Retribution Read Online Free PDF Page B

porch light.

    "I aim to please."

    "Good. Come in and enjoy yourself. Watch the booze and cheer up a little." Eisner winked. "We can't win 'em all."

    Clarkson did not like the analogy of surgery as winning or losing. It was a skilled attempt and nothing of chance should reign within it. But he could not argue with Eisner. Some things seemed beyond his skill at the moment. Uneasily, Wade followed the surgeon into the house, through a sprawling front room and toward the back. Eisner thumped him on the back before saying, "My wife is waiting for me at the tables," and stepping past. French doors to the patio revealed an expansive backyard done up in a Mardi Gras theme, with harlequin masks and golf cart floats being driven along the edges of the lawn, people riding them laughing and throwing out beads and whatnots to the other guests. A lot of flash and glitter and money. There were craps and baccarat tables and a row of what looked to be fortune tellers under mandarin paper lanterns at the far edge of the patio. The sound of a fairly decent live blues band came to him. He could smell cayenne and other spices in the air from the supper tent.

    He saw a lot of very well done face and body lifts on painfully thin elegant women, who glided through the crowd. He snagged a drink from a waiter going by, tasted it, found it to be a mild coke and rum and decided he could probably nurse it most of the evening. With Eisner gone, a slight shyness settled around him. He did not feel like socializing or like discussing what had gone right and wrong in the recent high profile surgeries he'd just done.

    A tinkle of real crystal reached him, punctuating words from people whose faces he could not actually see.

    "…some people deserve to die…"

    "Courts really screwed up on that one… wonder how long it will be before he takes out another quick mart?"

    "…poor clerk did everything he was told and still got it, point-blank, in the face. Such a shame. I hope we can help the family."

    "We'd be better off getting the judge out and pushing for a retrial! Better way to spend our money."

    "This is a charity function, not a political agenda, though I do agree with you about Judge Canton. However, a judge has to have a certain confidence in his abilities and judgments… an arrogance, if you will, in his training and the decisions he makes. Just like a surgeon."

    "Surgeons are arrogant sons of bitches."

    A deep chuckle. "Watch yourself, John, we're surrounded by L.A.'s finest here."

    "I didn't say they weren't good doctors. I just said they have one flaming opinion of themselves!" The speaker tossed back half a crystal glass of what must be Scotch on the rocks. "And they damn well better have. I wouldn't want anyone putting a scalpel to me if they were shaking in their boots! I don't like 'em looking at me like I was a slab of meat."

    The silver-haired man opposite him shook a finger. "You are just a slab of meat. You have to be, for them to do their work."

    "The hell I do!"

    "No, John, listen… just think about it. They hold your life in their hands— like God. If they have to know you, think about you, wouldn't they have to consider what kind of life they might be saving? Wouldn't they? Wouldn't doctors have to look at the soul behind the flesh and wonder if they were doing the world any good by repairing that flesh? No, they have to have the guts to consider you a piece of meat like any other piece of meat. Or, to paraphrase, let 'em all live and let God sort 'em out in the end."

    A masculine snort. "And I hope you at least agree that some people deserve to die!"

    "On some level, everyone deserves to die. Whether I agree or not is moot. The judge made his decision. The man was let go. Just like that plastic bag rapist. He served his time. The system did what it was supposed to do." The silver-haired man shrugged. He returned his empty wine stem to a platter as a server passed by and got a fresh one.

    The fleshy gentleman next to