Robin stopped off at the Mobile station on the way to work the morning after his father's big awards dinner. He had taken the enormous yellow truck there to assure himself that the engine was in perfect mechanical condition before beginning the body work, getting rid of the extensive dings and dents.
It certainly was ugly-the-next-morning Robin decided as he walked slowly around the huge vehicle, while Julio, one of the mechanics, gave him a run down on its powerful engine. As Robin gazed at the truck he had a comical idea; a vision of himself driving Make-My-Day to work. To the court house. To client's homes.
The funny thing about that picture was that he strangely liked it, even though he would be considered insane. Lawyers were known for driving enormously expensive intimidation vehicles, with vanity license plates that proclaimed, LAWYER, ESQUIRE, or LA LAW. Most possessed a reputation that went right along with their vehicles: expensive, belligerent, contentious and aggressive. Make-My-Day could be Robin's own personal signature vehicle. It seemed to proclaim: practical, hardworking, far-seeing, down-to-earth. Anyone driving it would have to possess that almost non-existent virtue in most lawyers; the sense of humor to drive the repulsively ugly monstrosity.
Robin had gone into the law as a profession because he liked what he saw his father do with the vocation. Alan Chavier really did help people, and tried to make the world a better place, with real justice for all. Robin knew many lawyers were in litigation for money and self-aggrandizement, but he had money enough to sit on his tush for the rest of his life, if he so chose. He wanted to be able to make a difference. And unlike many defense lawyers he had an advantage, because of his own personal wealth, to take on the cases he wanted. He would never just be a sleazy hired gun doing a job.
Everyone in this country is supposed to have the right to a fair trial and that was a wonderful thing about the American justice system. But Robin wouldn't take on cases, even those in which he would make incredible amounts of cash, if he though he would compromise his own principals. Which was one of the reasons he had switched from the District Attorney's Office, where he didn't have many professional choices, into defense work.
Robin could afford to take on litigation in which there was little recompense when he believed his client was innocent. It kind of evened up the justice system just a bit, which leaned heavily toward more equity for the very wealthy than for the very poor.
Robin glanced at the truck again. Make-My-Day was a gag gift. Robin was sure his father wouldn't really want it after the initial hilarity. And Robin found that he did want it, for himself, ludicrous as it seemed. Even if he had all the dents removed it would still be hideous. But he could take it off-road, when he went to his cabin at Lake Arrowhead. It had the power to pull his boats. And he appreciated the fact that he could see for blocks when he drove it, as Julia Monay had mentioned, because here in Los Angeles when traffic snarled the greatest frustration was not being able to see the cause of the traffic delay.
Robin did not admit to himself that he had also stopped at the service station to see how they were getting on with Julia's BMW, but he found himself gazing at the small blue car that was now suspended over one of the service bays.
Julio saw Robin's glance and said, "They really did a number on that little car. Broke the insides up pretty good. Even the differential and the axle have to be rebuilt."
"Will it take long?" Robin asked.
"I can have it finished by tomorrow."
"Maybe the lady's not in a hurry," Robin suggested.
"You think so?" Julio asked curiously.
Robin nodded. "I don't think it's a rush job. She has to stay here for a while."
Julio didn't say another word. They had known each other for years.
When Robin left the service station he started north on Santa Monica toward the 101 freeway which would take him into downtown Los Angeles. Then he thought, Who's kidding who? He turned around and headed back toward Beverly Hills, where Cedars Sinai Hospital was located.
Julia had spent most of the night in Brian's room. She had gone out once, early in the evening, to the Beverly Hills Hotel where she was staying, to change into fresh clothing. When she saw a music store, Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard, she stopped the taxi driver. She bought a compact disc player and some of Brian's favorite music. The thought of him all alone in that barren hospital room, with it's excessive quiet, was more than she could bear. She would fill that dreary hospital room with the sounds Brian loved.
When she went back into the hospital she bought flowers too, from the gift shop in the lobby. There would be color in the sterile surroundings when Brian woke up, and the flowers would mask the distinctive hospital aromas. She got carried away, buying beautiful arrangements, and discovered she would have to have the bouquets delivered because she couldn't carry them all.
