Dark Moonlighting (14 page)

“There’s a long line of people ahead of you,”
I explained. “I’ll examine you when it’s your turn. Go have a
seat.”

“Screw that,” he started as his hand moved
towards my shoulder. “I need you to fix—”

I was skinny, pale and did not look
particularly threatening. The man was completely unprepared for my
speed and strength. I grabbed his meaty arm and twisted it into an
uncomfortable position. He had just started to let out a shriek of
pain when my other hand grabbed his throat. I swept his legs out
from under him and slammed his body onto the floor. One of the
security guards actually gasped at the power and swiftness of my
attack.

“You are not better than anyone else,” I
yelled from only an inch away from his face. “You are not more
deserving of medical care than the good people who came before you.
You are not special or unique, and you will wait your goddamn
turn!”

At that moment, I became very aware that
every set of eyes in the vicinity were staring at me. I released
the large man from my grip and helped him get to his feet. He took
a few steps away from me as he clutched his throbbing arm.

“You know what?” I asked, adopting a more
passive tone. “You’re a quick fix, and you take up enough space to
fit three other patients. I’ll go ahead and write you a
prescription to get you out of here. It’s a new painkiller called
Lipragus.”

I had overreacted and drawn unwanted
attention to myself. I knew it was important to diffuse the
situation as quickly as possible. I pulled my prescription pad out
of my lab coat, jotted down my chicken scratching, tore the top
piece of paper off and handed it to him. He cautiously took the
script and backed towards the emergency room’s exit without saying
another word. I prayed that he was not smart enough to read the
name of the drug backwards before he was far away from my hospital.
Even if he did figure out the ruse, I doubted he would want to
tangle with me again.

“Boy, some people huh?” I said to the
assembled crowd. “I guess those karate lessons I’ve been taking are
paying off.”

“Nick?” Lara asked as she arrived on the
scene. She looked around curiously at the room full of faces that
were gawking at me.

“Did you find Dr. Little?” I asked.

Lara shook her head. “No, he’s not in his
office and he didn’t respond to any of my pages. I just passed by
Condo though, and I overheard him talking to one of the nurses.
Apparently he’s decided against doing the lumbar puncture.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” Lara began to clarify. “He
said he needed to get a look at the little girl’s brain, and he was
carrying a surgical saw with him. I think he’s planning on cracking
her skull open!”

I did not bother to respond to Lara. I dashed
down the hallway towards the first examination room. Overwhelmed by
the stress of the day and concern for Dr. Condo’s young patient, I
ran a bit faster than a normal human being would be able to run. It
was a short distance to the examination room, but Lara was thirty
paces behind me by the time I reached it. There was a squeal of a
power tool inside the room, and I did not hesitate to throw myself
through the door.

“Hey, Jack Kevorkian… put the saw down,” I
commanded.

Dr. Condo looked over at the sudden intrusion
from his position next to the closest bed in the room. His young
patient, who was wearing a surgical gown, was trembling noticeably.
Condo turned off the saw but kept it in his hand as he pulled down
his surgical mask.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured me. “I’m not
going to crack her head open. Not until the anesthesiologist gets
here anyway. I’d never perform this procedure on a patient who was
conscious… except for that one time.”

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” I shouted
at him. I moved to the foot of the bed and shoved Dr. Condo out of
the way so I could examine the patient’s chart. “How could you
possibly think cutting into her skull would lead to a
diagnosis?”

“It’s quite simple really. I need to examine
her occipital lobe to look for signs of—”

“That was a rhetorical question,” I said as I
quickly scanned the chart for the young girl’s symptoms. “Oh my
God.”

I shook my head in disgust and handed the
chart to Lara, who had entered the room in the middle of me
berating Dr. Condo. She glanced at the information and shot Condo a
contemptuous look. I moved to the nearby counter, removed a tongue
depressor from a jar and instructed the patient to open her
mouth.

“Hey,” Dr. Condo said indignantly as I began
my examination. “This is my patient, Dr. Whittier. I am the
attending physician and if I say…”

I ignored his rant as I glanced at the young
girl’s throat. I motioned for Lara to join me, and she inspected
the girl’s throat only briefly before turning to me and nodding her
head. Lara took the scared patient’s hand and rubbed it
reassuringly.

