Do No Harm (60 page)

Pulling a lever beneath the seat cushion, Peter locked the wheels so the chair wouldn't roll out from under him. He leaned over and locked first his left brace, then his right, so they would support his weight. With a slight groan, he fisted the metal knob on the desktop and pulled himself up out of the chair and onto his reinforced legs. His left pant leg was still hiked up high over the knee from when he'd rubbed his ankle.

He released the knob, standing on his own. The gun barrel slid a bit on his sweat-moist forehead. He felt breathless, as though he'd had the wind knocked out of him. He leaned slightly to his left, bringing the metal of his ankle into contact with Clyde's thin scrub bottoms. He eased his calf over until he felt the press of Clyde's leg. Clyde did not pull away.

Peter turned into the pistol, looking past it again into the slick, depthless eyes. With excruciating slowness, he moved the stun gun over and touched it to the inside of the metal thigh band of his left brace. His thumb hovering over the power switch, he braced himself for the pain and prepared to duck.

"All right," Peter said brusquely. "I'm ready now."

DAVID flew up Lincoln, narrowly missing a collision with a banged-up Pontiac, and floored it, screeching right on Wilshire and heading toward Peter's office. He was shouting into the mike and trying to listen to the earpiece simultaneously, which made both efforts ineffective. A blast of noise erupted through the earpiece, causing him to jerk back his head, then the unit went dead. What could have done that to the digital transmitter?

Concern did him little good, so he tried to think clearly and pragmatically. From what he had overheard, he knew Peter was in trouble, that Clyde had been planning on harming him to frighten David. The cops would arrive at Peter's building soon--maybe they even had by now--but David had to get there as quickly as possible. In the likely event of a standoff, he was certain Clyde would demand to talk to him.

The carpet cleaning van caught up to him after a few blocks but fell back again, and he lost sight of it when he ran the red at Federal. He spoke continuously into his mike, updating the cops on his location.

He careened through Westwood and pulled down an alley into the back lot of Peter's four-story building. Peter's car, a gray BMW with a hand brake sticking up near the wheel, was parked in its usual spot, but there were no police cars.

David got out of his car and glanced up the empty street anxiously. "Where the hell are you guys?" he said, bending his neck so he could speak into the mike. "Why aren't there police cars here already?" He stepped back, glancing up the side of the building at the third floor. No movement or light. Clyde could be there right now, torturing Peter.

David couldn't wait for the police to arrive. "I'm going in," he said to the mike and the empty parking lot.

He searched his trunk for a weapon, but he had nothing, not even a tire jack. An old-style otoscope was tucked into his father's doctor's bag in the trunk, the weighty metal handle protruding. He grabbed it, and snapped off the plastic head used for ear exams. It would have to do.

Tossing the Motorola and the dead earpiece into the trunk, he sidestepped a Dumpster and reached the building's back door, made of glass. The glass, evidently shatterproof, had been dented near the handle, but had remained intact. The lock had been gouged and scratched up with a tool of some sort. The door was slightly ajar, a Carl's Jr. Superstar wrapper wedged between it and the frame to prevent it from closing.

David knew he should wait for the police to arrive, but the possibility that Clyde was torturing Peter was too much for him to bear. He pushed the door, and it drifted open easily, the wrapper falling to the floor. Stepping into the dark interior, he closed the door slowly behind him, leaving it unlocked.

Not wanting to draw attention by using the elevator, David entered the dark stairwell and crept upstairs. He pushed the third-floor door open, peering up the hall, and immediately saw the triangular fall of light from the open door of Peter's procedure suite. He eased his way down the corridor, the thin carpet padding his footsteps. A deep wailing became audible. Mournful sobbing interspersed with violent breathing.

David drew near to the open door, inching his way forward, his hand curling around the metal shaft of the otoscope. The crying continued, broken by fragmented mumbling and a slapping noise. Reaching the door frame, David pressed his face to the wood and rotated his head slightly so he could see into the room with one eye.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the swinging lamp breaking the dimness. Clyde sat despondently against the far wall, holding a pistol limply between his legs. His face was red, his acne standing out in severe blotches. Sobbing and murmuring, he was rocking himself forward and banging his head back into the wall. He stopped only to rend his face with his hands, clawing at his cheeks, knocking the pistol against his crown.

