Organ - Chapter 12
Boothe lifted the receiver preparing himself for the conversation with Mrs Boothe, he considered it more appropriate to address this impending verbal undressing in a formal matter. Save himself the aggravation of explaining they are not friends or family, that his duty is to be the chief of medicine for the largest hospital in the county, but he knew that Mary did not care about this role that was heavy on the shoulders of the king of the white coats. Heavy is the head, he thought to himself playing up the victimhood he nestled into for these events of his own making, either directly or indirectly, he was on the line for a runaway patient and now, in his mind, it was only a matter of time until Oscar was found dead. He doubted the boys strength and preservation skills; he was sure in himself that they would return his body devoid of breath. The walls around his office felt like a prison that evening, the warden was a patience mother, as ridiculous as the notion made him feel, his sentence was however long Mrs Rubens intended on keeping him on the line.
“Hello Mrs Rubens” he waited for her reply, and it came with a lingering guillotine waiting to lop off a dangling appendage or two.
“Hello, have you found my son?” her question was forthright and drowned the bubbling chance of handling this call with good grace.
“Oscar is still unaccounted for I am afraid” don’t say missing he thought to himself, “but I can assure you we have our team looking for him throughout the property and I have alerted two police stations in the area to search for him around places he could reach within the town on foot” his attempts to sounds reassuring fell, clearly, into the depths of her misery.
Boothe was accustomed to this method of communication with women, his mother was the same, his wife even worse, a tongue sharp enough to pierce a steel hull and strip it of barnacles. Sniffling interrupted the back and forth for a moment, Mrs Rubens was crying or about to cry, Boothe could not tell through the phone, but it made him uncomfortable either way.
“Could you tell me how this happened? How you managed to lose a human being who can barely stand unassisted these days?” sharp again he thought to himself, stinging his ego, his pride falling to the ground beneath his feet.
Ideas ran through him, bad ideas, bad replies, but the longer he waited the better the reply needed to be, and Marys fire was burning still warm on the other end of that phone he so desperately wanted to put down, slam back into its receiver and leave for a moment of clean uncursing air. What the doctor wanted to say would have his license, and probably his name turned into a number in a local or county prison, what he wanted to say was something akin to how can you blame me for your freak of a son disappearing again or perhaps a more simplified he will be dead if he collapses on the streets at night in this weather anyway but best keep those words to yourself he thought in maniacal inner affirmations.
“Oscar left sometime this morning, I was in meetings at the time, his leaving of the hospital must have been planned because his room was visited routinely throughout the day. As you are well aware” he continued with some deliberation but plainly scrambling along a road to find his traction and these words that kept inching from his desperate grasp. “now nurse Katie was the last to inspect Oscar before he went to bed last night. I have spoken with Katie and listened to every detail she could give on anything suspicious or unusual in his behaviour, she said nothing came to mind as unusual” then his lie, this time dragging nurse Katie into the mix, was interrupted by the next wave of assaulting words from the parent on the line.
“Hang on a second” she demanded, and he obliged, “I was under the impression that Oscar was being cared for by other nurses and doctors, why is the woman that allowed him to almost die for a fucking coffee still trusted to watch over him!” her words rude but fair he summarised stroking the sides of his chin with his free hand that was clammy with uncomfortable sweat.
“Katie is on a rota and obviously now that she is back to her regular duties, under observation of course, I felt it was appropriate that she regain the trust of her patience, namely and most importantly you son who was equally keen to clear the air with nurse Katie, they appeared to be getting along well from what I was told” he explained.
For the next few moments Mrs Rubens verbally tore the Doctor, now slouching frustrated into his straining swivel chair, interrupted periodically by any agreement or empathetic acknowledgement he could hand over while Mary belittled his position. When Mary finally had run out of steam, her words became spaced out and the sentences turned from a hungry anger to the pleading moans of a mother away from her child,
“I can assure you that we will be in touch as soon as either our wardens or the police locate Oscar, in the meantime if we discover any information I will call you myself. Please accept my apology for all of this, we are doing everything we can” Boothe explained with a porcelain temperament that was so devoid of emotion he felt his eyes closing mid-sentence.
“Fine, just find him please.” Her words another begging feat of helplessness, this had grown tedious for Boothe, and the phone call ending could not have come soon enough.
He dropped the receiver back into place with a plastic snapping clack that rocked the desk.
“Jesus Christ, that fucking woman” he whispered to himself rubbing his eyes and removing his glasses in a tired clammy effort.
