Code Blues (8 page)

Alex lifted the bottle at me in a mock
toast. "Hope. I'm really sorry."

About taking off on me? About drinking? I
stayed at the doorway.

"Really, really sorry. Totally sorry. I
suck. I'm worthless." He took a swig out of the bottle. I could see
his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. Even in the warm glow of the
lamp, he looked strained and exhausted.

I took two steps toward him, stopping short
of the bed. "Alex. I don't think you should be in here."

"Is that something else I've done wrong?" He
lifted his eyes to the white ceiling. "Help me."

He was wasted. I held out my hand. "You've
had enough, Alex. Why don't you give me the bottle?"

He stared at the amber
bottle in his hand as if he was seeing it for the first time.
"Yeah. Why don't I?" Clumsily, he brought it to his lips and
guzzled the last of the beer. "Here." He handed me the empty. The
beer was named
Maudite
. Appropriate.

I didn't take the bottle. I stared at him
and turned on my heel. "You can do your own recycling."

"Wait!"

The raw pain in his voice stopped me. I
stopped, but didn't turn around.

Bang! I whipped around, only to see
Mireille's pine, Ikea table wobbling slightly on its spindly legs
after Alex had whacked his bottle down on it.

"I'm fucked up," he said. "I know it. I have
no right to talk to you, even. But God damn it, someone killed
him."

He was in mourning. He didn't know his own
head right now. I played the devil's advocate. "Well, it could be
that, or it could have been suicide, or an accident—"

"Bullshit!" Alex lunged across the bed at me
and fell on his stomach. He belched into the quilt.

I backed up. "If you're going to throw up,
do it in the bathroom."

He sat up and wiped his mouth and tried to
steady his hands. His bloodshot eyes beseeched me. "Someone killed
Kurt."

I paused.

He raised his eyes to the ceiling. "You
don't believe me."

"Look. It doesn't matter whether I do or
not. The police are on it. They interviewed me today. If he was
murdered, they'll find him. Don't worry about it."

"The police. Ha. They won't find anything.
Kurt was the one who listened. Kurt was the one who cared." He lay
down on the bed, his feet dangling off the edge. He was still
wearing his leather sandals. Somehow, it made it more poignant,
that he was trying not to dirty Mireille's bed. He mumbled
something like, "We killed him."

"What?" I said sharply.

He closed his eyes. His whole body seemed to
go limp. His lips were still parted, but he didn't speak.

I marched over to the bed and shook his
shoulder. "Oh, no you don't. You bring it up, you finish this. What
are you talking about? Who killed him?"

His eyes stayed closed, even though I used
both hands to shake him so hard that his head jogged up and down,
like he was an agreeable rag doll. "Alex. Wake up!"

His lips curved in a smile.

He was like a willful
teenager in the emerg. A
drunk
, willful teenager. It pissed
me off. "Alex, goddamn it, talk to me, or forget it. I'm not
playing games with you anymore." I let go of his shoulders and
stood up. His eyes remained closed.

I slammed the door so hard that I felt the
apartment walls rattle.

The air smelled fresher in the hall. I'd
probably been absorbing Alex's beer-mouth fumes second-hand.
Lovely.

I took three righteous steps, before my
conscience started to irritate me. What if he was really drunk?
What if I left him there, and in ten minutes, he couldn't protect
his airway? In the emerg, we try to keep an eye on drunks while
they sober up. We don't leave them shut up in a room at the end of
the hall.

I swiped my bangs out of my eyes. Fine. I'd
send another doctor in here. Or, better yet, they could drag him
out into the living room and make fun of him until he woke up.
Paint his genitals blue, that sort of thing.

But my conscience wouldn't shut up. What if
this wasn't just alcohol? What if he aspirated his own vomit, or
started to seize?

The problem with medicine is that you get to
know a lot of worst-case scenarios, and they tend to play out in
your head, even if they're not very likely. Paranoia with textbooks
to back it up.

I heard a toilet flush and water running
behind me. I turned around to see Anu emerging from the bathroom.
Her brown eyes twinkled. She gestured at Mireille's bedroom.
"What's going on in there?"

