Devil's Waltz (13 page)

“Don’t know, but I’ll ask him.”

“Thanks.”

“How’s the baby doing?”

“Full recovery. No neurological problems that would have caused her to seize. Stephanie wants to watch her for a day or two. Mom says she wouldn’t
mind
going home, but makes no effort to push it — Miss Compliant, doctor knows all. She’s also claiming Cassie’s talking more since I met her. She’s certain it’s something I did.”

“The old kiss-up?”

“Munchausen moms are notorious for it — the staff generally loves them.”

“Well,” he said, “enjoy it while it lasts. You dig up some dirt on this lady, she’s not gonna be kissing you anywhere.”

After he hung up, I took the mail, the morning paper, and a month’s worth of bills to a deli in West L.A. The place was nearly full — old people hunched over soup, young families with small children, two uniformed policemen at the rear joshing with the owner, mountainous sandwiches sharing table space with their walkie-talkies.

I sat at the corner table at the front, to the left of the counter, and had smoked turkey on onion roll, cole slaw, and Dr. Brown’s CelRay soda.

Good stuff, but hospital thoughts intruded on my digestion.

At 9:00
P
.
M
. I decided to go back to the hospital for an unscheduled visit. See how Mrs. Charles Lyman Jones the Third reacted to that.

Black night; the shadows on Sunset seemed to be moving in slow motion and the boulevard turned spooky nearer to the good side of town. After a few miles of hollow eyes, Thorazine shuffles, and scary motels, Western Peds’s child-shaped logo and brightly lit Emergency Room arrow signaled a welcome outpost.

The parking lot was nearly deserted now. Small amber bulbs in grilled cases hung from the concrete ceiling, casting a hard-focus glow on every other parking slot. The remaining spaces were totally dark, creating a zebra-stripe effect. As I walked to the stairs I felt as if someone were watching me. When I looked back, I was alone.

The lobby was empty, too, the marble floors mirrors of nothing. One woman sat behind the Information window, methodically hand-stamping some papers. The page operator was getting paid for showing up. A clock ticked loudly. The smell of adhesive tape and a faint but definite sweat-spoor lingered, remembrances of stress gone by.

Something else I’d forgotten: Hospitals are different at night. The place was as spooky as the streets.

I took the elevator up to Five and walked through the ward, unnoticed. The doors to most of the rooms were closed; handwritten signs provided occasional distraction:
Protective Isolation, Infection Watch/No Visitors
…. The few doors that were open emitted TV sounds and the cricket-clicks of metered I.V.’s. I passed sleeping children and others entranced by the cathode ray. Parents sat, stiff as plaster. Waiting.

Chappy Ward’s teak doors vacuum-sucked me into dead silence. No one was at the desk.

I walked over to 505 and rapped very softly. No answer. I opened the door and looked in.

Cassie’s side rails were raised. She slept, guarded by stainless steel. Cindy slept, too, on the sofa bed, positioned so that her head was close to Cassie’s feet. One of her hands extended through the bars, touching Cassie’s sheet.

I closed the door softly.

A voice behind me said, “They’re sleeping.”

I turned.

Vicki Bottomley glared at me, hands on meaty hips.

“Another double shift?” I said.

She rolled her eyes and began walking off.

“Hold on,” I said. The sharpness in my voice surprised both of us.

She stopped, turned slowly. “What?”

“What’s the problem, Vicki?”

“There is no problem.”

“I think there is.”

“You’re entitled.” She started to leave again.

“Hold it.” The empty corridor amplified my voice. Or maybe I really was that angry.

She said, “I’ve got work to do.”

“So do I, Vicki. Same patient, as a matter of fact.”

She stretched one arm toward the chart rack. “Be my guest.”

I walked up to her. Close enough to crowd. She backed away. I moved forward.

“I don’t know what your problem with me is, but I suggest we deal with it.”

“I don’t have any problem with anyone.”

“Oh? Is what I’ve seen so far your usual level of charm?”

The pretty blue eyes blinked. Though they were dry, she wiped them quickly.

“Listen,” I said, retreating a step, “I don’t want to get into anything personal with you. But you’ve been hostile to me from the beginning and I’d like to know why.”