Julia sat beside Brian's bedside for a couple of hours studying his face, praying and talking to him. Then she had to find something to eat when her empty stomach started growling and she realized she had eaten nothing all day. She found a machine on the ground floor, near the employees' cafeteria, where she could get a quick sandwich. She sat watching Brian sleep while she ate the dry sandwich, which she did not taste, anyway. And she spent the night talking to Brian, about their childhood and all the funny incidents she could think of, hoping he could hear her through the coma, or at least know, deep down inside, that someone was watching over him.
Julia roused herself when early morning light seeped into the room. She knew she must have dozed off in the uncomfortable straight backed chair for a little while during the night, but she didn't remember doing so. There were noises in the hallway; presumably a shift change for some of the nurses, and patients receiving their morning medications. She looked over at Brian and saw his lips moving.
Julia jumped up quickly, almost tipping her chair over, and looked down at him. She couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, just some mumbled syllables. His eyes were closed and moving under the lids as though he were dreaming. She leaned over the bed to put her ear over Brian's mouth. She heard him say one word distinctly: Music. He said it several times, along with the word, beautiful, and Julia smiled. He had noticed the discs softly playing all night long. Maybe he was getting better.
As she watched Brian, she saw his expression change dramatically. He was frowning. It almost appeared like he was crying because she could see tears rolling from the corners of his eyes and his head thrashed back and forth on the pillow.
"Are you in pain?" Julia whispered, suddenly frightened.
"They're too small," Brian croaked through his dry cracked lips. "They're so tiny. He can't. No. Don't want to see that." He was shaking his head back and forth again. "Too little. Oh, no, no, no. Not with the little angels."
"What's too small?" Julia asked, stroking his forehead.
"Heroines. Little...heroines." He looked like he was in pain and Julia was out of her mind with worry. But he was speaking!
He kept muttering the words about something being too small, and about angels and little heroines. Whatever he was talking about, it was upsetting him. Julia could see him twisting, as though in anguish from his reflections, as if evil dreams had broken through to his consciousness even while he was deep in a coma.
Julia leaned over the bed, straining her ears, but Brian relaxed again and lapsed back into unconsciousness.
She ran out of the room, in too much of a hurry to use the call button at the side of the bed, past rooms filled with deathly ill and terminal patients. When she reached the nursing station, Julia told the woman who was monitoring the vital statistics for several rooms that her brother, Brian, had been talking. Then a doctor in a white lab coat, with his stethoscope around his neck, came by and Julia told him. He smiled at her excitement said he would call Brian's personal physician, Dr. Wilson.
As Julia walked back to Brian's room she was radiant with happiness. Yesterday, two doctors, a radiologist and a neurologist, had come into Brian's room to speak very seriously to her. They had warned her not to become optimistic about Brian's condition. He had sustained what could eventually prove to be lethal blows to the head. The MRI, a radiology machine that took pictures of slices of the brain, had shown considerable damage. They said that Brian might not come out of the coma. They said he might never talk. There was damage to the optic nerves and they warned he might be partially blinded. They added that he would need extensive physical therapy to be able to function normally, if he indeed recovered. Now he was talking!
Julia was almost tap-dancing with glee as she hurried back to the room. If Brian was talking, it must mean he was getting better. The doctors must have been mistaken in their dire predictions.
Julia went over to the bed. Brian was still asleep, but she began speaking to him again, very fast, because something was terribly, seriously wrong now. The skin on his face had turned a deep shade of grey and there were dark, almost black hollows beneath his eyes. Brian was breathing, but there was an enormous difference that she could not even fathom. She didn't want to know what it was. She was speaking more and more urgently, pleading for him to just make an effort to try and hold on a little longer. "Brian, you are getting better. Charlotte is coming to see you from Boston this morning. Alexander is coming, too. We'll all have a good time, vacationing here in Los Angeles. And then we'll take you home. As soon as you're better, we'll all go skiing together, at the cabin in Vermont."
Julia painted wonderful word pictures of all the things Brian loved best, that she promised they would do as soon as he got out of the hospital. She was talking faster and faster, and would not let herself notice the beeping noise in the room. She would not listen and the awful beeping would go away if she just kept talking to Brian. Faster and faster.