Had she heard anything? In my limited
experience of Montreal apartments, soundproofing was an unnecessary
luxury. So far, I'd heard my neighbours' phones ring, their kids
scream, even someone playing Mozart on the piano. "Alex had a lot
to drink," I whispered, as if I was belatedly trying to maintain
patient confidentiality. "Someone should keep an eye on him and his
airway."

"Okay." She rapped at the door. "Alex?" She
twisted the doorknob.

I left. Maybe when he was drunk, he liked to
accuse people of all sorts of crimes. Murder. Police inefficiency.
Next stop, infidelity and white shoes after Labour Day.

But I didn't really believe it. Everyone
said the pager was practically Dr. Radshaw's third hand. He
wouldn't have left home without it. I thought the murderer had
taken it. But homicide hadn't contacted me, so they probably
weren't going to investigate it.

Well, it wasn't my job to figure it out.
Heal the sick, tend the wounded, run the wards, minimize scut—that
was my job description. No one said anything about solving
murders.

But if Dr. Radshaw
had
been murdered, I'd
want to know about it. Especially if the killer was somebody I knew
and worked with.

"Just leave him there. Let him sleep it
off," Tucker called from the living room.

Anu re-entered the hall and shook her head.
"He's drunk. We have to look after his airway. Hope thinks so too,
right, Hope?"

I did not want to get involved, but I
nodded.

Tucker snorted. "Put him in the recovery
position. He won't aspirate."

Anu placed her hands on her hips. "That's
not guaranteed and you know it."

"But if we carry him out to the living room
and watch him aspirate, it'll be so much better." Tucker snorted
and glanced at me.

Mireille darted toward Anu. "What's going
on?"

"Alex hit the sauce too hard, and Anu wants
me to carry him to the living room, so we can observe him." Tucker
gestured at the bedroom door. "I say we just leave the door open
and put him in recovery—"

Mireille had already
shouldered past him and shoved open the door. "
Ostille
," she swore.

Tucker and Anu ran in, with me right on
their heels, but all I saw was that Alex lying diagonally across
the bed, on his back, snoring. His left arm was flung outward, his
right arm across his chest.

"I did try to put him in the recovery
position, but he kept rolling back," said Anu. "That's why I wanted
to keep an eye on him."

Mireille lifted steady green eyes to Tucker.
"I've seen Alex drunk before, but this is worse. We'd better keep
an eye on him, and if he doesn't come out of this, I'm calling an
ambulance."

Anu bit her lip, and we exchanged a look. We
both thought Mireille was overreacting, but this was her party, and
she could call 911 if she wanted to.

Tucker said, "Mireille—"

She climbed on the bed, her knees making
divots in the mattress as she slid her hands into Alex's armpits
and then hooked her elbows through them. Her cheek was about an
inch away from Alex's lips, but he didn't stir. Mireille gave
Tucker another long look. "Are you helping me, or are you just
going to watch?" And she started dragging Alex off the bed.

Tucker sighed and grabbed Alex's ankles. "On
the count of three."

"Can I help?" I asked, but he shook his
head.

"One good thing I can say about this bastard
is, he's not very heavy," he said, expressionless.

I wished I could master that poker face
around Alex. Forget the inscrutable Asian. I'm scrutable.

Mireille must have been strong, because the
top part of a body is quite heavy. In the OR, they usually delegate
the small women, like me, to carrying the feet when transporting
someone from the OR table to the gurney. But Mireille seemed to
have no trouble. She gripped Alex's arms, Tucker held the ankles,
and they slid him off the bed and down the hall, Alex's butt not
quite touching the floor. They trundled him down the front hall and
into the living room while Anu and I followed.

Robin Huxley leapt to his feet. "What's
going on?" He tried to check Alex's carotid pulse, but it was a
moving target, and Mireille said, "Move it or lose it, Robin" and
dropped Alex on the ground, in front of the sofa. She rubbed her
arms.

Robin knelt by Alex. He bent his head over
Alex's nose, surveyed his chest, and announced, "He's breathing."
He pressed his index and third finger against his neck. "And he has
a pulse."

Mireille clucked her tongue. "Robin, we know
that!"

