Devil's Waltz (14 page)

He smiled.

I pointed to the cup in his hand. “That’s got to be cold. How about we both get some fresh sludge?”

He thought for a moment. “Sure, why not?”

The cafeteria was closed, so we went down the hall, past the Residents’ Lounge, where a row of vending machines stood next to the locker room. A thin young woman in surgical scrubs was walking away with two handfuls of candy bars. Chip and I each bought black coffee and he purchased a plastic-wrapped packet containing two chocolate chip cookies.

Farther down the corridor was a sitting area: orange plastic chairs arranged in an L, a low white table bearing food wrappers and out-of-date magazines. The Path Lab was a stone’s throw away. I thought of his little boy and wondered if he’d make the association. But he ambled over and sat down, yawning.

Unwrapping the cookies, he dunked one in the coffee, said, “Health food,” and ate the soggy part.

I sat perpendicular to him and sipped. The coffee was terrible but oddly comforting — like a favorite uncle’s stale breath.

“So,” he said, dunking again, “let me tell you about my daughter. Terrific disposition, good eater, good sleeper — she slept through at five weeks. For anyone else, good news, right? After what happened to Chad, it scared the
shit
out of us. We wanted her
awake
— used to take turns going in there, waking her up, poor thing. But what amazes me is how resilient she is — the way she just keeps bouncing back. You wouldn’t think anything that small could be so tough.

“I feel kind of ridiculous, even discussing her with a psychologist. She’s a
baby
, for God’s sake — what kind of neuroses could she have? Though I guess with all this she could end up with plenty, couldn’t she? All the stress. Are we talking major psychotherapy for the rest of her life?”

“No.”

“Has anyone ever studied it?”

“There’s been quite a bit of research,” I said. “Chronically ill children tend to do better than experts predict — people do, in general.”

“Tend to?”

“Most do.”

He smiled. “I know. It’s not physics. Okay, I’ll allow myself some momentary optimism.”

He tensed, then relaxed — deliberately, as if schooled in meditation. Letting his arms drop and dangle and stretching his legs. Dropping his head back and massaging his temples.

“Doesn’t it get to you?” he said. “Listening to people all day? Having to nod and be sympathetic and tell them they’re okay.”

“Sometimes,” I said. “But usually you get to know people, start to see their humanity.”

“Well, this is sure the place to remind you of that — ‘A rarer spirit never did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us some
faults
to make us men.’ Words, Willy Shakespeare; italics, mine. I know it sounds pretentious, but I find the old bard reassures me — something for every situation. Wonder if
he
spent any time in hospitals.”

“He may have. He lived during the height of the black plague, didn’t he?”

“True… Well” — he sat up and unwrapped the second cookie — “all credit to you, I couldn’t do it. Give me something neat and clean and theoretical, anytime.”

“I never thought of sociology as hard science.”

“Most of it isn’t. But Formal Org has all sorts of nifty models and measurable hypotheses. The illusion of precision. I delude myself regularly.”

“What kinds of things do you deal with? Industrial management? Systems analysis?”

He shook his head. “No, that’s the applied side. I’m theoretical — setting up models of how groups and institutions function on a structural level, how components mesh, phenomenologically. Ivory tower stuff, but I find it great fun. I was schooled in the ivory tower.”

“Where’s that?”

“Yale, undergrad; University of Connecticut, grad. Never finished my dissertation after I found out teaching turns me on a lot more than research.”

He stared down the empty basement corridor, watching the occasional passage of wraithlike white-coated figures in the distance.

“Scary,” he said.

“What is?”

“This place.” He yawned, glanced at his watch. “Think I’ll go up and check on the ladies. Thanks for your time.”

We both stood.

“If you ever need to talk to me,” he said, “here’s my office number.”

He put his cup down, reached into a hip pocket, and pulled out an Indian silver money clasp inlaid with an irregular turquoise. Twenty-dollar bill on the outside, credit cards and assorted papers underneath. Removing the entire wad, he shuffled through it and found a white business card. Placing it on the table, he retrieved a blue Bic from another pocket and wrote something on the card, then handed it to me.

