A muffled bell sounded to herald the arrival of an elevator. Kim looked over to see a hefty man dressed in a conservative gray business suit disembark. To Kim’s surprise, he came directly up to him.
“Dr. Reggis?” the man inquired. His voice was robust and commanding.
“I’m Dr. Reggis,” Kim agreed.
“I’m Barclay Bradford,” the man said stiffly. “I’m a vice president of the hospital and the acting chief administrator for the evening shift.”
“How convenient,” Kim said. “What I’d advise you to do is to go back into the ER, locate the asshole acting head of the department, and drag him out here. He and I have something to talk about. You see, I’ve been waiting for two and a half hours to have my daughter seen.
“Dr. Reggis,” Barclay began as if Kim had not even spoken, “as a member of our professional staff, particularly a surgeon, you of all people know that triage is necessary in a busy ER. Life-threatening problems have to take precedence over simple juvenile diarrhea.”
“Of course I understand triage,” Kim shot back. “I’ve worked in ER’s all through my training. But let me tell you something. When I walked in here ten minutes ago, there had to be a dozen ER staff hanging out behind this counter drinking coffee and chitchatting.”
“Appearances never tell the whole story,” Barclay commented condescendingly. He fluttered his eyelids. “They were probably conferring with each other over particularly difficult cases. But regardless, your childish behavior of pounding a letter box on a countertop cannot be tolerated. It’s entirely inappropriate for you to demand special treatment.”
“Special treatment!” Kim sputtered. “Childish behavior!” His face reddened and his eyes bulged. The administrator in front of him suddenly embodied his frustrations about the present emergency-room experience, the hospital merger, AmeriCare, and modern medicine in general. With a sudden fit of fury and losing all semblance of control, Kim struck the administrator with a lightning blow to the chin.
Kim shook his hand and clasped it with his other in response to the sudden pain in his knuckle. At the same time, Barclay rocked back on his heels, teetered, then fell heavily to the floor. Kim was stunned by his violent reaction. Taking a step forward, he looked down at Barclay and felt an impulse to help the man up.
A collective gasp arose from the staff behind the desk. The security guard came running. The clerk grabbed the intercom to announce: “Mayday at the nurses’ desk.”
From the depths of the ER, residents, nurses, and orderlies came streaming out. Even Tracy appeared after hearing the announcement. A crowd gathered around Kim and Barclay. The hospital VP had pushed himself up to a sitting position. He touched a hand to his lip. It was bleeding.
“Damn it, Kim!” Tracy said. “I warned you!”
“This is totally unacceptable,” Monica said. She turned to the clerk. “Call the police!”
“Hold up, don’t call anybody!” a deep, resonant voice called. The crowd parted. A powerfully built, handsome African-American man appeared. He snapped latex gloves from his hands as he walked into the center of the ring. The name tag pinned to his scrub top read: DR. DAVID WASHINGTON, ACTING CHIEF EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT. His eyes went from Kim down to Barclay. “What’s going on here?”
“Mr. Bradford was just struck by this man,” Monica said, pointing at Kim. “And that was after he destroyed a letter box by bashing it against the counter.”
“Believe it or not, he’s a doctor on the hospital staff,” Molly added.
David put out a hand and got Barclay to his feet. David glanced at the man’s split lip and palpated along the line of his jaw.
“Are you all right?” David asked the administrator.
“I think so,” Barclay said. He got out a handkerchief and dabbed at his bloodied lip.
David turned to Monica. “Take Mr. Bradford back and get him cleaned up. And have Dr. Krugger take a look at him to see if we should get an X-ray.”
“Sure,” Monica said. She grasped Barclay’s arm above the elbow to guide him through the crowd. Barclay glared at Kim before allowing himself to be led away.
“Everyone else, back to work,” David said, with a wave of his hand. Then he turned to Kim, who’d recovered his senses.