Do No Harm

Chapter 15

Peter Alexander's balance was not aided by the aquarium walkway that ran from the reservation desk to the restaurant proper, but David knew better than to offer his assistance. The hostess watched as Peter lurched and waddled, arms spread wide as though he were anticipating a hug. A fat-eyed parrotfish darted quickly underfoot and Peter swayed, one of his leg braces clinking against the back of a chair. The hostess slowed her pace and caught David's eye, but David kept his hands in his pockets and shook his head.

The crowd at Crustacean evinced Beverly Hills's notion of upscale-cell phones and silk shirts, movie moguls, and the occasional high-priced call girl. Peter's unusual gait caught a few glances, but most people had directed their attention elsewhere by the time he passed.

They reached the base of the stairs and the hostess turned, flustered. "I'm sorry, but the table is upstairs. I can see how long the wait is down here. I didn't know… when you made the reservation no one told us that… "

"Actually," Peter said, with a smile and an aristocratic tip of his head, "I prefer upstairs."

He gripped the banister, but seemed displeased with its height. He beckoned David with a hand and David turned around, making his shoulder available. Peter's oversized hands were unnaturally strong, and David was grateful for his blazer's shoulder padding. Leaning over, Peter readjusted his loafer around the curved base of his leg brace. The metal had stretched and distorted the mouth of the shoe, lining the oxblood leather with tan wrinkles.

Turning sideways, both hands on the curved banister, he swung one stiff leg out behind him, hooked it on the first step, then pivoted his hips so his other leg followed. He slid his hands about a foot up and repeated the motion. Step number two.

The hostess glanced nervously up the curved length of the staircase. There were over thirty steps to the top. David took the menus from her with a smile.

"It's the table for two in the back corner," she said.

David kept a few steps behind Peter as he worked his way up. Peter was winded when he reached the top, and he mopped his brow with a floppy white handkerchief.

A paddle fan turned slowly above their table. An effeminate waiter took their order with his hands clasped together, leaning forward as if into a strong gust of wind.

Peter pulled off his coat and hung it over the back of his chair. His black hair, shot through with gray, was unruly and animated-the hair of a composer. David knew Peter was at least twenty years his senior, though they'd never arrived at his age conversationally. Along with Peter's disability, which he never expounded upon, his age was simply off-limits.

"Your mother would have captured the bastard herself," Peter said. "Bound him with her stethoscope and dragged him kicking and screaming to a seclusion room in the NPI."

The Neuropsychiatric Institute's nascence had occurred under David's mother's tenure. She'd been actively broadening psychiatry's horizons, back when most practitioners of the field were busy merely scrubbing off the stains of witchcraft and mysticism. Peter had known her since his young days as a fledgling urologist.

"Dr. Evans called me this morning," David said.

"How is our vibrant chief of staff?"

"Charming but hard-assed, as usual. Wanted to ensure I was keeping on top of the ER, leaving no loose ends for the press to grab hold of."

"Our alkali thrower has captured LA's imagination. The media loves gory details."

"Fuel for a city characterized by ADD. But I suppose it beats hearing about Jennifer Aniston's hair." David set down his menu and aligned it neatly with the edge of the table. "We just can't let all this slow the hospital down."

"It's a nightmare," Peter said. "Last night, I had a nine-hour standing surgery that got out after one in the morning. They made me wait nearly forty minutes so a security guard could walk me to my car. Forty minutes."

The smell of garlic heralded dinner's arrival. Two steaming plates of king prawns resting on beds of swirled linguini. Peter reached to center his plate before him but withdrew his hand quickly, a flash of panic lighting his eyes. He spilled some ice water on his hand where it had touched the plate, though there was clearly no sign of redness or swelling.

David continued the conversation as the waiter served-a rudeness in which he did not usually indulge, but the waiter had annoyed him earlier by asking twice if he was sure he didn't want wine.

"It has been wretched," David said, realizing with some amusement that he'd inadvertently mirrored Peter's tone of faux-English prissiness. "Now that it's confirmed that the attack on Nancy wasn't an isolated incident, I've been assured that the hospital's security level will go through the roof." He shook his head. "One of my medical students almost maced a homeless man in the ambulance bay. She was wearing scrubs-he was approaching her for help."

