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We admit retarded here as well." Alma linked her arm in Susie Q's. "Come on, honey, walk down to the day room with me and watch TV a while."
    A man darted from a room and took a stance in front of David, crying, "I want my jacket. You got no right to keep it. It's mine, gimme my jacket."
    Alma sighed and let go of Susie Q to interpose herself between David and the man.
    "Mr. Benning," she said in a no-nonsense tone, "David doesn't have your jacket. None of us do. We'll try to get it for you but right now it's not here."
    The man glared at Alma , his eyes wild. Sally shrank back. David took Susie Q's arm and led her away but Sally couldn't seem to move.
    "I want it," the man said. His face changed, crumpling, tears rolling down his face. "It's green," he sobbed. "My jacket."
    "I know, Mr. Benning," Alma said. "We'll write your wife about your jacket. Perhaps she'll bring it when she visits you. You didn't have a jacket when you came here so I've never seen it."
    No longer scared, Sally peered at the man, noticing his right hand was bandaged. Somehow he looked familiar. She watched him turn away and shamble along the corridor until Alma guided him back into his room.
    "Wish they'd up his tranq dose," Alma said to Sally when she returned. "He had a bad reaction his first night here because he'd been drinking before admission so they're limiting his Thorazine. He's acquired this fixation and we go through this same scene at least once a shift. For some reason he seems to associate David with his missing jacket."
    "Is his name Dolph?" Sally asked, finally recalling where she'd seen him before.
    "How did you know?"
    "The afternoon I got here he was in the lobby waiting room with another man who called him Dolph. All of a sudden he ran off. For what it's worth, I'm not positive but I think he did have on a green jacket."
    "That's really strange," Alma said. "Things do have a tendency to disappear around here, though—unfortunately. A lot of the patients don't know—" She broke off abruptly and dived into another room.
    Sally followed her as far as the doorway.
    "Laura Jean, we do not strip on this ward," Alma was telling a girl who looked like a teenager. "Clothes are to be kept on."
    "Why?" the girl asked, curling up on the floor. Her blond hair, tousled and unkempt, straggled over her face. She was totally naked.
    "Put on your clothes, Laura Jean," Alma ordered. "Now." The girl stared at her sullenly but didn't resist when Alma crouched down and began dressing her.
    I'll never be able to approach these patients like Alma does, Sally thought. How can she keep her cool? How does she know they aren't going to be violent? She realized she ought to go in and help Alma get clothes on Laura Jean, but she couldn't bring herself to enter the room. Maybe because she didn't feel like a nurse without her uniform. At least she hoped that was why, because very soon she'd be in uniform on another ward, on Thirteen West, and she'd have to take care of patients.
    "Laura Jean, stand up so I can get your jeans on," Alma ordered.
    The girl obeyed slowly. As she came erect, she raised her head and looked straight at Sally, who tried not to flinch at the feral gleam in those pale blue eyes. Laura Jean smiled. Then, while Sally watched in horrified disbelief, she leaned over and bit Alma on the shoulder.
    Alma screamed and brought her free hand up to pound her fist against the side of the girl's face until she let go. Then, blood staining the shoulder of her uniform, she knocked Laura Jean backwards onto the bed.
    "You little bitch," Alma muttered. "You're going to get zonked for that and I don't care if you never wake up."
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
    "Some excellent recovery rates have been reported," Dr. Fredericks said to the three men and one woman who'd accompanied him onto Thirteen West. "We're trying our own experiment with the maximum mix concept here." He waved a hand.
    Standing inside the nurses' station, Alma smiled at the VIP