Projection (21 page)

"we can probably refer her to Montel.  That's twenty-two calls.  How about the twenty-third?"

"Michael Lucas on Jasper Street.  The guy hung up the second I mentioned Trevor.  So I called back.  He put me on the spot before I could get a word out:  Who was I?  Why was I bothering him?  I gave him the party line — I was a census taker — but he just hung up on me again.  When I called a third time he let the phone ring."  She paused.  "You think he's more than some random paranoid person?"

"You talked to him.  What do you think?"

"I'm not sure."

"Then I think we should find out."

Chapter 11

Cynthia had suggested she save us time by visiting Michael Lucas herself, but I told her to keep making calls from the hotel room until I got back.  When you enter someone's life story on the wrong page, the plot can turn viciously on you.  I had learned that the hardest way of all — losing Rachel in the final chapter of Kathy's violence.

The instant I crossed back into the emergency room I heard the sounds of impending doom.  Staccato electric tones filled the air.  A gurney squeaked in the unmistakable cadence of CPR.  Dr. Blaisdell was yelling orders for epinephrine, lidocaine and bretylium — medications I knew were parts of the treatment for severe cardiac arrhythmias.  What had to be six sets of feet danced nervously under the curtain pulled around Harry's cubicle.  I looked up and saw the green line on the cardiac monitor bending into the frantic, sawtooth rhythm of ventricular tachycardia.  Harry's heart was squeezing down on itself again and again and again, never pausing to fill with blood, pumping air.

His brother suddenly appeared at my side.  "What the hell is going on?" he asked.

"They're having trouble," I said, turning toward him.  His lined, unshaven face suddenly looked very old to me.  Harry's heart isn't beating the right way."

"Ain't beating right?"  He squinted at the cardiac monitor.  "He'll make it, won't he?  I mean, he ain't gonna..."

"Four hundred joules," Blaisdell ordered from behind the curtain.  "All clear!"

Beneath the curtain, I saw feet step back.  Harry's brother started moving forward.  I caught him by the arm.  "There's nothing you can do.  Let them work."  He stopped and stared blankly at the curtain.  I knew he couldn’t see Blaisdell with the defibrillator paddles in his hands, could picture Harry's chest heave off the mattress as the metal disks touched down.  I could see eight blank faces, frozen, waiting, as if
they
had been shocked.

The gurney clattered under the weight of Harry's torso slamming back onto it.

"What was that?" his brother asked.  Before I could answer, he crouched down against the wall next to us, holding his head in his hands.

I glanced up at the monitor and saw what he must have seen.  The green line had gone flat. The electric tones in the air had become a constant hum.

"Four hundred," Blaisdell said calmly.  "Stay back."

Silence descended as Blaisdell fired more current through Harry.  The gurney clattered again.  The green line traced a mountain range of sawtooth beats that lifted Harry's brother halfway to his feet, then dropped him right back down as it fell flat again and restarted its funereal hum.

"Four hundred," Blaisdell said.

The gurney clattered, but the line didn’t budge.

"Four hundred."

Clatter.  Nothing.

Harry's brother's face had gone white.

"Intracardiac epinephrine, please," Blaisdell said.

I pictured him registering the ‘epi’ in a syringe and shooting the first bit into the air.  I saw him bury the needle just below the sternum, then push down and away, angling directly into the ventricles of the heart.

I waited.  The monitor's hum was unrelenting.

A female voice:  "Call it?"

Blaisdell's voice stayed dead even. "Go to five hundred joules."

Harry's brother, grease-stained proprietor of a Baltimore garage, proud owner of an oversized Orioles jacket with cracked orange and black vinyl appliqués, man worn thin by life, supplicant to the Hopkins shrine, stared at me with a profound prayer in his eyes.

I crouched next to him because I felt out of place on my feet.  I wished I knew his name.  The monitor hummed for what felt like many seconds, but what was probably only a few.  Then, like a bird back from winter, it started to chirp.  I looked up.  The green line traced a few hesitant, deformed beats, then broke into a normal rhythm of blips across the screen.  Harry gazed up at it as if he were looking at his first sunrise.  His face flushed.  I watched him, wondering whether a man can die and be reborn in his brother.

