Doing Harm (33 page)

“Those motivations are … understandable. And completely justifiable.” He inhales, then blows another ring. “You know, you’ve never asked me why I’m helping you. Why I’m willing to devote so much of my time and energy, hell, even risk my
own
career, to catch her.”

I blink. He’s absolutely right. I’ve never stopped to consider why exactly he’s been so motivated to take GG down. “I guess I just figured that you were, well, pissed that she had used you, too. To kill Mr. Bernard.”

“No. I mean, sure, I was pissed. Who wouldn’t be? But it’s not that simple. I’m helping you because it’s the right thing to do.” His voice is deep and forceful and betrays not a trace of irony. “The honorable thing. Because, as a Marine, I was taught to protect the weak. She’s preying on the weak and the innocent. That’s an
abomination,
Steve. It’s my duty to stop her.”

I twirl my glass around, scrutinizing the bottom of it. “The Marines also taught you how to kill. Right?”

He reflects on that for perhaps half a heartbeat. “Yes.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Yes.”

“Were you … good at it? Killing?”

“Yes.” The corner of his mouth twitches.

“So, then—why’d you decide to become a doctor?”

“I discovered that I liked healing people better than killing them.”

“Oh. Sounds like you had a … calling.”

He grunts noncommittally. “Something like that.”

The high-pitched laughter of the wives floats through an open window.

I drain the rest of my scotch. “Have you ever considered killing GG?”

“Yes,” he answers impassively. “But I’m not going to.”

“Why?”

“It wouldn’t be the honorable thing to do.” He stubs out his cigar in an ashtray with a finality that signals the end of that particular line of conversation. “So why’d you go to med school, Steve? A thirst to prove yourself? Or a fear of failure?”

Both. Neither. Who knows anymore? I think about how GG once told me how much I was like her.

You don’t care about making people feel better, Steve.

For you, the patients are a means to an end.

It’s all about you.

“I used to tell myself it was about the patients, but now … now I don’t remember,” I say, my voice barely registering above a whisper.

Was it ever about the patients?

I shake my head very slightly and look down at the empty scotch glass cradled between my thighs. “I don’t remember.”

If the ensuing silence makes Luis uncomfortable, he doesn’t tip his hand. “So,” he says quietly, after a brief pause. “What period of literature did you study?”

“What?” The non sequitur catches me completely off guard.

“In college. What period was your literature degree in?”

“Ummm—Russian. Mostly nineteenth and twentieth century.”

“Dostoyevsky. Solzhenitsyn. Good stuff. Do you speak Russian?”

“A little. I’m better at reading it.”

“Me too. It’s a beautiful language,” he says, in perfectly accented Russian. I gape at him, incredulous.
Jesus, how many layers are there to you, Luis?
And then, switching back to English, he says, “But, myself, I’ve always been partial to science fiction. You ever read a guy named Philip K. Dick?”

“No.”

“You should. He’s great.”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing. Or everything. We’ll see.” He pushes himself gracefully out of the chair, all sinew and muscle, and stretches.

“You’re leaving?
Now?
” There’s still so much more I want to ask him.

“I have a few things I need to take care of. Besides, I’m on call tomorrow night, and I need to get some sleep. I never sleep very well in the hospital. That fucking kitten in the call room always messes with my mind.”

I can’t help but smile. “You, too? It’s funny how none of us have ever taken it down.”

“Makes you wonder what’s behind it, doesn’t it?” He’s wearing a very strange, lopsided grin.

“I guess.”

“You still have the phone I gave you?”

“Sure.”

“Expect a text very soon.” He moves toward the porch door.

“Luis?”

He stops and, without turning around, inclines his head to one side, his body silhouetted against the light shining from inside the house.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this,” I admit. “It’s just—I’m, well, I feel like I’m in way over my head.”

He nods once, very slowly, still facing away from me. “As the poet once said: If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?”

“Which poet?” The quote sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

“You were the literature major. Look it up. And Steve?”

“Yeah.”

He turns around and looks me directly in the eye. “Don’t forget what we’ve talked about here tonight. You might find it useful. Someday.”

