Thirteen West (13 page)

"You think about it," Frank said as he unlocked the ward door to let himself out. Once the door was shut behind him, he shook his head. He'd seen Tate's history. The hospital had tried to discharge him at least three times before, each time precipitating an acute anxiety that immobilized the man in a panic state. Odds were he'd work himself into another one this time.

Frank crossed the inner court toward the East wards, his shoulders hunched against the chill of the night mist. The weatherman predicted clearing tomorrow but he'd been wrong more than right so far this year.

Sally had quarters on the grounds, over in the singles apartments. How much longer did she have to go here? About two more weeks, as he recalled. Not much time.

Stop thinking about Sally Goodrow, he told himself. Don't stir up buried trouble. Anyway, she's afraid of you. Better take a second look at that little item—is that what attracts you?

Frank shuddered, increasing his pace.

What was she up to with Dave Boyer?

Hurrying figures passed him, the night shift beginning to show.
Alma
would be back tomorrow and he'd have to remember to adjust rounds so he could walk her to her car. Funny, she hadn't been afraid when she worked evenings on the Ad Ward.

At first he'd thought it was a ploy to wear down his resistance but
Alma
didn't bother to throw herself his way anymore—not even on the nightly stroll to the parking lot. Probably found someone more susceptible, which was a relief. He liked her even though he didn't care for her physically. Or that red-haired sexpot who worked night relief—always thrusting big tits at him, as if that's all a man wanted. Sally lived at the far end of the two story singles unit.
Apartment
32
. Like an omen, if you believed in that trash. He was thirty-two. Tonight after report, he was heading directly home, he would not drive past the apartments.

Frank turned on the windshield wipers and headlights and backed his red Corvette from the slot. He turned the wheel to head out the main entrance but, as if the car had a mind of its own, it swung in the opposite direction and crept along the road leading to the living quarters. He pulled into the apartment parking lot and cut the lights and motor, sitting in the dark. After a few minutes he got out, heading for the dubious shelter of a pine where he'd be a shadow among shadows with a clear view of number 32.

I must be cracking up, Frank told himself. Stupid. Dangerous. For the past week he'd stopped here every damn night he'd worked and he'd had to fight the urge to drive out here on his two days off.

There she was, coming along the walk. Not alone, for the first time. Dave was with her. Frank's hands clenched into fists.

He watched while they climbed the steps, while Sally unlocked her door and let David inside with her. He waited, tension growing. Shortly, the door opened and Dave reappeared, hurrying down the stairs and sprinting along the walk.

Frank went back to his car and headed for the main parking lot, determined to follow Dave.

He managed to trail Dave's car into town and into one of the newer tracts. When Dave turned into a driveway, Frank drove on past, stopped and jumped out of the Corvette, striding up the drive of the house next door, hoping there wasn't a dog loose. He ducked into the shrubbery and edged along to peer around the front, just in time to see the door open. A middle-aged curly-haired man stood in the light, a stocky man, running to early fat.

"You're late," he said to Dave who was coming toward the door. "A good twenty minutes late."

"It's raining," Dave said.

"Misting. I know rain when I see it. It did rain last week and you weren't late then."

"For Chrissake," Dave muttered. "stop screwing me over for a lousy couple minutes." He pushed by the man and entered the house. The door closed.

Frank, almost as wet as though the mist were rain, eased up the steps to check the house number. Beside it was a mailbox. He pulled out his lighter. J. Bates, D. Boyer, said the neat letters on the box. He noted the number and, when he drove away, he stopped at the nearest intersection to be sure of the street name.

Could be a relative. He'd look up Dave's records and see if that told him anything. But Mr. J. Bates had sounded more like a suspicious husband than anything else.

Warming his chilled body under a hot shower, Frank gave himself up to speculation. What did Dave want with Sally? J. Bates wasn't likely to put up with any straying—he kept a short lead on the leash. If Dave was only walking her to her apartment due to some nervousness on her part, why had he gone inside and what had he been doing for the ten minutes he'd been in there? It didn't take long to say thanks and goodbye. That could have been done outside.

A needle prick of rationality stung him. He was headed down the dangerous path of obsession. Enough! He toweled himself vigorously. What Sally and Dave did was none of his business.

When he lay in bed, though, her face with its delicate features refused to be banished; pale, blushing easily, fearful, a little rabbit of a girl. As he drifted into sleep, her hair darkened, her eyes changed from blue to hazel, freckles sprinkled across her nose...

With an exclamation of horror, Frank hurtled from the bed. He rummaged in the bathroom until he found the Dalmane and popped two, then picked up a nursing magazine to read until the pills zonked him.

So, he felt cruddy the next day. He hated sleeping pills. And, of course, the problems began promptly at fifteen hundred and mounted as the evening went on. He kept it under control until after sixteen-thirty, when Dr. Greensmith took over as MOD.

"Yes, Doctor, I do think she needs to be seen," Frank insisted, clutching the phone at the B East desk with tense fingers. "She's a Down's Syndrome with a heart defect and her rectal temp's 105.4. She's also very congested. Yes, she's had the ice-water enema and the IM ampicillin. Frankly, Doctor, I'm afraid she won't make it until morning."

