Duby's Doctor Read online

  All of this, combined with a decent salary and the ability to live economically at home with his parents, boded well for Hector’s social life. He was saving up for his eventual home, wife, and kids, but there was no reason not to enjoy life in the meantime.

  Hector was an excellent orderly. He was inventive when necessary, and he learned from his mistakes. So, after a week of dealing with the new John Doe, Hector had devised certain procedures.

  He pushed the tall, stainless steel food cart down the hallway. He stopped at a room, checked his tickets, verified the room number and name on the door, selected a tray, and carried it in.

  Then he emerged and pushed his cart on to the next room. The plastic whiteboard beneath the room number said “John Doe,” but some wag had drawn a line through that and inserted with a felt-tip pen: “Jean Deaux.”

  When Hector arrived at this door, he reached under the covered tray on the bottom shelf of his cart and pulled out a catcher’s mask. Then he selected a meal tray, squared his shoulders, and marched into the room.

  A moment passed in silence. Then a string of loud French epithets resounded in the room, followed by crashing and clanging of utensils and dinnerware. Hector backed out of the room, holding an empty tray, cursing under his breath in Spanish, and wearing a waterfall of spaghetti and meatballs on his mask.

  Outside the door, Nurse Erskine passed him in the hall, acting as if this were an everyday occurrence – because it was. “If at first you don’t succeed...,” she teased.

  Elsewhere on that floor of the hospital, Frank Stone stepped off the elevator and ambled down a white-tiled corridor. He gestured to staff members and patients; he was familiar with his route. Near the end of the corridor he opened a door labeled “Authorized Personnel Only.”

  It was a supply closet.

  Crowded into it were two people and a vanload of electronic listening gear. The woman looked up at Stone without surprise. The man concentrated on his headphones and digital recorder.

  “Anything yet?” Stone asked.

  The woman answered him with a heavy French accent. “Random profanities. One or two meaningless words. Typical with a head injury, we are told. He doesn’t know what he is saying most of the time.”

  “No names?”

  “Non.”

  “Anything in English? Anything at all?”

  The woman shook her head. Stone looked at the man and raised an eyebrow.

  “Nothing,” the man said.

  Stone turned to leave, making no effort to hide his frustration. He stopped before opening the door.

  “He’s got the results of an entire investigation locked up in his head, and I don’t want to miss anything, anything that might manage to leak out. You get down every word, every syllable, every grunt, every creak of that mattress. If he breaks wind, I want it recorded. You hear me?”

  “Oui, monsieur,” said the woman.

  ~o~ ~o~ ~o~

  Several days later, Dr. Mitchell Oberon entered Jean Deaux’s room on her daily rounds and found Hector, in his catcher’s mask, once again wearing the patient’s meal – chicken à la king this time. The fastidious Mitchell hated a mess, and she picked her way across a floor covered with food and dishware, gesturing to Hector to clean it up.

  She ignored Jean’s angry glare and the bandage on his head. Mitchell was there to examine the bandaged and braced left knee. After removing the brace and bandage, she poked and prodded gently, receiving no more grunts of patient discomfort than expected. She smiled at the knee’s healing progress and took more than a little pride in the reconstructive work she had done. She efficiently applied a fresh bandage and refastened the Velcro of the brace.

  Finished with the knee, she lifted her eyes and smiled at Jean.

  “You know, Johnny,” she said, “you have to start eating, so we can cut loose these IVs and get you more mobile.”

  Quicker than a mongoose, Jean lunged for Mitchell, took a stranglehold on both her lapels with one mighty hand and with the other whipped Mitchell’s pen from her pocket. He began drawing frantically on Mitchell’s white lab coat.

  Hector, though muscular, was no match for the larger man on the bed. Rather than rush to the doctor’s defense, he yelled, “I’ll get security!”

  “No, wait!” called Mitchell. “Wait. Look. C’mere and look. What is it?”

  Hector moved very carefully to a place where he could see Jean’s art taking shape. “It looks like – Oh, gross, man! It’s a chicken – with its head cut off! I knew it, man! This dude is one of them Haitian voodoo priests or a Santeria or something!”