Then suddenly the room was full of people. Doctors and nurses. She was gently pushed to the back of the room and could not see Brian because of the crowd around him. They were very busy. A hospital worker had run into the room, pushing a machine. Now there was a harsh wining sound from the device that was monitoring Brian's vital signs. It wasn't beeping any more. The shrill whine went on and on as Julia watched the doctors use electric paddles on Brian's chest. They tried it three times, the doctor yelling, Clear, and then jolting Brian's chest. They were giving him injections. The awful beeping and wining machine had gone silent. Then, finally, the frantic activity around the bed subsided. It seemed unnatural after all the frenzied activity. Julia wondered why they were not doing anything. All activity had ceased.
Finally, Julia felt hands on her arms and back, guiding her forward beside the bed. Most of the people left the room. Julia could see they all seemed dejected, with slumped shoulders, looking down, not conversing as they left the room. She mutely begged them with her eyes to come back and save her brother. They didn't look at her. A doctor stood behind her, with his hands kindly gripping both of her shoulders.
Julia looked down at the figure on the bed. It was perfectly still and peaceful. Julia knew that her brother, Brian, was not in that body any longer.
"His heart just stopped," the doctor was saying. "I'm so sorry."
Julia leaned over the bed as the doctor spoke soothingly to her. She wanted to catch Brian's spirit, the essence of her brother, and hold it in her hands for a just little while before it flew away.
Julia pleaded for him to touch her again, she needed him, his voice and laughter and love. But she couldn't feel anything.
As she gazed at the still body in the bed she wondered where Brian had gone. The reality that he was not here any longer was absolutely enormous, so immense that she could not even begin to grasp the fact. Brian had passed, but it was not sinking into her mind. It was impossible and it would go away; she was having a bad dream and she would wake up soon. She knew it and she was calm.
She noticed that here were people in the room again and she heard the words 'shock' and 'trauma' and something about getting a psychiatrist.
Julia said, "Excuse me. I have to leave."
She walked out of the room rapidly and down the hallway to the end of the corridor to the public bathroom. She went into one of the tiny stalls, closed the door, and sat down on the seat, leaning her forehead against the cold white tile wall. She was shivering with a terrible wintry feeling that made her entire body shake.
It dawned on her that Brian had died and she had left his body in that room. But it didn't matter because he really wasn't there any more. Although Julia was extremely intelligent, she knew that her emotions lagged behind her intellect. She should be crying, but she felt like she was in an awful surrealistic dream or hallucination. Sometimes she didn't know how she felt about an event until a few days had gone by. Then the sledgehammer of emotional impact would hit her. During emergencies she was always calm.
Robin walked down long hospital corridors. He knew that Brian Monay was in the Intensive Care Ward and he got directions from the hospital personnel on how to get there in the enormous and confusing hospital, which seemed like a maze with all the floors and dead ending corridors.
Robin knew Julia would be in her brother's room and he wanted to see her again. He would not intrude. He just wanted to understand if his perceptions about her had been correct. She was beautiful, granted, but there was something more that appealed to him than her mere beauty. Robin believed he was not so shallow that he responded to loveliness by itself, alone. He dated attractive women all the time. Maybe the feeling was due to the fact that Julia had needed help yesterday, but he didn't think so. She could have handled the situation with her car without his assistance. He had caught something else that he did not understand in her personality that drew him.
From their short acquaintance Robin could tell that Julia had been raised very strictly, was well educated and probably a bit of a snob, coming from a wealthy family like his own. But he thought she was also kind and sweet, although how he could have surmised that from one meeting was not clear.
It was an undeniable fact that Robin could have almost any woman he wanted, so why this one? He was one of the most eligible single men in Los Angeles. Robin decided he could only follow his instincts.
When he got to the correct floor and walked to the front desk he wasn't stopped, which was surprising. The nursing station was located in the center of all of the rooms so that the hospital workers would have quick access. It had been abandoned. As Brian looked around he saw a crowd was clustered around one room not far down the hallway. He moved in that direction.