Snarling tiger logo, WVCC T
YGERS
circling it. Below that:

W
EST
V
ALLEY
C
OMMUNITY
C
OLLEGE
D
EPARTMENT OF
S
OCIAL
S
CIENCES
(818) 509
–
3476

Two lines at the bottom. He’d filled them in using dark block letters:

CHIP JONES
EXT. 23 59

“If I’m in class,” he said, “this’ll connect you to the message center. If you want me around when you come visiting at the house, try to give me a day’s notice.”

Before I could reply, heavy rapid footsteps from the far end of the hall made both of us turn. A figure came toward us. Athletic gait, dark jacket.

Black leather jacket. Blue slacks and hat. One of the rent-a-cops patrolling the halls of Pediatric Paradise for signs of evil?

He came closer. A mustachioed black man with a square face and brisk eyes. I got a look at his badge and realized he wasn’t Security. LAPD. Three stripes. A sergeant.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, speaking softly but giving us the once-over. His name tag read
PERKINS
.

Chip said, “What is it?”

The cop read my badge. It seemed to confuse him. “You’re a doctor?”

I nodded.

“How long have you gentlemen been out here in the hall?”

Chip said, “Five or ten minutes. What’s wrong?”

Perkins’s gaze shifted to Chip’s chest, taking in the beard, then the earring. “You a doctor too?”

“He’s a parent,” I said. “Visiting his child.”

“Got a visiting badge, sir?”

Chip pulled one out and held it in front of Perkins’s face.

Perkins chewed his cheek and swung back to me. He gave off a barbershop scent. “Have either of you seen anything unusual?”

“Such as?” said Chip.

“Anything out of the ordinary, sir. Someone who doesn’t belong.”

“Doesn’t belong,” said Chip. “Like somebody healthy?”

Perkins’s eyes became slits.

I said, “We haven’t seen anything, Sergeant. It’s been quiet. Why?”

Perkins said, “Thank you,” and left. I watched him slowing for a moment as he passed the pathology lab.

Chip and I took the stairs to the lobby. A crowd of night-shifters crowded the east end, pressing toward the glass doors that led outside. On the other side of the glass the darkness was cross-cut with the cherry-red pulse of police lights. White lights, too, refracting in starbursts.

Chip said, “What’s going on?”

Without turning her head, a nurse nearby said, “Someone got attacked. In the parking lot.”

“Attacked? By whom?”

The nurse looked at him, saw he was a civilian and moved away.

I looked around for a familiar face. None. Too many years.

A pale, thin orderly with short platinum hair and a white Fu Manchu said, “Enough, already,” in a nasal voice. “All I want to do is go
home
.”

Someone groaned a chorus.

Unintelligible whispers passed through the lobby. I saw a uniform on the other side of the glass, blocking the door. A burst of radio talk leaked through from the outside. Lots of movement. A vehicle swung its lights toward the glass, then turned away and sped off. I read a flash of letters:
AMBULANCE
. But no blinkers or siren.

“Whyn’t they just bring her in here?” said someone.

“Who says it’s a
her?
”

A woman said, “It’s
always
a her.”

“Dinja hear? No howler,” someone answered. “Probably not an emergency.”

“Or maybe,” said the blond man, “it’s too late.”

The crowd rippled like gel in a petri dish.

Someone said, “I tried to get out the back way but they had it blocked. I’m like, this sucks.”

“I think I heard one of them say it was a doctor.”

“Who?”

“That’s all I heard.”

Buzz. Whisper.

Chip said, “Wonderful.” Turning abruptly, he began pushing his way toward the rear of the crowd, back into the hospital. Before I could say anything, he was gone.

Five minutes later, the glass door opened and the crowd surged forward. Sergeant Perkins slipped through and held out a tan palm. He looked like a substitute teacher before an unruly high school class.

“Can I have your attention for a moment?” He waited for silence, finally settled for relative quiet. “An assault’s occurred in your parking lot. We need you to file out one by one and answer some questions.”

“What kind of assault?”

“Is he okay?”

“Who was it?”

“Was it a doctor?”

“Which lot did it happen in?”

Perkins did the slit-eye again. “Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible, folks, and then you can all go home.”

