The Sisterhood

by Michael Palmer

  The woman, a trim brunette in only her second month of screening duty, listened to him incredulously and then rushed over to David. He was moaning softly, his head rolling from side to side as he struggled to steady it. “My God, he’s cold as ice,” she said, holding a hand beneath his chin. “Keep his head still while I get an orderly. What happened to him?” She rushed away before Joey could answer. A matronly intake clerk, clipboard in hand, arrived seconds later and began firing questions at him.

  “Name?”

  “Joseph Rosetti.”

  She looked at David. “That’s not Joseph Rosetti, that’s Dr. Shelton.”

  “Oh, I thought you meant my name. If you already know his, why did you ask?”

  The clerk flashed him an ugly look and tore off the top sheet on her clipboard. “Name?” she said in the identical voice as before.

  Joey fished out David’s soggy wallet and found some of the information the woman requested. He came near to losing control several times, but held his temper for fear that she would rip off another sheet and start over again. In answer to “Name and address of next of kin,” he was about to say he had no idea, but thought about the chaos his answer might cause and gave his own.

  “Religion of preference?” the woman asked blandly.

  Joey looked down at David, whose skin now had a pea-green cast. “Look,” he snapped, “this man is hurt. Can’t the questions wait until a doctor sees him?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she bristled, “I don’t make hospital policies, I only carry them out. Religion of preference?”

  Joey fought the impulse to grab the woman by the throat. The dark-haired nurse returned at that moment with an orderly, sparing him a final decision. “I’ve emptied out Trauma Twelve,” she said. “Take Dr. Shelton there. Sir, if you’ll finish signing him in, you can wait in one of those seats. I’ll let you know as soon as someone has evaluated him.” She looked at Joey’s face and realized for the first time how very handsome he was. Her smile broadened. “Any questions?”

  “No,” Joey said. “But could you tell this—ah—nice lady here that I do not possess the knowledge of Dr. Shelton’s religion of preference?” He winked at the young nurse, whose cheeks reddened instantly, then took the intake worker by the arm and led her back to the reception desk.

  In the feverish emergency ward only one pair of eyes followed attentively as the orderly wheeled David away. They belonged to Janet Poulos. Only her ears heard and understood the single word he moaned: “Christine.”

  With multiple accidents and two gunshot wounds tying up personnel, Janet had agreed to work overtime until the crush of patients lessened. Now, she realized, that decision might be paying off in unexpected ways. Her mind raced as she tried to sort out the significance of what she had just witnessed and heard.

  Leonard Vincent had been hired by The Garden to watch Christine Beall and to intervene only if it looked to Dahlia as if the woman had decided to confess and expose The Sisterhood. That much Janet knew. Dahlia had made the decision to protect The Garden at all costs; and every flower was also a member of The Sisterhood, whether they were active in that movement or not.

  Beall and Shelton must have connected, Janet reasoned. She must have gone to him. Must have spoken with him about The Sisterhood. Why else would he be here in this condition calling out her name? Dahlia had turned Leonard Vincent loose, but Shelton had somehow escaped. It was the only explanation that made any sense. If it were true, then it was Hyacinth’s good fortune to be in just the right place at just the right time. Janet began to tremble with the excitement of it all. The opportunity had been laid in her lap. If she handled things well, made the proper decisions, Dahlia might see fit to involve her in the innermost workings of The Garden. The rewards would be enormous.

  Janet glanced about. The police, always present in the emergency ward, were occupied with the gunshot and accident victims. She sensed she could move through the chaos unnoticed, but only if she moved quickly. Was there time to call Dahlia? She checked the hallway to Trauma Room 12. The area outside the room was deserted. There might not be another chance.

  Adrenalin. Potassium. Insulin. Digitalis. Pancuronium. Janet ticked off the possibilities as she hurried to the nurses’ station. She wondered about Christine Beall. Had Vincent already accounted for her? No matter, she decided. The only problem she could do anything about at the moment was waiting for her in Trauma 12.