David's chest tightened when he saw the pair of inert legs protruding from behind the desk, the metal bands of the braces visible at the ankles. The rest of Peter's body was out of view. A stun gun lay on the floor in the corner, near Clyde.

A humming in his ears. A tingling in his mouth. He wanted to run downstairs--either Yale or Jenkins should have arrived by now--but the possibility of Peter's needing immediate medical attention held him in place. David couldn't leave his unconscious body up here with Clyde.

Clyde's face was lined with scratches from his nails, some of them beading with blood. He was facing the door--there was no way David could surprise him.

Clyde directed his words at Peter's body. "You weren't supposed to do that." He scrambled to his feet and regarded Peter, like a problem he did not know how to solve. His face vacillated between agitation and confusion as he rocked back and forth. He scratched his head with the barrel of the pistol, then aimed it at Peter.

David had little choice.

Wedging the otoscope in the back of his pants, he stepped from cover, holding his hands out to his sides. Startled into a little leap, Clyde aimed the pistol at him. David made no sudden movements, and prayed Clyde's hands would stop jerking.

"Don't you move," Clyde bleated. "You stay right there." He wiped his running nose with his sleeve. "I'm in control here. I know what I'm doing." Despite his agitated condition, Clyde was steady on his feet, and his slurring had stopped.

"All right," David said. "You don't need to hurt him. I'm here now. You can scare . . . you can scare me directly. Just let me check on Peter first." Calmly, slowly, he pointed at the two inert legs. "Let me . . . " His throat dried up, and he lost the end of his sentence.

Clyde's face trembled; he was still pulling himself back from the edge of sobbing. Raising the torn leg of his scrub bottoms, he rubbed a red patch on his calf. "He shocked me. Knocked us both down. I hit him on the head. He got still." He slapped his head, and the noise rang around the room. "He hurt me, and I've gotta . . . I've gotta take it out of him." He began mumbling incoherently.

The current of electricity from the stun gun must have shorted out the digital transmitter. Which meant the shock had somehow run through Peter's left leg brace. "Can I step forward and look at his body?" David asked. He spoke slowly and clearly, as if to a child.

The pistol snapped back up at his head. "It's a trick. You're here to trick me and--shit, shit . . . " Clyde began to rock his upper torso, his eyes pressing closed. "Three two one the door back from the . . . "

David's head was humming. "Clyde. I'm going to take another step forward. And I'm going to look at Peter. I'm going to do this now." There was something comforting in the knowledge that all his words were being transmitted through the hidden wire to the police officers. It made him feel less alone. Even so, he wondered what was taking them so long to arrive.

Clyde continued to rock, his lips moving silently, but his eyes were open again. David eased slowly forward, and Peter's body came into view behind the desk.

Rage and sorrow mingled, rising from David's gut. He crouched over Peter and raised one eyelid, then the other. He was relieved to see both pupils dilate. Resting two fingers on Peter's neck, he counted his pulse for ten seconds, then multiplied by six. Slightly elevated, around seventy-five beats per minute. He walked his fingers along the back of Peter's head until he found a boggy spot near the base of his skull. A cursory feel revealed it to be a basic hematoma. Peter was going to be fine.

Clyde's body odor hung in the room. The smell was cut with something else, something bitter and medicinal, though David could not place it.

David's lips parted, trembling. He closed his eyes, not wanting to speak, afraid of what he might say. He needed hours to process the scene before him and find the correct words, but he had barely seconds.

David caught a glimpse of guilt and anguish in Clyde's face. Clyde became aware of David's gaze, and anger intensified in the flat stones of his eyes, the change so sudden it was as if he'd donned a mask. "He hurt me, the cripple." He crouched over Peter's head, leering down at him. "You weakling. You got it good." He rubbed the swollen spot on his leg.