She stared at me. Opened her mouth. Closed it.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’ll be okay — no problem, I promise. Okay?”

She held out her hand.

I reached for it.

She gave me fingertips. A quick shake and she turned and started to walk away.

I said, “I’m going down to get some coffee. Care to join me?”

She stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Can’t. On duty.”

“Want me to bring a cup up for you?”

Now she turned quickly. “What do you
want?
”

“Nothing,” I said. “With your double-shifting, I figured you could use some coffee.”

“I’m
fine
.”

“I’ve heard you’re terrific.”

“What does that mean?”

“Dr. Eves thinks a lot of you. As a nurse. So does Cindy.”

Her arms clamped across her chest, as if she were holding herself together. “I do my job.”

“Do you see me getting in the way of that?”

Her shoulders climbed. She seemed to be phrasing an answer. But all she said was, “No. Everything will be okay. Okay?”

“Vicki—”

“I
promise
,” she said. “
Please?
Can I go now?”

“Sure,” I said. “Sorry if I came on too strong.”

She clamped her lips together, pivoted, and returned to her station.

I went to the Five East elevators. One lift was stuck on the sixth floor. The other two arrived simultaneously. Chip Jones stepped out of the central door, a cup of coffee in each hand. He had on faded jeans, a white turtleneck, and a denim jacket that matched the pants.

“Dr. Delaware.”

“Professor.”

He laughed and said, “Please,” and stepped out into the hall. “How are my ladies doing?”

“They’re both sleeping.”

“Thank God. When I spoke to Cindy this afternoon, she sounded exhausted. I brought this from downstairs” — raising one cup — “to help fuel her. But sleep is what she really needs.”

He began walking toward the teak doors. I tagged along. “Are we keeping you from hearth and home, Doctor?”

I shook my head. “Been and returned.”

“Didn’t know psychologists kept that kind of schedule.”

“We don’t when we can avoid it.”

He smiled. “Well, the fact that Cindy’s sleeping this early means Cassie must be getting healthy enough for her to relax. So that’s good.”

“She told me she never leaves Cassie.”

“Never.”

“Must be hard on her.”

“Unbelievably hard. At first I tried to ease her away from it, but after being here a few times and seeing other mothers, I realized it was normal. Rational, actually. It’s self-defense.”

“Against what?”

“Screw-ups.”

“Cindy talked about that, too,” I said. “Have you seen a lot of medical error around here?”

“As a parent or as Chuck Jones’s son?”

“Is there a difference?”

He gave a small, hard smile. “You bet there is. As Chuck Jones’s son, I think this place is pediatric paradise, and I’ll say so in the next banquet journal if they ask me. As a parent, I’ve seen things — the inevitable human errors. I’ll give you an example — one that really shook me. A couple of months ago, the whole fifth floor was buzzing. Seems there was this little boy being treated for some kind of cancer — getting an experimental drug, so maybe there wasn’t much hope anyway. But that’s not the point. Someone misread a decimal point and he got a massive overdose. Brain damage, coma, the whole bit. All the parents on the floor heard the resuscitation page and saw the emergency team rush in. Heard his mother screaming for help. Including us — I was out in the hall, actually heard his mother scream for help.”

He winced. “I saw her a couple of days later, Dr. Delaware. When he was still being respirated. She looked like a concentration camp victim. That look of being beaten down and betrayed? All because of one decimal point. Now that kind of thing probably happens all the time, on a smaller scale — things that can be smoothed over. Or don’t even get picked up in the first place. So you can’t blame parents for wanting to keep an eye out, can you?”

“No,” I said. “Sounds like you don’t have much confidence in this place.”

“On the contrary, I do,” he said impatiently. “Before we decided to have Cassie treated here, we did research — Dad notwithstanding. So I know this is
the
best place in the city for sick kids. But when it’s your child, statistics don’t matter much, do they? And human error is inevitable.”

I held the doors to Chappy Ward open for him and he carried the coffee in.

Vicki’s chunky form was visible through the glass door of the supply room behind the nursing station. She was placing something on a high shelf. We passed her and went to Cassie’s room.

Chip stuck his head in, retracted it, and said, “Still out.” Looking down at the cups, he held one out to me. “No sense wasting bad coffee.”

