you out of my ER. Right now.'
Don pulled his arm roughly from David's grasp, but kept walking toward the door at David's prompting.
'All right, Chief,' Don said. 'I'll let you flex your muscles and be the big ethical guy again since it worked out so well for you last time.'
Ignoring him, David guided him through the door into the ER, his hand on the base of his back, hurrying him. By the time they reached Hallway Two, Don's uncomfortable expression and David's propelling him toward the door made the situation quite evident. Nurses watched with gleeful interest; patients stared; a girl with a teddy bear tittered. The phone rang and rang in the CWA, but no one reached for it. Don slapped David's hand from his back and walked faster toward the swinging doors.
David's face still burned with anger. When Don paused at the hall's end, David raised his arm, pointing at the doors.
'Imagine that,' Don said. 'A guy who pulled the plug on his own wife without hesitation getting all worked up over some acid-throwing psycho.'
David seized Don and hurled him through the exit. Don's feet tangled as he struck the swinging doors, and he slapped to the lobby floor, the doors fanning his red face. A news photographer popped up from his recline in one of the triage chairs, snapped several photos, then grinned as if he'd just captured Big Foot humping the shooter from the grassy knoll.
An overweight woman with a bun looked up from her needlepoint. 'Oh dear,' she said. The doors stopped swinging, hiding both Don and the woman from view.
David turned back up the hall and faced the myriad staring faces. One of the nurses began to applaud tentatively, but stopped when no one joined in.
David headed slowly back to the board. 'Next patient,' he said.
'A fucking disgrace is what it is,' Sandy barked. The elevator stopped at the second floor with a ding and everyone cleared out, though plainly it was not everyone's floor. When the doors closed again, she threw the EMERGENCY STOP switch and glared at David, lowering the turkey sandwich she gripped like a football in her right hand, careful to hold it clear of her maroon silk blouse. David gestured for her to wipe off the few crumbs that dotted the corner of her mouth, and she all but swung at his hand.
Don had called her after retreating from the ER. Sandy had come running from the cafeteria and followed David through the corridors, failing in her attempts to keep a lowered voice and drawing looks from everyone they'd passed. David had moved through the halls purposefully. Something had rekindled inside him, and he felt an overwhelming sense of freedom. He'd been weathering Sandy's reprimand without the feelings of remorse and shame he would have expected.
'You've done it this time, and there's nothing I can do to cover your ass,' Sandy said. She shook her head. 'Your mother must be spinning in her grave.'
'My mother is hardly in a position to spin disapprovingly.'
Sandy cocked her head in condescending fashion. 'Maybe that's what this is all about.' He didn't give her the satisfaction of a reaction, but she raged on, undeterred. 'Manhandling a colleague. Hurling him out of the ER in front of his staff and patients.'
'My staff,' David said.
'Well, maybe not anymore. The board will be convening tomorrow at nine in the morning, and you'll need to appear. They've been less than thrilled at your new controversial self as is, so this is only fuel to the fire. You finally did it. You gave them something tangible.' She flipped the switch, and the elevator continued to rise. 'You know damn well that as a physician-and particularly as a chief-you are a representative of this hospital everywhere you go.'
Something crossed tracks in David's mind. Clyde's intense and growing fixation. The dark waters of motive. He waited for something to resolve but couldn't discern it, and Sandy was still yelling.
'You've turned this business with Clyde into a three-ring circus.' Her cheeks were getting flushed. 'The Mayor called me this afternoon. The Mayor, for Christ's sake.'
'You don't think I know this, Sandy? You don't think that I, of all people, am aware of the stakes here? At all levels? You're not the one getting strung up by a reactive press. I've been under a magnifying glass every day of this thing. You think I'm doing this for my own enjoyment?'
'Your motives aren't relevant here, David.' Sandy took a deep, angry breath. 'I've been urging you to take some time off for a long while, and it would have served you well. But you stayed here, and you fiddled around with this case, and you crossed the line, despite my attempts to help you quietly and keep you within the bounds of discretion. And I'll tell you something else. If you keep pushing this-with the cops and the media and the private eye routine-your future at this institution will be jeopardized.'
The elevator opened again, and David stepped out. He turned and faced her from the hall. 'Listen, Sandy, you can handle this however you want, but let me tell you something. Don Lambert is a lazy piece of shit, and I'm tired of putting up with his incompetence. I am a physician. I am trained to take care of people, and that's what I'd like to do-my way. I'm tired of smug, second-rate physicians; I'm tired of the HMOs; I'm tired of so-called medical professionals more interested in punishment than repair, and while we're at it, I'm tired of you and your legal considerations. So thanks for the recommendation-I will be taking some of that vacation time, starting right now, to pursue this case and set things right, because I might be the only one who can. And if you or the board are displeased with that, you be sure to tell someone who's actually interested.'
The doors shut in Sandy's surprised face, and David headed down the corridor to the ICU. The halls were still and silent.
'She's been having a tough time,' the ICU nurse said. 'And she hasn't had any visitors lately. Should I tell her you're here?'
'No,' David said. 'That's all right. She actually asked I not visit. I've just been concerned.'
The nurse gave him an odd look.
'Are the skin grafts taking?' David asked.
'Some are, some aren't. Right now, our primary objective is making sure she doesn't get septic.'
Nancy's looks were the least of their concerns.
'I was just dropping by to let you know that I'm not going to be around for a while. The hospital.' He was surprised by how difficult that was for him to say. 'But if there's anything I can do to facilitate Nancy's treatment, please let me know.'
'Thanks, Doctor.' The nurse touched his arm curtly, then pivoted and headed back to the nursing station.
Twilight crept through the windows, turning the room gray and ashy. The curtains were spread to Nancy's bed, ever so slightly, and David could see through the gap.
The front half of her crown was little more than mottled flesh, the hair having all fallen out. Her eyeballs had shriveled further, and the sockets were oozing a thick pus. The skin of her face was the worst of all-most of the grafts had not taken, and the flesh hung loosely in gray and yellow squares, a grotesque patchwork. A cheek wound had begun to contract, drawing her right nostril down toward the corner of her mouth.
Her lips, cracked and oozing, moved slowly; she was murmuring something to herself.
David wondered whether the plastic surgeons were working on her as fastidiously as they were on their other patients. There was little reason to risk complications and infection from plastics work; after all, Nancy would never have to see her own face again. Probably a blessing.
To think this was all caused by a confused, pathetic man and a beaker of alkali. Nancy would probably survive, and drag out the rest of her days in pain, hidden from her own sight and the eyes of others. Clyde's perverse turning of the tables.
The mindless embolus that had claimed Elisabeth's brain seemed almost humane by comparison.
Nancy's lips continued to whisper, and when David realized what she was saying, his mouth flooded with saliva as it sometimes did before he vomited.
'I wanna die,' Nancy was saying. 'I wanna die I wanna die I wanna-'
David drew back quietly and headed for the door, feeling his pulse race.
A man sat on a visitor's chair beside the last unoccupied bed in the row, his shoulders hunched, his hands dangling between his legs. Jenkins. David had not noticed him on his way in.
Jenkins wore a blank stare, his cheeks hollowed with grief. David paused before him, his breathing slowing.
