The Court (25 page)

“I'm not sure what we are to do,” she began.

Dr. Kaufman looked increasingly uncomfortable. “It's customary for the family to wait in the critical care lounge. They have coffee there. We try to make people as comfortable as we can,” he coughed nervously, “under the circumstances.”

“I want to be with Brian when the machines are stopped,” Mrs. Howell said quietly. “I want to be with my husband at that time.”

“Mother!” Her daughter's exclamation showed her disapproval.

“I really don't think that's wise, Ma,” her son added, his own voice taut with emotion.

“Wise or not, I will be there,” she said evenly, “or the machines don't get turned off.”

Dr. Kaufman coughed to clear his throat. “I think your children are right, Mrs. Howell, Sometimes it can be quite unsettling.”

“Mother, please.” Her daughter grabbed Mrs. Howell's arm. The older woman pulled away, her mouth tight, her eyes determined.

“I insist,” she said firmly.

“Then we'll all go,” her son volunteered.

She looked up at him, almost angrily. “No. He is my husband. We have faced everything else together. We will face this together.”

The son looked over at Dr. Kaufman and slowly shook his head.

“All right.” Dr. Kaufman looked at Mrs. Howell and spoke quietly, almost inaudibly. “Come with me.”

He lead them to the critical care lounge. It was a bright cheery room with modern, comfortable furniture and racks of magazines. A bored middle-aged woman dressed in a blue and red volunteer uniform sat behind a desk idly reading a paperback. She looked up at them. “You can visit for five minutes on the hour, and then only if the staff permits. You must sign the register.”

She seemed oblivious of Dr. Kaufman.

“That won't be necessary,” he said.

“They have to register, doctor. That's hospital rules.” Her tone showed she would stand her ground.

Kaufman's somber expression quickly turned to anger. “Get the hell out of here,” he snapped.

“What?”

“Get out of here”—he looked at her name tag—“Mrs. Webster. Report to Mrs. Grant, the volunteer program chairman. I will be down shortly to talk to her.”

The woman stood up. “Now look here, doctor.…”

“Get the hell out of here or I'll throw you out. Is that clear?!” Kaufman snarled the words. His anxiety was being translated into exploding anger.

The woman's defiance was quickly replaced by fear. She grabbed her purse and book and rushed for the exit.

“I'm dreadfully sorry about that,” Dr. Kaufman said, his voice still trembling. “These volunteers can be wonderful, but sometimes we do get some oddballs.” He composed himself and sighed. “Are you sure you won't reconsider, Mrs. Howell?”

“I want to be there.” It was a simple statement, but there was determination behind the softly spoken words.

“Would you like me to come along?” the clergyman asked.

“No, thank you, Mr. Whitefield.”

Mr. Whitefield looked relieved.

“All right then,” Dr. Kaufman said. “Please make yourselves comfortable. Come with me, Mrs. Howell.”

She nodded meekly. She-accompanied the doctor who seemed to be walking much more slowly than his accustomed brisk pace.

They stepped out into the bustle of the hospital corridor with the sound of its tinny page calling yet another doctor.

“As I told you,” Kaufman's voice became slightly stern, “your husband has been clinically dead for quite some time. In other words, he is not dying today, that happened quite some time ago. You understand that?”

“I understand what you told me,” she answered.

“When the machines are turned off sometimes the body reacts. There can be movement, sometimes even thrashing about. The tissues, the muscles are demanding oxygen. Sometimes, Mrs. Howell, it can be quite gruesome. I wish you wouldn't expose yourself to this.”

“I want to be there,” she repeated, her words spoken as if she were mindlessly reciting a memorized litany.

They walked into Justice Brian Howell's room. Two other doctors and a tall, young nurse waited next to the bed.

“This is the hospital's cardiac care team, Mrs. Howell. They are here to assist me.”

“Assist you?”

Kaufman nervously bit his lip. “Actually they are witnesses, Mrs. Howell. Your husband is no ordinary patient. It was felt by the hospital administration that there should be witnesses.”

