Doing Harm (23 page)

I begin to consider socially acceptable exit strategies. I’m still hungry, but I worry that taking another crab thing will somehow seem impolite. I need to get out of here and find some food. Besides, given the events of the last few hours, I don’t know how much longer I can credibly feign interest in the brutal selectivity of private preschools. So, marshaling one last look of sympathy and shared parental concern, I manage to interrupt her dissertation on the statistical correlations between kindergarten success and lifetime earning potential by telling her I need to check on Katie.

“It was a pleasure meeting you!” she chirps. “Feel free to help yourself to anything. Our caterer is out back manning the grill.
Nuestra casa, su casa!
We’ll talk more later. I really want to get to know you. I’ve heard so much about you from Sally.”

I step out the back door of the kitchen, blinking in the bright sunlight. The football-field-sized backyard is, if anything, nicer than the inside of the house. I head to a table loaded with appetizers and side dishes and dive into it, gorging myself on cheese and crackers while carrying out a cursory conversation between bites with a radiology resident I know only vaguely. His interest in the food is as fervent as my own, so I don’t need to concentrate very hard on the conversation, and as we’re talking, GG materializes in my mind’s eye, calmly stroking her ponytail, smiling a vulpine smile, her chocolate eyes brimming with unsettling mirth.

Mr. Bernard was a start.

I shovel a handful of potato chips in my mouth and blink hard.

But the image won’t go away.

You’re free to stand back and watch someone else die a needless death.

I abruptly leave the table and my radiology acquaintance behind (who’s still eating, though more efficiently now that he doesn’t have to maintain a pretense of talking to someone) and grab a burger from a sweaty catering chef manning a large steel grill loaded with a butcher shop’s worth of inventory. By the time I’ve taken five steps from the grill, I’ve wolfed it down.

I pause in front of a red Igloo cooler full of ice and beer, awkwardly licking the burger grease from my fingers.

Mr. Bernard was a start.

There are so many different reasons why I shouldn’t have a beer right now.

I’m not a big drinker.

It’s the middle of the day.

I’m sleep-deprived, stressed, angry, and depressed.

Fuck it
. Absurdly, I look furtively around, like a guilty teenager sneaking a drink from the family liquor cabinet, as if someone would possibly care. I grab one, then hesitate only momentarily before snatching a second. I pop the lid off both of them with a bottle opener dangling from a chain attached to the cooler.

… watch someone else die a needless death.

I’m halfway done with the first beer by the time I’ve walked across the length of the patio to the edge of the bright green lawn, which is maintained with geometric precision. I don’t know much about beer, but what I’m drinking tastes really strong; it’s got a funky-looking label with a stylized picture of Paul Revere on it, so it’s probably some kind of local microbrew. An India Pale Ale. Aren’t those supposed to have higher alcohol content, or something? Whatever it is, I can feel it rocketing straight to my head.

I survey the vast green expanse of the backyard. In one corner of the lawn sits one of those big, brightly colored, air-filled moonwalks enclosed with black netting, which are pretty much de rigueur these days for children’s parties. The electric hum of the air pump mixes with the laughing and screaming of several children, who bounce up and down happily in the middle of its inflated floor. Small shoes lie scattered on the grass outside the netted entrance, through which a collection of parents help children in and out while policing the ones inside and unsuccessfully attempting to maintain adult conversations with each other.

I choose a strategic vantage point at the edge of the patio to keep an eye on Katie, who’s running around with some of the other kids on the lawn, and drink my beer.

“Cute kids,” a familiar voice says from right next to me. “Is one of them yours?”

“Luis,” I exclaim. I didn’t notice him standing there. Or did he just walk up now? If so, the guy moves like a cat.

“You don’t have to look so shocked, Steve. I do have a life outside the hospital, you know.”

“It’s just—I didn’t know you and Dan were friends.”

“He and I went to med school together. He was my senior adviser.” He takes a pull from a can of diet soda, staring at me closely.

Based on my quick perusal of Luis’s University Hospital personnel file and my recent conversation with Dan’s wife, I put two and two together. “Ah. Right. Haaaahhhhvahd.” I finish my first beer, toss the empty into a nearby trash can, and start in on the second. Already, my head is swimming.

