Gregg Hurwitz - Do No Harm

He sat at the side of her bed.

"You just missed plastics. Can't do anything acutely. Probably have some scarring, but no disfiguring contractions. Neosporin and Silvadene, blah blah blah. Wait and see. Should be fine." Head still turned, she laughed to herself, a nasty little laugh. "Wait and see."

"Ophthalmology?" David asked, still not trusting his voice to form longer sentences.

"Hourly Pred Forte, Cipro four times a day. Mild corneal epithelial erosion, faint anterior stromal haziness, no ischemic necrosis of perilimbal conjunctiva or sclera." She shook her head. "Words. Lots of words."

"Prognosis?"

"I should have little or no corneal scarring." She raised an index finger and twirled it lazily. "Whoopee."

David exhaled, relieved. "You're very lucky."

"Lucky. God, do we sound that stupid to people who come in here? I don't feel lucky, David."

He weathered her burst of anger quietly. She was entitled to it. After a moment, he asked, "Where did he…?"

"Emptied out medicine gelcaps, filled them with alkali crystals. Then, he broke into my place, unscrewed my showerhead, and stuck them behind there. Hot water melts the capsules. Presto. Liquid alkali."

"Who thinks of that?" David asked in disbelief.

"I hate to confess I find it somewhat ingenious. If he'd just packed the showerhead with straight crystals, it would've clogged up, or I would've noted the immediate change in water color. Of course, it was slightly diluted, which is why I can see you right now."

He picked at the skin of his cuticle, drawing blood. "That bastard. That sadistic bastard." He stood up and paced around the room. "This is my fault."

"This isn't your fault, David." Her face remained turned away. "Pardon my manners, but I don't really feel like being comforting right now." Her voice softened, though she still didn't turn to him. "It's a fucked situation. Let's use it for what it's worth. You told me he sensed you and I were close when I burst in on you in his room in the ER. He probably did this to piss you off or get back at you for something. I'd guess that I'm actually irrelevant."

David stared at the back of her head, admiring her, still waiting for the heat to leave his face.

"It's a more elaborate setup," Diane continued. "Not to mention a tedious, time-consuming one." Her voice colored with acrimony. "Our little boy's growing up."

David tried to think, but couldn't find his way through the jumble of his emotions. He walked over and stood beside her bed. "Look at me."

"No." Her shoulders began to shake.

"Diane. Look at me."

Her voice, tiny like a child's, was wrenched high. "I can't."

Crouching, he reached out and touched her unmarred chin, ever so gently, and turned her face to his. The blisters were slick and shiny with cream, and they leaked a pale yellow fluid.

She tried to turn her face away, but he didn't let her. Her lips were trembling so hard she could barely speak. "I look repulsive. I must look repulsive to you."

"We're beyond that, Diane." His voice was hard, reprimanding. She wavered on the verge of tears, her face fighting itself. "I've scraped out bedsores," he said. "I've packed infected abdominal wounds. I've cut into gallbladders that spilled green bile. I've seen enough of the human body for six lifetimes-seen enough to know not to take it literally." He leaned forward, his face inches from hers. She met his stare, her eyes green and smooth. "You are as beautiful as you have ever been," he said.

She reached up with trembling fingers, took his hand, and pressed it to her chest.

The gray sky had given way to showers. After ducking the press outside the hospital, David drove home carefully; the anomalous bursts of rain of the past few days had brought the oils to the surface of the roads. He watched the windshield wipers beating double time, trying to let them clear his mind. Puddles spotted the dark streets like pools of oil. The roads were deserted; the rain had even driven the dogged Tibet picketers from the sidewalk outside the Federal Building.

He had wanted to stay with Diane through the night, but found he couldn't. He held a reservoir of strength for such things-pain steeped in personal emotion-and for the past two years, his wife's memory had drawn steadily from it. Thoughts of Diane worked on him from the inside, guilt and fury searing him.

He thought of Clyde's dull, flat head, the odd, decaying odor of his body, like rotting wood, the fat fingers that rubbed and slid among themselves like rodents clustering for warmth. David imagined him holed up in a dark room, lurking and plotting and healing, wrapped in a blanket of unutterable sorrow. Clyde's wiring was off. He was broken.

David's medical ethics seemed distant right now, stolid and brittle like shelf things. He recalled Yale's aspersion-you don't know much about how things work on the street-and it stung like a virgin blow. David had been a child playing with a loaded gun. The most painful thing of all was that he'd suffered none of the consequences himself. Diane had.

The Mercedes's tires whipped through puddles, sending water hammering up on the undercarriage of his car. Through the bleary windshield, he saw flashing red lights ahead on San Vicente. An ambulance had pulled over near the lawned median, beside a car that had skidded off course and smashed into one of the gnarled coral trees.

Digging in the pocket of his white coat for his stethoscope, David pulled over behind the ambulance. A woman lay on her back in the grass, two EMTs kneeling over her with a backboard.

David sprang out, his shoes pooling with water as he splashed through a puddle to his trunk, where he kept his father's old-fashioned leather doctor's bag for emergencies. "Do you need any help?" he called out.

One of the EMTs delicately wrapped a C-spine collar around the woman's neck and secured it with a strap across her forehead. "We got it covered," he said.

"Did you check her airway?"

"We got it under control, buddy."

David pulled to a halt, his stethoscope dangling from his hand. "I'm an ER doctor."

On a three-count, the two EMTs raised the backboard and headed back to the open doors of the ambulance. A moment later, the vehicle was off, siren screaming.

Behind him, David heard the pinging open door alert from his car. The ambulance faded slowly from view. He stood in the rain, the crashed car steaming before him, water dripping from his hair and running over his lips.

He didn't feel much like going home.

David pulled into the garage and made his way back through the house to his bedroom, removing his clothes as he walked. He stood at the foot of the bed in his boxers, watching through the bare window as the rain came down in sheets.

Bed felt soft and divine, even more comfortable for the storm brewing outside. He put in his earplugs and burrowed beneath the covers. A roll of thunder rattled the windowpane above his head, but not loudly enough to wake him.

As he slept, rain drummed softly on the roof.

A lick of lightning lit the sky, throwing the outline of David's window, a skewed, yellow rectangle broken at the bottom by the waving tips of fronds, against the far wall. A few moments later, another low rumble vibrated through the air.

When lightning lit David's window again, the outline cast against the wall was broken by a man's silhouette. Wide and distorted, it remained perfectly still above the frenzied waving of foliage shadows. The lines of the silhouette were so distinct that even the water dripping from the man's oversize head was visible. The black form seemed to float on the far wall, hovering over David's sleeping body.

It flickered on the wall for only a moment before the room fell back into darkness.

His slick loafers skidded on the kitchen linoleum, and Peter felt his balance go. He let himself topple over stiffly, so as to keep his legs straight and out of the way, and broke his fall evenly with his arms and chest. If there was one thing he knew, it was how to fall well.