Useful? Random musings about the Russian language and an obscure science fiction writer?

“Useful how?” But he’s already gone. And I’m alone.

Until a few minutes later, when Jason flips on the overhead porch light, flops down in an empty chair next to me, and reports with no small amount of satisfaction that Dan is now upstairs sleeping things off, much to his wife’s mortification (“Dude, those general surgeons are such fucking lightweights,” he says with a laugh), and that our wives are still going strong in the living room, having cracked open a fresh bottle of wine.

“Your friend gave me one of these as he was leaving,” he says offhandedly, slipping a cigar into his mouth. “Interesting dude. Talk about the strong, silent type.”

“You could say that.”

“He told me you were out here and could use the company.”

“Sure.” My insides give a twist. There’s something I need to get off my chest. “Jason.”

“Yeah, brah.”

“That day we talked on the phone—”

“Forget it, dude.”

“But—”

“Forget it. Enough said.” He expertly lights the cigar. “Speaking of which, how’s the probation stuff going?”

“Taking it up the ass, just like you advised.”

He laughs heartily. “Good man. Just like I told you—keep your head down, play ball, and this will all be over soon.”

Right. One way, or another.
“Hey, can I ask you something, Jason?”

“Sure, man.”

“Why’d you become a doctor?”

“Easy. Because when I was a kid, I had cancer and almost died.”

My jaw drops so far that my chin practically sits on my chest. “Cancer?”

“Yeah. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. When I was seven.”

“Holy shit, Jason. You never told me that. In all the years I’ve known you.”

Jason watches the fireflies drifting around outside the porch screen. “It’s not something I like to talk about much.”

“Was it bad?”

“Yes,” he says unemotionally. “I almost died. Neutropenia from the chemo.”

I imagine a seven-year-old version of Jason, sitting not in a comfortable Adirondack on a back porch enjoying a cigar but in an oversized hospital chair in a pediatric-oncology ward somewhere, attended by an array of plastic tubes. Feverish and confused, poisoned by the chemotherapy, sallow, sunken cheeks drawn tight over frail bones, his small hands gripping the arms of the chair as he pulls each breath as if it were his last with shallow, labored rasps.

“How did you end up on the Safety Committee?”

“A long story.” It’s clear by the tone in his voice that he’s not going to tell it.

“What kinds of things does the Committee get involved with? Besides me?”

He chuckles. “Oh, lots of stuff. Most of which I’m not allowed to talk about. Quality of care, obviously. But we also deal with security issues. One of my jobs, believe it or not, is to liaise with University Hospital Security.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve been around security my entire life. My dad owns a small security-consulting firm. I worked there during summers in high school and college.”

“On what?”

“Oh, just about anything, really. Most of it pretty boring stuff. Not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Data security. Fraud. Surveillance. That kind of thing.”

The door to the inside of the house opens, and Nancy pokes her head out, sniffing the air suspiciously. She purses her prim lips when she spies the cigar in Jason’s hand and the one still smoldering next to me in the ashtray. “Gentlemen, can we put our cigars out, please?” she says with a tight, cloying smirk. “The smell is practically impossible to clear from the patio upholstery.” Jason and I mumble our apologies and dispose of the cigars. It’s just as well, anyway: Between the scotch and the cigar, there’s a rank taste in my mouth, and the nicotine from the cigar is making my heart beat like a rabbit’s.

“What’s her story?” I ask as the door slides shut behind her. “Kind of intense.”

“Nancy is Nancy,” he says neutrally.

“She’s like a lawyer, or something?”

“Yep. A DA. A damn good one.
Harvard Law Review,
and all that crap. Hell-bent on rising to the top. Always looking for the big, glamorous cases. The ones with lots of publicity. I wouldn’t be surprised if she runs for office one day.”

“I don’t like her.” The scotch has hindered my already limited natural ability to mince words.

“Careful!” He laughs good-naturedly. “Your wife sure does.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” I lean my head back and look at the stars. “I noticed.”

CHAPTER 16

Sunday, August 16

I’m out of the house before anyone else is up. I drive to the hospital, stop by the cafeteria for a bagel and a large coffee, and park myself in front of my computer in the otherwise deserted office. I crack my knuckles and pull up the same materials I’ve been staring at all week.

