Wonders Never Cease (18 page)

“So are you,” Smithson said. “I'm curious about something, McAvoy. You've managed to let everyone around here know you've got your MD, but I've never actually heard you refer to yourself as
Dr
. McAvoy. Why so modest?”

“It could lead to misunderstandings,” Kemp said. “A patient might be tempted to give my opinion more weight than he should. We wouldn't want that to happen, now would we?”

“No, we wouldn't—but there's no reason we can't talk doctor to doctor, is there? So tell me, Doctor: What's your evaluation of Ms. Hayden's condition?”

Kemp shrugged. “You've only kept her comatose as a precautionary measure. Her vitals have been stable—no indications of intracranial hypertension.”

“Then you think I should bring her out of it.”

“What's the hurry? The only risks in keeping her under are the usual ones for anesthesia: impaired gastrointestinal motility, suppressed immune response, a minor risk of infection or pneumonia. The risks are minimal; I'd give her another few days.”

Smithson smiled. “I'm bringing her out of it the day after tomorrow.”

“Then why did you ask my opinion?”

“I wanted to see what you'd say. I'm going to start backing off on the propofol late tomorrow.” He paused. “Then I plan to give her a dose of Versed.”

Kemp did a double take in spite of himself. “Versed? Why?”

“It helps with anxiety. I think it might help with her emotional readjustment, considering the trauma she's been through. Is there some reason I shouldn't?”

“There's just no reason for it. You might use Versed to help jump-start a coma, but not when you're bringing her out of it. The only effect it would have is to—”

Kemp stopped.

“What, Dr. McAvoy? What effect would it have?”

“It's unnecessary medication, that's all. It carries the same risks as all other anesthesia.”

“Which you said were minimal.”

“Yes, but—”

“I think what you were about to point out is that Versed has an amnesic effect—it erases memory.”

“It's just unnecessary, that's all—in fact it's useless. Versed's amnesic effect is limited; there's no telling what she'll remember and what she won't.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Look, you asked my opinion and I'm telling you. All anesthesia involves risk, and prescribing a powerful sedative that may or may not have the intended effect is unprofessional. In fact, it's unethical.”

“Thank you for your opinion, Doctor. Now perhaps I could get your opinion on something else.” He opened Liv Hayden's chart and took out a folded computer printout. “These are Ms. Hayden's electroencephalograms from the last few days—I was reviewing them just before you came in. There was really no reason to bother, since there haven't been any complications or concerns, but like I said—I like to be thorough.” He unfolded the printout and spread it out on the bed. “Notice these sections—here and here. Ms. Hayden's EEGs indicate that she's been in a deep coma since her arrival a week ago—except for these two brief periods of time. According to the time code, each incident occurred in the middle of the night—one last night and one the night before. Each incident occurred while you were on duty.”

Kemp looked at the printouts. “Are you saying she regained consciousness?”

“It would have been more like a semiconscious state. Tell me, did you notice anything different about Ms. Hayden during those periods of time?”

“Like what?”

“Any change in her vitals? An increase in blood pressure or pulse rate?”

“Her vitals are all charted. You can check for yourself.”

“I already did. Were there any changes in her verbal or motor response? Any spontaneous eye movement?”

“I would have noticed that.”

“Yes, I'm sure you would. Just one more question, Dr. McAvoy . . . why exactly did you leave Johns Hopkins?”

Kemp just stared at him.

“You're right, Dr. McAvoy, there's no reason at all to give Ms. Hayden Versed. All it would do is block some of her memory—as any anesthesiologist would know. That's why I suggested it, and when I did you just about had an aneurysm. Why is that? You don't want her to forget anything from her time here, do you? What is it you want her to remember so desperately? Your phone number? Your address? Your declarations of love?”

“Don't be absurd. That would be unethical and illegal.”

“Yes, it would—and I'm wondering if you're the sort of guy who would go that far.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“I don't know,” Smithson said, “but I'm sure going to find out. I plan to put in a call to Johns Hopkins on Monday—they should get back to me in a day or two. I'm going to see if they can tell me what sort of person you really are. Have a nice night, McAvoy. If you've got any last messages for your girlfriend here, you'd better deliver them fast. She's coming out of it on Sunday.”

22

K
emp allowed the door to the suite to slam shut behind him and immediately headed for the coffee. It was only their fourth day in the Century Plaza suite but the room was a complete disaster now; it looked like the Gulf Coast the day after Hurricane Katrina. The addition of a partner the size of Tino didn't exactly help things.

The three men stopped writing and looked up.

“Hey,” Wes called out. “How'd it go last night?”

“Slick as a proctologist's glove,” Kemp said. “What did you expect?”

“Did you make it through all the material?” Tino asked.

“Every line.”

“No problems then?”

“No problems.” Kemp paused. “But I'm afraid I've got some bad news.”

Biederman got up from the sofa. “What bad news? What's going on? What happened?”

Kemp stared into his coffee cup; it looked like a layer of dirt had settled in the bottom. “I talked with Hayden's neurologist last night. He plans to bring her out of her coma on Sunday.”

“Sunday? That's tomorrow!”

“What does that mean for us?” Tino asked.

“It means we've only got one more shot at Hayden and that's it. Tonight's our last chance; later today they plan to start backing off on her propofol. I might be able to squeeze in a few extra minutes with her tonight, but that's all. If there's anything else we want our angel to say to her, he'd better say it tonight.”

“Only one more shot?” Wes said. “We need more time.”

“What have you guys been doing here? I gave you one little job.”

“Hey—you try writing a book in less than a week.”

“Guys, it's like a children's book. How hard can it be?”

“We need to think of anything else we want in the book,” Wes said. “C'mon, everybody, we need to pool our thoughts here.”

