Chief's ass like that? On this case? No sir.'
Blake turned away as a security guard approached, and David quickly got out and regarded the man across the top of his car. He was relieved to see it was Ralph. 'It's me,' David said. 'We're having an impromptu staff meeting.' Diane cleared the fog from the back window and waved.
'Okay, Doc. Just keeping an eye out around here.'
David nodded and ducked back in the car.
Blake shook his head. 'Security jackasses.' He pressed his hands together. 'Is that it, then?' He started to get out.
'How about a psych hold?' David asked. 'If he got put on seventy-two-hour hold, would he still have to be transferred?'
Blake cocked his head, silent for a moment. 'I don't know. Let me look into that for you. My chief's throwing a party for his wife's birthday tonight. I can sneak over there once things wind down, bend his ear for a bit.' He turned so he could take in both David and Diane. 'If I'm looking into this, you keep a lid on things till I get back to you.'
'Okay,' David said.
'Keep your cell phone on.' Blake got out from the car. Resting his arms on the roof, he leaned back in. 'Hey. I'm just dispensing information, not recommendations. Got it?'
'Absolutely,' David said.
The door slammed shut, and David took a deep breath and exhaled hard, puffing out his cheeks. He regarded Diane in the rearview mirror. 'Where to, ma'am?'
'Why don't you let me take you to dinner? Somewhere real.'
'I don't think I have the energy to go somewhere real.'
'Fine. We'll grab a six-pack and some Taco Bell. Oh-and David? Just in case the press is on the lookout for the ER chief's car… ' She flashed a grin. 'I'm driving.'
Diane drove a maroon Explorer, which was bad enough, and drove it too fast for David's taste. After they picked up some food, she'd raced up Coldwater Canyon to a brief, dusty plateau. They sat on the hood of her vehicle amid a clutter of taco wrappers, sipping beer and following the headlights' gaze out to the hazy Century City skyline. The August heat informed the evening cool, wrapping around them, fresh yet stuffy as only LA air is. Diane listened silently as David finished filling her in on the day's events.
She popped open her second Heineken and took a sip. 'Wow. Sounds like an episode of ER. Never underestimate vengeance.'
'I guess not.' David let the beer dangle from two fingers and wondered if it made him look younger. He took a sip and remembered he didn't like beer. A car drove by behind them, its headlights briefly illuminating the windshield at their backs. 'This is a nice area. There's a little Italian restaurant down that way.' He pointed. 'I just ate there last week.'
'Oh? Who'd you go with?'
Reaching into the brown paper bag, he surreptitiously switched his beer for a Coke. He studied her as he took a sip. 'I went alone.'
She peeled the label off her beer, her fingernail lifting the gum from the green bottle. 'I go out to dinner alone a lot too. A thirty-one-year-old resident. Kind of in that dead space between normal-age house staff and the older docs. I mean, it's not like I'm gonna date Carson. And you've made it clear you're way too old.'
David smiled. 'I'm sure you have plenty of options. For company, I mean.'
'I suppose.' She smiled self-consciously. 'I've never really dated much. No real relationships, so to speak. Not that I haven't wanted to. I guess I'm something of a… ' After a moment, it became clear she wasn't planning on finishing the sentence.
'Men are a stupid breed,' David said. 'They're intimidated by intelligence in a woman, particularly when paired with beauty. God knows why. Maybe it makes them feel less virile.'
'I suppose that's a compliment.'
'One subtle enough that you're supposed to pretend you didn't notice.'
'I didn't.' She sipped her beer again. The silence seemed to make her uneasy. 'So, what else do you do? I mean, with your time.'
He shrugged. 'Read. Work. Take walks. Work. Masturbate.' He looked over at her. 'That was a joke.'
'Really?'
He set the Coke bottle down beside him on the hood. 'No.'
Her eyes took a pensive cast. 'It must be hard,' she said. 'Being alone after not being alone.'
The blinking light of an airplane cut through the distant haze, descending. 'It's the little things,' David said. 'It's always the little things, isn't it? Like now, I turn on the answering machine when I take a bath.' He smiled sadly, to himself. 'We had a good, solid marriage. Full of honesty and openness and all the things most marriages aren't. It was a real relationship, with a lot of caring and compromise. Did you know I was working the night she came into the ER?'
Diane shook her head slowly, as if afraid any abrupt gesture would knock David off course.
Bitterness overlaid the pain in his voice, hiding it beneath a sharper veneer. 'An embolus. Why not a car, a plane, a fire? A goddamn embolus. Her slipping away and me just standing there with my useless, useless hands.'
His hands, thin, smooth, and unlined, were indisputably the hands of a professional. No scars or thick calluses from the kind of work men toiled at year after year, hauling crates or fighting shovels into the ground. He was fortunate. Despite everything else, he had his work.
Diane's voice startled him from his reverie. 'What do you miss?' She was staring out across the tree-darkened valley to the floating lights of the high-rises. Her face was heavy, somehow, weighed down with melancholy, or sadness, or both. 'From your relationship. What do you miss the most?' A soft vulnerability hid within her curiosity.
The answer was there waiting, though he didn't know it until he started speaking. 'I miss that feeling when you're out, and the night is softly lit, and you know that after the smiles and the glances and the red wine, you're going to go home and make love. That's what I miss.'
Diane looked at him, a soft noise of appreciation escaping her throat, then they watched the hazy skyline together for a while, sipping their drinks.
David pulled out his cell phone, called the ER, and had the clerk put him through to Dr. Nelson. 'How's the patient?' he asked.
'Looks fine. I just poked my head in. I'm doing my best to avoid any formal assessments.'
'LAPD giving you any trouble?'
'Actually, no. They've retreated to the ambulance bay.'
David thanked him and hung up.
'What time do you think Blake'll call?' Diane asked.
David squinted at his watch, a plastic digital thing from Longs Drugs. He wore bad watches to work because he constantly misplaced them; he had a drawerful at home. It was nearly 11:30 P.M. 'Any minute.'
'What's Plan B?'
'Depending on what Blake says, I can gather some other opinions. I have a friend on the board at Mass General-attorney. I'd rather not overexpose myself, but I do trust him. And Peter, of course. He's excellent with this sort of thing.'
'What about Dr. Evans?'
'The last thing Sandy wants is a big fiasco, but if I don't come up with any better options by morning, I'll talk to her first thing.'
'Can I ask you a question you probably don't want to answer?'
'You just did.'
'Why are you doing all this? I don't mean to sound callous, but this isn't your mess.'
'I can't release a patient when I believe he's going to be killed.'
'But you're beyond your domain, David. Your job is to treat him and hand him over. You're a doctor, not a vigilante. A bunch of cops are probably fucking up some guy in custody somewhere right now. Why is this any more your business?'
