Life Support (5 page)

Why are surgeons such assholes? Toby wondered, and she dropped her head in her hands. God, would the night never end? She had one more hour to go....

Through the fatigue clouding her brain, she heard the whoosh of the ER doors swinging open. "Excuse me," said a voice. "I'm here to see my father."

Toby looked up at the man standing across from her. Thin-faced, unsmiling, he regarded her with an almost bitter tilt to his mouth.

Toby rose from the chair. "Are you Mr. Slotkin?"

"Yes."

"I'm Dr. Toby Harper." She held out her hand.

He shook it automatically, without any warmth. Even the touch of his skin was cold. Though he had to be at least thirty years younger than his father, the man's resemblance to Harry Slotkin was immediately obvious. Daniel Slotkin's face had the same sharply cut angles, the same narrow slash of a brow. But this man's eyes were different. They were small and dark and unhappy.

"We're still evaluating your father," she said. "I haven't seen any of his labs come back yet."

He glanced around the ER and made a sound of impatience. "I need to be back in the city by eight. Can I see him now?"

"Of course." She left the desk and led him to Harry Slotkin's room.

Pushing open the door, she saw that the room was empty. "They must have him in X-ray. Let me call over and see if he's done."

Slotkin followed her back to the front desk and stood watching her as she picked up the phone. His gaze made her uneasy. She turned away from him and dialed.

"X-ray," answered Vince.

"This is Dr. Harper. How's the scan coming?"

"Haven't done it yet. I'm still getting things set up here."

"The patient's son wants to see him. I'll send him over."

"The patient isn't here."

"What?"

"I haven't gotten him in here yet. He's still in the ER."

"But I just checked the room. He's not . . ." Toby paused. Daniel Slotkin was listening, and he'd heard the dismay in her voice.

"Is there a problem?" asked Vince.

"No. No problem." Toby hung up. She looked at Slotkin. "Excuse me," she said, and headed up the hall to exam room three. She pushed open the door. There was no Harry Slotkin. But the gurney was there, and the sheet they'd used to cover him was lying crumpled on the floor.

Someone must have put him on a differentgurney, moved him to a different room.

Toby crossed the hall to exam room four and shoved aside the curtain.

No Harry Slotkin.

She could feel her heart thudding as she moved down the hall to exam room two. The lights were off. No one would have put the patient in a dark room. Nevertheless she flicked on the wall switch.

Another empty gurney.

"Don't you people know where you put my father?" snapped Daniel Slotkin, who had followed her into the hall.

Pointedly ignoring his question, she stepped into the trauma room and yanked the curtain shut behind her. "Where's Mr. Slotkin?" Toby whispered to the nurse.

"The old guy?" asked Maudeen. "Didn't Vince take him to X-ray?"

"He says he never got him. But I can't find the man. And the son's right outside."

"Did you look in room three?"

"I looked in all the rooms!"

Maudeen and Val glanced at each other.

"We'd better check the hallways," said Maudeen, and she and Val hurried out into the corridor.

Toby was left behind to deal with the son.

"Where is he?" demanded Slotkin.

"We're trying to locate him."

"I thought he was supposed to be in your ER."

"There's been some kind of mix-up�"

"Is he or isn't he here?"

"Mr. Slotkin, why don't you have a seat in the waiting room? I'll bring you a cup of coffee�"

"I don't want a cup of coffee. My father's having some kind of medical crisis. And now you can't find him?"

"The nurses are checking X-ray."

"I thought you just called X-ray!"

"Please, if you'll just have a seat in the waiting room, we'll find out exactly what . . ." Toby's voice trailed off as she caught sight of the two nurses hurrying back toward her.

"We called Morty," said Val. "He and Arlo are checking the parking lot."

"You didn't find him?"

"He can't have gone far."

Toby felt the blood slide from her cheeks. She was afraid to look at Daniel Slotkin. Afraid to meet his gaze. But she couldn't shut out the sound of his anger.

"What is going on around here?" he demanded.

The two nurses said nothing. Both of them looked at Toby. Both of them knew that in the ER, the doctor was the captain of the ship. The one on whose shoulders rested ultimate responsibility. Ultimate blame.