The man with the white Fu Manchu said, “How about telling us what happened so we can
protect
ourselves, Officer?”

Supportive rumblings.

Perkins said, “Let’s just take it easy.”

“No,
you
take it easy,” said the blond man. “All you guys do is give
jay
walking tickets out on the boulevard. Then, when something real happens, you ask your questions and disappear and leave us to clean up the mess.”

Perkins didn’t move or speak.

“Come
on
, man,” said another man, black and stooped, in a nursing uniform. “Some of us have
lives
. Tell us what happened.”

“Yeah!”

Perkins’s nostrils flared. He stared out at the crowd a while longer, then opened the door and backed out.

The people in the lobby twanged with anger.

A loud voice said,
“Deputy Dawg!”

“Damned jaywalking brigade.”

“Yeah, buncha stiffs — hospital sticks us across the street and then we get busted trying to get to work on time.”

Another hum of consensus. No one was talking anymore about what had happened in the lot.

The door opened again. Another cop came through, young, white, female, grim.

“Okay, everyone,” she said. “If you’ll just file out one by one, the officer will check your ID and then you can go.”

“Yo,” said the black man. “Welcome to San Quentin. What’s next? Body searches?”

More tunes in that key, but the crowd started to move, then quieted.

It took me twenty minutes to get out the door. A cop with a clipboard copied my name from my badge, asked for verifying identification, and recorded my driver’s license number. Six squad cars were parked in random formation just outside the entrance, along with an unmarked sedan. Midway down the sloping walkway to the parking structure stood a huddle of men.

I asked the cop, “Where did it happen?”

He crooked a finger at the structure.

“I parked there.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What time did you arrive?”

“Around nine-thirty.”

“P.M.?”

“Yes.”

“What level did you park on?”

“Two.”

That opened his eyes. “Did you notice anything unusual at that time — anyone loitering or acting in a suspicious manner?”

Remembering the feeling of being watched as I left my car, I said, “No, but the lighting was uneven.”

“What do you mean by uneven, sir?”

“Irregular. Half the spaces were lit; the others were dark. It would have been easy for someone to hide.”

He looked at me. Clicked his teeth. Took another glance at my badge and said, “You can move on now, sir.”

I walked down the pathway. As I passed the huddle I recognized one of the men. Presley Huenengarth. The head of hospital Security was smoking a cigarette and stargazing, though the sky was starless. One of the other suits wore a gold shield on his lapel and was talking. Huenengarth didn’t seem to be paying attention.

Our eyes met but his gaze didn’t linger. He blew smoke through his nostrils and looked around. For a man whose system had just failed miserably, he looked remarkably calm.

Wednesday’s paper turned the assault into a homicide.

The victim, robbed and beaten to death, had indeed been a doctor. A name I didn’t recognize: Laurence Ashmore. Forty-five years old, on the staff at Western Peds for just a year. He’d been struck from behind by the assailant and robbed of his wallet, keys, and the magnetized card key that admitted his car to the doctors’ lot. An unnamed hospital spokesperson emphasized that all parking-gate entry codes had been changed but admitted that entry on foot would continue to be as easy as climbing a flight of stairs.

Assailant unknown, no leads.

I put the paper down and looked through my desk drawers until I found a hospital faculty photo roster. But it was five years old, predating Ashmore’s arrival.

Shortly after eight I was back at the hospital, finding the doctors’ lot sealed with a metal accordion gate and cars stack-parked in the circular drive fronting the main entrance. An
ALL FULL
sign was posted at the mouth of the driveway, and a security guard handed me a mimeographed sheet outlining the procedure for obtaining a new card key.

“Where do I park in the meantime?”

He pointed across the street, to the rutted outdoor lots used by nurses and orderlies. I backed up, circled the block, and ended up queuing for a quarter hour. It took another ten minutes to find a space. Jaywalking across the boulevard, I sprinted to the front door. Two guards instead of one in the lobby, but there was no other hint that a life had been snuffed out a couple of hundred feet away. I knew death was no stranger to this place but I’d have thought murder rated a stronger reaction. Then I looked at the faces of the people coming and going and waiting. Nothing like worry and grief to narrow one’s perspective.