Random Winds (56 page)

“Two amps bicarb!”

“Let’s get the paddles.”

“Open up the fluids!”

“Open the intravenous line!”

These low commands went back and forth; arms and
hands reached back and forth. The needle of adrenalin pierced the heart; it seemed like hours and was, actually, minutes.

“The EKG is flat,” Perry said, and then, finally, “It’s finished.”

Someone was still working, working desperately on the chest.

“No,” Leonard Max said, “it’s no use.” And he repeated, “It’s finished.”

There was a tired silence until Max broke it again. “Perhaps it’s a mercy,” he said gently. “She hadn’t very long.”

Martin didn’t answer. He had gone through it before and would go through it again; each time was a separate agony. And in a familiar gesture, he drew his gloves off and threw them on the floor.

They went out into the hall to the waiting room where the second act was to be played, the act of notification. The three paced down the corridor abreast, Martin and Leonard and Perry. Martin wanted to ask, “What happened, Perry?” But then he wasn’t sure he ought to because there was a fuzz of confusion in his mind right now, and anyway, there was this to be got through, and he was exhausted.

The mother went mad. She had been standing with her hand over her mouth as the three men approached. Possibly, he thought afterward, the news had been written in their eyes or their walk. And he knew he would always see her face out of a long line of such faces going back years and years. It was wide across the top like a cat’s, with a delicate pointed chin and round pale eyes. Her scream was the most terrible sound one could ever hear, worse than the cry of an animal being slaughtered or a woman in labor. Her husband and some other young man, a brother or brother-in-law, took her to a room. Nurses came running. Someone gave her a hypodermic. It was over.

And Martin went home to have supper with his children, who had, as far as he knew, no alien things growing in their heads, and he was thankful for that.

Later, in bed, he tried to reorder his thoughts. Had the child become cyanotic because of the surgical shock or had
Perry in some way failed? He recalled that in the flurry he had sensed something strange about Perry. But then, perhaps it was only his imagining as a result of the flurry. Everything had happened too fast to remember the sequence of events. He often thought he’d make a bad witness to an accident It had been proven that three people could witness the same event and give three completely different reports of it. So his mind went spinning and rotating toward sleep.

In the morning at the office Leonard said, “That was some rotten Sunday afternoon yesterday.”

Martin, going over mail at his desk, had a sense of Leonard’s hovering halfway to the door, as if he were waiting to say something more.

“Did you see Perry afterward?” Leonard asked.

“Afterward?”

“Yesterday, before you left.”

Martin looked up. “No, I went straight home. Why?”

“Well, there was something odd about him.”

Martin waited.

Leonard sat down. “I think—Jesus, I hate to say this—but I could swear he’d had a couple of drinks.”

“You know what you’re saying. Leonard?”

“I sure as hell do! I’m not saying it to anybody else, Martin, for God’s sake. I’m telling you. He was talking to one of the kid’s relatives, the uncle I think. The young guy with the parents. I saw him in the hall after I got dressed and he just—well, he was talking too loud and too much and—Well, you know that faint something you can detect, not drunk exactly, but—”

Martin interrupted. “Did you notice anything in the O.R.?”

“I only thought—well, I thought he wasn’t paying attention. The kid should have got more oxygen. He wasn’t monitoring.”

For a long minute neither of them spoke. Martin tapped a pencil on the desk. Certain things came back to him more clearly now: Perry looking out of the window; the sky streaked rust and claret He felt the slow thud of his heart.

“Yesterday was his anniversary, they were having a party at his house.”

Perry was not a drinker, but at an anniversary party, surely he would have had a couple? “I just don’t know,” Martin said again.

“Well, of course, little Judy’s days were few and cruel. When you consider, it’s just as well. Merciful, in fact.”

“True. Undoubtedly true. But not the issue exactly.”

“I wonder,” Leonard began.

“Wonder what?”

“Whether we should—I mean you or both of us, or whether we should—” “Say anything to Perry?” “Yeah. What do you think?”

“Or wait. Maybe he’ll say something. Maybe something win—”

Leonard stood up. “Right. Nothing hasty. It’s all vague. See whether he says anything.”