“What?”

“Harvard. You guys went to Harvard.”

“Yeah. So. One of the kids. Yours?”

I take a healthy swallow from the fresh beer bottle and point to Katie, “My daughter. She’s five. Going on fifteen.” Luis guffaws politely at the tired joke. “Do you have kids?”

“No,” he says curtly, turning away. He doesn’t offer any additional information.

By now, Katie has joined a group of children clustered around a plastic horseshoe set on the far side of the yard. A man who looks like one of the fathers flits about in the middle of them.

In spite of my mood—a potent mix of guilt and anger and anxiety made even more potent with the addition of alcohol—I smile to myself when I realize who the man is: Jason Kobayashi, my friend from med school on the Safety Committee. His shoulder-length black hair is swept rakishly back from his chiseled features, and a thin gold chain dangles from his thick neck. His clothes—tank top, shorts, a baseball cap turned backward, and flip-flops—accentuate his impressive build: muscular and cut, like a classic Greek statue, or a drawing from an anatomy textbook.

Jason is explaining to his son how best to toss the plastic horseshoes to beat the other little kids. His testosterone-laden voice drifts across the yard, strong and deep and earnest and peppered with frequent “dudes.” He has an easy laugh. A few of the parents of the other children involved in the game look on from a slight distance, their expressions ranging from bemusement to mild annoyance, but none of them intervenes.

“Who’s the frat boy?” Luis says, pointing to Jason with his can of diet soda. “He looks familiar.”

“Jason Kobayashi. He’s one of the ortho chiefs.”

“An orthopedic surgeon. Why am I not surprised.” It’s a statement of fact, not a question. Luis’s tone is flat and laconic, but without malice.

True or not, stereotypes among doctors are a lot like those in the high-school cafeteria, with many of the usual high-school suspects replaced by various medical specialists: pathologists (nerds), psychiatrists (oddballs), internists (know-it-all teacher’s pets), and pediatricians (spirit captains).

Orthopedic surgeons are the jocks of the medical world.

“So—which varsity sport in college guaranteed him his spot in med school?”

“That’s not fair, Luis,” I respond, annoyed. “I’ve worked a lot with Jason. He’s a good guy and a great doc. Very smart.”

“I never said he wasn’t.”

I gulp my beer and Luis sips his diet soda as we both watch Jason instruct his son on the finer points of outperforming the other six-year-olds with the plastic horseshoes.

“So, which one?” Luis asks.

“Wrestling. At Princeton.”

“Uh-huh.”

As if sensing that he’s the focus of our discussion, Jason turns toward us. My insides give a little unpleasant tug, since the last time Jason and I spoke was when he leaked the Safety Committee report to me, and I screamed at him in frustration.

But he just smiles, his prominent deltoid muscle rippling beneath his tank top as he raises his arm in greeting.

“Steve, dude, what’s up?” he calls genially.

“Not too much, Jason. How about you?” I answer.

“It’s all good, brah’. No worries.” He pauses, grinning affably, and inclines his head to one side. “Good to see you out here enjoying the sun.” He flashes the hang-loose gesture, glances quizzically at Luis, then focuses his attention back on the horseshoes.

Luis and I watch together silently for a few more moments. “So. Steve. I’m glad I ran into you. I’ve been wanting to talk to you. About Mr. Bernard.”

“Why?” I drain the rest of my beer and walk unsteadily over to the cooler to grab another.

He waits until I return to the edge of the patio before responding, evenly, “How you and I didn’t put enough potassium in that bag to kill him.”

The freshly opened IPA halts halfway to my lips. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not stupid, Steve. You must have realized it by now.”

“What if I have?”

“Well, don’t you think it’s strange? Where did all of that potassium come from? We didn’t order it.”

“I don’t know.” I raise the beer the remaining distance to my lips and take a big swallow. “What do you care, anyway? You didn’t get screwed to the wall the way I did.”