“No, thanks,” I said.

He laughed softly. “The voice of experience, huh? Has it always been this bad?”

“Always.”

“Look at this — little
Exxon Valdez
we’ve got here.” A faint, rainbowed slick floated on the black surface. Grimacing, he raised the other cup to his lips. “Yum — essence of grad school. But I need it to keep conscious.”

“Long day?”

“On the contrary — too short. They seem to get shorter as you get older, don’t they? Short and crammed with busywork. Then there’s having to drive back and forth between work and home and here. Our glorious freeways — humanity at its nadir.”

“Valley Hills means the Ventura Freeway,” I said. “That’s about as bad as it gets.”

“Vile. When we were home-hunting, I purposely picked a place close to work to avoid commuting.” He shrugged. “Best-laid plans. Sometimes I sit bumper to bumper and imagine it’s what hell would be like.”

He laughed again, sipped.

I said, “I’ll be experiencing it firsthand in a couple of days — making a home visit.”

“Yes, Cindy mentioned it. Ah, here comes Ms. Nightingale…. Hello, Vicki. Burning the midnight oil again?”

I turned and saw the nurse marching toward us, smiling, cap bobbing.

“Evening, Professor Jones.” She sucked in air, as if preparing to power-lift, then nodded at me.

Chip handed her the untouched coffee. “Drink it or toss it.”

“Thank you, Professor Jones.”

He cocked his head at Cassie’s door. “How long have the Sleeping Beauties been snoozing?”

“Cassie went down around eight. Mrs. Jones, around eight forty-five.”

He looked at his watch. “Could you do me a favor, Vicki? I’m going to walk Dr. Delaware out, maybe get something to eat while I’m down there. Please have me paged if they wake up.”

“If you like I can go down and get you something, Professor.”

“No, thanks. I need to stretch — freewayitis.”

Vicki clucked sympathetically. “Of course. I’ll let you know soon as someone’s up.”

When we got to the other side of the teak doors, he stopped and said, “What do you think about the way we’re being handled?”

“Handled in what way?”

He resumed walking. “Handled medically — this current hospitalization. No real evaluation’s going on, as far as I can tell. No one’s really checking Cassie out physically. Not that I mind — thank God she doesn’t have to endure those godawful needles. But the message I’m starting to get is
placebo
. Hold our hands, send in a shrink — nothing personal — and let whatever’s going on with Cassie just wind itself down.”

“Do you find that insulting?”

“Not insulting — well, maybe a little. As if it’s all in our heads. Believe me, it isn’t. You people here haven’t seen what we have — the blood, the seizures.”

“You’ve seen all of it?”

“Not all of it. Cindy’s the one who gets up at night. I tend to be a solid sleeper. But I’ve seen enough. You can’t argue with blood. So why isn’t more being done?”

“I can’t answer for anyone else,” I said. “But my best guess is, no one really knows what to do and they don’t want to be unnecessarily intrusive.”

“I suppose so,” he said. “And, hey, for all I know it’s exactly the right approach to take. Dr. Eves seems smart enough. Maybe Cassie’s symptoms
are
— what’s the term — self-restricting?”

“Self-limiting.”

“Self-limiting.” He smiled. “Doctors propagate more euphemisms than anyone…. I pray to God it
is
self-limiting. Be more than happy to remain an unsolved medical mystery if Cassie finally stays healthy. But hope comes hard by now.”

“Chip,” I said, “I haven’t been called in because anyone thinks Cassie’s problems are psychosomatic. My job is to help her deal with anxiety and pain. The reason I want to visit your home is to build up rapport with her in order to be useful for her when she needs me.”

“Sure,” he said. “I understand.”

He looked at the ceiling and tapped one foot. A couple of nurses walked by. His eyes followed their trail, absently.

“I guess what I really have trouble handling is the irrationality,” he said. “As if we’re all floating around in some sea of random events. What the
hell
is making her
sick?
”

He punched the wall.

I sensed that anything I said would make matters worse, but I knew silence wouldn’t help much either.

The elevator door opened and we stepped in.

“Pissed-off parents,” he said, punching the
DOWN
button hard. “Pleasant way to end
your
day.”

“My job.”

“Some job.”

“Beats honest labor.”