"One can hardly blame her," Peter said. He manipulated his knife and fork gracefully, hands turning in deft, fluid motions. It was a pleasure to watch him dine.

"The last thing we need is a war mentality on the floor," David said. "Especially with the demographic moving through there. And people are angry." Absentmindedly, he tapped the tines of his fork against the plate. "God, are they angry."

"And why shouldn't they be? Two lovely young practitioners mauled and mutilated. At the place where they render medical care."

"Yes, thank goodness they weren't homely sewer workers."

Peter regarded David humorlessly. "You understand what I'm saying," he said. "This business is vile. Simply vile."

"I'm taking that as a given," David said. "And believe me, I knew both these women, and treated them when they came in. What I'm saying is, we need to look closer. Violence should not attenuate our medical empathy."

"Bah!" Peter said. Peter was the only person David knew who said "Bah." "A little anger is a good thing." Peter fiddled with his wire-rim glasses, cleaning the circular lenses with a corner of his napkin. The clipped, meticulous movements of his hands betrayed his irritation. "This man-he's the result of what? A bad tour of duty? Castration threats from an unloving mother? It's not an excuse. None of the hands we are dealt contain a Get-Out-of-Morality card. We grow and we fight and we cope." His finger, pointing down into the tablecloth, grew white around the knuckle. "This man is deserving of our anger."

"He has my anger," David said. He set down his fork, resting the neck on the lip of the plate. Peter watched him closely, intelligently. "I'm sorry," David said.

Peter nodded, his mouth drawing down in a thoughtful frown. "As physicians, when confronted with someone like this assailant, we're instinctively drawn to explanations involving psychopathology or mental illness. But we shouldn't fool ourselves." He raised his fork, coiled with linguini, and pointed it at David. Something in the gesture gave it monumental weight. "Odds are, he's a malicious, sadistic bastard, whether he's sick or not."

"I know that," David said.

Peter twirled his fork, capturing more linguini. "Do you?"

They ate in silence for a while. David stifled a yawn with his napkin.

"You look like hell," Peter said. "Burning it at both ends?"

David nodded wearily. "I can't work the way I used to."

"You're getting old." Peter's eyes twinkled when he laughed. "When I used to work the Air Force base down in Riverside, I'd get these young macho pilots in for vasectomies. Married a few years, knocked out a few kids, didn't want to worry about impregnating their wife or anyone else with whom they happened to be sleeping. I'd get them done, and afterward I'd tell them to be careful and use protection because they were still shooting live rounds for another thirty ejaculations. And they'd just smile and say, 'Thirty squirts? I'll get that taken care of this weekend, Doc.' "

David laughed.

"Do you know what the moral of that story is?" Peter asked. He drew out the pause dramatically. "You can't go like you used to."

An attractive middle-aged woman walked past their table, adjusting a satin spaghetti strap on her dress. David felt a rush of melancholy. There was no wine to blame it on. "If I ever lost this, my work, I'd.. I don't know."

"Lose your work? You're at the height of your career."

"I can't work ninety-hour weeks anymore."

"I never could."

"But I could. I could."

Peter leaned back in his chair, as if that provided a better vantage from which to regard him. "You inherited your mother's vanity."

David rubbed the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. "I inherited the runoff."

"She was a great woman, your mother, but she was cruel in the way great people are cruel. You have none of that." Peter picked at a prawn with his fork, but did not spear it. "Do you know why great people are cruel? They have so much of themselves to protect." He reached down and adjusted one of his leg braces. David caught a flicker of a grimace before Peter replaced it with a smile. "We all have our limitations," Peter said.

Peter insisted, despite David's protestations, on picking up the check-a habit he'd developed when David had been a penniless intern and persisted in, David believed, to perpetuate an air of affectionate condescension.

David folded Peter's jacket over his arm and waited patiently for him to rise. It took them nearly five minutes to make it down the stairs and to the lobby.