ballpoint, against his lips. 'I'm thinking maybe you could try to loosen him up for me.'
'That's really not my job, Detective Yale. The psych consult will be along shortly, and I'm sure-'
'Dr. Nwankwa. I'm familiar with him and not optimistic he'll be looking to advance our cause.'
'Advancing your cause is not his job. Or mine. Our job is to treat patients.'
'In any event, I'm not permitting Dr. Nwankwa to see the suspect. This is not the time for a psychiatric assessment.'
'Fine. I need Dr. Nwankwa to assess the patient's need for antipsychotic medication. If we can keep Clyde calmed down, that benefits both our agendas.' David crossed his arms. 'My treatment of this patient will be unimpeded.'
Yale studied David with clever, shiny eyes. 'You know, Dr. Spier, our jobs share certain similarities. We're both exposed to elements of society few people deal with. We both see people at their worst-in pain, terrified, furious, suicidal, dead. Just like you think I don't know my ass from… Just like you think I don't know much about what goes on in the ER, I can tell you, you don't know much about how things work on the street. Your code of ethics holds up just fine in here, between the scrubbed white walls, but there are different kinds of choices, different kinds of pressures and stresses and concerns out there. This man is a predator-'
'A suspected predator.'
'Please keep your voice down, Dr. Spier. I'm saying that this man is a suspected predator, and when you deal with predators at large, free from restraints and backup, you might find your politics sliding slowly to the right.'
'My politics are irrelevant to my ethics. I'm sorry you don't understand that.'
'I learned my ethics wading through dismembered bodies, drug labs, and homemade torture chambers.'
'So tell me, then,' David said. 'How do you think a suspect should be treated?'
'Is this the issue at stake? You wouldn't be holding this patient for reasons other than to provide critical medical care? As you're well aware, that would be overstepping your bounds, Dr. Spier.'
'The patient is still in need of critical treatment.'
'I see.' Yale took a step back.
David cleared his throat. 'Will Jenkins be involved in the transfer?'
Yale studied him closely. His pupils were dark and smooth; in the sterile overhead light, they resembled obsidian. 'Jenkins will be involved as long as he wants to be involved.' His little smile was cold and efficient. 'He's got a first-class crush on the suspect. Won't leave him alone, even for a minute. He's sitting out in his patrol car on Le Conte right now, just in case we need him for anything.'
'In medicine, physicians don't treat their family members.' He did his best not to picture Elisabeth's face. 'There's too much emotion there. Might make a bad decision.'
'Dalton and I are running the show, not Jenkins. But I'm not going to take away his involvement. This is his way of dealing. So we let him drive behind the transport vehicle, let him twirl his lights and run his siren. He needs this.'
'He's under a great deal of stress, and he's highly unstable. What are you going to do if he comes undone? Acts rashly?'
'There are any number of things about me that are questionable, Dr. Spier. My competence is not one of them.'
David pointed to the closed door of Exam Fourteen. 'That is a sick individual in there. Sick and violent, but also confused and scared. He needs your protection.'
'And why do you trust me and not the others?' Yale said. Through all David's dealings with Yale, this was the first hint of anger he'd heard in his voice. 'Because I can afford the same suits as you?'
'You wear better suits than I do, and no. I trust you more because you're the only one not acting like you want to treat my patient like Rodney King.'
'Let me tell you something,' Yale said, stabbing a finger at David. 'You can take your classist disdain and shove it. You think you understand what goes on in our lives? Do you think you even understand what went down in the Rodney King fiasco? There were twelve officers on the scene for a reason. Why don't you look into it?'
The two officers by the door listened intently, leaning to make out more of the conversation.
A sharp noise of disdain escaped from the back of Yale's throat. 'Patrol officers can get killed any minute of any day. Especially in this city. Why do they do it? What's your knee-jerk answer to that? They're all just power- hungry pigs, right? Bullshit.' His hand rested lightly over the badge clipped to his belt. 'They do it to protect and serve civilians. Even arrogant bastards like you.'
His usually stoic face lined with emotion, and in that instant David saw right through him. The defensiveness, the pressured speech, the hint of hurt that found its way into his voice-it all reeked of regurgitated argument. Anger ossified by rejection. His wealthy background was betrayed by the split-toe stitching of his Cole Haan loafers, his family's reception of his choice of vocation by the contentious set of his mouth. His affluence came at a cost; it was thorny-stemmed. Yale seemed to sense he had given too much up, for he looked away and took a step back, his lips twitching like a boxer's.
'I don't want to argue about Rodney King,' David said.
'Then don't bring him up.'
'I'd just like your reassurance that there won't be any vigilante retribution against my patient.'
The two men studied each other, still-faced and tense. 'A suspect has never come to harm under my command,' Yale finally said. 'Never.'
David extended his hand. 'Is that a guarantee?'
Yale regarded David with contempt. 'I don't give guarantees.' He walked away, leaving David and his proffered handshake behind.
When David stepped out of the ambulance bay, a man with slicked-back hair and a florid madras shirt confronted him, readying a notebook and sliding a pen from behind his ear. 'Hear you're having some problems with your staff.'
'Who are-? No. Everything's fine.'
David kept walking, but the reporter followed him, hovering off his elbow. He held up his notebook and declaimed, 'Sources inside the hospital indicate that there are growing tensions between Division Chief David Spier, members of his own staff, and the police.'
'Please,' David said. 'Not now.'
'I can make you look better if you talk.'
'You can make yourself look better if you change your shirt.'
The man pulled to a halt, grinning. David was happy to leave him behind. He paused on the dirt path near the PCHS structure. A small blue puddle continued seeping into the ground near one of the trees, and David recognized the few surrounding shards as Pyrex. The kicked-up dirt betrayed the recent struggle between Clyde and the officers. The area was partitioned off with yellow police tape.
Just ahead, a police car idled at the curb on Le Conte. As David drew near, Bronner exited the passenger side, heading across the street toward a coffee shop, picking up his feet in a heavy jog. Jenkins sat behind the wheel, flipping through some fliers with grainy black-and-white photos.
David leaned toward the open passenger window, hands on the sill, his position and the painted Ford LTD making him feel, ridiculously, like a prostitute. 'Excuse me.'
Jenkins did not look up. 'Dr. Spier,' he said.
'Mind if I…?' David gestured to the passenger seat.
Still no eye contact. Jenkins jotted something in his pad. 'You can sit in the back.'
After a moment's hesitation, David opened the rear door and climbed in. The backseat was composed of a solid plastic mold, with no cracks into which suspects could stuff drugs or weapons. A crime alert flier sat on one side, a displeased African American male with FUCK LAPD tattooed across his forehead peering out from the fuzzy photo. David scooted across to the middle and viewed the back of Jenkins's head through the protective Plexiglas shield that separated the front and back seats.
Jenkins had been kind enough to leave the small window open in the Plexiglas shield. A strip of his face peered at David from the rearview mirror, but David could not make out his eyes through his Oakley blades.
'The ICU nurse told me you've had a rough time going in to see your sister, so I wanted to let you know she's making good progress. The skin grafts are taking so far, and plastics is feeling quite confident. She fought off an internal infection pretty well, and-'
