-coloured moustache, and thin, tight lips. His uniform had been tapered to show off his muscles, and he sported a tiny, foppish blue bow tie. His name tag said BJORSTADT.
'How much longer do you think we'll be here, Officer?'
He stepped closer, one hand on his revolver, chewing an antacid and giving off an odour of sweat and wintergreen.
'Go back to your car immediately, sir.'
'I'm a doctor, Officer. I've been called out on an emergency and have to get through.'
'What kind of doctor?'
'Psychologist.'
The answer didn't seem to please him.
'What kind of emergency?'
'A patient of mine just called in crisis. He's been suicidal in the past and is at high risk. It's important that I get to him as quickly as possible.'
'You going to this individual's home?'
'No, he's hospitalised.
'Where?'
'Canyon Oaks Psychiatric -just a few miles up.'
'Let me see your licence, sir.'
I handed it over, hoping he wouldn't call the hospital. The last thing I needed was a powwow between Officer Bjorstadt and sweet Mrs. Vann.
He studied the licence, gave it back, and looked me over with pale eyes that had been trained to doubt.
'Let's just say, Dr. Delaware, that I follow you to the hospital. You're saying that once we get there, they're going to verify the emergency?'
'Absolutely. Let's do it.'
He squinted and tugged on his moustache. 'What kind of car are you driving?'
'Seventy-nine Seville. Dark green with a tan top.'
He studied me, frowning, and said finally: 'Okay, Doctor, coast through slowly on the shoulder. When you get to this point, you can stop and stay put until I tell you to move. It's a real disaster out here, and we don't want any more blood tonight.'
I thanked him and jogged to the Seville. Ignoring hostile stares from the other drivers, I rolled to the front of the line, and Bjorstadt waved me through. Hundreds of flares had been laid down, and the freeway was lit up like a birthday cake. It wasn't until the flames disappeared in my rear-view mirror that I picked up speed.
The suburban landscape receded at Calabasas, giving way to softly rolling hills dotted with ancient gnarled scrub oak. Most of the big ranches had long been subdivided, but this was still upper-crust horse country - high- priced 'planned communities' behind gates and one-acre spreads designed for weekend cowboys. I got off the freeway just short of the Ventura County line and, following the arrow on the sign that said CANYON OAKS PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL, swung south over a concrete bridge. After passing a self-serve filling station, a sod nursery, and a Christian elementary school, I drove uphill on a one-lane road for a couple of miles until another arrow directed me westward The pungence of ripe manure clogged the air.
The Canyon Oaks property line was marked by a large flowering peach tree shadowing low, open gates meant more for decor than security. A long, winding lane bordered by boxwood hedge and backed by shaggy eucalyptus led me to the top of a knoll.
The hospital was a Bauhaus fantasy: cubes of white concrete assembled in clusters; lots of plate glass and steel. The surrounding chaparral had been cleared for several hundred yards, isolating the structure and intensifying the severity of its angles. The collection of cubes was longer than tall, a cold, pale python of a building. In the distance was a black backdrop of mountain studded with pinpoints of illumination that arced like low, shooting stars. Flashlights. I parked in the near-empty lot and walked to the entrance - double doors of brushed chrome centred in a wall of glass. And locked. I pressed the buzzer.
A security guard peeked through the glass, ambled over, and stuck his head out. He was middle-aged and potbellied, and even in the dark I could see the veins on his nose.
'Yes, sir?' He hitched up his trousers.
'I'm Dr. Delaware. A patient of mine -James Cadmus -called in crisis, and I wanted to see how he was.'
'Oh, him.' The guard scowled and let me in. 'This way, Doctor.'
He led me through an empty reception room decorated in insipid blue-greens and greys and smelling of dead flowers, turned left at a door marked C Ward, unlocked the dead bolt, and let me pass through.
On the other side was an unoccupied nursing station equipped with personal computers and a closed-circuit
