Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

"They got a current address on DaVella from security. I listened to the news on the way over to see if there was anything about an arrest. Or a shooting. Have you heard?"

"It was a fake address-some crib off Palms in West LA."

"How'd he get his paychecks?"

Ed shrugged. "Maybe he picked them up himself. All I know is, the address is a bust."

"How did Clyde know Douglas died? There could be a connection there. Maybe they lived in the same apartment complex."

"I'm checking it out, as, evidently, are the cops. Nothing yet."

"DaVella had two complaints filed against him when he worked at the hospital, one of them over at the Neuropsychiatric Institute where he wasn't supposed to be. He also had a violent reaction to one of our psychiatrists, who's black, and we'd hypothesized that he was afraid of shrinks or blacks. Now I'm thinking he's got a hang-up revolving around the NPI. I'm planning on checking it out when I get back to the hospital. The cops took the security records, but I can get at the medical records. In this case, I'm hoping, that'll give me the upper hand."

"Looks that way so far."

"What did you get on Clyde's background?"

"Thirty-eight years old. Spent his childhood shuttled from foster home to foster home. Eleven different homes in the first fifteen years of his life. Then he ran away. His juvenile record's expunged-which is odd for someone in his demographic, given the resources that takes-but he's got two adult priors. An indecent exposure and a 647.6."

"Which is?"

"Child molestation." He took note of David's expression. "Not like you think. It's not necessarily sexual. It can be anytime someone annoys a kid under eighteen. This was your standard Peeping Tom scenario. He was staring at a seventeen-year-old girl through an open window. They tried to get a resburg" — Ed caught himself and backed up- "a residential burglary, but they couldn't prove he crossed the plane of the window." He bit his lip. "It was a dusty sill, so they would've seen prints if he had. He just stood there and stared at her-freaked her out. It's pretty much just that and the weenie wagger."

"Who'd he flash?"

"A hooker."

"And she reported it?"

"She got picked up ten minutes later. She claimed she was merely propositioning the UC-the undercover cop-to catch a ride out of the area, because there was a flasher on the prowl. When they rounded up Clyde, he copped to. Said he was just trying to scare her."

Ed leaned back, took a sip of his drink, and grimaced.

"You don't like martinis?" David asked.

"I hate them."

"So why…?"

"Because two grown men sipping juice in a bar are bound to be remembered, just as a waitress might remember a man dressed in a thousand-dollar suit for ordering a Bud. Which is what I really want." He leaned back, crossing his legs daintily. He had indeed mastered the affect of a polished businessman. "Besides, one should always change one's habits. Habits are trails that lead back to you. Never drive the same route, never shop at the same stores, never order the same thing twice."

David realized from the expression on Ed's face that his brief speech was more than informational-he was consciously showing David that a trust and rapport was growing between them. Information was Ed's currency, and he spent it cautiously.

"I'm working a sting right now in the financial district. Thus the attire."

"I thought you were on the wrong side of the law."

"When you have a particular skill set," Ed said, "there are no sides of the law. Just things that need to get done." His tone changed quickly; the small talk was over. "So, now that we know that Clyde is, in all likelihood, taking psychiatric medication-too much psychiatric medication from the sound of it-how does that help us?"

"I can find out which drugs were prescribed for Douglas DaVella while he was at UCLA, who prescribed them, and what pharmacies they were called in to. That gives us a few trails. Plus, the NPI incident involved an alleged attempt on his part to steal a patient's meds, so when I look into that, it may dovetail."

Ed sucked an olive; the pimiento left the core with a popping sound. "I'm beginning to like you more and more. When can you get on that?"

"Right now. I'm off today, and I'll have someone cover my shift tomorrow."

"But you haven't taken a single vacation day in two years," Ed said. "Two years and fourteen days, to be precise."

"How do you know that?"

"You think I'd do anything for you without running you? I know how much you owe on your mortgage. I know that asshole Jenkins gave you a fix-it ticket last night, and that the word is it was a break-it fix-it. I know the only B you ever got in your life was in embryology your first year of medical school."

David smiled, impressed. "Goddamn embryology." He straightened up on the couch. "I have to proceed somewhat cautiously-too much time off in the midst of this could further damage my reputation at the hospital."

Ed arched a red eyebrow. "Still care about that, do we?"

"If it undercuts my effectiveness, yes."

Ed's pale face remained blank. "Let me keep shaking on the paper trail. Get back to me with any info about the meds-that front seems stronger."

"Do I need to… Should I pay you for any of this?"

"Free of charge for now. In my line of work, sixty percent of what I do ends up being favors for good people. Think of me as a guardian angel." He popped the last olive in his mouth and chewed it. "Plus I owe you for repairing my ass."

Clyde's pate, visible through his thin veil of hair, glistened with sweat. With a final glance to the quiet upstairs window, he stepped from his car onto the curb. He kept his head lowered and moved swiftly to the apartment building entrance.

A kid with a deficient mustache and a blaring Walkman cleaned the floor with imprecise swipes of a mop. He'd propped open the front door, enabling a breeze through the lobby. Clyde waited until the kid made a dancing half turn toward the far wall, then scurried through the lobby and into the stairwell.

Flattening himself against the wall, he caught his breath, the redness slowly draining from his face. He mopped the sweat from his forehead with his T-shirt, leaving a crescent stain on the collar.

He turned and headed upstairs.

David called Diane in the ER on his way back to the hospital and filled her in as best he could. One of her college friends worked at the Drug Enforcement Agency, so Diane promised to follow up the prescription route before meeting David at Carson's.

David stopped off in the cafeteria to grab a sandwich and a Coke. As he waited in line at the cash register, he was acutely aware of the murmuring that seemed to follow him, the quick glances in his direction. The cashier's newspaper was pinned beneath a half-eaten, browning apple on the counter at her side, awaiting the next customer lull. The photograph on the cover was of David, sitting in the backseat of Jenkins's patrol car, looking as if he'd been arrested. The headline: TENSIONS BETWEEN SPIER AND LAPD ESCALATE. The fact that he'd joined the list of nefarious LA last names-Menendez, Furhman, Fleiss-elicited in him a mixture of embarrassment and alarm. It was as if he'd passed some point of no return and found himself suddenly lost.

David paid and went into the adjoining courtyard to eat in peace. A group of male nurses were playing pickup basketball on a worn wooden backboard someone had hammered up. David wolfed down the sandwich and was just on his way to the NPI when he noticed Peter wobbling across the courtyard and waving, holding a lunch tray in his other hand.

David caught up to Peter and walked patiently beside him, resisting the urge to offer to carry his tray. "How are you?" David asked.