Thirteen West (2 page)

She found the exit door she'd been told to use and paused with it open to stare at the rain sluicing down, turning the late afternoon into an early winter dusk. A great beginning at this place she hadn't wanted to come to. Unfortunately, she'd had no choice.

Faint shouts reached her as she hurried along the walkway. Dolph must have gotten outside. Hadn't they caught him yet?

* * *

As soon as the guards took up the chase, Frank Kent ducked back inside the side door entrance to the west wing to get out of the rain, followed by the older, heavier guy he'd been with.

"The guards'll catch him," Frank told the man. "There's a fence out there—he's headed into a cul-de-sac."

"Thank the Lord. My sister'd never forgive me if anything happened to Dolph. Adolph Benning, his name is. I'm Ron Morris, his brother-in-law."

"We were expecting Mr. Benning earlier today," Frank said. "He's a voluntary admission?"

"Yeah. Signed some papers for the judge. Thing is, he needs to get his cut hand tended to—it bled a lot. You a doctor?"

Frank shook his head. "Registered nurse. As soon as the guards get him back here I'll take a look at his hand. How did he cut it?"

Ron shifted his shoulders. "On some glass—a broken bottle."

"A bottle," Frank repeated and waited.

"I should've checked him out before we got in the car to drive up here," Ron said defensively. "The bugger had a pint of rotgut hid on him. When I caught him sucking on the bloody thing I tried to grab it and he smashed the bottle against the car window—lucky the damn window didn't break."

"Why did he run off?"

Ron shrugged. "He got squirrely, muttering about snakes and knives. Figure he's got the DTs again."

"They'll be bringing him into the Admission Ward," Frank said. "There's a lounge to wait in on the ward if you'll follow me."

They passed closed office doors on either side of the long corridor leading into the west wing. At the end, Frank used a key to unlock the door leading into a small foyer where the elevators were. He unlocked a second door and ushered Ron into a short hall that ended in yet a third locked door.

"You got real whackos in here?" Ron asked.

"We put all new patients in this ward for the first forty-eight hours. Some stay longer. We have to evaluate them to decide where they'll do best."

"Any of 'em dangerous?" Ron persisted, glancing uneasily at the closed doors around them, each door with a metal reinforced-glass spy window. "I mean, how come you got to keep them locked up if they ain't?"

Frank shrugged. "With treatment, none of our patients are dangerous."

Ron looked far from convinced and started nervously when a dark-skinned woman in a white uniform emerged from a room. "Hi, Frank," she said. "You must've got caught in the rain."

He nodded. "This is Ms Reynolds," he told Ron. "She's evening charge nurse on this ward." He took a step closer to her and muttered, "Cap."

She raised her eyebrows at him before smiling at Ron.

"Security's out looking for Mr. Morris's brother-in-law," Frank said. "He's Adolph Benning, the voluntary admission you were told about."

"He doesn't sound all that voluntary," she commented.

Turning to Ron, she asked, "Would you like to wait in the lounge?"

As she led Ron away, Frank said, "Ten East called me—I'll be back as soon as possible. Better break out a suture set—Mr. Benning has a lacerated hand."

Alma Reynolds showed Ron into the small lounge in back of the nursing station, picking up her nursing cap from a cubicle inside the room. She was fitting it onto her head when Ron said, "Big bastard, ain't he? You like working with him?"

"There's worse,"
Alma
told him, not caring for the way he was appraising her. "How'd Mr. Benning get hurt?"

She listened to his explanation and shook her head. "That's too bad. You just try to relax—we'll take care of everything."

Leaving him in the lounge, she unlocked and entered the treatment room to set up for the MOD, the doctor on call for the night. Greensmith, worse luck. He'd be mucho annoyed about having to come out in the rain. Or come out at all, as far as that went.

* * *

Dolph ran, feeling himself light on his feet, hardly touching the ground. Suddenly something clutched at his jacket. He struggled. Jerked free, leaving the jacket behind. Ran. But now it took effort and a cold wetness chilled him to the bone.

Rain and a never-ending fence. Dolph slowed, fumbling along the wire. A cage. He was caged like an animal, a dog in a pound. They had him at last. His knees buckled and he grasped at the metal fencing. Pain shot up his right arm from his throbbing hand. He was so cold—where was his green jacket?

"Vera?" he mumbled, her name echoing in his head. Vera. Era. Ra. No, no it was Ron, where was Ron? Dolph slumped against the chain-link fence and howled for Ron.

Voices. He crouched near the ground, terrified. They were coming for him.

"...heard him yelling over here. This way, Bill."

"Goddamn nut."

"There he is!"

Dolph curled into a protective ball, eyes scrunched shut, scarcely feeling Bill's shoe prodding him in the ribs. Can't hurt me now. Safe. No knives.

"Son of a bitch," Bill grumbled. "One of those, you might know. Sure as hell not gonna carry him all the way back to the Ad Ward. You stay here, I'll get a cart."

Lifted onto something that moved. No more rain. New voices. Lifted again. Metal clinked against metal. Dolph opened his eyes to a blue-white light glaring overhead. A brown face hovered and was gone. His chest was bare and he was lying on his back with his right arm outstretched. Where?

