Retribution (4 page)

At the far end of the corridor, which probably teed into the main part of the hospital, he heard doors ratchet open and close almost as rapidly, shutting out a roar of noise and clamor. John froze, bottle in hand, watching as the contingent entered the corridor, headed his way.

One of the three men shrugged out of his coat, throwing it over his arm, muttering, "I'm getting something to drink before we go up," and striding to the machines. The other two, braced by two hospital security guards, stopped and waited uneasily.

John's hand tightened around the iced tea. It surged upward, splashing over his fingers. He looked down stupidly at the spill; the only thought he could focus on was that his quarry had gotten in, gotten past him, and he could not cut them off now, not with security escorting them.

The surgeon fishing quarters out as he approached was nearly as tall as John, raven-black hair combed back, and eyes a piercing blue color. He was older than Rubidoux, but without a doubt much younger than the other two.

His eyes met John's just before he put his hand up and fed his coins in.

John wet his lips. "Don't do this," he said. "Don't keep a murderer alive."

The surgeon's face twitched slightly, but he did not look away except for the seconds it took to find a selection button and push it. When he looked back, his eyes swept John's uniform.

"I'm a doctor," he returned quietly. "It's what I'm trained to do."

He did not move as the container dropped, but kept his eyes fixed unwaveringly upon John.

"He's on Death Row. So what if he dies a little sooner."

"I didn't put him there."

"My father did!"

The surgeon flinched then, hiding his movement by reaching down to get his drink. He opened it and took a long swallow before eyeing John again. The group milling around at the intersection split open for a second, and a pepper-haired man said impatiently, "Dr. Clarkson, I am waiting for you."

Clarkson smiled slightly, as if knowing that John inhaled that name, remembering it for all time. "I have my job," he said. He reached out and touched the police insignia lightly. "You have yours." He toasted John with his soft drink. "May we both do it well."

He turned and loped away, before John could add another word of plea. The guards framed him and the group marched into the bowels of the hospital.

The splash of coldness over his hand brought John back. Looking down, he saw that he had squeezed his plastic container in two. The contents had drenched his hand and the carpet at his feet. He took a swallow of the remainder, found it had gone suddenly bitter, and slammed it into the waiting trash bin.

Had he really expected to make a difference?

He told himself as he left that he had not, but the knot in his throat and stomach told him otherwise; just as his father had always hoped, he thought he could make a difference, and that he had to try. The failure settled in him like a burning ulcer, and it would never leave. Not late that afternoon when he heard on the radio that Dover had nearly died during surgery, but that the brilliant young assistant Clarkson had demonstrated a new technique, saving him. Nor would that sense of defeat leave as Rubidoux went on patrol, and the waves of riots swept by him, and crime, and drugs, and violent marriages. Every triumph eased the burn a little and made his decisions bearable. He wondered sometimes if Clarkson felt the same.

"Clarkson, I want you to head the team on this one. I'll assist, of course, but I think you've proved yourself."

Wade looked across the walnut conference table at Dr. Kevin Eisner and tried not to let triumph be read in his features, but gave a confident nod instead, thinking how far he had come from Phelmans' disdain of his abilities. "I'd be pleased to." Although pleasure could not describe the well-being he felt. The stories-high windows gave him an excellent view of Los Angeles, haze and all, and of the palm trees far below swaying in a slight wind. He would not trade all the clean air of his former residency for the view he looked at now. "Let me know how the team fills out."

"Good. I'm going to be sending you her full medical charts for you to go over later this afternoon, but I will tell you her surgery is already scheduled for Wednesday, nine a.m." Eisner paused, his mild brown eyes blinking. "Not to bring a human element into this, but this young lady has two small children at home and a concerned husband, and in my dealings with her, I have found her to be an exceptional person. You might want to step in this evening after rounds and you've gone over her charts, and talk with them… let them know what procedures we'll be using and what the prognosis is." Eisner cleared his throat. "They're rather overwhelmed by all this."

