With a broad, smiling face and brown, almost liquid eyes, the girl ran circles in the small space between the curtains, singing, her jarring footsteps causing her voice to vacillate as if she were yodeling. She stopped, swaying on her feet, and laughed. Her mother drew her back against her legs, ruffling her hair, then wet a finger and wiped a smudge off the girl's cheek.
David removed his white coat so as not to intimidate the girl, and crouched so he was eye level. Meeting her on her own terms.
Following his cue, the little girl squatted also. David laughed. 'No, hon, you don't have to crouch. I'm just trying to get a better look at you.'
After an openmouthed burst of laughter, the little girl fell down and sat Indian-style. With one hand on the floor, David eased himself down so he too was sitting, his legs kicked awkwardly to the sides. The girl's mother covered her mouth to hide her smile. The girl laughed again and grabbed his hand with both of hers.
David slid the stethoscope from his shoulders and around his neck with a single practiced movement, spreading the branch with one hand and wiggling his head until the earplugs settled correctly. There was always some comfort in feeling the heavy instrument fall into place, like a well-worn wallet sliding into a back pocket. 'I'm just going to-'
'Dr. Spier?'
David turned to see Officer Jenkins and another, older officer standing behind him. 'This is a private exam area,' David said, scrambling to his feet and feeling more than a little foolish. 'Your sister has been moved to-'
'We received a call about a gunshot wound,' Jenkins said.
'You did?' Beneath the curtain beside them, David saw Ed Pinkerton's feet hit the floor. 'I don't recall calling one in.'
'You didn't. We were contacted by triage. You know, you're required by law to-'
'I know, I know. Do you handle all calls involving the hospital?'
'You might say I've taken a particular interest.'
'I can understand that.'
The older officer, Jenkins's partner, stepped forward, and David noticed two stripes and a star on his sleeve. His name tag read: BRONNER. 'We need to question the patient,' Bronner said gruffly. 'The one who sustained the GSW.'
Ed's foot disappeared and came back down ensconced in an untied shoe.
'Why don't you follow me out to the CWA?' David said. 'We'll check the board and see where he is.' David crouched near the girl, and she followed his lead again, laughing. He smiled. 'I'll be right back.'
The officers followed him silently down Hallway One into the Central Work Area. David perused the board, finding Ed Pinkerton's name. 'Fifteen-Four,' he said. 'Looks like he was one curtain over from us.'
The cops exchanged a look, which David pretended not to notice. Another silent walk back to Exam Fifteen. David pointed to the curtain to the fourth exam area. 'Behind there.'
The curtain rattled on its pegs as Jenkins swiped it aside. An empty gurney. A single spot of blood stood out on the sheets. David feigned exasperation. 'I don't know… I never discharged him. He must've snuck out on us.' He turned to the officers, letting his hands slap to his sides. 'I don't know what to tell you.'
Jenkins clenched his jaw, speaking through his teeth. 'This patient was one curtain over and you didn't know it?'
'There are a lot of patients here under my care. It's sometimes difficult to keep track of them all.'
Jenkins held David's gaze. 'Right.'
'Sorry about that.'
'Word around the station is you're not always the biggest team player.'
'I guess that depends what team.'
Bronner tapped Jenkins on the back. 'This is a jerk-off,' he said. 'Let's go.'
Jenkins didn't seem ready to leave.
'You know we don't give a shit about the GSW,' Bronner said. 'C'mon.'
Jenkins took a step back. 'I'll see you around, Doctor.'
David nodded, and Jenkins followed his senior partner out. David realized he'd been holding his breath, and he exhaled deeply.
A slip of paper beneath the empty gurney caught David's attention, and he bent to pick it up. It was the bookmark he'd noticed earlier marking Ed's place in the small red book. A sketch of a brain, evidently a logo, decorated the top, the cerebral hemispheres slightly misshapen. AMOK BOOKSTORE was written beneath it in an odd Aztec print. David's eyes traced down the length of the bookmark, finding the strange motto at the bottom. THE EXTREMES OF INFORMATION.
He knew before he glanced beneath the turned-back sheets that Ed's chart was missing.
Chapter 10
The men with their tattoos and glistening muscles worked among the weight machines, pretending not to notice the onlookers, who clustered with their Muscle Beach T-shirts, shooting pictures and herding children. The first weight of dusk had settled through the air, but storefront lights illuminated the men through the chain-link fences that set the weight area apart from the Venice Boardwalk and the beach beyond.
Clyde watched from the anonymity of the crowd, a face among other faces, another body sweating in the August night. He had only recently begun to emerge from his apartment again, and he still found the brief stirrings of breeze to be invasive. Inside the pen, a bald man with a pointed goatee and two hoop earrings broke protocol, turning to the onlookers and spreading his massive arms wide. The prongs of his triceps gripped the undersides of his arms like claws. The crowd erupted with noise; cameras flashed.
Clyde looked down at his own arms. White and fleshy. In front of him, an overweight little boy with a cardboard-stiff baseball cap pushed up on tiptoes. Kobe Bryant slam-dunked in faded purple and yellow on the back of his T-shirt. The boy's hands, red and sticky with the remnants of some summertime snack, pushed and clutched at the shirts in front of him, leaving colored smudges.
An enormous black man lined large metal disks on each side of a weight bar until it bowed under the weight. He sat on the edge of the bench press, crossing his arms in front of him. The crack of his shoulders was audible even over the noise of the crowd. He leaned back, taking the bar from the cradle, bringing it to his chest, and hammering it back up in the air with triumphant grunts.
Standing in the crowd, a face among faces, Clyde watched the man labor and imitated his grunts, softly at first, then growing louder. He didn't realize he could be overheard until a blonde in front of him turned, eyes aglitter with sparkling makeup, and stifled a giggle with a hand. He looked quickly away from her eyes, staring silently at the gum-dotted pavement, and she whispered something to a friend before turning her attention back to the muscular men. Clyde's hand found the key around his neck, his thumb working it over like a rabbit's foot.
Gradually, his eyes lifted from the pavement, studying first the blonde's straw-bottomed clog that raised her foot so her ankle flexed, then the split sheath of her capri pant leg, which embraced the pink cylinder of her calf. Her bottom, firm and rounded, protruded abruptly from beneath her blouse. He leaned forward until he could smell her hair spray. He leaned forward until he was pushing up against her full behind, a face among faces in the press of a crowd.
Her thin shoulder blade pushed back ever so slightly into his soft chest as she jockeyed for space, not yet aware that his jostling was directed. Ahead, the weights clinked against each other; the men strained and flexed. His breathing quickened, taking on a faint groaning. Her neck firmed with realization. Her head started to pivot, slowed with shock.
Before the eyes could reach him, Clyde turned and pushed through the crowd, head lowering on the wide stalk of his neck, hands sinking into his pockets. People spread and closed behind him.
'Fucking pervert!' she yelled from somewhere in the crowd. She yelped, a short hiccup of disgust and fear. 'You fucking sicko! Goddamn it!'
Clyde left the lights of the boardwalk behind and threaded through the darkening streets and alleys. The ocean breeze had left a staleness on everything-cardboard boxes slumping curbside, rusting hoods of abandoned