She looked at the quiet figure in the bed. The respirator made a slight whooshing sound. “Like at an execution?” Her eyes were on the face of the man in the bed as she spoke.

Dr. Kaufman sighed. “No, Mrs. Howell. Not at all. These are qualified medical people and they are here to observe.”

She said nothing but walked to the side of the bed. Tubes ran into the naked arm of her husband. She carefully reached past the intravenous lines and took her husband's hand, locking her fingers into his. She felt the warmth of his flesh, she watched the sheet as the chest showed shallow but regular breathing. She studied the sleeping face for quite some time. There was no conversation. The doctors looked away. The tall nurse's jaw muscles worked silently beneath her smooth skin.

“I love you, Brian,” she said gently.

The only reply was the sound of the respirator.

“All right,” she said, never taking her eyes from the sleeping face, “I'm ready.”

Kaufman stepped past the other doctors. He quickly snapped off several switches. The blue accordionlike respirator came to a stop within its plastic container. The sound of the respirator and the pinging noise of the electrical support systems ceased. The sudden silence in the room seemed accentuated.

Mrs. Howell cried out as her husband's hand tightened on hers. The doctors rushed forward as a great shudder rippled through the body. His eyes opened as the head jerked loose from the respirator intake.

“He's alive! Turn the machines back on,” she shrieked. “He's alive!”

The contortion ebbed, then ended.

Mrs. Howell, her hand gripping her husband's, turned to the doctors, her eyes like a maddened animal's. “Turn those machines on! Oh, you bastards, turn them on now!”

She dropped the hand and rushed for the switches. The tall nurse stepped forward and put her arms around her. Mrs. Howell struck at the girl but did no damage.

“He's dead,” the nurse said in a kindly whisper. “Please, he's gone. You can see for yourself.”

She gently turned Mrs. Howell around. There was no mistaking what had happened. Brian Howell lay with dead eyes, his limbs lifeless.

“He's gone,” the nurse said. “I'm sorry.”

One of the doctors moved to the body and closed the staring eyes. He only partially succeeded, one eye was still half open.

Mrs. Howell returned to the bed. She picked up the dead hand and softly kissed it.

Dr. Kaufman waited a moment then he took her by the arm. “We must inform your family,” he said.

She did not resist as he guided her from the room. She did not cry, there was no expression on her face, just a blank lost look.

“Damn,” the nurse said angrily, her voice shaking. “Why the hell do they let the family see these things?”

The younger doctor answered. “They don't usually, as you know. But maybe the lady was right. It was a bit like an execution. He was an important man, a justice of the United States Supreme Court. We turned off the switches and that was the end of him. Not too much different, I suppose, than hitting the switch that puts the juice in the electric chair. Anyway, we were here to record the legality of it all.”

“Will there be an autopsy?” the nurse asked.

“Hell, yes. That's to protect Kaufman's ass. The pathologist is waiting down in the basement for His Honor here. He'll find the stroke damage and make a report. It has to be done quickly though. I understand they're preparing a big funeral, lying in state at the Supreme Court Building, gun carriage parade, the works.”

“These things always give me the creeps,” the nurse said. “It really is like watching an execution.”

“Well, this had to be done. I understand the deceased here was holding up a lot of judicial progress.”

“Not anymore he isn't,” the other doctor said.

The paging system penetrated their consciousness as a code blue was called: a patient was in cardiac arrest. The team rushed out of the room. No longer witnesses, they were back in their element where death was the foe to be fought.

Impersonally and without a trace of emotion the paging system kept repeating the code blue call.

*   *   *

Jerry Green eased himself into the barber's chair. It was a unisex shop but the feminine decorations and soft pastel colors made it look more like a beauty parlor. Only the barber looked out of place. He was a small thick-set man whose hairy, muscular arms were revealed by the short sleeves of his white tunic. His skin was swarthy, his thinning hair jet black. There was no expression in his hooded dark eyes. He looked half asleep.