"Where is my father?"

Slowly Toby turned to Daniel Slotkin. Her answer came out in barely a whisper. "I don't know."

It was dark, and his feet hurt, and he knew he had to get home. The trouble was, he could not remember how to get home. Harry Slotkin could not even remember how he'd come to be stumbling down this deserted street. He thought about stopping at one of the houses along the way to ask for help, but all the windows he passed were dark. Were he to knock at one of those doors and beg for help, there would be questions and bright lights and he would almost certainly be humiliated. Harry was a proud man. He was not a man to ask for anyone's assistance. Nor did he volunteer assistance to others�not even to his own son. He'd always believed that charity, in the long run, was crippling, and he had not wanted to raise a cripple. Strength is independence. Independence is strength.

Somehow, he would find his own way home.

If only the angel would reappear.

She had come to him in that place of horrors, where he'd been put on a cold table and lights had blinded his eyes, the place where strangers had poked him with needles and jabbed him with their probing fingers.

Then the angel had appeared. She hadn't hurt him at all. Instead she had smiled at him as she untied his hands and feet, and she had whispered, "Go, Harry! Before they come back for you."

Now he was free. He'd escaped, good for him!

He continued down the street of dark and silent houses, searching for some familiar landmark. Anything to tell him where he was.

I must have gotten turned around, he thought. Went out for a walk and lost my way.

Pain suddenly bit into his foot. He looked down and halted in amazement.

Beneath the glow of a streetlamp, he saw that he was wearing no shoes.

Or socks, either. He stared at his bare feet. At his bare legs. At his penis, hanging limp and shriveled and utterly pitiful.

I'm not wearing any clothes!

In panic he glanced around to see if anyone was looking at him. The street was deserted.

Cupping his hands over his genitals, he fled the streetlamp, seeking the cover of darkness. When had he lost his clothes? He couldn't remember. He squatted down on the cold, clipped lawn of a front yard and tried to think, but panic had crowded out all memories of what had happened earlier that night. He began to whimper, soft little grunts and sobs as he rocked back and forth on his bare feet.

I want to go home. Please, oh please, if I could just wake up in my own bed . . .

He was hugging himself now, so lost in despair that he didn't notice the headlights rounding the far corner. Only when the van braked to a stop right beside him did Harry realize he'd been spotted. He clasped his arms tighter, curling into a shivering self embrace.

A voice called softly through the darkness. "Harry?"

He didn't raise his head. He was afraid to unfold his body, afraid to reveal his humiliating state of undress. He tried to squeeze himself into a tighter and tighter ball.

"Harry, I've come to take you home."

Slowly he raised his head. He could not make out the face of the driver, but the voice was one he knew. Or thought he knew.

"Step into the van, Harry."

He rocked back and forth on his heels and felt the wet grass brush against his bare buttocks. His voice rose in a high, thin wall. "But I have no clothes!"

"You have clothes at home. A whole closet of suits. Remember?" There was a soft clunk, the whine of metal sliding across metal.

Harry looked up and saw that the van door was open. Darkness gaped beyond. The silhouette of a man was standing beside the vehicle.

The man extended his hand in a gesture of invitation.

"Come, Harry," he whispered. "Let's go home."

How hard can it be to.find a naked man?

Toby sat in her car, squinting out at the hospital parking lot. It was already midmorning, and the sunlight seemed excruciatingly bright to her night-accustomed eyes. When had the sun come up? She hadn't seen it rise, hadn't enjoyed a single free moment to glance outside, and the daylight was a shock to her retinas. That's what came of choosing the graveyard shift. She was transforming into a creature of the night.

She sighed and started up the Mercedes. At last it was time to go home, time to leave behind the night's disasters.

But as she drove away from Springer Hospital, she was unable to shake off her gloom. Within the span of a single hour, she had lost two patients. She felt certain that the woman's death had been unavoidable, that there was nothing she could have done to save her.