Leaving his office Boothe walked with a defeated slump to the coffee machine and took in the surroundings as he went, the hospital was annoyingly quiet for a patient being missing he thought, no sense of alarm or urgency filling the halls, but the coffee was good, boiling, and bitter to taste, just how he liked it. Katie was folded over at the second floors nurses station near his office, she looked to be writing from where he stood sipping at his steaming beverage that clouded his glasses, breaking his all too lingering stare at the woman working before him another nurse appeared at his side, arms folded and meeting his directional stare.
“Can I have a word with you please Doctor Boothe?” she asked forcefully,
gesturing silently towards his office he beckoned her in for hopefully what was going to be a more pleasant calming conversation in which he would not have to rebuild a shredded manhood. Placing down his coffee with too much force it lapped over the side of the mug slightly and caught his hand, nothing seemed to be going his way that late afternoon, but it was about to change, not necessarily for the betterment of the rogue partnership under his nose.
“What can I do for you? Nurse…” his trailing off indicated he had all but forgotten her name, a middle-aged nurse with olive skin and tar-black hair that framed a mean look glowing in the eye, as if she were punishing the world with that glare for every wrongness occurring in her life.
“Nurse Varma, Doctor” she replied in a hushed correction, still that look burrowed through his skull, balding the back of his head with her angry seer.
“It is about this Mr Rubens that has gone missing.”
Boothe perked up,
“Oh, what about him?” the doctor asked rather all too eagerly to seem completely in control, his readiness to close this case was showing and he caught himself before he physically leant into the discussion.
“Well, I was here early, as usual.”
looking for praise at doing her job Boothe thought to himself, blocking out a scoff that circled the interior of his mouth making his lips itch.
“I saw Nurse Katie, she arrived early also and had a big bag with her, she went upstairs and when she came back, the bag was noticeable lighter.”
Boothe looked puzzled, but continued silently observing what was, in his mind, becoming a wildly poorly timed complaint about another member of staff dumping things at the hospital.
“I think she visited Mr Rubens upstairs before she started her shift, and I think she gave him something from her bag before coming back downstairs to the nurses locker room” Varma continued.
Boothe was creaking forward in his seat, the leather creased and popped behind him as he shifted.
“Do you know for sure that Nurse Katie visited Oscar, before she started her shift” he asked, she nodded “and you are sure that something was missing from her bag when she came downstairs?” he asked, she nodded once again. “Is there anyone else that can collaborate this?” Boothe asked inquisitorially, “these are very serious allusions if you are suggesting what I believe you are suggesting my dear” he continued.
Varma sat with Boothe and repeated her story two, perhaps three times, he was hopeful of a detail changing and her story unravelling as nothing more than gossip, his vouching for Katie was now destined to come under the spotlight if this was discovered to be truthful. When Varma left, Boothe asked her to send Katie in when she saw her, this finally brought a smile to the otherwise granite faced Nurse Varma at the prospect of lynching a nurse she sought to remove for some personal vendetta.
“Katie, the Chief of Medicine would like to speak with you in his office” Varma repeated with glee as she skipped past the station and went back to her job.
“Take a seat please” Boothe said as Katie closed the door behind her.
Katie shifted uncomfortably in her seat still warm from Varma who she did indeed see leaving moments earlier, every twitch was riddle with suspicion, if Varma was correct, then Katie was somehow aware or perhaps even, god forbid, aided in Oscars escape. The twisting worries began to give him a headache, maybe it was the coffee, more likely it was Mary, he judged putting his caffeine away from his mouth without taking another sip.
“I need to ask you a direct question, one that I hope you will not overreact too and one that I hope you will answer plainly” he began “Did you know Oscar was going to leave this hospital today?” the question dangled in the air like an exposed pink member in the wind.
It was a brutally long second of silence for them both as Katie looked into his eyes and saw the shadow of a secret hiding beneath the bed of his tongue, that nugget of information he held that she did not.
“No” she replied with no emotion in her voice, it was a perfect delivery, award worthy acting.
Boothe failed to read her expression, although that was never a strong suite of his, give me a room of one hundred men over a single woman any day. Boothe once again took his standard encroaching position of elbows and forearms onto the desk and leaning his frame forward to impose himself on what he deemed a more submissive human, digging the feet of his workstation into the carpet.
“Did you provide Oscar with anything that could have helped him escape? Deliberately or inadvertently. Think good and hard about this one please” he added to ensure he maintained the power of the command in this interrogation.
Katie was visibly wobbling, her hands shook but she held them between her knees to hide, Boothe did not notice.