  Jean drew a huge “X” through the chicken with a flourish, made eye contact with Mitchell (whose undivided attention he definitely had), and began drawing again.

  Because of his hold on her lapels, Mitchell could not look down at her coat to see what he was drawing. She looked to Hector. “Okay. Okay, what’s this now? Can you see it? What is it?”

  “Your big old bicep’s in the way, man. Move your freakin’ arm, Hercules,” said Hector.

  Mitchell choked out, “Hector! I’m expiring here! Quit foolin’ around. What is it? Hurry!”

  “Madre de Dios,” said Hector.

  “What! What is it?”

  Jean released Mitchell’s lab coat and subsided onto the bed. He used his hands to adjust his injured leg, grimacing with pain, and leaned back into his pillow with a tired sigh.

  Mitchell finally got a look at the finished work. Then she and Hector said the same word – but with different inflections: “Vegetables!”

  “That’s the answer, Hector. Our bloodthirsty savage is a vegetarian. Get me an apple or something.”

  When Hector didn’t move, she added, “Now, before he throttles me again!”

  Hector ran to the food cart in the hallway and came back with a large apple. He threw it. Jean caught and ate it like a starving jackal.

  “Madre de Dios,” said Hector.

  “Exactly,” said Mitchell. She picked up the pen Jean had dropped on the bed and began making notes in his chart. “I think a change of diet will make a big difference around here.”

  Then Mitchell put the pen down on the bed in front of Jean and tore blank pages from the back of the chart to put there as well.

  “Okay, Johnny. If you can’t give us words, give us some pictures.”

  CHAPTER 4 – PICTURES

  After that, Hector made certain to keep Jean supplied with drawing paper and markers. Nurses quickly learned that Jean could make his thoughts known through his art, and with easier communication came less frustration for both caregivers and patient. Jean even began to smile occasionally and to display signs of a friendly nature beneath his scarred and muscular exterior.

  Many days later, Dr. Mitchell Oberon entered Jean’s room on her daily rounds, well accustomed by now to the drawings of fruits, vegetables, desserts, and beverages taped to the walls and window shades. Her step faltered, however, at the sight of Jean. He was sitting on his bed, drawing as usual, but she had never seen him this way.

  He had tossed his hospital gown over the nearest chair and wore only his boxer shorts. Mitchell’s lungs emptied, forcing her to gasp audibly, and she nearly got tangled in her own feet before she disciplined herself to keep calm and walk normally.

  Her consternation was forgivable, understandable, and probably inevitable. The spinsterish surgeon had never actually been in a room alone with an undraped naked man – at least, not one who was fully conscious. And even though Jean was not totally naked, Mitchell had never seen him with so little covering. Even in the operating room, she had seen the leg she was repairing and little else.

  She had not been prepared for the broad, sculpted chest and ridged abdomen combined with the thickly muscled biceps and thighs. In surgery, his body had been draped. When she examined his leg and knee, she really saw only that. Until the moment she looked up from his chart and saw the whole man spectacularly displayed, he had simply been the biological thing that was attached to th
e reconstructive surgery she had performed.

  In that moment, Mitchell Oberon had an epiphany. It embarrassed her so much that she squelched her thoughts, marshaled her composure, and pretended nothing whatsoever had occurred.

  Something else happened in the next minute that was out of the ordinary. When Mitchell approached the hospital bed, Jean quickly hid his unfinished sketch under the covers.

  Mitchell gestured, wanting to see it.

  Jean gestured, No.

  Mitchell simply placed her hand on his bandaged knee and applied pressure in exactly the right place.

  Jean sucked air at the sudden jolt of pain. He gave Mitchell the drawing.

  It was the first time he had tried to hide anything, as far as Mitchell knew, and she was surprised. What could he be so reticent about? She was even more surprised when she realized the sketch was a portrait of her. She was touched, and more than a little flattered, by his drawing, which she thought made her look prettier than she was. She tried to hide her pleasure and preserve an appropriate doctor-patient relationship.