"You're all right, Mr. Benning," a woman's voice said.

A strange voice. "We have you safe in the hospital now and the doctor will take care of your hand. Everything is all right."

Doctor? Hospital? Dolph's heart speeded. His hand, they were going to cut off his hand with their knives.

"No!" he screamed, forcing himself up and off the surface he was on. The room spun sickeningly. "No, no. Nonono..."

"Frank! Quick, grab him. I'll get the Thorazine."

Alma Reynolds acted as she spoke, plucking a syringe and needle from the prep tray, swabbing the rubber plug of the bottled medicine with alcohol, withdrawing the Thorazine.

By the time Frank had wrestled the patient back onto the examining table,
Alma
was ready with the shot, jabbing it into Dolph's left arm.

"You should have slipped a Posey vest on him as soon as they brought him in," Frank told her.

She shot him a look. "You didn't tell me he was so flaky. From what the brother-in-law said I thought he was just an alcoholic in for the dries."

Frank held Dolph so
Alma
could force him into the restraining vest, then she tied him to the table. His legs were restrained individually by the ankles, his left arm by the wrist.

"You'd think with all that juice in him he'd be out of it," she said. "Two drinks and I'm flat." She slanted Frank another look.

He ignored her.

"Where's dear Dr. Greensmith, that's what I'd like to know," she said. "Surely he couldn't have bedded down for his beauty sleep this early."

* * *

Dolph struggled against the ties but his muscles were stiffening, he was in a sea of warm wax that would harden around him. If he didn't keep his head above it he'd be sealed underneath like in a jar of his grandma's preserves. Already he could feel the waxy grayness creeping upward past his thighs, his chest. He opened his mouth to cry for help but he was too late and the wax poured in, gagging him. He tried to retch and then darkness swept over everything.

* * *

Crawford Greensmith brushed his hair back, staring intently into the mirror. Was he letting it get too long? One thing to be mod and another to be labeled a grasper at the coattails of youth. Not that he had passed yet, not at all. But it didn't do to appear desperate.

No noticeable gray, he thought with satisfaction. Gray could be flattering and distinguished in a dark-haired man but with blondes it dulled the natural shine. He smoothed his just-right mustache and turned away from the mirror.

He really should do something about getting a place in town. There was something distinctly déclassé about inviting a friend to quarters on the state hospital grounds. Of course it was cheap to live here—unfortunately in more ways than one. He sighed and picked up his raincoat.

No use to dwell on what might have been if he'd managed to be just a tad smarter five years ago. Who'd have dreamed a friend could be so vindictive?

Crawford let himself out into the wet evening and hurried to his car. He certainly didn't plan to walk over to the Ad Ward in this downpour. Why on earth people couldn't get to the hospital at a reasonable hour for admission was more than he could understand. This wasn't even an emergency admit and, to top it off, the patient had managed to slice himself up on the way here.

My luck to be MOD tonight, he thought.

He hated suturing. For that matter he didn't like medicine itself particularly well. His mother had thought only of the prestige. She'd never been forced to handle bodies with all their disgusting illnesses. He had to last one more year at this cesspool of insanity before he'd be free to move anywhere he wanted. It certainly wouldn't be anywhere within the state hospital system.

There were pleasanter ways to practice medicine. The big companies, for one. Goodyear, he'd heard, had hospitals in
Europe
—one could travel. The insurance conglomerates offered big bucks and lots of perks. He might even decide to teach—although that could be a bore.

Crawford parked and let himself into the Ad Ward where he found the new patient unconscious on the table in the treatment room.

"We had to give him a few milligrams of Thorazine to calm him down, Dr. Greensmith," Frank told him.

Crawford felt the radial pulse in the right wrist. "A tad fast. What's his blood pressure?"

"110 over 60 at the last reading,"
Alma
said.

"Hmm. Well, he certainly won't need a local—we'll just stitch him up and get him to bed." Crawford opened the packet of sterile gloves.

"I irrigated the wounds,"
Alma
said. "There didn't seem to be any embedded glass splinters."

"Good, good." Crawford fitted the needle into a holder and poked it through the flesh of the patient's palm. The man gave no sign of feeling anything.

"How's the girl on Ten East you called me about earlier?" Crawford asked Frank, continuing to sew up the injured hand. "Still running a fever?"

"Down to 101 on aspirin," Frank replied.

"If she doesn't develop any other symptoms, I think it can wait until morning."

Frank nodded.

Crawford finished and peeled off his gloves. "You can apply the dressing," he told
Alma
. "Take the sutures out in seven days if it looks healed. Did you give him tetanus toxoid?"

"Not yet, Doctor. He wasn't able to tell us if he'd ever been immunized against tetanus."

"Go ahead with the toxoid—we'll assume he has been. Looks like a clean wound, he shouldn't need antibiotics."

"Can I have an order for restraints?"
Alma
asked. "And for more Thorazine if he needs it?"

"Where's his chart?"

"I only have a partial ready but here's the doctor's order sheet."

"The man who brought him in, Mr. Ron Morris, is waiting in the lounge," Frank said. "He can give you a history. Mr. Benning is a voluntary admit. He signed preliminary papers on the outside—we have copies."