“Dr. Russell, what do you believe the
diagnosis is?” I asked as I glared at Dr. Condo.

“Streptococcal pharyngitis,” Lara answered
confidently.

“Strep throat,” I agreed. “Even one of our
interns can make the diagnosis in less than a minute you
incompetent…” I trailed off. I had a few more colorful things I
wanted to say to Condo, but I caught myself for the sake of the
little girl on the bed. “You’re going to be fine, kiddo,” I said to
her calmly. “All you’ve got is a little infection.”

“So I don’t have to have my head cracked
open?” she asked hopefully.

“Nope. It’ll clear up in a few days. I’ll
give your parents a prescription for some antibiotics just to be on
the safe side,” I answered. “Where are your parents anyway?”

“They’re in the room next door,” Dr. Condo
interjected. “I had to dose the mother with Valium. She seemed
upset both by the unorthodox procedures I wanted to perform on her
daughter and the brash, misanthropic way in which I explained them
to her.”

“Lara, could you go check…” I started.

“And make sure she’s not overdosing?” she
finished my sentence. “I’m on it,” she said as she left the
examination room.

“No,” Condo shouted futilely at Lara’s
departing backside. “I am in charge here, and I say this patient
has an extremely rare condition that I found a vague reference to
in a single medical journal from 1947!”

“I told him I thought it was strep throat,”
the little girl said meekly. “I’ve had it before and I remember
what it felt like. I guessed that was probably what it was.”

“Even this child understands Occam’s razor,”
I mocked Dr. Condo. “You are by far the saddest excuse for a doctor
in the history of medicine. I’m taking this patient from you.”

“I still think we should crack her skull
open,” the worst doctor ever insisted. “But I guess medicine just
isn’t all it’s
cracked
up to be.”

“Your puns suck and sound forced. Get out,” I
demanded as I snatched the surgical saw from his hand.

Dr. Condo retreated towards the door while
muttering something about filing a grievance. It took him a moment
to leave given the heavy limp with which he walked. He had
mentioned to me once that he suffered from an old pool injury. It
had seemed like a strange way to break a leg at the time, but was
even more perplexing later when I learned he had meant
billiards.

I took a few minutes to calm my newest
patient down and assure her that I would never let the “bad man”
get near her again. After that I went back to work muddling through
the deluge of sick and injured people. It was another four hours
before Lara, Dr. Berkowitz and I were finally relieved by other
capable physicians. Exhausted, I strolled out to the ambulance bay
to get some fresh air. The sun was on the other side of the
building, which left most of the area safely shaded. I collapsed
onto a bench and closed my eyes. All I wanted was for the weird day
to end.

“Hi, Mom. It’s Paul,” said a man talking on
his cell phone to my right. “She just delivered in the emergency
room. Yeah, she barely made it. Congratulations though, you’ve got
a new granddaughter! Yup. Yeah, me too. But I’ve got more big news.
In a few months, once my hormone therapy is complete, you’re going
to have a new daughter as well… Me, mom… Mom? Aw, don’t cry.”

“Strange day.”

I opened my eyes as Lara sat down on the
bench next to me. She watched the man on his cell phone as he
shuffled back inside. I took the opportunity to inspect her while
she had her head turned. Despite the cold weather, she was sweating
heavily from the day’s work. She wore unflattering scrubs and had
her hair in a simple ponytail. Despite all this, she still looked
beautiful.

“That’s life in emergency medicine,” I said.
“That’s a lie. This day was pretty atypical. But hey, you did good
today.”

“Thanks,” Lara said.

“I’m serious,” I continued. “Not very many
interns would have held up as well as you did today. Just being
able to survive a crisis like this is remarkable. You helped to
save patients from disease, injury and inexplicably bad doctors.
I’m really quite impressed that—”

Lara put a hand on the back of my head,
leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.

“I’ve got a date with a hot bath,” she said
as she rose from the bench. “See you later.”

