Do No Harm

Chapter 13

Clyde parked at a metered spot on Le Conte and walked up toward the Medical Plaza, turning so the construction workers across the street couldn't make out his face. He wore scrubs and a loose gray sweatshirt. His scrub bottoms, like most, had a hidden pocket inside the waist on the left side, a simple stitched flap of fabric designed to keep credit cards or prescription pads safe from grabbing hands and aortal spurts. Clyde had wedged his money clip inside.

One of his hands was hidden beneath the sweatshirt, causing it to bulge. He tugged on the bill of his blank navy-blue corduroy hat, pulling it low so it shadowed his features. The early-morning air was crisp, though there was little breeze.

Ducking behind some foliage near the PCHS lot, he watched the attendants in the kiosks about thirty yards away. For the most part, they kept their eyes on the cash registers and the incoming cars, paying little attention to the walkway that sloped down to the ambulance bay. Located at the rear of the small underground parking area, the actual entrance to the ER was not visible from street level.

A security guard emerged and headed up the walkway, whistling, his eyes on the bushes to his right. He reached the top of the slope and turned into the covered section of the PCHS lot, the section that led back into the hospital. There were no news vans in sight.

Clyde's latex-gloved hand emerged from beneath his sweatshirt, holding a Pyrex beaker, its gradations marked in white. It held a blue viscid liquid. Breathing heavily, he removed the foil covering, balled it up, and tossed it into the gutter. It rolled a few feet before falling down a sewer grate. Clyde withdrew back into the bushes, hidden by a cluster of palm fronds, and used his cheap digital watch to time the security guard's patrol.

It took the guard five minutes and twenty-four seconds to walk a full loop through the hospital and reappear. The guard emerged from the ambulance bay again, heading up the walkway, head swiveling like a dog tracking prey.

Pressing the beaker of alkali to his stomach, Clyde crouched in the bushes, waiting for the security guard to disappear once again into the larger lot. Then, mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, he stepped from the bushes. The rise and fall of his chest quickened.

He walked casually past the kiosk, keeping his eyes on the ground. A harried woman was loudly voicing her objections to the parking rates, pulled up so the black-and-white striped arm nearly rested across the hood of her Taurus. Neither of the parking attendants noticed Clyde.

One hand staying beneath his sweatshirt, Clyde shuffle-stepped down the walkway into the subterranean ambulance bay, careful not to sway too much. Three rivulets of sweat arced down his left cheek. At the bottom of the ramp, two ambulances had been left deserted along the curb. He slid between them and the wall.

A couple lingered by their car in the parking slots across the ambulance bay, and Clyde pressed his cheek against the cold metal side of the ambulance until their engine turned over. His breath came quick and pressured, like a sprinter's. The car chugged up the ramp toward the open sky and disappeared from sight.

The ambulance bay was silent.

The automatic glass doors to the ER stood about fifteen yards to his left. He watched the doors and waited, trying to get his breathing under control. He had about three more minutes before the security guard would reappear. He held the Pyrex beaker with both hands, gripping it so tightly his knuckles whitened. The blue liquid lapped up the sides as his hands trembled.

A sudden noise as the ER doors pushed open. He ducked, peering through the ambulance windows. The driver-side window was down, and the ambulance interior smelled of pine disinfectant.

An Asian woman emerged from the doors, her clogs echoing off the enclosed walls. She wore blue scrubs.

Clyde's nostrils flared as he drew breath. His eyes were dark and flat, stones smoothed in a river's bed. He did not blink.

Pulling a cigarette from a pack she kept hidden in the inside breast pocket of her scrub top, she lit it and inhaled deeply, throwing her head back. An indulgent moan accompanied her exhalation.

His pounding footsteps alarmed her. The lighter dropped on the asphalt and bounced up, almost knee-high. Her face spread in a scream and both arms went up, intercepting most of the blue liquid. A spurt found its way through, dousing the left side of her face as she turned. She yelped and fell over, her palms slapping the asphalt.

Clyde pulled to a stop right above her and watched, head cocked. Gasping, she kept her eyes squeezed shut, evidently unaware that the alkali had struck only the side of her head. Her arms and legs scrabbled on the ground. She found a knee, then her feet, and then she ran back toward the ER doors, arms flailing blindly in front of her.

Clyde tossed the Pyrex beaker aside. It bounced twice but remained stubbornly intact. Walking briskly back to the ambulance, he removed his sweatshirt, revealing a worn scrub top. He threw the sweatshirt through the open ambulance window, aiming for the back, then pulled off his corduroy hat and tucked it in the band of his scrub bottoms so his top hung down over it. His pallid face tingled with a blend of horror and perverse gratification.

The woman ran into the wall a few feet to the left of the ER entrance and toppled over. She rose again, mouth down-twisted, chin slick with drool, and felt her way along the wall toward the doors, sobbing louder now. She kept her lips pressed tightly together, so her crying sounded muffled and throaty. Oddly, she still did not scream.

The doors swung open automatically before her hands could find them, and she stumbled through. Clyde followed her in silently as she navigated the small, deserted hall, so close behind her he could have stroked the soft fabric of her scrub top. She missed the turn and banged against one of the pay phones, knocking the receiver from its perch. She felt her way back to the open air as the dangling phone began to bleat.

He tried the stairwell door to the side of the pay phones. It was locked and did not budge. He returned to his position behind her, a running back floating behind a blocker. She fumbled forward, her breathing harsh and rasping, that of a dying animal's. Her hand went to her face and came away with a clump of hair. Her shoulder struck the wall and she half turned, enough for him to see the white blisters rising in patches on the soft skin around her ear.

She stumbled through both sets of glass doors and collapsed on the lobby floor, wheezing. He stepped past her quickly before anyone noticed her. Someone screamed, and all at once the room was a whirlwind of scrubs, ringing phones, running patients. Putting his head down, he turned through the swinging doors into the ER proper and strode purposefully through the hallway.

Two nurses blew by, wheeling a gurney, then the security guard he'd observed outside ran past, shouting into his radio, "Call for all officers! Zones Two and Six! Call for all officers!"

A doctor dashed from an exam room, barely clipping his shoulder. Clyde glanced down just in time to notice his ID badge: DR. DAVID SPIER. Without so much as a backward glance, the doctor ran toward triage.

Keeping his eyes on the cheap tile, Clyde turned right at the radiology suite and threaded back into the huge maze of hospital corridors, leaving the commotion behind.