Thirteen West (30 page)

"I'm Lew, the tech, who took you in to supper. It's late, time to sleep."

"I'm dead, you know," she said. "They took me away this morning and shot the final rays into my head, the ones that kill."

"Mrs. Cobb, you're receiving shock therapy to help you get well. That's where you went this morning."

She pointed her finger at him. "You're one of the false people. They made you look real, but I can tell you're not. You're one of them."

"It's time to go to sleep," he repeated.

"The dead don't sleep." She got out of bed. "Your face is too white. That's how I can tell you're not real." She lunged at him suddenly, hands clawing.

Lew jerked her arms behind her, but not before she'd raked his cheek with her nails.

"You won't bleed," she shouted. "You're not flesh and blood."

"David!" Lew yelled. "Ms Reynolds!"

When they had Naomi Cobb restrained and sedated,
Alma
cleaned Lew's face and applied disinfectant.

"Should heal okay," she said, "but you'll have to have a doctor check those scratches 'cause I have to fill out an incident report and they'll ask about that."

The phone rang.

"
Alma
? Barry. Just wanted to let you know Willie's been demoted from critical to serious. Looks like he'll live."

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Stiff. Hurts when I move. How's the ward?"

"Fairly quiet. Days had to give Dolph a shot and I just gave Naomi Cobb her second one."

"Thorazine?"

"Yes."

"About Dolph. Seems to me he had a problem with Thorazine on admission. I thought I took him off it. Someone must have written a new order?"

"I'll look. I was on the Ad Ward when Dolph was admitted. He drank a pint of whiskey before he got the Thorazine." She shuffled through the chart. "Here it is, telephone order off Dr. Greensmith, to be given whenever necessary."

"DC it. I don't want him on Thorazine."

"Consider it done."

"He's okay, isn't he? No reaction this time?"

"I'll check him myself before I go off to be sure," she said. "Have to tell you something. I'm transferring south. Dr. Fredericks arranged for me to leave next week. I'm sorry about what happened."

"So am I—especially when I move. Sorry you're leaving too. Charlie?"

"You got it. Is Luba all right? The cops didn't—?"

"She's fine. Taking care of me whether I want it or not. The law is apparently going to consider it self-defense."

"In case I don't see you—goodbye."

"You're working this week," he said, "so I'll be talking to you on the phone. Let's hold the goodbye." He hung up.
Alma
wrote the discontinue order on Dolph's chart, then leafed through it. Dolph had had Thorazine one time after the Ad Ward—during an incident when he'd been fighting with Tate. That's when Dr. Greensmith wrote the order. No unusual reaction then.

"How was Dolph when you made rounds?" she asked David when he came up.

"Sleeping."

"You go in the room?"

"No—why?"

Alma
got up. "Let's check him again." She turned to Lew, who was leaning on the counter. "You listen for the phone—I think Sally's gone to sleep in the lounge."

In Dolph's room,
Alma
shook his shoulder. No response. "Turn on the brights," she told David. "I don't like the way he's breathing."

She sat on the bed, bending sideways to check his pupils. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed.

"What?" David asked.

"I can smell whiskey on his breath. Where the hell would he get any? Help me sit him up."

She and David propped up a limp, nonreactive Dolph. "Never mind," she said. "Let him down, he's completely out of it." She pinched Dolph, pressed on his closed eyelid. "No reaction to painful stimuli. Damn. Frank'll have to get Dr. Greensmith over here."

"Can't Dolph just sleep it off?"

"You were there on the Ad Ward when he came in. Remember how he reacted to the alcohol/Thorazine combination? Well, he's had it again. Stay with him."

Alma
hurried to the phone.

David leaned over the unconscious Dolph. He was breathing funny, all right. Color wasn't all that great. David watched him uneasily.

"I'll be right over," Frank told
Alma
. "You're probably right about needing to call the doctor but I better take a look first. Dr. Greensmith ordered me not to call him unless a patient was dying."

"I think maybe he is,"
Alma
said. "Hurry, Frank."

She hung up and turned to Lew. "Keep an eye on the rest of the ward, okay?"

Lew glanced at the clock as she hurried back to Dolph's room. Forty-five minutes till the shift ended. Shitty time for anything to happen. Specially on his last evening on this shift.

The phone rang and he picked it up, finding Connie on the other end. "I wanted to let Ms Reynolds know that Maria has chicken pox," she said.

Lew talked to her for a few minutes before hanging up. He was getting up from the chair when Sally emerged from the lounge, blinking sleepily.

"I feel just awful," she said. "
Alma
gave me something—Valium, I guess—and it's made things seem so weird. I shouldn't have fallen asleep, didn't mean to make everyone do my work."

"As long as you're awake you can listen for the phone," he said. "I'm going to make final rounds. Dolph's in bad shape—Ms Reynolds and David are in with him."

"Dolph?" she asked. But Lew was already walking down the hall.