It was possible to see into all of the rooms on that floor because the patients were in such fragile condition that the nurses had to be on watch, even though most patients were also tended to by robotic machines which blinked lights, beeped and sent medications into veins. There were blinds for the viewing windows, but most were open. Robin could see primarily old people inside the hospital rooms. He didn't look at the individuals. It would have been a violation; the patients should have privacy when they were so ill.
Robin stood back when he got near the room with all the activity. Julia was inside, at the rear. There were many people around the bed. Then almost everyone left the room and he saw Julia leaning over the bed. She looked calm. A doctor was talking to her.
Julia left the room abruptly and walked rapidly to the Ladies Room at the end of the corridor. As Robin followed her he went by Brian's room, hearing beautiful music from within. There were displays of gorgeous flowers. Julia's touch. No one else could have done that for her brother. Robin glanced in the room as he passed by and saw a nurse covering the body of a young man in the bed with a sheet.
Oh my God, Robin thought, her brother died, and the poor thing is all alone. He ran down the long hallway and stood outside the doorway of the bathroom. He didn't know what he would say when she emerged. He waited for a couple of minutes, but it seemed much longer.
"Are you a relative?"
Robin turned and saw a woman dressed in a white doctor's lab coat.
"I'm Dr. Silters," the woman said. "A psychiatrist."
She was about fifty years old and looked like the perfect person for Julia to talk to after such a terrible, traumatic event.
They shook hands and Robin introduced himself, saying he was a casual friend. He admitted he was worried that Julia seemed to be all alone.
"Ms. Monay's grandmother is coming later today. It would probably be a good thing for her to see someone she knows before I talk to her," Dr. Silters said.
"I don't know if..." Robin started.
The sound of a beeper prevented him from telling the doctor that he barely knew Julia. She took out her beeper and studied the number that was displayed. "I have an emergency. I'll be back in a few minutes." She turned abruptly and hurried away.
What was this, if not an emergency? Robin was thinking as Julia stepped out of the bathroom.
He said, "Julia?" and she didn't look up. She walked straight up to him, until their toes were touching, and leaned forward until her whole weight was resting upon him. He instinctively put his arms around her and held her.
Robin stroked her hair, softly, murmuring how sorry he was. She didn't seem to be crying. They stood that way for a long time, with Julia resting her head against his chest. Robin didn't know what else to do. Actually there was nothing for him to do now, except be there if she needed anything. He silently waited, feeling her breathing against him, looking down into beautiful reddish gold hair which smelled wonderfully clean and fragrant. He felt sorry and sad for her, and guilty that he enjoyed holding her. She was incredibly fragile and soft at the same time. There was an overwhelming feeling that he would be glad to stay here, holding her like this, forever if she needed him. It wasn't mere pity. He wanted to protect her from the terrible ordeal she was going through.
Julia was glad Alexander had come so quickly. She had just taken one glance at the highly polished shoes and the pants that went with an expensive suit, heard him say her name, and went to him immediately. She felt comforted and a little surprised that Alexander wasn't talking. She was glad. Julia felt as though she could just stay here in his arms and go to sleep. She was exhausted from the emotional trauma and the sleepless night. The way he was softly stroking her hair was nice. She was finally able to feel tears on her cheeks, but she had to do her grieving alone in private, so she willfully stopped.
Even through all of the sadness and confusion, there was something different about Alexander that Julia did not understand. His feel was bulkier, somehow. His voice sounded strangely deep. And he was doing exactly the right thing for her, instead of the correct thing by society's standards, which Alexander always did excessively and to perfection. Normally, Alexander would be telling her how she felt, how this was a sad event in her life and how she would cope in the future.
Alexander was being perfect, right now, in his strength and in his silence and the way he stroked her hair.
Robin handed Julia a handkerchief and she took it and started dabbing at her eyes. She stepped back a little bit and looked up. She just stood there, gazing at him for a moment, as though all her thought processes had stopped. He could tell she was startled.
"Can I do anything?" Robin asked.
"I thought you were someone else," Julia said, stepping back. She had been expecting Alexander. Then she had hardly recognized the mechanic. It was the suit. He actually looked very nice. But she was appalled that she had walked right up to him, as though she needed to be comforted by a stranger. As she studied him she noticed that even his fingernails were clean and buffed.