The curtain swayed with the frenzy of activity behind it.  Feet changed places.  Hands wearing the trappings of life — wedding bands, red and pink nail polish, watches, chains of gold — reached up to swap bags and bottles.  Voices spoke in tongues — ccs, IVs, sub q, SMAC 12, CBC, CPK, EKG, ABG, ICU, CICU.  Then, all of a sudden, I heard deep groans, followed by the first word of a newborn two-hundred-fifty-pound man:  "Louie?"  He coughed.  "Louie!"

"I'm here," Louie said, his voice breaking.  "I'm here, Harry."

Blaisdell stepped from behind the curtain and pulled off his surgical gloves.  His white lab coat was gone.  His sleeves were rolled up.  His necktie was tucked away between two buttons of his shirt.  He saw Harry's brother standing next to me and walked over.  "Dr. Blaisdell," he said, extending his hand.  "You're a member of the family?"

"I'm the brother.  I'm Louie," he nodded.  "Louie Stokes."  He took Blaisdell's hand and shook it, but wouldn't — or couldn't — let go.

Blaisdell didn't try to pull his hand away.  "Your brother's heart took a rest.  That's what all the commotion was about.  It's running like clockwork now.  Hopefully, it'll keep running that way."

"What happens next?"

"We'll get him up to CICU — cardiac intensive care — and make sure his sugar is under control.  The first twenty-four hours are the most important."

"When can I see him?"

"He's right over there," Blaisdell said, nodding behind him.  He winked.

Louie released his grip on Blaisdell and walked around the cubicle until he found an opening in the curtain.  He disappeared inside.

"Strong work," I said.

"Well, you know, it's cookbook medicine," Blaisdell said.  "You could write out the whole shooting match on a flow chart."

"Except deciding to go the extra mile.  There's no recipe for that.  Plenty of people would have called the code at four hundred joules.  Plenty more would have called it after the intracardiac ‘epi’ didn't work."

Blaisdell literally blushed.  "Plenty wouldn't."  Great doctors are usually embarrassed by their gifts, precisely because they can't be diagrammed on any chart, can't really be explained at all.  He looked down at his shiny black wingtip shoes, then back at me.  "You were the one who picked up the ketoacidosis.  That's way beyond the call for a psychiatrist."

"Blind luck.  I listened in lecture that day."

We stood in an uncomfortable silence for a bit, as if suddenly remembering we didn't know one another, at least not in the traditional sense.  At some more basic level, of course, we did.  "I do have one question for Harry.  Is he stable enough to answer it?"

He seemed to hesitate, but then shrugged.  "Go ahead.  You're not gonna throw him into another arrest with a  question."

I walked to the cubicle and stepped through the break in the curtain.

Harry's clothes had been cut off.  He lay naked on them, his midsection barely covered by a paper chuck.  Louie was at the head of the bed, smoothing his brother's tress of hair back over his bald spot.  The nurses and medical resident were finishing up their work.

"Dr. Blaisdell told me I'd be able to speak with Mr. Stokes," I said to no one in particular.  I walked to the side of the gurney.

"Who's this, Louie?" Harry said.  He coughed, then grimaced in pain.  "My chest feels like somebody took a sledgehammer to it."

"That's from the CPR," I said.  "They pretty much do take a sledgehammer to it."

"He's OK," Louie said.  "He's a shrink from Beantown.  Works with the cops up there.  All he's lookin’ for is he wants to know if we know any guy named Lucas.  I told him maybe you'd know if Ronnie had brothers or this or that."

"Ronnie?  Ronnie's name ain't Lucas," Harry said.  He closed his eyes, exhausted.

My heart sank.

Louie squinted at him.  "what do you mean? 
Ronnie Lucas
."

"Loomis.  Ronnie
Loomis
."

Louie nibbled his lower lip.  "I'm talking about he bookie."

My pager went off.  It was Matt Hollander's private number at Austin Grate.

"Yeah, Ronnie Fucking Loomis," Harry said.  He opened his eyes and stared up at his brother.  "What's wrong with you, Louie?  You don't remember a guy's name comes looking to bash your head over my stupid shit?  You gotta lay off the booze.  You can't remember nothing."

I felt dazed.  Following the fictional Ronnie Lucas had given me hope that I might be closing in on Lucas’ history.  Now, past 2:00
A.M.
, I had hit a dead end.  I didn't know where I was in relation to my goal anymore.  How could I have thought that I would stumble so quickly onto the correct path?  I summoned enough false cheer to wish Harry and Louie well and walked out through the curtain.