“Oscar was telling me he was cold at night, I brought him another blanket, I know I shouldn’t have been playing favourites, but I still felt bad, and I think highly of him. So, I brought him a blanket from my flat” she replied.
Another lie but not one that Boothe could easily pick apart.
“That was all you gave him?”
“Yes”
“Why did you not simply ask for another hospital blanket?”
“Have you felt them, they are hardly worth the material they are made with.”
Boothe huffed at the statement, but she continued.
“I told you; I brought him a good blanket as a nicety, I thought his mother would appreciate the extra care we took when she found out” it sounded plausible.
Boothe was mulling it over in his head, but it struck them both at the same time, the hole in her lie.
“Where is that blanket now?” Boothe asked as they both found each other’s gaze.
“Maybe he took it with him?” Katies eyes might have watered slightly at her response, perhaps the light was tricking him, but one thing was certain.
Boothe did not believe a word Nurse Katie was telling him, she knew something, she did something. I know you did he thought loudly in his swelling head. Katie left the office after Boothe instructed her to go search for the blanket in Oscars old room, the blanket that both did not exist and would not be found, not in this reality at least. Then the phone rang loudly, due to not being placed securely back on the holster from his last call, it vibrating at an ear-stabbing pitch, he snatched it up in startled anger and waited for the voice to speak first.
“Doctor Boothe?” the voice asked.
“Indeed, who is calling?” he replied with his usual level of proper private school acquired grace.
“This is Officer Wood, you called regarding a missing patient from your hospital, one Mr Oscar Rubens” Boothe was unsure why he was repeating all this information but sank his chest and allowed the eager officer of the law to continue.
“Yes I did, any news?” Boothe asked when Wood was finished reviewing every single detail of the original call and report.
Tedious irritant he screamed in his head.
“Yes actually” Boothe sat up alarmed and excited all at once, the blood flowed to his limbs and send them tingling, it felt like Christmas for a brief second.
“We got a report of a suspicious young man on the number 35LD bus earlier, that is one of the buses that runs adjacent to your building, sounded like it could be Mr Rubens, he was apparently hassling the driver about leaving early and had his face covered in a hoody, backpack by his side.”
Like pieces of a puzzle falling into place right before his eyes, he saw him sat on that bus, the hood pulled across his smug baby-face that always appeared wounded, he saw Katies bag, and most importantly perhaps he spotted, the hoody that she must have provided for his disguise.
“We had a photo sent in to us, I can’t say by who of course, but it was a passenger on the bus, and they got a quick pic from behind. I am going to email that over to you and in the meantime we are searching all the local bus stops along the route and will be contacting his family to let them know” Wood finished up and said his goodbye.
Mere seconds later the notification for a new email sounded on his computer, the screen was off, but the tower always left on, clicking open the email from Wood he saw the attachment and dragged it onto his desktop filling the whole screen with the image, it was blurry, and the photo was taken from behind and diagonally but enough to make out the backpack, it was his, after confiscating it during his first escape attempt Boothe recognized it even from this photo, it was plainly obvious. Now the question was lingering in his mind, two questions, which raced for pole position of priority “Where did that change of clothes come from?” and “Where did he get the money for the ticket?” both lead him back to one person. Nurse Katie.
He contemplated calling Mrs Rubens back, informing her of the good news, that Oscar was seemingly alive and well, at least well enough to get on a bus without collapsing into another pathetic sweaty heap, but it was no longer his job, Officer Wood instructed him that HE would be calling “Mr Rubens” family. This suited Boothe fine, his task at hand was to convince Katie to tell him the truth, getting a confession would save his weathered neck from the axe of the board, as much as they loved him, they would love even more were opportunity to save their own skins from any media outrage if something was to happen to Oscar wherever he might have ended up. Looking up at the clock he noticed the time, it was closing in on the end of Katies shift, if he was going to spring on her while she was “at ease” from their first chat earlier this was the time, but after his strutting triumphantly around the hospital wore off, he was beginning to suspect she was already gone for the day.
“Excuse me nurse” he asked grabbing a passer-by,
“Varma, Doctor” she replied, awkwardly he had already forgotten her name despite having spoken mere hours ago.
“Yes of course, Nurse Varma, have you seen Nurse Katie at all?” he asked with excitement that must have been visible as the eyes widened slightly across from him.
“she was getting ready to leave when I came upstairs, that couldn’t have been five minutes ago.”
Ungracefully the Chief of Medicine raced off downstairs to the nurses locker room, arriving puffing and out of breath, for a man in medicine, his lack of fitness was relatively embarrassing for everyone but himself, but now was not the time to think about that, and he buried it down again to load the chambers with bullets only carved with the name ‘K-A-T-I-E.’ Knocking twice on the door with the base of a curled fist, he loudly introduced himself and without waiting for an all clear creaked open the door.