"I was expecting a friend, and when you said my name..." Julia said.
"I'm here for you," Robin said sincerely. He wondered who the man was that she had been expecting. Someone she could lean on, so it was someone she knew well.
"You know what happened?" Julia asked. She looked like she might start crying. Her chin quivered and her eyes were filled with unshed tears.
Robin nodded. He felt he was looking into the depths of profound sadness. She reminded him of a hurt, sad puppy right now with her large wet eyes.
They started walking down the hallway and Julia stopped. "I don't think I can pass that room again."
"You don't have to," Robin said gently.
"Actually, I'm glad you were here. The surprise was a distraction. The suit and all. And I must thank you. For trying to help me feel better."
Robin knew Julia was speaking by rote, not even thinking, just behaving politely as her practically inborn social training dictated. "I was going to court today and got dressed up. I stopped at the service station to see your car. It will be a while before it's fixed. Can I take you anywhere?" He was trying to take her mind off of the recent event of her brother's death, knowing that nothing he said would register through the shock, anyway.
Julia stood there shaking her head. "It hurts so much and the pain hasn't even started. I don't think there's any other way to go, except down this hallway, past Brian's room, to the elevators."
"You're doing fine, Julia," Robin said, taking her arm gently. "We can go down the stairs, I think."
"Yes. I want to leave the hospital right now."
"There's a psychiatrist waiting to talk to you."
"I want to go," she said softly, with emphasis.
They had turned around to leave by the stairwell Exit sign down at the end of the long corridor, but suddenly there was a surprising amount of noise coming from the direction of Brian's room. They both turned. A whole group of people were standing outside the room. A doctor was yelling, a nurse almost in tears, shaking her head. Two orderlies were backing away from the doctor's wrath.
"That's Brian's doctor, the one yelling. Dr. Wilson," Julia said. She didn't much care. When she had seen him before, Dr. Wilson had been calm and steady. Definitely not the type to yell in hallways, upsetting a whole ward of seriously ill patients.
The woman from the nursing station had left her post to see what the commotion was about. As Julia and Robin watched, they saw her expression change to a look of horror when she went into the room with the doctor. Since the rooms had windows, Robin and Julia could see them examining the machinery by the bed.
Robin didn't want to leave Julia now. The shrouded figure of her brother was still on the bed, but if there had been some sort of lethal screw up, with the machines or by a hospital worker, he had to find out. Right this minute. If he didn't there would be a cover-up. Hospitals are extremely sensitive about mistakes. They would not openly admit there was one, after the fact. The hospital managers and lawyers would hem, haw and equivocate. Especially since Julia's brother had been in a life-or-death condition to begin with. Brian might easily have died from his injuries. If there was a malfunction of the machinery or human error Robin had to find out. Now. He was a lawyer and it was his business. Wrongful death. It was horrible, tragic, to contemplate.
"You go on down the hallway. Wait for me by the stairwell. I'll be back in a minute," Robin said. He turned Julia around and gave her a little push toward the stairs.
Julia turned back to Robin. "When I left the room, Brian had begun speaking. They didn't think he would be able to communicate at all, from the X-rays. You don't think...?"
"Go now. I'll find out," Robin said.
The hospital employees were so busy explaining to the doctor where they had been, and the fact that they had not been near that particular hospital room, that they didn't notice Robin hovering outside the doorway. Robin's snooping gleaned several facts. The oxygen tube had been detached from the ventilator. The machines in the room had stopped functioning for a time. He wondered how long Julia had been absent from the room. It sounded like someone had just pulled all the electrical plugs and then replaced them a few minutes later.
The woman who sat at the nursing station said she had seen an orderly go into the room, right after Julia left. But both of the orderlies on duty said they had been in a supply room down the hall. A nurse said she could vouch for the orderlies.
Who was the man who went into Brian's room alone?
No one could answer that question.
Robin had an awful premonition that this was not a mistake by a hospital worker or mechanical malfunction. This was deliberate sabotage, which had resulted in death.
That supposition made Robin wonder if the beating Brian received five days ago had really been random violence. His mind leaped at the shocking conclusion; more likely it had been a murder attempt, which had failed.