Diane shook her head slowly, as if afraid any abrupt gesture would knock David off course.
Bitterness overlaid the pain in his voice, hiding it beneath a sharper veneer. "An embolus. Why not a car, a plane, a fire? A goddamn embolus. Her slipping away and me just standing there with my useless, useless hands."
His hands, thin, smooth, and unlined, were indisputably the hands of a professional. No scars or thick calluses from the kind of work men toiled at year after year, hauling crates or fighting shovels into the ground. He was fortunate. Despite everything else, he had his work.
Diane's voice startled him from his reverie. "What do you miss?" She was staring out across the tree-darkened valley to the floating lights of the high-rises. Her face was heavy, somehow, weighed down with melancholy, or sadness, or both. "From your relationship. What do you miss the most?" A soft vulnerability hid within her curiosity.
The answer was there waiting, though he didn't know it until he started speaking. "I miss that feeling when you're out, and the night is softly lit, and you know that after the smiles and the glances and the red wine, you're going to go home and make love. That's what I miss."
Diane looked at him, a soft noise of appreciation escaping her throat, then they watched the hazy skyline together for a while, sipping their drinks.
David pulled out his cell phone, called the ER, and had the clerk put him through to Dr. Nelson. "How's the patient?" he asked.
"Looks fine. I just poked my head in. I'm doing my best to avoid any formal assessments."
"LAPD giving you any trouble?"
"Actually, no. They've retreated to the ambulance bay."
David thanked him and hung up.
"What time do you think Blake'll call?" Diane asked.
David squinted at his watch, a plastic digital thing from Longs Drugs. He wore bad watches to work because he constantly misplaced them; he had a drawerful at home. It was nearly 11:30 P.M. "Any minute."
"What's Plan B?"
"Depending on what Blake says, I can gather some other opinions. I have a friend on the board at Mass General-attorney. I'd rather not overexpose myself, but I do trust him. And Peter, of course. He's excellent with this sort of thing."
"What about Dr. Evans?"
"The last thing Sandy wants is a big fiasco, but if I don't come up with any better options by morning, I'll talk to her first thing."
"Can I ask you a question you probably don't want to answer?"
"You just did."
"Why are you doing all this? I don't mean to sound callous, but this isn't your mess."
"I can't release a patient when I believe he's going to be killed."
"But you're beyond your domain, David. Your job is to treat him and hand him over. You're a doctor, not a vigilante. A bunch of cops are probably fucking up some guy in custody somewhere right now. Why is this any more your business?"
"Because I can do something to prevent this."
"Not as a physician, you can't."
He finished his Coke and crumpled the can.
"Plus, what about Jenkins? If he's really as rash and unstable as you think, what's to say he won't go after you?"
"He might."
"Who knows how far he'll push this? You're stepping into a different world here, David."
"So you disapprove?"
"God no. Not at all." She finished her beer and set the empty on the hood behind her. "There are no easy answers here. But I do know the dogma of a physician is the same as the dogma of a soldier. It's just better articulated. Think beyond the rules and oaths of the profession. Know what you're getting into. Then, whatever you decide, fine."
David's phone rang in his jacket, and he pulled it out and flipped it open. "Hello?"
"Blake here. Even if you throw a psych hold on your boy, he'd still have to be transferred, and since he's not critical, LAPD would be the guys to do it. But he could go to USC, not Harbor, since Harbor doesn't have a secure psych ward."
"So he'd end up in the Sheriff's custody?"
"If he gets there. And be advised-the Mayor's got this one in his roundhouse. His approval ratings are down. You do the math."
As if there weren't enough stresses already in play. "Thanks for calling back."
"I didn't."
David hung up and looked over at Diane. "A psych hold gets him to USC, but he'd still have to be transferred. In an LAPD squad car."
"Why don't we call Dash? Might as well see if a psych hold is even plausible."
Dash answered after four rings, his voice heavy with sleep. "Yeah?"
"It's David. Sorry to wake you."
"What's up?"
David explained the situation in its entirety while Dash listened in silence.
"Why didn't you say anything to me this afternoon?"
"I didn't want to get ahead of myself. Plus, I was waiting to get a better handle on just how real this threat was. What do you think? Do we have any options?"
"Well, clearly I'm not going to put him on a psych hold without a complete and formal assessment."
"Of course."
"And even if I determined he could only be released to a secure psychiatric facility, that doesn't get you around the transfer problem."
"Unless… " David pressed his lips together, thinking hard. "Unless you determined he was so unstable he had to remain in four-point restraints. Four-points would buy us an ambulance. And a supervising physician inside it."
"You know the cops will believe he can be transferred just fine in handcuffs." Dash exhaled long and hard. "I understand the predicament, David, but a formal psych assessment goes on record. There could be ramifications for the trial. He is highly unstable, but I don't know that he demands psychiatric supervision versus incarceration."
"Just come in for an official psychiatric evaluation. That's all I ask. I'll figure out how to get you past the cops and buy you the time you need. You can get him to talk…?"
Hurwitz, Gregg
Do No Harm (2002)
"I'm confident I can, yes. With some more time. But even if I can't, I've made assessments on uncooperative patients before, David."
"I'll meet you at the hospital now and get you in with him."
"I can't do it unless I'm the psychiatrist on call. It'll smell bad. In the paperwork and in the courts."
"Who's on tonight?"
"Bickle. Asshole clock puncher."
"Are you on call tomorrow?"
"Seven A.M."
"Meet me at Clyde's room."
"I'm not promising anything, David."
"I understand that."
David hung up and looked over at Diane, who was watching him intently. "Dash will make an assessment in the morning. If he puts Clyde on psych hold, and if he wants him kept in four-points, we're in the clear."
"And if not?"
"I get into it with my lawyer friend and Sandy."
"What do we do now?"
David leaned back, accidentally knocking one of Diane's empties. It rolled off the hood and shattered on the ground. "Wait until morning."