“Did Mr. Whittle tell you about me?” Green asked.

The barber nodded. “You want a styling or just a trim?”

“A trim, very light. What did Whittle tell you?”

The barber placed a yellow bib around his shoulders and chest. The bib had a plastic odor.

“He said you wanted to know about Dean Pentecost.”

“That's right.”

The barber used his hands to cock Green's head to the desired angle, then went to work with the scissors producing a steady machinelike clicking sound. “I don't know what I can tell you. I just cut his hair, that's all. It's not like we were close friends or anything like that.”

“He's not in trouble,” Green said. “He's being considered for an important job in Washington. We're just doing a background check. It's more or less routine.”

“Are you with the FBI?”

“No, but I am with the federal government.”

The barber just grunted. He turned Green's head to a new angle.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. Everything. What kind of a man is he? What do you hear about him?”

The scissors clicked away. “To me he's a nice guy. He comes in about once a month. He tells me it's important to look well-groomed in his job. I suppose he's right. He has to make public appearances, give speeches, and that sort of thing. He comes in regular. His secretary makes the appointment. He likes to come in the morning when it's not busy. That's about it.”

“What does he talk about?”

The barber stood back and thought the question over. “I don't know. He comes in, maybe we make a little small talk about the weather. Like I say, he's always pleasant to me. Maybe we talk about how the college teams are doing, you know, football, basketball, the usual college sports.”

“How about women? Does he ever talk about them?”

The barber shook his head as he returned to working on Green's hair. “Naw. You know, some guys will come in here and give me a line about the babe they made it with the night before. Half the stories are pure bull, but I guess it makes them feel like big men to brag.

“How about politics? Does he ever talk about that?”

“It's the same as sports. If there's been something big happening we might talk about it. Nothing serious, just small talk. That's mostly all you get in this business, small talk. It's as much a part of the job as the clippers.” He laughed. “I like the kind of customer who climbs in the chair and brings a magazine to read. Then my job is easy, I don't have to try to entertain them.”

He used a comb to prepare the hair for the scissors. “But most of my customers like the personal contact. That's how the dean is. He just sits there and we chat about little things. He's a heavy tipper and a barber always appreciates that. Nice man, at least to me.”

“You've said that several times; that he's a nice man to you. Have you ever seen him be otherwise to anyone else?”

“Just once.” The barber's hand smoothed Green's hair.

“What happened?”

“Hey, I don't know if I should even be telling you this. Look, I've been cutting this guy's hair for a couple of years and it's the only time anything happened. He probably just had a bad day.”

“Probably, but I like to hear about it anyway.”

The barber shrugged. “It was six or eight months ago. We had more business than usual that morning. There were a couple of women getting their hair done and one of the local businessmen was getting a haircut. The dean was sitting in my chair, same as always, when this young guy walks in.

“Well, from what the dean was yelling I got the drift. It seems that the young guy was a teacher at the law school. Apparently the dean don't let those guys out of the school in the mornings. This young teacher said he had no class to teach and had just ducked over to get a quick haircut. But that didn't cut no ice with the dean. He sort of scared me, the way he was yelling and screaming. He embarrassed the crap out of the young guy.”

The barber laughed. “And he frightened the crap out of the other customers. I thought they were all going to run out the door. It looked like a fight was going to start. I suppose they thought the dean was some kind of mad-man.

“The dean really chews this guy up and down and then ends up by firing him. But when it's over, the dean comes back and sits back in the chair here just like nothin' ever happened. He starts talking, takes up right where he left off. I forget now what we were talking about. He was breathing kind of hard, but outside of that, he was cool as ice.”

“And that's the only time anything like that happened?”

“Yeah. Otherwise he's been just as pleasant as can be.”

“Do you hear anything about him, good or bad?” Green asked.

The barber shrugged. “Mostly good. He built up the law school here, but you probably know that already. The university people who come in here seem kind of proud of that. I never hear them say anything personal about him though. But I'll tell you one thing.”