He ignored her. "Alex. Can you hear me?" He
rubbed his knuckles against Alex's sternum and was rewarded with a
groan and twitch of the right shoulder. "Well, that's reassuring.
He squeezed his eyes shut—I'll give him a four, and a groan, that's
two..."

Dear God. He was calculating the Glasgow
Coma Scale. I said, "Robin, it's over eight, you don't have to tube
him, okay?" But I felt guilty. I hadn't calculated the GCS, and I
probably should have, even though he'd just been talking to me a
few minutes ago.

Robin didn't look up from Alex. He forced
Alex's eyelids open, checking the pupils. "Do you have a
stethoscope?"

Mireille gave an exasperated sigh and
retrieved hers from the hallway. Robin lifted Alex's shirt and
listened to his chest and heart. He even lifted his shirt to
examine the abdomen. I was embarrassed to see the brown chest hair
that ran to below his belly button, and even worse, his small, pink
nipples. Then Robin checked his reflexes.

It was very weird to see him do a physical
exam on one of our colleagues in the middle of a supposed party.
Tucker shook his head, but none of us interfered.

At last, Robin lifted his head. "He seems to
be stable. We could probably just observe him. But I'd feel more
comfortable if I could check his glucose to make sure it's not an
insulin coma."

I hadn't thought of that,
even though it was Dr. Radshaw's presumed cause of death. Guilt hit
me again, until Tucker said, "For God's sake, Robin, the guy was
just drinking! He has enough sugar on board. And he's not diabetic.
He's just
drunk
."

"He could have an insulin-secreting tumor,"
Robin insisted. He turned to Mireille. "Do you have an
Accucheck?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. I am not diabetic.
Look, Robin. Let's use some common sense. I know Alex, and he's
only ever passed out after drinking. He does not have an
insulinoma!" Her French accent was more pronounced now.

"I'm just saying that I would feel more
comfortable," he said evenly. Hmm. I'd worked with guys like this
before—very good at the books, can recite recent studies and
guidelines until the consultants nearly faint with pleasure, but
not very sensible. Still, they tended to get excellent evaluations.
Except from their peers.

Tori and I exchanged a look. She said,
"Robin, you did the right thing. We all feel more at ease, after
your exam. But like you said, we can probably observe him."

Robin squinted at her. He was still on the
floor with Alex, while the rest of us were looking down on him. He
rose to his feet and dusted off his knees. "All right."

We all relaxed, marginally.

He said, "I'm going to get some orange
juice. We can rub it on the inside of his cheeks. If he wakes
up—"

"He's not going to wake up!" Mireille burst
out, but she followed him to the kitchen.

Tucker and I looked at each other. He
sighed, and we grinned at each other for the first time.

Tori said, "Robin is
very...conscientious."

"You can say that again," I said. Medical
robots are very good at following algorithms.

Tori glanced back toward the kitchen. "Maybe
we should take him to St. Joe's. It's not fair to leave him here
for Mireille to follow him."

Tucker grunted assent.

Anu checked my expression. "Hope? Did you
want to take turns observing him?"

Not really. I hesitated, she went on,
"Because it would be really embarrassing for him, if we brought him
to St. Joe's."

"Good," said Tucker. "Maybe that'll teach
him to lay off the EtOH."

Fortunately, Alex chose this moment to stir
his legs and snort. As if that was his cue, Robin raced in, nearly
spilling his glass of orange juice, while Mireille called at his
back, "I said I'd do it!"

Robin stuck two fingers in the o.j. Then he
bent down to lever Alex's mouth open, streaking juice all over his
face before finally sticking his fingers in Alex's mouth.

Alex gargled and jerked his head back. Then
he nearly sat up, knocking Robin's arm away.

Anu screamed.

Alex thrashed his arms and legs.

Tucker cursed, and yanked Robin out of the
way. Robin started to push back, but in that minute, Alex lay back
down and seemed to conk out again.

We all froze, watching him. My heart rate
slowly settled as Alex remained still. Robin lifted his glass of
orange juice again, but Mireille grabbed his arm. I could see her
fingers denting his flesh.

Slowly, Robin lowered his arm.

Mireille said, "Don't you dare. You must
have choked him. Just leave him the fuck alone."