Flashback (1988) (57 page)

“This door, Henry. Open it, please!”

“Can’t.”

“Henry, it’s important. I think Dr. Coles in there, and I think she’s in trouble.”

“No key. Only Mr. Iverson has a key to that door.”

“Henry, we’ve got to get in there.…”

The guard hesitated.

“Please …”

“Well,” he said finally, “I guess I can’t get fired more than once, can I?”

He took a single step forward and then hit the heavy door with such force that the entire frame shattered. The door itself, crushed where his shoulder had made contact, fell to the floor like a playing card.

Fantasia on Greensleeves
was playing at a near-deafening level.

Zack snapped off the tape, glanced about the office for a moment, then raced into the bathroom.

“Henry,” he yelled. “Get in here!”

No longer mindful of being seen, Zack raced ahead as Henry carried Suzanne through the corridors of the hospital and up the stairs to the ICU. She was motionless, unresponsive, and soaked with perspiration. Her level of coma was deep, and her elevated temperature quite apparent.

Bernice Rimmer’s surprise at their arrival lasted only seconds before she was in action, stripping Suzanne’s clothes off, getting a blood pressure cuff around her arm, and ordering a Ringer’s Lactate IV from one of the other nurses.

“She remind you of anyone, Bernie?” Zack asked. “She got the same anesthesia as Toby. You believe me now?”

“I believed you before,” the nurse said, listening to Suzanne’s chest. “You probably don’t remember this, but I once asked you to cheat on a Latin translation for me, and you refused. I figured that if you were such an honest nerd then, you couldn’t have changed all that much.”

“Who’s Pearl’s backup?”

“The nurse anesthetist. She’s in obstetrics.”

“Call her, please. Tell her to meet me by the operating room doors in two minutes. Tell her it’s a life-and-death emergency. Also, order some labs and blood gases on Suzanne—everything stat. And give her Decadron. Ten milligrams IV”

“Done.”

“I’ll be back shortly.… Get ready, Pearl, you bastard,” he murmured as he slammed through the unit doors. “This crap has gone on long enough. I’m coming for you!”

36

Frank knew, as he watched Whitey Bourque separate the ballots into two piles, that the vote was going to be closer than he had wanted. He counted exactly ten ballots in one pile and nine in the other. By insisting on a closed vote, it had been his hope to minimize any influence the Judge might still have had on certain members. Now, it appeared, he had succeeded more in minimizing his own.

Fuck you, Garrison
, he thought, watching the last of the ballots smoothed open.
Starting next year, it will be Fords for this hospital. Bank on it
.

“Well,” Bourque said as he and the member seated next to him finished a cooperative tabulation of the votes. “I make it ten to nine. You get that, too, Charlie? … Good.” He banged his gavel. “In that case, I am pleased to announce that the Davis—er, excuse me, the Ultramed-Davis board of trustees has, by a vote of ten to nine, approved the finalization of the sale of this hospital to the Ultramed Division of RIATA International.”

Several members applauded; many others simply shrugged. Leigh Baron accepted the congratulations of the attorneys and then turned to Frank.

“That was close,” she said.

Frank smiled.

“Hand grenades and horseshoes,” he said giddily.

“Pardon?”

“Oh, just a little phrase my father drummed into my head.”

“Well, Frank, it would appear that you are to be—”

“Excuse me, but I wondered if the acting chairman could delay the celebration long enough to listen to one more point of view.”

Like the gallery at a tennis match, every head in the room swung, in unison, toward the door.

The Judge, a blanket over his lap, sat in a wheelchair just inside the room, pale but smiling grimly.

Whitey Bourque raced around and shook his hand.

“God, Judge, it’s good to see you up like this. You all right? I mean, can you—”

“I can move ’em, Whitey. Not very much yet, but more every minute.”

Somewhat painfully, he demonstrated by lifting his right foot several inches off its support.

Frank, too stunned by the sudden intrusion even to react, glanced down at his watch. It was eight minutes till noon. At that moment, he realized his father was watching him.

“Good to see you, Judge,” he managed hoarsely.

The Judge nodded at him and then exchanged a prolonged look with Leigh Baron.

“I’d like to address the board, if I might,” he said

“Of course, Judge,” Whitey Bourque replied. “Why don’t you just let me wheel you up front.”

“Judge,” Frank said, “the voting’s over.”

“Is it?”

“I’m afraid so, Judge,” Bourque said. “Ten to nine it was, in favor of Ultramed.”

“Well, perhaps I can change a mind or two,”

“That’s not legal, sir,” one of the Ultramed lawyers said. “The vote’s done.”

Clayton Iverson fixed him with a glare that would have melted block ice.

“Don’t you dare tell me what’s legal and what’s not, young man,” he rasped. “I was a lawyer and a judge while your mommy was still wiping your behind. Our contract with you people says that we have until noon today to repurchase this hospital by a majority vote of the board. That’s what it says. No more, no less. And unless something’s wrong with my timepiece, here, I make it seven of.”

Ashen, Frank watched as his father was wheeled up to the chairman’s table. He was desperately sorting through disruptions he could instigate that might carry the meeting past the deadline. But before he could light on a specific action, the Judge was speaking.

“I’ll make this short,” he began. “I had promised many of you that I would do the legwork necessary to ensure that it was to the benefit of our community to finalize our temporary arrangement with the Ultramed people. Because of my accident, and for other reasons which I have neither the time nor inclination to go into now, I decided to withhold my
conclusions about this business and let the chips fall where they may. Well, I have come back at this time to tell you that my reaction was unfair—to you, my friends and colleagues, and to the city of Sterling as well.