“See ya,” I blurted out as I watched her walk
across the ambulance bay.

As Lara walked away she passed by another
attractive woman. The new woman, who had locked eyes with me and
was heading my way, had worked hard to look good. The white blouse
she wore had three unfastened buttons. Her black skirt stopped at
her thighs and was hardly practical given the cold weather. Luckily
the ambulance bay was shaded, for if the sun had bounced off the
bleached white teeth in her fake smile I might have been
killed.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite doctor,”
Lindsay Shepard greeted me.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite money
grubbing… drain on society… corporate whore—”

“Tough day?” Lindsay asked without changing
her pleasant persona. “You can usually do better than that.”

“Sorry,” I answered as I stood from the
bench. “I’m tired from a long day of actually saving lives.” I said
as I headed towards the entrance of the emergency room.

“Can I walk with you?” she asked.

“No.”

“Great,” she said as she fell into step
beside me. “Have you heard about my company’s latest SSRI? It’s an
amazing product.”

“Is it as good as the cholesterol med you
were pushing last year that caused kidney failure?” I mocked.

“Hey, at least it lowered cholesterol,” she
responded cheerily. “But seriously, Smiletrol™ is one of the newest
brands of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, on the
market. In double-blind clinical trials, Smiletrol™ was fourteen
percent more effective at treating depression than its competitors
Friendopax™ and Activepro™. It also had fewer reports of side
effects including nine percent less insomnia, seven percent less
fatigue and twelve percent fewer complaints of delayed
ejaculation.”

“And that last problem can be solved by a
picture of you in this outfit,” I joked.

“Oh, aren’t you sweet,” Lindsay said.

“I don’t know why you’re pitching me this
anyway,” I said as we entered the elevator. “I’m a hematologist,
not a shrink.”

“I just want to get back in your good
graces,” Lindsay assured me. “I want to show you that my company
really does make some wonderful products. I know you kind of soured
on us after that little pernicious anemia controversy.”

“Little?” I questioned. “Six percent of the
patients who took Cobalamax™ lost a leg! I don’t even know how you
screwed that one up. All they needed was simple vitamin B-12.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what the eggheads put in
that one,” she laughed.

I snorted in disgust at her lack of sympathy
as we reached the basement and exited the elevator. I made it clear
that I had no interest in continuing the conversation, but she was
quite insistent. Reluctantly, I lead her into my laboratory.

“I didn’t know there was animal testing going
on at McClane County General,” she said as she noticed the mice.
“Aw, aren’t they so cute?” she asked as she moved to the far wall
and examined the batch of infected rodents.

“They’re dead,” I pointed out.

“Sure… but still,” she said with a shrug of
her shoulders. “Why do you need to do animal testing to study
anemia anyway?”

“It’s a very complicated reason that I
couldn’t explain to you since you were busy learning how to use
your body to sell products instead of going to medical school,” I
replied.

“Oh, ha ha. I’m a whore,” she mocked. “Sounds
like someone is mad that women don’t like him because of his
horrible facial deformities. You know our dermatology department
has a wonderful—”

“Save it,” I interrupted.

“I don’t know what you have against the
pharmaceutical companies,” she argued. “We make medicine to help
sick people.”

“You make medicine to help old men get
erections,” I countered. “You spend billions developing pills that
let octogenarians have sex because there’s more profit in that than
curing AIDS. Your company sends sluts like you around to make sure
doctors prescribe your products. Patients are being treated with
the medicine that is
marketed
the best, not necessarily the
one that actually
is
the best. The medical profession should
be about saving lives, not making money.”

“That was a nice little speech,” Lindsay
mocked. “Would a promotional pen make you feel better?”

“Yes,” I answered as I took the pen she
offered me. “Yes it would.”

I jammed the pen into her neck so quickly
that she did not even have time to try to defend herself. I threw
my hand over her mouth to muffle her scream as blood shot out of
her wounded artery. Spinning around behind her, I lapped up the
precious liquid as if I was drinking from a water fountain. The
bloodlust took hold of me, and I cupped my mouth around the open
wound in her neck.