Perry said, “Tough about the little girl, Martin. But I guess you knew before you started how it was going to end, so it was no surprise to you.”

“It was a considerable surprise,” Martin said distinctly.

Perry’s expressive eyebrows rose to his freckled forehead. “I don’t understand. You honestly expected her to survive the operation?”

“I certainly did, and maybe another one like it a few months down the road.”

They were in an empty corridor, waiting for the elevator. Nevertheless, Martin lowered His voice.

“Perry, were you feeling all right yesterday?”

“What the devil makes you ask that?”

“Because. Level with me. You weren’t monitoring.”

“The hell I wasn’t!”

“I don’t think you were. She went cyanotic.”

“So? That’s never happened before?” A bright flush of anger inundated the freckled forehead.

“Yes, but this time I—”

“Just what the hell are you trying to prove, Martin?”

“I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m only asking. Don’t get excited.”

“Don’t get excited! When you’re practically accusing me of negligence, you expect me to—”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I repeat, I’m only asking whether you can clear up something in my mind. If friends can’t talk frankly with each other—”

The elevator came. It was crowded. The two men stood abreast, not touching, Martin aware of Perry’s fast angry breathing. He regretted having spoken. The whole thing might be a dreadful error on his part. If so, Perry had every reason to be hurt and furious. Yet—

On the third day Leonard came into Martin’s office. “You know Perry’s car, that imported job he bought last month?”

“What about it?”

“The front fender’s crumpled up like a handkerchief. I saw it in the parking lot this morning. So I told him, I said, That’s some fender-bender. How did you manage to do that?’ And he said it happened Sunday afternoon, backing out of the lot, after the surgery.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Martin said.

“No, but it adds up.”

Martin didn’t answer. He felt like a cheap detective, one of those matrimonial snoopers. Then he thought of something and rang for Jenny Jennings.

“Did I remember to have you send flowers to the funeral home for Judy?”

“You did. I sent a spray of roses from you and Dr. Max.”

“Good. Good. Thanks.”

So she’s at peace. No more vomiting, dizziness and pain. No more shaved head, medicines and bandages. At peace. But I’m not. Still, can’t play detective, prosecutor and judge. Too difficult. Drop it What’s done is done.

The nursing supervisor met him one morning in the lobby and drew him aside. “I’ve had a call from a lawyer, a Mr. Rice. He wants to see the record on Judy Wister. It looks like trouble.”

So it’s come! was Martin’s first reaction. All these years he’d gone without a suit for malpractice. It was bound to come once in a lifetime anyway, he thought grimly. Still, he had done his best for the child. He would have said, naively no doubt, that the Wisters of all people would never do this to him. They had seemed to worship him, to be so grateful. And he felt a small, sad hurt.

“Well,” he said, not wishing to let the hurt show, “I guess my turn’s just come. I’ve got plenty of company, that’s for sure.”

So he was quite prepared when a few days later Jenny Jennings informed him that a Mr. Rice had called on behalf of his clients, Louis and Martha Wister, and would be in to see him at three that afternoon.

Mr. Rice was a garish individual with oiled hair and a rasping voice. Two strikes against him anyway, Martin thought, feeling some amusement at his own surprising calm.

“Well, Mr. Rice, what is it you want to know about me?” he began.

“Nothing about you at all.”

“You’re not here to serve papers, to sue me?”

“No, no. Mr. and Mrs. Wister specifically exclude you from any culpability in the death of their child. The matter concerns the anaesthesiologist alone. We want your testimony to the effect that he was negligent as a result of being under the influence of alcohol.”

“Oh, no,” Martin said. “I’ve known Perry Gault for years, and he’s the best man in his field that any surgeon could want. As a matter of fact, I don’t like to operate without him. He’s completely reliable.” He heard himself babbling.

“That may all be true, but the fact is that on this particular day, he had been drinking. Mrs. Wister’s brother, Arthur Wagnalls, had conversation with Dr. Gault and smelled alcohol on his breath. Furthermore, the doctor had an accident in the parking lot on the way out, and the man whose car he hit believed either that he had been drinking or wasn’t feeling well, he wasn’t sure which. Also—”

Martin raised his hand. Something in him was frightened
for Perry and wanted to defend him. “Wait. This is all unsubstantiated. The child’s uncle is not an impartial person, after all. And anyone can say anything about anyone, can’t he? You could go out of this office right now and say I’m drunk, couldn’t you? And it would only be your opinion.”