“I have learned enough to appear before you now and tell you categorically that while we may have benefited in the short run from Ultramed’s involvement with our hospital, it would be a grave mistake to turn Davis Regional over to them permanently. My housekeeper, Annie Doucette, almost died because of a policy—an Ultramed corporate policy—that rewards physicians for transferring patients out of the hospital as early as possible, and rewards them even more if that transfer is to an Ultramed-owned nursing home. Patients who helped build this hospital are being shunted off to Clarion County because they haven’t got enough insurance. There’s more—much more”—he glanced at Leigh Baron—“but because of the time, I’m going to ask you to trust me on that. Now, we have three minutes until noon. If it is agreeable with Whitey, here, I would like to call for another vote on this question.”

“Any objections?” Bourque asked.

“Yes,” Frank said, standing. “I object.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Frank,” Bourque countered, “but you’re not a board member, ’n’ we don’t have time for any outside objections.”

Frank hesitated, and then sank numbly to his seat.

“Okay, then,” Bourque said. “You all have a second ballot in your folders. I put one there knowin’ that at least some of you were bound to screw up the first one.”

A brief volley of laughter gave way to dense silence as the twenty board members marked their ballots, folded them, and passed them toward the front of the room.

Leigh Baron, her back to Frank, sat staring stonily at the gallery of presidents.

As the last of the ballots reached Whitey Bourque and was counted, the steeple bells of St. Amies began tolling the noon hour.

Sara Newton, the nurse anesthetist, was a mousy young woman with braces that had yet to correct a striking overbite. She had been asleep in maternity, awaiting a delivery, and
arrived at the doors to the operating suite only moments after Zack, breathless, bleary-eyed, and disheveled.

“Where’s the emergency?” she panted, tugging at a kink in her bra.

“In the unit,” Zack said.

His shoulder was throbbing from the dash through the hospital, and he had resorted to partially splinting it by jamming his thumb through a belt loop.

“The unit? Well, then, let’s get going. Say, are you okay? You look a little pale.”

‘I’m fine. A little stressed out is all.”

“That’s right. There was a notice sent around that you’ve been fired.”

“Ive been rehired. Sara, I need Jack Pearl. It’s a case he’s familiar with. I’d like you to take over his case in O.R. 1 so he can leave.”

The woman was astonished.

“Dr. Iverson, I can’t do that.”

“Listen, Sara,” Zack said sharply, “I don’t have time to argue. I know you’re very good at your job, and if I thought you could do what I need, I wouldn’t hesitate. But this is Pearl’s affair. His and mine. And at least two lives are on the line. Now please.”

“Wh-What can I do?” she asked, shaken.

“Get a fresh set of scrubs on and be outside O.R. 1 as quickly as you can. I’ll signal you when it’s okay to come in.”

“Jack will never agree to something like this.”

“You leave Jack to me. Now, please, hurry.”

Zack raced into the surgeon’s locker room and painfully undressed. He threw his clothes into his locker and pulled on a scrub suit, a paper hair cover, mask, and shoe covers, and he hurried past the sinks in the prep room and into O.R. 1. Greg Ormesby, the surgeon on the case, looked up and took several seconds to recognize who he was.

“Iverson?” he asked somewhat coolly. “That is you under there, isn’t it?”

At the mention of Zack’s name, all activity in the room came to an instant halt. Jack Pearl, who was hunched over his instruments, looked up and paled.

“Sorry to bust in like this, Greg,” Zack said with forced calm, “but I need to talk to Jack, here.”

“I’m busy,” Pearl muttered.

“Well, whatever it is will just have to wait,” Ormesby said. “We’ll be done in half an hour. Now, if you please, Iverson.”

Zack bent over Pearl and laid his right hand at the base of the man’s neck.

“Jack,” he whispered, “it’s Suzanne. She’s in the ICU right now, and she’s having a seizure just like Toby’s. She’s reliving her operation and she’s screaming out your name. Yours and Jason’s.”

Even wearing a mask and hair cover, the frail anesthesiologist looked ill. “That can’t be,” Pearl whispered back.

“I want you up there with me right now.”

“You’re crazy.

Zack slipped his fingers around the sides of Pearl’s neck and applied just a bit of pressure.

“She’s the second case, Jack. The one you were holding out for.”

“I’m not going anyplace. Now let go of me! You’re hurting me!”

Zack looked up just as Sara Newton appeared outside the door. He motioned her in with a snap of his head, and tightened his grip, digging his sinewy fingers into the nerves alongside Pearl’s neck.

“Iverson, what in the hell is going on here?” Ormesby demanded. “Are you crazy? Somebody call security. Iverson, for crying out loud, there’s a goddamn woman opened up on the table here. Can’t you see that?”

“I’m sorry to do things this way, Greg,” Zack said, raising the little anesthesiologist to his feet, “but there’s trouble in the ICU that only Jack can help with.”

“That’s crazy!” Pearl cried out.
“He’s
crazy! Ow! You’re hurting me, Iverson! Let go!”

Greg Ormesby and the surgical team watched in stunned silence as Zack pulled the little man away from his console and gestured Sara Newton into his place.

“Iverson, stop this right now!” Ormesby shouted. “You’re endangering my patient.”

“Nonsense. Sara, here, is an excellent anesthetist, and you know it. She’ll take good care of your patient. I’m sorry to have to do things this way, but I just don’t have time to explain right now. I will, though, Greg. I promise.”