  “Dr. Shelton, my name is Clifford. Can you lift up your bum so I can pull these pants off you?” The pudgy orderly was past thirty, but looked like he had yet to shave for the first time.

  David grunted his reply but, with consummate effort, was actually able to do what the man/boy requested. Gradually, ripples of warmth washed over the deep chill inside him. As his awareness grew, so did the throbbing pain in his ankle and arm, along with lesser aches above his right ear and on the soles of his feet.

  “You look like you’ve had quite a time of it,” Clifford said cheerfully, spreading David’s sodden pants over the back of a chair.

  “The river … I … was in the river.” David’s voice was distant and flat. “Ben is dead …”

  “Can you hold this under your tongue?” the orderly asked, shoving a thermometer into David’s mouth. “Who’s Ben?” David mumbled and struggled to reach the thermometer. “No, no, don’t touch that,” Clifford scolded. “Doctor will be in shortly to check you over. You just keep that under your tongue until I get back.”

  Never take an oral temp on someone who’s freezing to death, idiot! The unspoken disapproval flashed in David’s eyes as the corpulent orderly left the room. Then his lips tightened in a half-smile. He was coming around. Bit by bit his random thoughts were connecting. Suddenly Ben’s face appeared in his mind, blood pouring from his mouth. Renewed terror took hold. Desperately, he pulled himself up, first on one elbow, then to an outstretched hand. “Christine,” he gasped, spitting the thermometer out. “I’ve got to get to her. As his head came upright, the walls began to turn, slowly at first, but with rapidly building speed.

  David fought the spinning and the nausea, and forced himself to a sitting position. Sweat poured from his forehead and dripped down his sides. The floor blurred beneath him. As he leaned forward, the room began to dim, and he knew that he was falling. For an incredible moment he was weightless, floating in a sea of brilliant light. Then there was nothing.

  Janet Poulos caught David by the shoulders as he toppled forward and eased him back onto the litter. His respirations were rapid and shallow, the pulse at his wrist thready. Briefly she thought about sitting him up again. The precipitous blood-pressure drop from such a maneuver might well remove the need for the syringe full of Adrenalin in her pocket. Too chancy, she decided, pulling his feet up on the litter. She made a final check of the corridor. There was a crisis of some sort several rooms away and the crash cart was being rushed in. Perfect, she thought, stepping back into the room and closing the door behind her. Everyone just stay where you are for a little while.

  “Dr. Shelton, can you hear me?” she asked. “I’m going to put a tourniquet on your arm to draw some blood. It will only take a minute.”

  David moaned and pulled his arm away as she looped the rubber tubing around it. “Now, now, David,” she said sweetly. “Just hold still. This isn’t going to hurt a bit.” She slapped the skin over the crook of his elbow and looked for a vein. The area was blanched and cold, every skin vessel constricted to the maximum. Janet groaned and slapped more frantically, cursing herself for forgetting about the body’s response to hypothermia and shock.

  David’s head lolled back and forth as his consciousness began to return. Panicked, Janet jammed the needle into his arm, hoping for a chance hit in a vein. At that instant Clifford burst into the room. The syringe popped free and slipped from her hand as Janet whirled to the sound. A drop of blood appeared at the puncture site.

  “Well, Doctor, I’m back. Sorry to have …” Clifford stopped short, confronted by Janet’s
withering glare.

  “Damn you,” she hissed, ripping off the tourniquet and quickly retrieving the syringe. Shielding Clifford from view, she squirted the Adrenalin beneath the litter, then turned back to him. “Don’t you know to knock when doors are closed? I was in the middle of drawing blood on this man and you just screwed it up.”

  “I … I’m sorry.” The orderly shifted nervously from one foot to the other and stared at the floor.

  “You’ll be hearing from me about this,” she spat. Her mind was swirling with thoughts of what to do next. Then she froze. Harry Weiss, the surgical resident, was standing in the doorway.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked calmly.

  Janet nodded. “I … I didn’t know when someone was going to get in to see Dr. Shelton, here, so I thought I’d draw some bloods on him just to get things started.”