Mr. Rice smiled. It was an all-knowing smile. It said, “I am a step ahead of you and no matter how fast you run, I shall always remain a step ahead.”

“We have an impartial person, as you say. One of the nurses, Delia Whitman, has already given a statement to the effect that Dr. Perry had been drinking.”

“Delia Whitman? There was no such person in the operating room, and I’m well acquainted with them all.”

Mr. Rice said patiently, “She’s a student nurse. You probably wouldn’t know her. She was attending Mrs. Wister and was present when Dr. Gault and Mr. Wagnalls were talking. Afterward Mr. Wagnalls remarked on Dr. Gault’s condition, and she answered, she told him, yes, it was clear to her, too.”

Martin, stunned, resorted to pencil-tapping.

“Furthermore, the record of the operation says a great deal. The girl became cyanotic. Anaesthesia was hurriedly lowered and oxygen increased after you, the surgeon, ordered it. Dr. Gault had not been monitoring the flow.”

Ugly, ugly! The only other brush with law that Martin had had in all his life had been his divorce and he had come away from that with no love for lawyers. Wordmongers, sophists and procrastinators, they were; their aim was to trip you up, to trick you into saying what you didn’t mean.

“I’m not a lawyer,” he said somewhat brusquely, “so will you come to the point? What do you want of me?”

“I want you to be a witness for the Wisters in a suit for malpractice against Dr. Gault.”

“No, no,” Martin cried. “I want to be left out of this. I don’t have time, I’m a busy man. There’s a roomful of patients out there. I’m concerned about them and only about them.”

“Exactly. And you want them protected against this sort of thing, don’t you? Isn’t it your duty to protect them,
since you’re so concerned?” Mr. Rice stood up. “I won’t take any more of your time now, Doc. Think it over. When you do, you’ll do the right thing, I’m sure.” He backed toward the door. “I’ll be calling you again.”

I’m sure you will, Martin thought with enormous distaste.

Perry looked large and clumsy in Martin’s little den.

“I’m sorry to come busting in on you like this,” he said, “but I was sitting around after dinner tonight and I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I go see Martin and talk it all out?’ We’ve been avoiding each other. I was hasty that day in the hall, very upset, but as you see, it turns out I have reason to be upset. I’m so damn sorry, Martin,” he finished.

“Yes. Well—”

“You know, of course, you’ve heard they’ve served me with a suit?”

“I heard.” He estimated that the entire hospital had heard within an hour.

Perry leaned forward. “Martin, I’m going to level with you. I did have a couple of drinks. You know I don’t drink much. A little goes a long way with me. Too long.”

Oh Jesus, Martin thought.

“I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital at all. I know I ought to have told you to get somebody else, but the thing is, when you’re a little bit dazed, under that thin edge of sleepiness, you don’t know you are. Martin, you’re not going to testify against me? She was going to die anyway.” There were tears in the friendly copper eyes and Martin couldn’t bear to look at them. “You don’t know how I feel. That kid—If I could bring her back! But nobody could. How long did she have? Three months? Six at the most? So when you come down to it, what great difference did it make?”

Martin was silent.

And Perry continued. “It should never have happened and you can bet everything that’s holy, it never will again. Never. Martin, what are you going to do?”

Martin spoke very gently. “I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. Do I have to tell you that?”

Perry stood up and began walking the length of the little room: twelve paces to the bookshelf at the far end and twelve paces return. “Martin, for myself—Oh, I won’t say anything grandiose and tell you it wouldn’t matter, because of course it would. But the truth is, there’s more than myself. The truth is I’ve got the two boys in college and Leonore’s having a mastectomy. A radical, I’m afraid.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Well, we just found out last week. Now I’ve got to put this on her, too. You see, what I’m saying is, I’ll need all the support I can get from my friends. Martin, I’m scared as hell.”

“Take it easy, Perry, take it easy. Things have a way of working out. We all want to help you get through this, stand by you.”