 
Before Dr. Greensmith got to B East, a call came through from C West where one of the teenagers had managed to climb up to the overhead lights, remove the cover and unscrew a bulb to stick his fingers in the socket for a suicide try. The resultant shock flung him to the floor where he lacerated his face on the broken light bulb.

"I hope this is the extent of tonight's disasters," Dr. Greensmith said to Frank after he'd sewed up the teenager and looked in on the critically ill girl. "Why me, that's what I'd like to know. Every other doc reports quiet nights, uninterrupted sleep. But when I'm on—zap!" he flung his hands into the air.

Old Greenie was always full of complaints. To keep peace, Frank offered a perfunctory, "Sorry, Doctor."

"I trust you won't call me for the rest of this miserable night."

"I hope I won't have to."

Unfortunately, Dr. Greensmith could hardly have gotten back to his apartment before the charge tech on Ten East was on the phone, reporting a woman with abdominal pain.

"Jeez, I don't know, Frank, she's all doubled over and we haven't had a GI bug over here lately. She hasn't had any loose stools. Isn't constipated either. I checked. No fecal impaction. She nearly hit the ceiling when I had the glove in there. When I ask her where it hurts, she points to the right lower quadrant."

Frank squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. A hot appendix? He extracted an order for a white blood cell count from Greenie, then located the lab tech on call. While he was waiting for the results,
Alma
paged him from Thirteen West.

"What's the trouble?" he asked resignedly when she answered her phone.

"Simpson Jones—he's wild. I've given him everything on the order sheet and he's still ranting and carrying on. We managed to four-point him to keep him from tearing up the place but I need an order for that. Also, please, something to slow him down."

The white count was high enough so that Dr. Greensmith felt forced to come over and examine the patient on Ten East. Frank left him there, making arrangements for her transfer out for possible surgery, and hurried over to Thirteen West. He heard the Preacher shouting before he had the second door unlocked.

"Beware—the Black God of Evil stalks the halls. I saw him. Saw Macardit, the Great God of Darkness and he's here, he's come to claim his own."

Not the Bible, this was a new twist.
Alma
led Frank to the room where Simpson lay with all four extremities tied separately to the bed frame. He eyes bulged and white spittle frothed from his mouth as he raved.

"Come for the sacrifice, he took her, he took her. Macardit, black he comes, with his red eyes aflame."

"How long has this been going on?" Frank asked.

"Days said he was in catatonia all shift—not eating.

We got some supper down him but when it got dark he began to get agitated. I didn't think much of it at first—you know how he goes on. But he got louder and wilder, began rushing around, so I gave him his 100 milligrams of Thorazine.

Didn't touch him. We had to tie him down to protect other patients after he began dashing in and out of rooms, exhorting everyone to prepare for the coming of this black god he calls Macardit."

"Anything in his history?"

"Nothing like this."

Frank called Dr. Greensmith, still on Ten East.

"I can see any possible use in me traipsing over there," Greenie said petulantly. "Write a telephone order for the four-pointing and shoot him with another 100 milligrams of Thorazine. He'll run out of steam. I do hope you aren't planning to continue with this confusion all night."

No, Frank said to himself as he hung up. Not me, Doctor. I get to go home before the night is over.

But the word "confusion" stuck in his mind like a burr. He didn't have to deal with Dr. Greensmith for the reminder of the night but he still had to deal with himself. His confused self.

He didn't intend to give way after his shift to what was rapidly becoming an obsession with Sally Goodrow, but he had no confidence in his ability to stop himself from driving by her apartment again. Maybe he should have asked Greenie if Frank Kent couldn't have a double shot of Thorazine, too.

Chapter Eleven

In the Sunset West Motel unit, Sarah hung up the phone with exaggerated care. Her impulse was to slam it down, but that would be self-defeating when the person she needed to defeat was her son-in-law. And, to be fair to him, her daughter as well. Linda had certainly contributed to the decision Kevin had made and just now handed down to Sarah as an edict from on high.

Her gaze rested on Frank, sitting hunched over in the straight-backed chair by the little table. He was improving, though ever so slowly and, damn it, she wasn't going to have him snatched away from her by Kevin and Linda and sequestered in some nursing home that masqueraded as a convalescent hospital. He'd slide right back downhill in one of those places. She knew he would.

There was only one way to avoid Kevin's so-called "reasonable compromise."

"Frank," she said, "we're going on a trip."

He didn't look up or give any indication he'd heard her. He usually didn't, unless what she said involved
Calafia
State
Hospital
and Thirteen West in some way. Most often he was obedient though, if she took hold of him and indicated what needed to be done. One blessing—he was now entirely continent. Which made what she intended to do more easily managed.

"We're leaving
San Diego
as soon as I can get a flight to
Reno
," she told him.

His head came up and he blinked. Not looking at her, he mumbled, "Leaving on a jet plane."

So she'd made some kind of connection, even if it was to a golden oldie song. As she picked up the phone to call Southwest Air, Sarah wondered if his brain would ever function normally again.

When she got through making arrangements, she hung up, crossed to Frank and took hold of his arm. "The flight's in two hours," she said. "Go to the toilet." Urging him onto his feet, she pointed him in the right direction and he shambled toward the bathroom.

"Saved you once," she muttered as she flung open her suitcase and began tossing in her belongings. "You're not getting another chance to backslide."