  “Thank you. That was good thinking.” Weiss smiled. “If you haven’t drawn them yet, why don’t you wait until I’ve finished taking a look at him.”

  “Very well, Doctor.” Janet managed another icy glance at Clifford, then walked from the room before racing to the telephone.

  “Dr. Shelton, it’s me, Harry Weiss.” The hawk-nosed resident David had guided through the difficult hand case looked at him anxiously. David’s eyes were open, but he was having obvious difficulty focusing. Weiss leaned closer. “Can you see me all right?”

  David squinted, then nodded. Moments later he was struggling to sit up. “Christine. Let me call Christine, he heard himself say. The dizziness began anew, but he battled it, flailing with both hands.

  Harry Weiss grabbed his wrists and pushed him back. “Please, Dr. Shelton, I don’t want to have to tie you down,” he begged. He looked about for Clifford as David’s thrashing increased, but the man had left. “Nurse,” he called out, “would someone please get an orderly and a set of four-point restraints in here on the double.”

  In less than a minute David was lashed to the litter by leather arm and ankle cuffs. His efforts weakened, giving way to sobs. “Please … just let me find her … just let me call.” His words were unintelligible.

  Weiss looked down at him and shook his head sadly. “I think we’re all right now,” he said to the small group who had rushed in to help. “Leave us alone so I can examine him. Call the lab and tell them I want a complete screen and CBC. Have them do a scan for drugs of abuse as well. When I’m finished, start an I.V.—normal saline at three hundred cc’s an hour—at least until we know what’s going on. One of you find out who’s on for psych tonight and let me know. If it’s a good one, we might call him down. If it’s one of those turkeys who’s sicker than the patients, we probably won’t.” The group smiled at his remark, but only the orderly laughed out loud. Harry Weiss shot him a momentary glare, picked up a piece of the shattered thermometer, then said, “And Clifford, when are you going to learn that we never take oral temperatures on someone with hypothermia. It’s too inaccurate. Rectal temps only. I don’t want to hear of your doing that again.” He nodded that his orders were complete and the room quickly emptied.

  “Atta boy, Harry,” David wanted to say, but he was unable to get words out. The terror, shock, and hypothermia were taking their toll. Even had the orderly used a rectal thermometer, David’s temperature would not have registered. Still, his eyes were open. He watched as the tall resident began examining him. Tell the man, David thought. Sit up and tell him that you don’t need a fucking shrink. Tell him that Ben is dead. Tell him that you must find Christine. That she might already be dead. Tell him you’re not crazy. But … but maybe you are crazy. Maybe this is how it is. How it feels. There he is, poking and grabbing all over you, and you can’t even talk to him. Maybe this is what crazy is. I mean people don’t suddenly have a neon sign appear on their chests saying, “THIS PERSON HAS LOST HIS MIND: THIS PERSON IS MAD.” Where the hell is Joey? Joey was here a while ago. Where the hell is he now?

  Pain shot up his leg from where Weiss was examining his ankle. David groaned and fought to sit up. The leather restraints held fast. “Sorry,” Weiss said gently. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Dr. Shelton, can you understand me? Can you tell me what happened?”

  Yes, yes, David thought. I can tell you. Just give me a minute. Don’t rush me. I can tell you everything.

  Harry Weiss saw him nod and waited for more of a response. Finally he said, “Well, you’re beginning to feel warmer. I’ve ordered some tests. We’re going to get X-rays of your ankle, your arm, and, just in case, a set of skull films. I think everything’s okay, but I can’t say for sure about your ankle. Understand?”

  “Joey,” David said. “Where is my friend Joey?” For a moment he was unsure of whether he had actually said the words or only thought that he had said them.

  The resident’s face brightened. “Joey? Is he the one who brought you here?” David nodded. “Great, well, it sounds like you may be coming around. I’ll go talk to your friend. Then I’ll send him in to stay with you until X-ray is ready. We’re very busy tonight, so there’ll probably be a bit of a wait. I’m going to turn off the overhead light. Try to get some rest and don’t shake this blanket off.”