"First thing this evening, then." Wade sketched himself a note on the pad in front of him.

Eisner nodded. He flipped through the paperwork he held, turned to Dr. Emilio Chavez, and began to assign another case as Clarkson rocked back slightly in his chair.

* * *

In the office which had been given to him, a room with a single bank of windows overlooking hazy freeways and the hospital grounds from a number of floors up, he thumbed through the various printouts and tests. The surgical procedure would be demanding, but Linda Elliot's prognosis was excellent. He should have no trouble as the operation presented itself, and it pleased him to know he could tell her and the family that. It was a benefit of the grueling work that he did… the grateful smiles, sighs of relief, and an occasional hug. Sometimes the joy would be so bountiful that he would stand there ignored and yet the tide of celebration would flood him and that would be enough.

And yet, there would always be that time when he had looked into a young policeman's face and found himself remarking that it was his job to save a killer. A fresh memory that, the anger and disappointment looking back at him, and the uneasiness that he had somehow betrayed himself by doing it.

Wade closed the folder and put his Mont Blanc pen on top of it to remind himself to make notes on it before he left for the evening. In the meantime, he had rounds to make, and a family to reassure.

* * *

Eight-thirty a.m. on a cloudy Wednesday, he scrubbed up, and by ten-thirty was well into an operation going routinely. At ten-thirty-one, he hit a bleeder that would not stop, weakened blood vessels started to collapse into mush, and the nightmare began from there. Eisner worked elbow to elbow with him, both of them moving frantically and precisely, and when they gave up at eleven-oh-seven and called her death, he hardly had time to take a breath. Warm blood drenched his surgical gloves and splattered his gown. He took a moment, looking down at the body, chest cavity sliced open for a heart massage, a desperate last-ditch attempt to bring her back, and knew that there was nothing he could have done.

The operation should have gone smoothly. He looked at his hands, turned them over, searched them front and back for the flaw, for the betrayal.

Eisner thumped him on the shoulder. "It happens, Clarkson."

Wade did not respond as the nurses began to clean up the operating theater, preparing for the next surgery, drawing a paper sheet over the body. It did not happen to him. Not any more. Not since he had been anointed.

Clarkson looked at the blood on his gloves, haunted by the thought that he had tampered with the balance of life by saving Dover, and what the retribution had been. He stripped his gloves off and tossed them in the hazmat container in the corner of the theater.

What he did not know was how to get his blessing returned.

* * *

Days later, he still struggled. Wade did not feel like a society dinner and benefit as the weekend approached, but the head of surgery had let him know subtly that his attendance was not optional, that there would be many functions like this and it was almost as much a part of his position as a surgeon at the hospital to attend these as it would be to operate. The valet took his car keys as he got out of his new white-and-gold-trimmed Acura Legend and he settled his shoulders into his tux jacket with a deep breath. At the head of the flagstone steps to the Bel Air residence, Kevin Eisner joined him and flashed him a grin.

"Glad you could make it, Wade."

They shook hands. Eisner looked more relaxed than Wade could ever remember seeing him, his tux jacket open, and brocaded vest restraining what had begun to be a pouching stomach. Eisner nodded in approval at his appearance. "See you took my advice on the tux."

"You're my senior, Dr. Eisner. It would be foolish not to listen to you outside the hospital as well as inside." Wade smiled ruefully. The tux had set him back nearly a grand, and the alterations had topped it. The paychecks coming in were substantially better than those he had received before, but there were debts, massive ones, to be repaid. And then, of course, there was the car. One had to have a car in L.A.

His supervisor tweaked the tux lapel a bit. "You'll need a couple of those babies, but one benefit at a time, eh?" Eisner slapped his shoulder blade. "Abby will be pleased to see how good you look in one."

Abigail Switzer was the major hospital donor who was funding this soirée, a formidable woman from all accounts. Wade unconsciously straightened, bracing himself for the ordeal of meeting her.