Okay, so now what?

I retread the same ground, going over and over the same material I’ve already gathered on her, looking for things I might have missed. After several hours, I’m paged by the hospital operator. When I call her, she immediately connects me to Mr. Abernathy, who still hasn’t learned to appreciate the virtues of boundaries, because now that I’ve changed my cell-phone number, he’s calling me through the hospital. For several minutes he gives me his usual profane earful, at one point accusing me of being a
goddamned quack doctor.
I’m too tired to get pissed, or to point out to him that there are more important things in the world than his bathroom habits. So I just listen quietly to his abusive rant until he’s done, then tell him to call next Monday to make an appointment to see me in clinic. He seems satisfied and hangs up.

I put down the phone, rub my aching eyes, and check my watch. I’m hungry and tired; the large coffee cup, drained long ago, sits on the desk in front of me next to the computer. With one frustrated swipe, I knock it off the desk with the back of my hand.

Screw it.

I’m not getting anywhere. So I go for a walk to clear my head, heading in the direction of the ICU, with vague thoughts of seeing how Mrs. Samuelson is doing. The corridors, particularly in this area of the hospital, where many of the resident sleeping rooms and offices are located, are quiet and empty on a Sunday. I’m walking around a corner, lost in thought, oblivious to my surroundings, when I run headlong into somebody coming the other way. The collision scatters a bunch of papers the other person was holding onto the floor. We both automatically bend over to gather them up.

“Oh, jeez, I’m so sorry!” I say, picking up one of the papers—a medical journal—then rising. “Are you all right—”

I freeze. My outstretched hand, holding the journal, drops to my side.

It’s GG.

She appears just as startled as I am.

“Steve. What are you doing here?” Something odd, completely out of place, flutters across her features, almost like she’s—flustered, maybe? She blinks, gathers herself together, then points to the journal in my hand. “May I?”

As I wordlessly pass it back to her, I note that it’s a prominent scientific publication focused on the heart called
Circulation.
Printed on the cover, I spot the words “Special Issue,” “implantable cardiac defibrillator,” “pacemaker,” “complications,” and “malfunction.” I guess she hasn’t lost her interest in studying mechanical heart devices.

“Thank you,” she says, brusquely tucking the journal into the front pocket of her white coat. “So.” She smooths out her clothes. “What are you doing here, Steve?”

“Working,” I reply warily.

“Really? You’re not supposed to be taking care of patients in the hospital this weekend.” She smirks. “Shouldn’t you be home with your wife and daughters?”

My temper, shortened by all those long hours in my office, flares. I ball my hands into tight fists. “Stay the fuck away from them, GG. Fine. You proved your point in the restaurant. You know where to find me. But they have nothing to do with you and me. Or your stupid game.”

“Point?” she says innocently. “I don’t know what you mean. I was out with my friend, she lives in your neighborhood, and we happened to run into you in a public place. What’s the big deal?” She scans the empty hallway and takes a step toward me. “You mentioned the game. How’s it going for you?”

“I told you last week. I don’t want any part of you or your
insane
game, GG. I just want to be left alone. And if you’re wondering what I’m doing here, it’s no big mystery. I’m on my way over to see Mrs. Samuelson.”

“The woman you almost killed. Sure. I can only imagine the guilt you’re feeling. She’s improving, you know. She might just make it.” She sighs and looks disappointed. “Too bad. I was really hoping it would be more interesting this time. Your guilt over what you did to Mrs. Samuelson is going to be nothing compared to what you’ll feel after this next patient dies. And the one after that. I guarantee it.”

“Whatever. Just leave me the hell alone. Okay?” I stride quickly away before I have a chance to say something stupid. The less I say around her, the better.

GG wasn’t kidding. Amazingly enough, Mrs. Samuelson hasn’t died yet. More amazing still, she’s actually getting better. A lot better. Her recovery has been nothing short of remarkable. She’s off dialysis, and her internal organs are waking up, one by one. The ICU team is talking about pulling out her breathing tube tomorrow. She still might leave the hospital alive.