Farber turned to the nurse. “Would you tell them he’s still out and it may be a little while?”
The nurse frowned. “Yes, Doctor.” She disappeared out the door.
“Doc, this memory thing is temporary, right?”
“I’d prefer to look at it optimistically. But to be honest with you, until I get that consult from the neurologist, I can’t say how permanent, or temporary, it’s going to be. Diagnosing it properly is the key. There are a number of possibilities — postconcussion syndrome, retrograde or posttraumatic amnesia, and a host of psychological or organic causes. We’ve drawn blood and we’ll run a tox screen to make sure you haven’t ingested any kind of drug that’d explain your memory problems. The MRI will help. And depending on what that shows, we may also get an EEG to rule out epileptic disorders. Until we know when and where that bullet came from, it’s possible the bullet and the accident are completely unrelated. In which case, a seizure could explain why you drove off the road.”
Chambers let his head fall back onto the pillow.
Farber gently patted Chambers’s shoulder. “Radiology should be down for you shortly. You can rest here in the recovery room. When the X-ray techs come and wheel you out, the police may see you, so you may not have any choice but to speak to them at that point.”
Farber scribbled his signature on the metal chart and hooked it to the end of the bed. “I’ll tell them they have to wait until after you get the brain scan, but my experience with the police is that they seldom listen to what I have to say.”
“Thanks for your help, Doc. I’ll remember you in my will.”
“Then for my sake, I hope that concussion isn’t too bad.” Farber turned and headed for the hallway.
“Hey, Doc,” Chambers called after him. “You forgot to ask me something. Magenta.”
Farber smiled, then walked out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, Chambers eased himself off the bed, the pain from his left thigh finally masked somewhat by the medication. He felt a slight pulling sensation and reasoned it was stitches. As he stood upright, he felt dizzy and his head began throbbing more intensely, like a jackhammer on cement. He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and waited for a few seconds for his eyes to clear before hobbling across the floor and through a pair of double doors that led to a supply room. There were trauma capes, surgical gloves, stethoscopes, sphygmomanometers, and an assortment of cath kits, electrode pads for ECG units, trach tubes… and surgical scrubs. He pulled out a pair of freshly folded burgundy pants, a shirt, and a surgical cap. He quickly slipped them on, tossing his hospital gown into a basket in the corner of the room.
A bullet? he thought. That can’t be good.
Until Chambers could determine if he was a felon wanted by the police or an innocent bystander, he could not put his trust in law enforcement. But one thing he felt he could trust was his instincts. And right now, they were telling him to put as much distance between himself and the cops as possible. Self-preservation was a powerful emotion.
He took a stethoscope off a hook on the wall and wrapped it around his neck the way Farber had worn his. A few footsteps later, he was at the door and peering out. Two police officers were coming down the hallway, pointing at the adjacent room where he had been lying a few moments ago. He waited until the cops were nearly at the entrance to the recovery room, then pushed through the door.
Chambers walked out of the supply room, heading down the corridor, trying to carry himself as naturally as the leg wound would permit. He wondered how long it would take the police to realize that he was the person they were looking for. They would probably grab a nurse or doctor and ask what had happened to the patient known as John Doe. Then, they’d flash on the doctor they had seen leaving the adjacent supply room, who was sporting a slight limp; they would do a quick search of the cabinets and find the bloodied gown. Then they’d be heading in his direction. All told, he probably had three minutes, unless something unexpected occurred.
Chambers quickened his pace and a second later was turning down a long corridor where the hospital laboratory was located. He slipped into the sprawling, open suite, which was well-lit from above with banks of sleek, brushed-aluminum fluorescent light fixtures. A few lab techs were busy processing samples, and a nurse was dealing with a line of patients at a long counter.
Chambers walked through the lab, still limping as he passed the reception station, and proceeded into the work area. He grabbed a patient chart and pretended to look inside while he thought about how he was going to get out of the hospital. He had no money, no car that he knew of — Farber had said the one Chambers had been found in was stolen — and nowhere to go.
He closed the chart and headed toward the back of the lab, where he noticed an elevator. He took it up to the second floor and glanced out into the hallway: the sign indicated patient rooms, the cardiac care unit, and ICU. None of these would do.
He needed food and a quiet place to think. But if the police started searching the hospital, it would be best if he was out of the building. Or would it? If he was lucky enough to avoid a search, he could wait a few hours and then leave. By then, they would be focusing their efforts elsewhere — why would a sane person remain in a place where the police were looking for him?
The third floor was more promising, as the directory indicated that it was where the doctors’ lounge was located. As he approached, the smell of chicken and potatoes hung in the air. His stomach contracted again.
He walked into the lounge and hesitated as he glanced around. A couple of physicians were sitting on a couch reading journals. Another was half-reclining, her eyes closed, the exhaustion of a long shift etched in her face. He continued on into the adjacent cafe, picked up a tray, and surveyed the food. I’ll take a little of everything, he felt like saying. Instead, he settled for a scoop of potato salad, a tall Coke, a ham-and-cheese sandwich on wheat, and a container of yogurt.
At the register, an elderly woman smiled at him and began ringing up his food. “That’ll be six-eighteen.”
“Oh,” Chambers said. “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you this is on Dr. Farber. He asked me to have you put it on his account.”
The woman hesitated and crumpled her wrinkled face. “I really need verification—”
“I should’ve told you before you rang it up.” He leaned closer to her graying hair and lowered his voice. “Dr. Farber lost a bet,” he said as he noticed the other cashier with the Washington Wizards T-shirt on. “Took the Wizards and lost big. Kept forgetting to pay up. Told me to grab a late lunch and have you put it on his tab.”
“Dr. Farber shouldn’t be betting on basketball games. I didn’t never think of him as the gambling type.”
Chambers shushed her with a finger to his lips. “He’s…a little embarrassed about it.”
The woman nodded, consulted a hospital listing, and entered a key code into the register. She placed the receipt on the tray and nodded.
Chambers shoved the receipt into his shirt pocket. “I’ll make sure he gets this so he can deduct it from what he owes me.” He winked at her and carried his food over to one of the tables in the far corner of the cafe, where he had a clear view of the entire lounge. With one eye on the entryway, he consumed the entire meal in less than five minutes.
He pushed the tray aside and rested his face in his hands, trying to assemble what few facts he had into some sort of a cohesive scenario that might help him discover who he was: He had been shot in the thigh, stolen a car, and gotten into an accident on the highway after hitting a center median. He’d had emergency surgery, the police wanted to speak to him, he couldn’t remember his name, and he had no identification on him. Despite his best efforts, it was not coming together. He fought back a yawn, gathered his energy, and pushed himself up off the chair.