Harry Slotkin was a different matter. Toby had left a confused patient unattended for nearly an hour. She was the last person to lay eyes on Harry, and try as she might, she could not remember whether she had restrained his wrists before she left the room. I must have left him untied. It's the only way he could have escaped. It's my fault Harry was my fault.

Even if it hadn't been her fault, she was still the captain of the team, the person ultimately responsible. Now somewhere, an old man was wandering, naked and confused.

She slowed the car. Though she knew the police had already searched this area, she scanned the streets, hoping for a glimpse of her fugitive patient. Newton was a relatively safe suburb of Boston, and the neighborhood she was now driving through had the look of wealth. She turned onto a tree-lined residential street and saw well-kept houses, trimmed hedges, driveways fronted by iron gates. Not the sort of neighborhood where an old man would be assaulted. Perhaps someone had taken him in. Perhaps, right at this moment, Harry was sitting in a cozy kitchen, being fed breakfast.

Where are you, Harry?

She circled the neighborhood, trying to picture these streets from Harry's point of view. It would have been dark, confusing, cold without his clothes. Where did he think he was going?

Home. He would try to find his way home to Brant Hill.

Twice she had to stop and ask for directions. When at last she came to the turnoff for Brant Hill Road, she almost drove right past it. There were no signs, the road was marked only by two stone pillars flanking the entrance. Between them, the gate hung open. She pulled to a stop between the pillars and saw that two letters were scrolled into the gate's cast iron design, an elegantly baroque B and H. Beyond the pillars, the road twisted away and vanished behind deciduous trees.

So this is Harry's neighborhood, she thought.

She drove through the open gate, onto Brant Hill Road.

Though the road was newly paved, the maple and oak trees flanking it were fully mature. Some of the leaves were tinged with the first blazing hues of fall. Already September, she thought, when had the summer gone by? She followed the curving road, glancing at the trees on either side, noting the heavy undergrowth and all the shadowy places that might conceal a body. Had the police searched that shrubbery? If Harry had wandered this way in the dark, he might have gotten lost in those bushes. She would call the Newton police, suggest they take a closer look at this road.

Up ahead, the trees suddenly thinned, giving way to a panorama that was so unexpected Toby braked to a sudden stop. At the side of the road was a sign in green and gold.

BRANT HILL RESIDENTS AND GUESTS ONLY Beyond the sign stretched a landscape that might have been lifted from a lush painting of English countryside. She saw gently rolling fields of manicured grass, a topiary garden with fanciful animals, and autumn-tinged stands of birch and maple. Glistening like a jewel was a pond with wild irises. A pair of swans glided serenely among water lilies. Beyond the pond was a "village," an elegant cluster of homes, each with its own picket-fenced garden. The primary mode of transportation seemed to be golf carts with green and white awnings. The carts were everywhere, parked in driveways or gliding along village paths. Toby also spotted a few rolling about on the golf course, shuttling players from green to green.

She focused on the pond, suddenly wondering how deep the water was, and whether a man could drown in it. At night, in the dark, a confused man might walk straight into that water.

She continued driving down the road, toward the village. Fifty yards later, she saw a turnoff to the right, and another sign.

BRANT HILL CLINIC AND RESIDENTIAL CARE EACILITY She took the turnoff.

The road twisted through evergreen forest, to emerge suddenly and unexpectedly into a parking lot. A three-story building loomed ahead. To one side of it, construction on a new wing was about to start. Through the mesh fence ringing the side, she saw the foundation pit had already been dug. At the edge of the pit, a circle of men in hardhats stood conferring over blueprints.

Toby parked in the visitors' lot and walked into the clinic building.

The whisper of classical music greeted her. Toby paused, impressed by her surroundings. This was not your usual waiting room. The couches were buttery leather, and original oil paintings hung on the walls. She looked down at the array of magazines. Architectural Digest. Town s Country. No Popular Mechanics on this coffee table.

"May I help you?" A woman in a pink nurse's uniform smiled from behind the reception window.

Toby approached her. "I'm Dr. Harper from Springer Hospital. I examined one of your patients in the ER last night. I've been trying to contact the patient's physician for more medical history, but I can't seem to reach him."

"Which doctor?"