He looks annoyed. “The hell I didn’t. I’m the one who actually put the order for the potassium into the computer. Remember? It’s my name on the medical record. I’m the one officially listed as having ordered potassium. Because of that, Collier raked me over the fucking coals. I was interviewed by the Safety Committee—same as you. And I got a letter of reprimand added to my file.”

“But … the potassium was my idea. You tried to talk me out of it.” I never realized that the Safety Committee had dragged him into this as well.

He shrugs. “It didn’t make a difference. You ignored me and, against my better judgment, I did exactly what you told me to. Collier had a fucking fit—screamed at me for ten minutes for writing the order even though I disagreed with you.”

“Collier doesn’t scream.” I stubbornly fold my arms and watch as Katie runs from the horseshoes to the moonwalk.

“You know what I mean. Besides, getting in trouble didn’t bother me nearly as much as the fact that a patient of mine died. For no good reason. I want to know how I could have kept that from happening. I want to know what I could have done better.” He pauses before adding, with a touch of reproach, “Don’t you?”

I turn away from Katie just long enough to cast him a sour look.
How can he possibly understand? There’s nothing we could have done better.

He’s quiet for a moment as the happy screams of the kids wash over us from across the lawn. “So. Where did all of that potassium come from?”

“How should I know?”

“I thought you of all people would care. Don’t you? Doesn’t it bother you that one of our patients died, and we took the fall for it? It damn well bothers me. A patient died on my fucking watch, and I want to know why.”

“Of
course
I care,” I say, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples. The ground feels unsteady under my feet. This really
is
strong stuff.

“You’re not acting like it.” I open my eyes. Luis is studying me shrewdly, and it strikes me how short and wiry but immensely strong he looks, like a gymnast, or a wrestler. His body and mannerisms convey a carefully disciplined and powerful physical energy. Even now, as he leans casually against a wooden post, it’s like he’s a coiled spring. His eyes have a hard look to them. He’s older, I know, but those eyes seem
a lot
older. Like he’s seen a lot of shit in his time. I wonder why I never noticed that before.

I examine the side of my empty beer bottle and start to carefully peel the label off one of the corners.

What exactly am I thinking?

I’m not sure, really.

“I heard you were in the Marines. Is that true?”

His face darkens. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

I swallow hard. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. “Well, were you?”

“Yes. So?”

“What did you do? In the Marines?”

He turns away and gazes at the children in the moonwalk. “Things I try to forget.”

I pick at the label on the bottle, watching Luis out of the corner of my eye. Maybe it’s the beer. The stress. The desperate need to turn to somebody, anybody, now that I’m boxed into a corner.

Luis seems as good a person as any. He has the same problem I do, after all—blamed for something he didn’t do. In a way, he’s also been used by GG, set up by her to make Mr. Bernard’s death look like an accident. In fact, he just might be the only other person in the world capable of understanding.

“You know something. Don’t you?” Luis is staring at me again. “Something you’re not telling me?”

I shrug noncommittally and pick at the beer label.
But can I trust him?
He seems like a good, stand-up guy and all, but I still hardly know him. And what about that folder marked “Confidential” I found in his University Hospital personnel file? What the hell is
that
all about?

“Steve,” he says earnestly, putting a hand on my shoulder. It’s a surprisingly gentle gesture. “Really. Please tell me. What is it? This whole thing has been bugging the crap out of me. I don’t mind being humbled every once in a while. Hell, being humbled is good for you. I learned that in the Corps. It helps me keep things in perspective. But being interviewed by the Safety Committee was
fucking humiliating,
man.”

Yes. It was.

I pick at the label, thinking.

He seems genuine. But, let’s face it, it’s an insane story. I barely believe it myself. And what’s to keep him from blabbing about it? What if he listens to what I have to say, then decides to tell Dr. Collier that I’ve completely lost it? That I’m accusing the star medical student of
murdering a patient
?

Worse—what if he tells GG?

His expression conveys curiosity, mixed with a sincerity that lends an unexpected hint of vulnerability to the ex-Marine who to me has always seemed so distant and hard.

“Confidential” the encrypted folder in his personnel file read.

I make a decision. One that will change my life forever.