“That should be shallow water,” Kemp mumbled.

Tino put a hand on Kemp's shoulder. “The man said everybody—that means you too, Bobby.”

Kemp begrudgingly dragged up an armchair and joined the others around the easel.

Wes rubbed his hands together as if he were warming himself in front of a fire. “All right, who's got something? Anything at all—just toss it out.”

Biederman raised his hand.

“We're not in kindergarten, Biederman. Just talk.”

“People are always living in the past,” he said. “You know, regrets and misgivings and all. ‘I could have done this better; I should have done that instead.' I say, forget about it.”

“Forget about it?”

“It's a waste of time and energy. What good does it do?”

“What if the regret involves someone else? You know—‘I shouldn't have done that to my wife' or something.”

“
Forget about it
—I guarantee you she's trying to. What good does it do to keep bringing it up all the time? It's like picking at a scab. Every time I try to apologize to my wife it only makes things worse—so forget about it.”

“You know, that's not bad,” Tino said. “What does it really mean to forgive someone? It basically means you forget what they did to you.”

“Exactly,” Biederman said. “So the angel says, ‘Speed things up—forget about it now.'”

Wes jotted it on the easel with a felt-tip marker. “Okay—what else?”

“I've got something,” Kemp said.

“Good—go for it.”

“
You're not as good as you can be, but you've never done
anything bad
.”

“How's that again?”

“Take ‘dishonesty,' for example—what does that word really mean? It means you failed to be honest, that's all. Evil doesn't really exist—it's just a lack of something good. Dishonesty is a lack of honesty; impatience is a lack of patience. So what are you really doing when you're being dishonest? Nothing—you just could have been more honest, that's all. Since evil doesn't exist, you've never really done anything bad—you just could have been more good.”

“I like that,” Biederman said. “It's positive. It's upbeat.”

“I told you, this is child's play.”

“We're not done yet, smart guy. What else have you got?”

“How about this:
Look at the next guy in line
.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nobody's happy the way they are; everybody wants to be like somebody else, but they end up picking unattainable role models. A two-hundred-pound woman thinks, ‘I want to look like Liv Hayden!' Fat chance of that. What's she looking at Liv Hayden for? A two-hundred-pound woman should be looking at a hundred-and-ninety-pound woman and thinking, ‘I want to be like
her
.' See the idea? Imagine everybody in the world in one long line, and everybody's standing next to somebody who's just a little bit better off than they are. That way all they have to do is
look at the next guy in line
.”

Wes took notes as fast as he could. “This is good stuff. Keep going.”

“How about this,” Biederman volunteered. “
It should have
been you
.”

“Go on.”

“We said the universe wants to give you every good thing, right? Only sometimes the other guy gets the good thing and you end up with squat. So what went wrong? The universe missed, that's all—it should have been you. It's like you take your kid to a ball game 'cause you want him to catch a foul ball, so you buy seats on the third baseline—only the batter is a leftie and he keeps pulling it down the first baseline. Hey, it's not your fault—you were in the right spot. The universe just missed, that's all.”

Kemp rolled his eyes while Wes scribbled away.

“Here's another one,” Biederman continued. “
Always bring
your glove to the game
. The ball won't land in your lap; you've got to grab it away from some other guy's kid, and you're not gonna do that with your bare hands.
Always bring your glove
to the game
, and the bigger the better—a first baseman's mitt if you've got one.”

“I have season tickets with the Orioles,” Tino said. “One time a foul ball hit me right between the eyes. What went wrong? Why did the ball hit me instead of the guy sitting beside me? I forgot to duck, that's all, and he remembered. There's a principle for you:
Don't forget to duck
. What happens when things go wrong in your life? The universe wasn't trying to hit you; it was probably trying to hit the guy beside you—you just forgot to duck.”

“Can we get off of baseball?” Kemp groaned.

“What's wrong with baseball? Baseball is a metaphor for life.”

“Oh, please.”

The four men kept brainstorming until lunchtime and then decided to take a ‘working lunch'—which meant that they worked at eating while pretending to think. The break didn't really hurt their momentum; none of them were used to doing serious thinking on a Saturday morning anyway and by lunchtime the ideas had slowed to a trickle. Loading their bellies with deli meat and potato chips didn't help matters, and the coffee was no longer strong enough to counteract the transfer of blood from their brains to their stomachs. Tino stared out the window, mesmerized by the cars passing by on Santa Monica Boulevard. Biederman had downed a Reuben with extra sauerkraut and within fifteen minutes he was stretched out on the sofa sound asleep—until Wes shook him awake and reminded him of the time. The abrupt rousing did nothing to improve Biederman's disposition, but that didn't really matter either; tempers were already short and patience had long ago worn thin.

The four men sat staring at the easel, saying nothing.

“What else?” Wes asked.

Kemp glared at him. “Is that your contribution to this process—sitting there asking ‘What else?' while the rest of us do all the thinking?”

“At least I'm saying something. What's the last idea you came up with?”

“Let me think. Wait, I remember now—this whole thing was my idea.”

Biederman interrupted. “You know, there's an old saying: ‘In hell, it's always two o'clock.'”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Tino asked.

“It means we're tired and we won't get anywhere ripping out each other's throats, as enjoyable as that might sound right now. Has anybody got anything else? Any ideas at all? Bits, pieces—we'll take anything you got.”

Nothing.

“I think the last suggestion was, ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.'”

“That's not what I meant,” Wes muttered. “It just came out that way.”

“Can anybody do better than the Cub Scout motto? Because if we can't, we're obviously done here.”

Nobody had anything.

“Then it's up to the angel,” Biederman said, looking at Kemp. “Let's get some notes together so Kemp can get going.”