  Carrying the drawing, Mitchell made a circuit of the room, identifying other portraits hanging there among the pictures of food.

  “There’s Hector,” she said, “the chaplain, the floor nurse, the aides ... Here’s your neurologist, huh?” She smiled over her shoulder at Jean. He nodded bashfully, clearly pleased that she recognized his subjects.

  Mitchell tapped the portrait of the neurologist. “Smart guy, but doesn’t build good knees like me, right?”

  Jean chuckled under his breath and shrugged his shoulders. Even his shrug was French.

  “And there’s that cute little candy striper who volunteers on Thursday afternoons,” Mitchell pointed to the drawing of a pretty teenaged girl. “Shame on you, Johnny,” she said with a wink.

  “Christine,” said Jean.

  “Is that her name? Christine. Christine brought you the watercolor paints, didn’t she?”

  “Oui,” he said. “Christine.”

  Mitchell took the portraits down gently and carried them with her to the bedside. “This isn’t really my job,” she said. “I’m not the speech therapist, but if you’re so gung ho to say names today, tell me who this is.” She showed him a drawing.

  “Hector,” Jean said.

  “Right. And who’s this?” She showed him another drawing.

  “Madame Erskine.”

  “Miz,” she corrected. “Miz Erskine or Nurse Erskine. Not many ladies in these parts take well to being called ‘madam.’”

  Jean nodded his understanding, but then his look changed to puzzlement. Pushing aside the drawings, he laid his hand in the center of her chest.

  Mitchell gently but quickly moved his hand to her shoulder.

  “Michelle?” he asked.

  “Close,” she said with a smile. “Very close. My name is Mitchell.”

  “Michel.”

  “Uh, right. Mitchell. Or Dr. Oberon. But M-, uh, Mitchell is good. For you it’s just Mitchell.”

  He removed his hand from Mitchell’s shoulder and placed it on his own chest. In French, he said, “Who is this? Who am I?”

  Guessing at his meaning, she answered. “Your name? Yeah, that’s a hard one. We don’t know your real name, officially, so you’re, uh, you’re John.”

  “Jean.” His tone indicated the word was inadequate, unsatisfactory. It was the wrong answer, but he couldn’t contradict it with a right one.

  “Yes, Jean. Well, we say ‘John,’ but I guess you would say ‘Jean.’”

  He seemed to be trying to adjust to thinking of himself by this name. “Jean,” he said. “Jean.”

  “John Doe,” Mitchell added.

  “Jean Deaux,” he said.

  Mitchell extended her right hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Jean shook her hand and responded, smiling, “Enchanté, Michel.”

  She could have corrected his pronunciation of her name, and she could have released his hand sooner, but why? Her name sounded sort of cosmopolitan the way he pronounced it. More feminine, somehow. And she had never shaken hands with a nearly naked man before, much less one who said her name in such a nice way.

  After examining what Mitchell considered to be her knee, its attachment to another person’s body notwithstanding, she made her notations on the chart, gathered up the portrait drawings, bade Jean a friendly farewell, and left the room.

  At the nurses’ station, she made photocopies of the portraits she had collected from Jean’s walls. She then clipped the originals to his chart, to be returned to him.

  Down the hall, Stone’s listening duo was dozing at the recorders when Mitchell burst into the supply closet, unexpected and unwelcome. She tossed the photocopies down atop the recording equipment.

  “Tell your Mr. Stone, or Agent Stone, or Emperor Stone, or whoever he thinks he is, that this is everybody Jean knows in the whole world – and they all work right here on this floor. He doesn’t remember anybody else, and he’s not going to. You people should pack up and go home.”

  Without waiting for a response, she exited the closet, slamming the door behind her.

  CHAPTER 5 – DISCOVERY

  An hour later, Frank Stone was in the supply closet studying the portraits Mitchell had delivered.

  “Do we have anything at all?” he asked the listeners.

  “I learned how to proposition a nurse in Spanish,” the man quipped.