Sally tried to clear her head. Dolph had been acting oddly earlier. She'd meant to recheck him but then the Duchess got so upset and all....

A key clicked in the door and a moment later she looked up at Frank. "How is he?" Frank asked.

"I—I don't know."

He strode toward Dolph's room while she stared apprehensively after him. She ought to do something to help, but she didn't feel able to move. Her mind seemed so cloudy. Maybe she shouldn't have taken the pill. Maybe she was one of those who were unduly sensitive to Valium.

Frank came running back to the station and grabbed the phone.

Chapter Twenty

Crawford groped for the bedside stand. Ringing, damn the ringing, got to stop that noise.

"Dr. Greensmith?"

"Uh."

"Frank Kent. We have a patient in coma on Thirteen West. I think he's on his way out."

Crawford cleared his throat and raised himself on one elbow. "'S wrong?"

"He got hold of some whiskey after having a shot of 100 milligrams of Thorazine. He's the man you sewed up on the Ad Ward a couple weeks ago that went bad after the same combination. He nearly died then."

"You tried adrenaline, Coramine, like that?"

"How much do you want given?"

Crawford shook his head, trying to organize his thoughts. It'd come to him in a minute what dosage to order. In a minute.

* * *

In their apartment, Barry was lying in bed while Luba stood stubbornly over him with a capsule in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

"I don't like to take drugs. You know that," Barry said.

"Dr. Yettleman told me to make sure you did. He said otherwise you'll worry yourself sleepless thinking they can't get along without you at the hospital. You've already been on the phone to them."

"I don't need it."

"I know you don't like me hovering, but I won't leave you alone till you swallow the damn thing so you might as well."

Barry stared up at her. She'd braided her hair in one thick plait and pulled it atop her head, making her look fragile with her long neck exposed and her high cheekbones free of drooping strands of hair. She wore jeans and a faded blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. When she bent over, her breasts were visible under the loose shirt. Barry wondered if they showed the increased markings and fullness of pregnancy yet. He realized her hadn't seen her naked in weeks.

"So take the pill," she repeated.

He flipped it into his mouth and gulped water.

"You feeling okay?" he asked. "I mean the nausea and all that."

She shrugged. "I sort of forgot about it."

"Sit down."

Luba perched on the edge of the bed and Barry smelled a faint odor of Clorox.

"You've been cleaning all day," he said. "Take it easy."

"I can't stand how this place looks. I don't know what happened to me to let everything slide." Unconsciously, her hand caressed her lower abdomen. "God knows, you're no housekeeper. You're a hell of a companion in equality."

"I never promised to split the chores with you," he said.

"I know." She grinned, a brief exposure of the Luba he'd been attracted to. "I suppose I thought I could manipulate you. You seemed so mild and equitable."

He shook his head. "Like I thought you were so well-adjusted and reasonable."

They smiled at each other.

"Truce?" she suggested. "When you're better we can work out a peaceful parting of the ways instead of all this hostility."

Barry could see the outline of her nipples under the thin fabric of the shirt. A definite desire to touch her breasts grew in him. He reached up with his good arm and unbuttoned the shirt. Her pupils dilated and she caught her breath.

She felt different, somehow, not only the breasts.

Naked beside him, she moved carefully over him. He thrust upward and winced with pain.

"Relax—let me do the work," she murmured.

Drowning, he was drowning in waves of drug-induced dreaminess where the climax of passion was a soft explosion that sent him drifting into non-awareness.

* * *

Crawford sat on the side of the bed, staring at the copper pitcher. When had he tipped it over and spilled the contents on the dresser top?

I know I took two Seconals, he thought fuzzily. Two. Had he also taken Nembutal? He couldn't remember. His eyes dropped and he jerked awake. Had to get over to A East. Frank was sending a patient over there by ambulance. Wasn't he?

Crawford stood, swaying. He stumbled into the bathroom. Cold water on his face didn't help. He stared blearily into the mirror. Jesus.

What if he used one of the packets of cocaine? Jazz him up a bit, let him make it over there. Lucky he'd picked them up the other night.

* * *

Eyes closed, Simpson clutched the empty bottle he'd found in his bed in one hand, covers pulled to his chin. A sign. Macardit's sign. He listened carefully to the unusual bustle going on outside his door. Not yet. Wait for quiet. Wait for the darker bowels of the night—Macardit's time.

* * *

Tate peered out his door as the gurney was rolled past him. He nodded his head in confirmation as he saw the face of the occupant. Serve that bastard, Dolph, right, pinching his jacket, guzzling his booze. Hope he was damn sick.

* * *

Margaret Flowers fingered the tissue under her pillow where she'd wrapped the green capsule after she'd spit it out. No use arguing with the head nurse, better to pretend to swallow and dispose of it later. There was too much confusion out there yet to make it safe to venture forth to flush the tissue down the toilet. Really, the measures one must take in this place to maintain any control.