The Sandman Read Online Free PDF Page A

as he gesticulated. Each of them was revving the other up, ganging up on Cross. Peter began to shake; he could feel them moving in.
    Then Beauregard slammed his fist on the table.
    “Enough,” he said. “Enough … I want both of you to shut it down.”
    Dios started to open his mouth, but Beauregard waved his index finger under his nose.
    “Consider yourselves warned,” he said. “I mean it. The way both of you have turned this around to make it look as if Dr. Cross is responsible is grossly unprofessional behavior. I have his report. I have gone over it and, given her condition, I think his judgment was fine. I would have recommended the same drugs myself.”
    Dios said nothing. He was drenched in sweat, but he stared across the table at Cross and felt a vast hatred. The truth is, Dios thought, I’d like to have an autopsy. But he didn’t dare say it. Who knows what would come out of it. His own stitching job hadn’t been that good. Maybe they would claim he had been too rough with her. So he said nothing.
    “All right, gentlemen,” said Beauregard, laying heavy irony on the last word. “I’m going to consider the matter closed. But that doesn’t mean I accept Lorraine Bell’s death as inevitable. Maybe you handled it perfectly and she died anyway. That can happen. But maybe some of you weren’t thinking of the patient. Maybe you were thinking of her as a gomer.”
    Dios and Black winced.
    “Remember, there are no gomers, there are only poor, old, sick people, and our job is to keep them alive and make them well if we possibly can. And before you go, I want you to know that though the matter is closed, I won’t forget it. We’ve had a very low death rate on the operating table at Eastern during the last five years; less than ten percent. So that kind of death is simply not acceptable to me, and it shouldn’t be to any of you. I hope I’ve made myself clear. Good morning, gentlemen.”
    After looking once more around the table at each of them, Beauregard slowly got up from his chair; the other three quickly followed his example and started for the door. Cross was a little slow in leaving, and Beauregard called to him.
    “Peter, can I talk with you a minute?”
    Cross turned and walked back toward the great bear of a man. Usually he felt like the others did around Beauregard—overwhelmed, intimidated. He also felt something else, something he had noticed the first day he had talked to Beauregard, the day of his hiring. A warmth, a realness, something almost chemical between the two of them. Impossible to explain. It bothered Cross, bothered him and at the same time pleased him.
    “That was pretty rough, Peter,” Beauregard said.
    Cross smiled and nodded.
    “Come, walk down to my office with me.”
    The two men passed out of the conference hall and strolled down the corridors of the great hospital. They passed several nurses and an old man in a wheelchair with tubes running from his nose. His skin was yellow, sagging from his bones.
    “I want to ask you one thing,” Beauregard said. “Then I won’t mention it again.”
    “All right,” Cross said quietly.
    “Was there anything to what Dios and Black said?”
    “I don’t think so, sir,” Cross said. “I feel as though I did the right thing. But I can’t be a hundred percent sure.”
    “Does that bother you?” Beauregard said as they turned into his office.
    “Yes, frankly,” Cross said, moving carefully now, “it does. I spent most of the night awake, thinking about it.”
    “And?”
    “And I decided I would have followed the same course again. I think I used all my skills. What bothers me is that I couldn’t do a damned thing even though I gave it my best shot.”
    Beauregard was greeted by his secretary, Brigette. She sat by her telephone, a sandwich in one hand and Dare
to Love
in the other.
    “Dr. Beauregard,” she said, “I heard the sparks are flying.”
    “Is that right?” he said. “Eat your lunch and read your trash,