  “Thank you,” David whispered. “Thank you.” Weiss looked down at him briefly, shook his head, and left the room, flipping the light off on his way.

  David tested the restraints one at a time. No chance. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, then settled back. The shaking had stopped and much of the deep chill had disappeared. There was something soothing about the dim quiet of the room and the familiar clamor from outside. “Time to rest,” he told himself. “Rest and get your strength back. When Joey gets here we’ll go after Christine. When Joey gets here …” Slowly his eyes closed. His breathing became more shallow and regular.

  Through a peaceful, twilight sleep David heard his friend enter the room. Don’t wake me up, Joey, David thought. Give me another minute or two, then we’ll get going. Well, okay, I know you’re worried about me. I can sleep later. His eyes blinked open an instant before Leonard Vincent’s massive hand clamped down over his mouth, pinning him roughly against the litter.

  Dressed in the orderly’s whites Hyacinth had provided, Vincent had encountered no problem in making his way from a rear entrance to Trauma 12. He grudgingly acknowledged Dahlia’s wisdom in ordering him to wait by a phone near Doctors Hospital. “A hunch,” she had called it. He had balked at the prospect of strolling into the emergency ward, but assurances that the emergency ward police were all occupied and the promise of a bonus had convinced him to try. Now he silently applauded himself for the decision.

  “You’ve been a great pain in the ass, Dr. Shelton,” he growled. “I have half a mind to make this hurt more than it should. But because at least you tried, I’m gonna make it quick and easy.”

  David watched helplessly, his eyes spheres of terror as Vincent raised a knife over his face, giving him a clear view of the ugly tapered blade.

  With his hand still pressed over David’s mouth, the killer hooked two thick fingers beneath his chin and pulled up. “One slice, just like a surgeon,” he whispered, drawing the dull side of the blade slowly across David’s exposed neck.

  “For God’s sake, wait! I didn’t do anything,” was all David could think of in that final moment. Eyes closed, he listened for his own death scream. Instead, he heard a loud thud and the clatter of Vincent’s knife on the floor. His eyes opened in time to see the killer’s body lurch sideways, then crumple over. Behind him, Joey Rosetti lifted the heavy revolver he had used as a club, preparing, if necessary, for another blow.

  “Nice place you run here, Doc,” Joey said, quickly undoing the restraints. “If I ever need another operation, remind me to go back to White Memorial.”

  “He’s the man,” David blurted excitedly. “The man who killed Ben. He … he was going to …”

  “I know what he was going to do,” Joey said, unbuckling the restraints. “Leonard an’ me have met before. He does it for a living. The shit
. If he’s after you, my friend, then you are into some serious business.”

  David sat up. This time the dizziness was bearable. Instinctively he rubbed his hand over his throat. The rush of terror had done more to bring him around than had anything else. “Joey, get me out of here,” he begged. “Shoot that animal, then get me out of here. We’ve got to find Christine.”

  Joey glanced at Vincent, who was lying on one side, his face contorted by the tiled floor. “We’ll let the cops take care of Leonard,” he said. “I promised Terry I wouldn’t use my gun—at least, the other end of it—unless I had to. Someone will find him here. Can you walk? Where the hell are your pants?”

  “There, over there on the chair. I … I think I can walk with a little help.” David slipped off the table and steadied himself against Joey’s arm. His ankle throbbed but held weight as he wriggled into his damp, muddy jeans. “Joey, there’s this woman, Christine Beall. She’s the only one who can straighten out the mess I’m in. We’ve got to find her.” He sighed relief at the realization that, at last, his thoughts were coming out intelligibly.

  “Okay,” Joey said, “but first we’ve got to drift out of this place with as little commotion as possible. I saw this gorilla here dressed up like a doctor or something heading for your room. Nobody else even looked twice at him. I figured he wasn’t going in to give you a checkup. Now listen—my manager’s parked by the front door. Let me get a wheelchair. We’ll go as far as we can with that, then run like hell. It’s a red car, an Olds or Chrysler or some ox like that. Do you remember it?”

  David shook his head. “I’ll find it, Joey, don’t worry. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”