Stress Test (25 page)

Edgar nodded and licked his lips. “Yeah, and odds are he won’t have a gun in his hand this time.”

“But I will,” Lou said. “I’ll put a couple of bullets into him. Stuff some hundreds in his pocket, break open a baggie of something and spill it near him. Then we split and let the police take it from there.” He smiled and spread his palms. “The police write it off as a drug deal gone bad. He’s dead, so they hang Mendiola’s murder on him and close the case. No more heat around Metropolitan Hospital, and everything’s back to normal.”

Edgar chewed on that for a minute. “Sounds perfect. Real genius.”

“That’s why he’s the boss,” Lou said. “Do you have that handgun lined up? Revolver, automatic—doesn’t matter.”

“Uh. Sure.”

Lou handed him a hundred. He was betting Edgar would bring one of his own guns and pocket the money. Even better. “Bring it tonight. We’ll put it by Newman’s hand, make it look like he was going to shoot.” Lou handed Edgar more bills. “I need you to pick up a bag of crank and one of H. We’ll use those tonight.”

“Why me?”

“Because I said so,” Lou said, effectively ending the conversation. “I’ll see you at ten.”

“Dr. Newman, this is Randy Harrison. He’s a second-year medical student. He’d like to shadow you on your shift tonight, if that’s okay.”

The nurse apparently took Matt’s nod as confirmation. She turned away, her white Reeboks squeaking on the polished floor.

The young man wore a hospital scrub suit partially covered by a short white coat of the style favored by pharmacists and students in some medical schools. “I appreciate this,” he said. “I’ll know more after
I get into my clinical years, but I’m interested in emergency medicine as a career. And I figured I’d like to get a taste of it now.”

Matt looked him up and down. Light brown hair, cut short and neatly combed. Metal-rimmed glasses, functional rather than some of the designer frames that were so popular.
Squared-away
was the phrase that came to Matt’s mind. “Okay, here are the rules. I’ll tell patients you’re a med student, observing unless they have an objection. They almost never do. Then—”

“I know. Keep my eyes open, my mouth shut, and we’ll talk later.”

Maybe this wouldn’t be as much trouble as Matt feared. “Exactly. Let’s get started.”

After a bit Matt and Randy had seen a representative sample of patients for a Friday late evening in a large city emergency room: injuries from sprains and bruises to broken bones, belly pains caused by everything from indigestion to appendicitis, and all manner of respiratory infections. So far there’d been no motor vehicle accidents, and only one heart attack victim, an elderly man obviously dead on arrival.

“Learn anything?” Matt asked as they grabbed a cup of coffee in the break room.

Randy made a face. “Well, I know that the coffee in this ER is as bad as what we get back at Parkland Hospital. Other than that, it’s been good to see—”

“Dr. Newman.” The nurse stuck her head through the doorway. “Young male with severe flank and groin pain. Says he’s had kidney stones before and thinks he’s having an attack now.”

Matt pulled aside the curtain to the cubicle where the patient lay still and was greeted with moans, curses, and imprecations. “I’m Dr. Newman.” He nodded toward Randy. “He’s a medical student who’s—”

“I don’t need your life histories!” the man almost screamed, now
writhing on the gurney so hard that Matt thought he might fall off despite the safety rails. “I need something for this pain! I’ve had it before. I can probably recognize renal colic better than either of you. Just give me some Demerol. Please, something for the pain!”

Matt leaned closer so he could keep his voice low. “Mr.—” He consulted the clipboard the nurse had handed him. “Mr. Glover, we need to find out what’s going on. The sooner we make the diagnosis, the sooner we can give you something to help. We’ll start an IV to give you some fluids, and then they’ll take you around the corner to radiology for a special X-ray called a CAT scan. If you have a kidney stone, we’ll see it there.”

By now the nurse was standing behind Matt. He turned to her. “Start an IV with Ringer’s, and get him to radiology for a CT of the abdomen. Rule out kidney stone.”

Matt didn’t wait for an acknowledgment, but snapped the curtain shut as he left. He could see the question in Randy’s eyes, so he addressed it as they walked to the work area shared by the nurses and ER physicians. “So why didn’t I give him something for pain? Right?”

“The man was obviously hurting,” Randy said.

“You could call me cynical, although I prefer to think of it as being experienced,” Matt said. “One of the most common ploys of a drug addict hurting for a fix is to fake either severe back pain or a kidney stone. It’s become common enough that we have to confirm their story objectively first. Otherwise we’d become a Demerol- and morphine-dispensing station.”

“Why not get a urinalysis? Simple enough. Microscopic hematuria would confirm a stone.”

Matt shook his head. “These guys are smarter than that. Sometimes they prick their finger with a pin and seed their specimen with a couple of drops of blood. And there are other ways to get blood into their
urine, ways that would make most people cringe. Addicts will do anything when they’re hurting for a fix.”

Matt finished scribbling a few notes. He handed the chart to the ER secretary and said, “He’s going for a CT. Let me know when it’s done.” Then he led Randy off to examine more patients.

Almost an hour later, Matt jerked a thumb toward the back of the ER and said, “Let’s get some more of that terrible coffee, Randy.”

In the break room, the first words out of Randy’s mouth were, “How did you know that patient didn’t have a kidney stone?”

“Someone with a kidney stone can’t get comfortable. They’re in constant motion, looking for a position that relieves the pain, but there isn’t one. This guy was totally still when I walked in, and he was already settling down when I left.”

