Gamma Blade - Tim Stevens Page 0,29
Venn had looked at her, on that first terrible night they’d met in Manhattan three years ago.
It was a cop look.
Beth didn’t have time to think about that, because Sanders followed her into the side room and closed the door and she looked down at the man in the bed.
*
“Guy’s got scars like you won’t believe,” said Sanders.
He was lifting the prone man’s eyelids in turn with his thumb, shining a pencil light into each pupil.
Beth said, “Scars?”
“On his chest and abdomen.” Sanders put the flashlight in the pocket of his white coat and drew back the blanket. The unconscious man was in a hospital gown, which Sanders deftly lifted away above his waist.
Beth saw the thin white scars criss-crossing the taut abdomen, like aircraft contrails across a pale sky. Most of the injuries had been expertly repaired by a surgeon’s hands, but there were one or two which had healed raggedly. There were also a couple of puckered puncture wounds, as if caused by a blade. Or a bullet.
“Also some on his legs,” Sanders said. “Plus, his CAT scan showed a possible old fracture of his skull over the right parietal region. This guy’s been in the wars.”
“A soldier?”
Sanders glanced at her. “I didn’t mean literally, but yes, it’s a possibility.” He pulled the blanket back over the patient. “The cops want to talk to me again later. I’ll tell them all of this. Right now, I need the name of somebody who knows him, who’s connected to him, so the bureaucrats can bill them.”
He sounded disgusted. Beth knew exactly how he felt. The minute a John Doe turned up for treatment, the pen-pushers and bean-counters started putting pressure on the clinical staff to establish exactly who was going to pay for the care.
She moved to the right side of the bed, near the window, and gazed down at the man lying there.
James Harris. If that was his real name.
His eyes were closed, his face peaceful in repose. Quite a good-looking man, really, with his thin nose and sharply defined jawline, his full head of black hair threaded only sparsely with gray. Very different from Venn, whose attractiveness was rawer, less refined.
As was her custom with her patients, Beth took hold of his hand.
For an instant, she felt the squeeze, the minutest exertion of pressure against her fingers.
She looked up quickly at his face. It didn’t reveal anything.
Beth decided she’d imagined it.
The monitor by the side of the bed told her that his blood pressure was fine, his pulse strong and steady. He appeared to be in top physical condition, and as Sanders had said, the chances were good that he’d wake up and suffer no long-term consequences.
Beth watched him for a full ten minutes before Sanders said, “Well, I guess it was worth a try.”
He ushered her out. Back in the ward, she looked around for the orderly who’d stared at her, but he was gone.
She said to Sanders: “Call me if he wakes up, okay? Or if you need anything else.”
“Will do.” Sanders paused, frowning. “Say, you here for the AMA conference?”
“Yes.”
“Damn. I couldn’t make it, even though I work here. Couldn’t swap out my duties.”
Beth said, “I’ll get you a copy of the conference abstracts, if you like.”
Sanders beamed. He shook her hand again. “And they say New Yorkers are jerks.”
“They do?”
*
On her way back down in the elevator, Beth thought about the man upstairs. James Harris.
She thought that his behavior, his asking after her, and his scars, were significant. How, exactly, she didn’t know.
But she reckoned Venn ought to be informed.
She took out her phone and dialed his number.
It went to voicemail.
Beth said: “Hey. Only me. I got called to see our guy in the hospital. He’s still unconscious, but he woke up briefly. There’s stuff about him you might be interested in. Call me when you have a moment, ’kay? Love you.”
She found a taxi outside the front entrance, and headed back to the conference.
Chapter 14
Venn was up, showered and shaved and dressed, by eight-thirty. After Beth had left, he’d dozed off once more, and it was only a clatter in the corridor outside the room that had woken him.
He considered having breakfast in the hotel restaurant - the smells of fresh bakery and bacon lured him in that direction like a siren’s song - but he recalled that Estrada had said she’d swing by around nine, and he didn’t want to miss her. So he settled for a cream cheese and lox bagel