A nurse let me use one of the ER phones to dial Hollander.

"Frank?" he answered.

"Everything all right?"

"Only if you consider a cop car at your gates all right.  Commissioner Hancock is out front waving a warrant for the arrest of one Kathy Singleton."

"How did she find—"

"Hard to say.  I never did reach my renegade counselor."

"She's alone?"

"As far as I can see.  Maybe she has something in mind other than bringing her niece's killer to the station.  Maybe a pit stop in the woods.  A little workout with the baton.  Maybe they never get to the station."

"Kathy's a serial killer.  Hancock shouldn't try to transport her without backup."

"I'm sure she considers this a personal matter."

I checked to be certain no one was in earshot.  "Listen, Matt.  Hancock won't be able to prove you hid Kathy.  She could have used a pseudonym when she was admitted."

"You trained under me.  Anyone would assume I'd been properly introduced."

"That doesn't mean Hancock can prove it."

A few seconds passed.  "She won't have to prove anything."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going to deny what I did."

"Huh?"

"I admitted Kathy Singleton because she was ill.  I knew she was a murderer.  I also knew she needed help.  Those are the facts.  I'm not budging from them."

"Hancock will arrest you."

"She has to make it over my threshold first.  And that gate out front is hundred-year-old, three-inch wrought iron.  Twelve feet high.  She'll need a locksmith.  By the time she gets one, I'll be deep into my second brandy."

"You have to let her in.  She's got a warrant.  It's a court order."

"I have my own marching orders.  This is my hospital.  A place of healing.  The police have no business here."

"Matt..."

"Listen to me.  We started down the road to this moment the night you brought Kathy to Austin Grate.  I agreed to keep her here.  In case you were wondering, friendship had nothing to do with it.  Zero.  I did it because it was the right thing to do.  Natural law.  So don't worry about me.  Every reporter dreams about being thrown in the slammer for not revealing a source, for sticking to his professional ethics.  I'm doing the same.  I'm not turning over any patient to the penal system.  Let them punish me.  It'll be an honor to do every last minute of my time."

I closed my eyes.  "Well, I'm not going to let you do it alone."

"You better fucking believe I'm doing it alone.  My patient.  My hospital.  My moment."  He paused.  "I can't stomach the system, Frank.  That's why I'm behind these gates to begin with.  You're more suited to it.  Mr. Inside-Outside.  You can get things done.  You could actually teach the bastards to think.  Maybe even to feel."

"I think you should let Hancock in.  It's over."

"Thanks for the consult.  Here's mine:  What you're doing down there is God's work, pure and simple.  You're trying to bring someone his truth.  You're showing concern for a man who showed no concern for others.  Or himself.  That's glorious.  Keep listening with the third ear.  It'll never fail you."  He hung up.

My mind was a fog.  I walked out to the ER lobby.

Anderson was waiting for me.  "Find out anything?"

I had to remind myself what he could be talking about.  "Apparently Louie has a problem with his recall," I said listlessly.  I shook my head.  "Ronnie
Loomis
is the bookie Harry owed money to."

"Oh, shit."

"That cop you were working the desk with backed up everything Louie said.  He remembered Ronnie
Lucas
, too.  He said he even remembered his car:  ‘A lemon yellow Pontiac LeMans convertible.’"

"He sure did.  But his memory's shot.  That's why they took him off the streets in the first place."

My neck went stiff.  My hands were trembling again.  The heroin was wearing off.  "You complimented him on his memory.  You told him he never forgot a thing."

"What was I gonna tell him?  That he's over the hill?  That I check every report he fills out before it gets officially filed?  That we all joke his next transfer's gonna be to the Guilford Assisted Living Center?"  He folded his giant arms.  "I figured since he and Louie agreed on the name, it had to be true."

I was starting to sweat.  "Whatever."

"Hey.  I screwed up.  I'm sorry."

"I didn't mean to blame you."

"Blame me all you want, it won't change anything.  What's next on your agenda?"

I didn't feel like telling him I had no agenda.  "A friend of mine from Mass. Has been over at the Stouffer making calls to all the Lucases listed in the phone book.  One of the people she reached — Michael Lucas — got defensive when she brought up Trevor."  I let out a long breath.  "I guess I'll go by his place."