David kept his body angled slightly away from Clyde, as if turning from a live bomb.

Clyde looked up at David, his cheeks glistening with sweat. He was breathing hard. "I promised I'd teach you about fear," he said. "It's deep and dark, like a well. I'm gonna put you in it."

David drew one hand slowly behind his back. He had just grasped the shaft of the otoscope when Clyde's eyes snapped back into focus.

"What are you doing? What are you reaching for? Turn around. Turn around! "

As David turned, Clyde shoved him against the window, his hand grazing the wound in David's side. David's forehead banged the glass, and his hands gripped the blinds, bending them. He stifled a cry of pain. Clyde ripped the otoscope from the band of David's pants, and David tensed, waiting for it to be brought down on his head.

But instead, Clyde's voice came, low and amused. "You were gonna hit me with a doctor's toy."

Through the bent blinds, David saw the carpet cleaning van in the alley across the street. Two flashlights dancing on the third floor of the building opposite them. David felt a sinking in his gut when he realized Jenkins, Bronner, and the other units had gone to Peter's old procedure suite--the one that was functional and directory listed. Like Peter's new suite, it was also on the corner of Westwood and Le Conte, so David's directions hadn't helped. If he could mention his true location, the mike would convey it to the cops in the field. Watching the flashlight beams play across the dark rooms across the street, David tried to figure out some way of mentioning his location that Clyde wouldn't find unusual. The cops would never spot his gesturing through the dark window. He only prayed Clyde wouldn't notice the flashlight beams in the other building.

A clicking noise as Clyde played with the otoscope, and then a beam of light on the back of David's head.

Clyde's voice was jumbled in his throat. "I'm talking to you."

David turned his head to the side so the intense light shone across his profile, through the bent blinds, and out the window. He hoped Jenkins and Bronner would spot it. "Yes, Clyde?" He turned his head slightly so the edge of his cheek caught the beam, then moved his head again, creating a flickering light to better catch the cops' attention.

Clyde clicked off the otoscope and tossed it aside. "Were you gonna hurt me with this?"

In case no one had picked up the otoscope light issuing from the dark building, David had to try to convey their location, no matter how awkward it came out. "Why are we here at--?"

"I asked you a question."

David was aware with a sudden certainly that his life hung in the balance of the next few seconds. He knew Clyde was going to press the pistol to his forehead even before Clyde did it.

Knowing his life could end with a one-inch movement of Clyde's finger sent a ripple of terror through David's body. Clyde studied him curiously. David's scrub top clung to his body with his sweat. He could feel the beats of his heart in the blood rushing through his face.

Clyde's uneven voice drifted from behind the gun. "You didn't help me at all. Not like you promised. You took away everything from me. My room and my car and my lye. I can't . . . I can't get at people anymore. To ruin their faces." He twisted the pistol, digging the barrel into David's cheek. David fought not to withdraw, not to react.

"I have no one left to scare." Clyde grumbled, a noise lost deep in his chest. "Except you."

From the jumble in his head, David pulled a thought and shaped it like a weapon. "What did you think about," he asked, in a calm, smooth voice, "when the nurses locked you up in the dark? When no one would take your hand? What did you think about then?"

Clyde drew back his head, as if he'd been slapped. The Beretta wavered slightly in his grasp, but remained against David's forehead. "I'm not . . . I don't . . . " He blinked hard, then pressed his eyes closed as David had known he would. "Three two one stand back--"

David's hand curled into a fist and, jerking his head clear of the pistol, he swung it sideways into Clyde's ear. He struck Clyde's head with bone-jarring force, and Clyde gasped, the pistol kicking in his hand and blowing out the window where David's head had been a moment ago. Clyde sank to the floor, landing with a hard slap. David crouched over him, pinning his gun arm with a hand, his knee pressing hard into Clyde's trachea. Clyde grunted and struggled against him. David dug his fingers into Clyde's forearm, but still Clyde did not drop the pistol. His hand clutched the weapon, the barrel sweeping back and forth, aiming across the open door.