“Everyone decent?” he called out and playfully covered his eyes with his hand to pretend he even cared about their sense of privacy, they had lost that respect, Katie was the reason.
Boothe could no longer trust none of his subordinates, even those he counted as part of his nest of eyes around the hospital had their wavering members, weakness was what he deemed it.
Coming round the corner and into the main of the locker room, he looked around and saw Katie covering her bra with her shirt that was about to go over her head before Boothes appearance in this most unacceptable of places.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded of him, Boothe stifled a chuckle at her apparent outrage, she heard you coming, he dreamed to himself at the sight of her embarrassed face.
“I was hoping to catch you before you left, Veena told me you might be here" his stare never left her face, occasionally gifting himself a moment of glancing at her exposed collar bone “Well can you leave so I can get changed and I will come to you!” she shouted the reply and Boothe held his hands up offering his palms like some feeble apologetic gesture.
“Fine, see me outside please” Boothe continued with his enjoyment as she clearly squirmed before him hoping he would just leave.
Boothe walked towards her, and she backed up a pace,
“please leave” she asked now pleading.
“I don’t know what you think is going on here, but you are in no position to be demanding anything of anyone. I will see you upstairs” he muttered turning on the spot.
Boothe made his exit back to his desk. That same office he had been trapped in for almost the entire awful day, but it was picking up, he told himself as he strolled away from the exposed nurse letting the door slam loudly to the locker room behind him as he exited. Back in his safety behind the large wooden desk that bore the years of scuffs and scratches across the surface, Boothe toyed with the cold coffee that was sitting gathering a film of settling dust, waiting for Katie to come knocking on the door, waiting to expose what he knew and bring her lies out into the open for her to mull over, it was such a delicious notion it made his mouth fill with drool.
“Come in” he called as the knock finally arrived at the door, it was light and feint, she must be scared of me.
Katie crept into the room and shut the door behind her out of sheer force of habit,
“Are you clocked out?” he asked knowing the answer, she was in plain clothes, the same shirt she used to cover herself from his stare in the locker room.
“I am, I was heading home when you barged into the changing room” she had fire in her voice and it caught him unexpected, derailed that confidence for a moment at least sending it skidding into the guiderails, “You really shouldn’t be coming into our changing room, it is really inappropriate” she added before slamming back in her seat and crossing her arms defiantly.
“This is my hospital, and since I apparently cannot trust my own staff, those I have PERSONALLY vouched for, I will go wherever I see fit to do my job effectively my dear” his reply was acidic, it poisoned her defences, and the vulnerability came frosting over her with dismantling hypothermia.
Boothe adjusted himself while leaning back into the comfortably safety of his throne away from home, his trousers caught up near his manhood uncomfortably, Katie looked away having seen exactly what he was doing, he did not care about her idea of shame having known what he knew about her actions leading to this very meeting, she was the disgusting one now.
“Well, I will be blunt, seeing as we have been here already and of course you have lied to me already” he paused expecting an argument.
Katies jaw bobbed open for second, considering responding to defend herself, but she chose silence.
“I thought not, did you ever find that blanket you gave Oscar?” he asked knowing the answer before the question even left his crusty cracked mouth.
“No, maybe he took it with him” she mirrored what she told him earlier.
It had less conviction this time, like a hopefully balloon she clung to it as it drifted away into the breeze of disbelief.
“Can you stop, please, I got a call from the police, they have seen Oscar on the bus. He was wearing a hoody that wasn’t his, he somehow had money to get a ticket and the only person who saw him that day was…”
he left the pause to become pregnant, swirling his hand in front of her face imploring her to answer and state the facts, but still she refused to take his bait,
“well, it was you wasn’t it Katie” rhetorical as most of his questions tended to be when feeling exact.
“I am sure I don’t know what you are talking about” Katie began to dilute the pure convicting waters with her mirky lies, but the moment was torn asunder by the eruption of Boothe striking to his feet and pounding the desk with the ball of his fist.
It leapt an inch of the floor and sent its content spinning and fluttering to the ground in chaos, Katie jumped startled in her chair and lost her breath.
“I want your resignation on my desk within the hour” he barked through gritted clenched grinding teeth, shards of yellow foam and plaque hurled out chasing his sentence towards her.
Katie said nothing, simply stood and marched from the room slamming the door behind her and leaving the boiling lobster to steam in his pot alone.
Organ: Chapter 12 of 30