Eisner's eyebrows twitched. "A handsome young doctor always brings in the bucks at these things. Unless I miss a guess, she'll be roping you into doing the bachelor auction for Valentine's Day. Take some advice— say yes, and enjoy yourself." The older doctor grinned as he brought his highball glass to his lips and took a sip of what looked to be Scotch on the rocks. His wedding band gleamed in the porch light.

"I aim to please."

"Good. Come in and enjoy yourself. Watch the booze and cheer up a little." Eisner winked. "We can't win 'em all."

Clarkson did not like the analogy of surgery as winning or losing. It was a skilled attempt and nothing of chance should reign within it. But he could not argue with Eisner. Some things seemed beyond his skill at the moment. Uneasily, Wade followed the surgeon into the house, through a sprawling front room and toward the back. Eisner thumped him on the back before saying, "My wife is waiting for me at the tables," and stepping past. French doors to the patio revealed an expansive backyard done up in a Mardi Gras theme, with harlequin masks and golf cart floats being driven along the edges of the lawn, people riding them laughing and throwing out beads and whatnots to the other guests. A lot of flash and glitter and money. There were craps and baccarat tables and a row of what looked to be fortune tellers under mandarin paper lanterns at the far edge of the patio. The sound of a fairly decent live blues band came to him. He could smell cayenne and other spices in the air from the supper tent.

He saw a lot of very well done face and body lifts on painfully thin elegant women, who glided through the crowd. He snagged a drink from a waiter going by, tasted it, found it to be a mild coke and rum and decided he could probably nurse it most of the evening. With Eisner gone, a slight shyness settled around him. He did not feel like socializing or like discussing what had gone right and wrong in the recent high profile surgeries he'd just done.

A tinkle of real crystal reached him, punctuating words from people whose faces he could not actually see.

"…some people deserve to die…"

"Courts really screwed up on that one… wonder how long it will be before he takes out another quick mart?"

"…poor clerk did everything he was told and still got it, point-blank, in the face. Such a shame. I hope we can help the family."

"We'd be better off getting the judge out and pushing for a retrial! Better way to spend our money."

"This is a charity function, not a political agenda, though I do agree with you about Judge Canton. However, a judge has to have a certain confidence in his abilities and judgments… an arrogance, if you will, in his training and the decisions he makes. Just like a surgeon."

"Surgeons are arrogant sons of bitches."

A deep chuckle. "Watch yourself, John, we're surrounded by L.A.'s finest here."

"I didn't say they weren't good doctors. I just said they have one flaming opinion of themselves!" The speaker tossed back half a crystal glass of what must be Scotch on the rocks. "And they damn well better have. I wouldn't want anyone putting a scalpel to me if they were shaking in their boots! I don't like 'em looking at me like I was a slab of meat."

The silver-haired man opposite him shook a finger. "You are just a slab of meat. You have to be, for them to do their work."

"The hell I do!"

"No, John, listen… just think about it. They hold your life in their hands— like God. If they have to know you, think about you, wouldn't they have to consider what kind of life they might be saving? Wouldn't they? Wouldn't doctors have to look at the soul behind the flesh and wonder if they were doing the world any good by repairing that flesh? No, they have to have the guts to consider you a piece of meat like any other piece of meat. Or, to paraphrase, let 'em all live and let God sort 'em out in the end."

A masculine snort. "And I hope you at least agree that some people deserve to die!"

"On some level, everyone deserves to die. Whether I agree or not is moot. The judge made his decision. The man was let go. Just like that plastic bag rapist. He served his time. The system did what it was supposed to do." The silver-haired man shrugged. He returned his empty wine stem to a platter as a server passed by and got a fresh one.

The fleshy gentleman next to him gave a humorless laugh. "And we all know that he's thoroughly rehabilitated now, cured of putting plastic bags over women's heads and raping them while they suffocated." Sarcasm punctuated the masculine tone. "But at least the court system got a chance to function." There was a pause, then the beefy voice continued, "Not that I want that son of a bitch living anywhere near me. I'd kill him myself."