The skin around her eyes was drawn taut, sending a network of wrinkles through her cheeks. Her expression was one David had never seen.
The man flopped and screeched.
'Can someone move? Will someone get to work here?' David's voice was high and thin. Nobody responded.
One of the undercover cops, dressed as a parking attendant, stepped forward. 'Let's go, guys,' he said. 'Do your jobs.'
'Pat,' David said. 'Bring trauma shears.'
Pat glared down at the man. She did not move. An instantaneous sweat covered David's back, and he felt a tingle roll across it. 'This is not a choice for us to make.' He spoke slowly, his voice shaking. 'There is no decision here.'
Slowly, Pat crossed her arms.
Choking on rage, he rose and shoved past Jill into Exam Fourteen. Carson watched him from the far side of the hall, shocked. David grabbed some trauma shears from a tray, and holding his stethoscope so it wouldn't slide off his shoulders, half jogged back to the patient. Aside from the crusted red acne, the man's face was corpse- white.
'I have to flip him over. Take off the cuffs.'
'No way,' Jenkins said. 'No fuckin' way.'
The cop dressed as a parking attendant stepped forward, but Jenkins placed a hand on his chest. 'Don't even think about it, Blake.'
The man's shoulders hit the floor with a slap when David rolled him onto his back. His arms were twisted beneath him, and he shrieked.
'I know,' David said. 'It hurts, but we're doing this to help you.'
Don watched, feet planted, hands in his pockets.
'I'm going to cut your sweatshirt off, because it's burning you,' David said, fighting to keep his voice level. 'I'm going to cut it using these scissors.' He slid the open trauma shears up the front of the fabric. 'What's your name?'
'Not telling.'
'Hey, hey.' David leaned over, close to the man's face. It smelled sticky and sweet, like orange-flavored candy. 'It's okay. I'm here to help you. What's your name?' The man's eye beat a few times as it pulled over to look at David. David looked away quickly, wanting to avoid eye contact that could be interpreted as confrontational. A shiny puddle of drool had collected on the tile where the man's mouth had been.
'Clyde.'
David threw the halved sweatshirt open like a blazer. A few pieces of glass and the broad lip of a Pyrex beaker tinkled to the floor. Luckily for Clyde, the beaker had shattered between his sweatshirt and his scrub top. The stencil on the scrub top featured a seal, below which UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA MEDICAL CENTER: UCLA, UCI, UCSD was written in a jailhouse blue. It could have been stolen from this very hospital. The top yielded easily to the blade, and David saw that the thin layer of material had helped to lessen the damage. The alkali had soaked through, leaving the skin red. In a few spots, white blisters were beginning to rise. Minor cuts covered his chest and lower neck, but little glass had made it all the way through the scrub top into the wounds.
'Try to slow your breathing, Clyde,' David said. 'We don't want you to hyperventilate.' His voice betrayed his anger and exasperation. 'We need to irrigate!'
Finally, a hand holding a saline bottle extended toward David, a woven leather bracelet around the wrist. David took the bottle from Carson and began spraying. Carson crouched on Clyde's other side and joined him.
'Missed a spot,' Jenkins said sardonically, pointing at a large blister under Clyde's nipple.
David ignored Jenkins, leaning forward so his face was near Clyde's. 'We're spraying you off with water now. We're doing this to wash off the alkali that is burning you.'
Clyde shifted on his bound hands, squealing with pain. No one else came near them; the staff and officers standing back in their muted ring. 'I didn't want to,' Clyde whimpered. 'I was going to, like before, but I didn't want to do it.'
'Let's get him to an exam room. Dr. Lambert, get me a stretcher. A stretcher.' David glanced up, his mouth pursed with anger. 'Get me a stretcher now!'
Don returned David's gaze for what seemed an eternity, the only sound in the hall that of Clyde's whimpering. Finally, he turned and walked leisurely to retrieve a stretcher. It took him ten seconds to turn the corner, his slow pace mocking David.
Sweat dripped from David's forehead onto Clyde's face, and he leaned back and wiped his brow with an arm. 'We have to get him on a bed. We don't have time to wait while Dr. Lambert plays games. Carson, keep irrigating.' David turned to the cop Jenkins had referred to as Blake. 'And you. Will you give me a hand?'
Clyde was heavy and limp, and David and Blake had to struggle to get him to his feet. He was taller and wider than either of them, and they staggered under his weight. The other officers watched closely.
David looked over Jenkins's shoulder at Pat. She held her head high on her slender neck, stately and pitiless. Disdain and hatred twisted her face into an ugly mask. 'Get the hell out of my ER,' David said. Her face crumpled, and he felt a flash of satisfaction move through the molten haze of his anger.
He and Blake pivoted and began to drag Clyde toward Exam Fourteen, Carson continuing to douse him with saline, Yale and Dalton walking on either side. Clyde was unsteady on his feet. Jenkins followed closely behind, palm resting on the butt of his pistol, and the other officers dissipated slowly, heading back out through the doors. By flanking David and Clyde, Yale, Dalton, and Jenkins created the illusion they were assisting.
'We're going to help you,' David said. 'Do you understand that I'm here to help you?'
Tear tracks streaked Clyde's cheeks like clown paint. He nodded, his chest heaving.
'What else can we get you, Doctor?' Jenkins asked quietly. 'A plumber's snake to clear out his throat? A bag for his head, maybe?'
'Should we give him five, one, and one?' Carson asked.
Five milligrams of Haldol, one of Cogentin, and one of Ativan. He'd be out in ten minutes and stay that way for hours. 'I don't want to go there yet,' David said. 'I'd like him lucid. He's been fine so far.'
'That's because he's in handcuffs,' Jenkins interjected.
David turned to Clyde. 'You won't give us any trouble?'
Headshake.
'You promise?'
'Promise,' Clyde cried. 'I promise.' He closed his eyes, muttering, 'Three, two, one.'
David felt a burning sensation along the tender skin inside his biceps. Alkali. He wiped it off hastily on his scrub top. 'Watch your arms,' he warned Blake.
Clyde finally found his feet and helped them the last few steps into the room, snuffling and yelping, and then they had him seated at the edge of the gurney. Carson continued spraying Clyde down, the saline pooling in his lap. His scrub bottoms turned dark with the liquid, clinging to his thighs and crotch.
David grabbed two saline bottles and stepped into the hall. Many of the staff members were standing around, rubberneckers milling in the wake of an accident. Don had just returned with the stretcher David had requested. He tossed it on the floor. David took in each face, the cold, peering eyes.
He and Carson would need help. Given the patient's history of violence against women, selecting male staff seemed clearly the right course. 'You two.' David snapped his fingers and pointed to a male nurse and a male lab tech, neither of whom he recognized. 'In here and help Carson. Move it. Now!'
The nurse took a step forward, then the lab tech followed. David handed them each a saline bottle as they shuffled past.
David regarded the others for a moment. 'In my seventeen years practicing medicine, this is the most horrifying thing I've seen.' His voice sounded foreign to him. 'On top of which you've allowed the floor to come to a standstill. Get back to work immediately.'
He stepped back in the room and faced Yale. Jenkins's hand hovered over his Beretta, making David intensely nervous. Blake stood to the side, clearly uneasy. 'Uncuff him,' David said. 'You've had your fun, now we need to get at him to treat him.'
'No, sir,' Jenkins said. 'You're dealing with a dangerous man.'