  “He’s speaking Spanish now?” Stone was incredulous.

  The man shook his head. “The orderly,” he said.

  “And a few new swear words in French,” said the woman.

  Stone let his shoulders sag with his long sigh of resignation. “All right,” he said. “Wrap it up.”

  He left the two people to dismantle their mole hole, and he walked down the hall toward Jean’s room. Rounding a corner, he crossed paths with Hector, pushing Jean in a wheelchair. They did not know him, and he pretended no recognition on his part. As soon as they were out of sight, Stone seized the opportunity to slip into Jean’s empty room.

  Once inside, he searched diligently and methodically, replacing every object he touched. He was a master at leaving no trace of his visit. This search would be different, however, because this time he would take away with him something that would certainly be missed.

  Under Jean’s pillow he found a sketch that even Mitchell had not seen: a portrait of Carinne Averell. Kyle Averell’s daughter.

  Stone rolled up the sketch, clutched it in his hand triumphantly, and hurried back to the supply closet. He opened the closet door and snapped at the two surprised listeners: “Forget it! Plug it all back in! We stay!”

  He backed out, shut the door, and strode to the nurses’ station. “Where’s Dr. Oberon?” he barked.

  When Dr. Oberon answered the page from the nurses’ station, she was told to meet Mr. Stone in the hospital chapel. She agreed to do so, but she insisted on finishing her rounds first. Mr. Stone would have to wait while she saw three more patients.

  Stone was pacing up and down the center aisle of the small chapel when Dr. Oberon arrived nearly an hour later. The room was quiet and otherwise uninhabited, as Frank Stone had no doubt intended.

  The doors were barely closed behind her when Stone stepped forward and extended a rolled sheet of paper.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Look at it,” he said and shook it at her. She reached out and took it.

  Mitchell unrolled the page and viewed a sketch of an attractive young woman, probably in her early twenties. The artist had captured a wistfulness, a kind of romanticized loneliness in the girl’s lovely face. Mitchell didn’t need to ask who had drawn it. “Who is it?” she said.

  “It’s safer if you don’t know,” Stone told her. “But she doesn’t work in this hospital. And I think we can safely assume he does remember her. Don’t you agree?”

  Mitchell didn’t answer but merely rolled up the page. She tried to hand it back to Stone, but he wave
d it off.

  “You keep it,” he said. “There’s something I need you to do with it.”

  Jean was working his knee at one of the therapy machines in the physical and occupational therapy department when Mitchell entered, carrying the portrait Frank Stone had been so pleased to discover. Mitchell didn’t look pleased at all. She sat down near Jean.

  Jean smiled at her, knowing he was recuperating well and that she would be pleased. “Bonjour, Michel.”

  “Hi, Johnny.” She forced a smile. “How’s my knee today?”

  He had been learning some English, but he didn’t need it to know what she said. Mitchell always asked about the same thing. Jean pointed to his knee and nodded. “Righteous!”

  Mitchell shook her head. “Don’t let Hector teach you English, okay? I wouldn’t even let him teach me Spanish, if I were you. It isn’t wise.”

  Then she rolled the portrait out so Jean could see it.

  His smiled changed from pride to nostalgia. He looked at the picture for several seconds.

  In French, he murmured, “She is very beautiful, is she not?”

  Mitchell caught the gist of his statement, and she was surprised at the pang it caused her. How ridiculous could she be? She was not some kid’s jealous girlfriend; she was a medical doctor. And this man was a patient. And he was years younger than she. It was irrelevant to her whether he had a relationship with another woman.

  Outwardly she displayed no emotion. “Yes,” she agreed. “She is very pretty.”

  Again in French, he said, “So beautiful. So sweet.”

  “You know her name, Johnny?”

  He gave Mitchell a quizzical look.

  Mitchell supplied gestures. “My name is Mitchell. Your name is Jean. What is her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mitchell waited, but he said no more, nor did he look at her. He continued his exercises. She stood with a sigh and walked away, but then she returned to him and gestured with the portrait in her hand.