“Why did he go ahead with the CT?”

“There’s always a chance that some ER doc will over-read an X-ray and call a spot somewhere a renal calculus. And as long as there’s a possibility of a fix, these patients will do anything.” Matt sniffed at his coffee and tossed the nearly full cup in the wastebasket. “Even hold still for a CT.”

“I saw him after you talked to him to give him the X-ray results. He’d ripped out his IV and was hurrying toward the door, dripping blood from his wrist.”

“He’ll staunch the bleeding, wait a bit, and try another emergency room.”

Randy sipped from his cup, made a wry face, and, like Matt, tossed his Styrofoam cup into the trash. “I guess I have a lot to learn if I want to do emergency medicine.”

“You’ll do fine, especially if you take a residency in the specialty.”

“You didn’t?”

Matt finished his coffee. “My training and practice were in general
surgery. I sort of got pushed into emergency medicine by circumstances.” He stood and started back to the ER. “But you know, even though I’ve had to do some learning on the fly, it’s been pretty good.”
Of course, I might be hauled off to jail tomorrow, but right now I’m enjoying
the experience
.

Lou and Edgar crouched motionless in the darkness of Matt Newman’s kitchen. All Lou could hear were the sounds of an empty house: the refrigerator cycling on and off, an occasional creak common to older homes, a muted
whoosh
as the air conditioner delivered cool air. He pointed a gloved finger toward the stairway, then put his mouth next to Edgar’s ear. “Check upstairs. I’ll look around down here. Make sure no one’s home.”

Three minutes later, they reassembled at the foot of the staircase. “No one around,” Edgar said. “Where do you want to wait for him? The living room?”

Lou drew a penlight from his pocket and checked his watch. Ten thirty. Newman would be home in about an hour. The timing seemed right. “Yeah, let’s move in there.”

Once in the living room, Lou checked to make sure the drapes were drawn before turning on a table lamp. He let out an involuntary sigh as light erased the shadows in the room. Two men poised in the dark made him think of a scene from a horror movie. In this case, though, Lou knew how it was going to play out.

“I’ll get behind the door. You stand there in the center of the room with your gun in your hand.” Lou pointed. “I’ll kill the light before he gets here, and when he turns it on you’ll be the first one he sees. He’ll probably turn around to run. That’s when I step out from behind the door and shoot him.”

Edgar edged back until Lou said, “That’s perfect.”

“There’s a chair here. Why don’t I sit down until we hear him outside?” Edgar said.

“Okay, but first, let me have that extra gun I asked for.”

Edgar pulled a revolver from his pocket and handed it over, butt-first. Lou took the revolver, pulled a dirty handkerchief from his hip pocket, and wiped the piece carefully.

“Good idea,” Edgar said. “We can press his hand on it after he’s dead so it’ll have his fingerprints.”

“Oh, I’ve got a better idea,” Lou said. He pointed the revolver at Edgar and shot him five times in the chest.

The little man slumped to the floor with a soft sigh like air escaping from a balloon. The smell of cordite and death hung in the room.

Lou pocketed the pistol and rummaged in Edgar’s pockets with gloved hands until he found two plastic baggies. He opened one, wet his finger and tasted a tiny bit of the contents, then dropped that bag into his pocket. He spilled white powder from the other on the floor and dropped the partially opened container near his former partner’s outstretched left arm.

Edgar’s own gun already lay next to the corpse’s right hand. Perfect. Lou took a moment to survey the scene. Had he forgotten anything? The money! He pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and shoved them into Edgar’s. Shame to leave that money behind, but it was necessary.

One last glance, then Lou turned off the light and let himself out the front door.

As he walked quickly to his car, Lou had no second thoughts about what he’d done.

No, if somebody had to be thrown off the sleigh, better Edgar than him.

EIGHTEEN

As he walked to his car, Matt felt a familiar tingle between his shoulder blades. He’d left off the Kevlar vest tonight—too bulky, too hot, too much trouble. He kicked himself for doing it, and quickened his pace as he navigated through the shadowy spaces of the parking garage. Matt unlocked the car, opened the driver’s side door, and swept his gaze over the backseat and floor space to make sure he was alone. Only when he was certain did he hurry inside and push the door lock button.

Matt leaned back and took a deep breath. He’d been too busy all evening to break for food, making do with coffee and sodas snatched between patients. A burger and fries sounded good. After all, there was no reason to hurry home.

He drove to his favorite drive-through fast food restaurant, only to discover it was closed for renovations.
I saw the sign last week and
completely forgot
. It took Matt another fifteen minutes to find something that was still open. He ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and large Coke. The cook seemed to be in no hurry to get the order ready. Matt
hoped that would mean fries fresh from the deep fryer, instead of a batch that had sat under a heat lamp for half an hour. When a hand delivered the food through the window, Matt breathed in the rich aroma of grilled meat and hot grease and decided to pull around into the parking lot to eat before the food got cold.

By the time he turned into the street leading to his house, Matt was yawning. But what he saw ahead brought him fully awake. Police cars and emergency vehicles were parked helter-skelter in the street, their red and blue strobes painting a surreal picture over the area. Yellow tape cordoned the front of his house.

He eased his car past a police cruiser and an ambulance before a patrolman stopped him. “Crime scene, sir. No one allowed in here.”

“Uh . . . it’s my house,” Matt managed to say. “What’s going on?”

“You’re the person who lives here?”

“Yes,” Matt said. “Can you—”