The Heart of the Jungle, стр. 5
"Jackson Murray," she said with a shy, hopeful smile.
"Huh?" he asked, peering through the window at the paramedics loading the young man into the ambulance.
"Your guy," she said, pointing to the keys. "Jackson Murray." The blush returned to her cheeks as she anticipated what kind of reward she might expect for the risk she had just taken on his behalf.
He glanced absently at the keys, then tossed them on the desk.
"Here you go. Why don't you give him a call and tell him that his girlfriend's husband isn't too happy about that zipper problem of his."
He didn't have time to see the bewildered look on her face change to fury at having been taken. He was out the door before she had time to figure it out.
Chapter 2
CHRIS hated hospitals. The smell alone was enough to make you sick if you weren't already.
He had regained consciousness halfway into the trip, and by the time they reached the towering medical center, the paramedics had decided he was out of immediate danger. Nevertheless, they informed him, procedure dictated that patients arriving in an ambulance had to see a doctor before being discharged.
So there he sat.
George had followed in his own car and, upon seeing that Chris was coherent, departed promptly for his office with a promise to stop by later to check on him.
As luck would have it, the emergency room was jam-packed. As he waited endlessly for his five minutes with the attending physician, he passed the time watching the infirm multitudes come and go through the sliding glass doors. His eye lingered on a tattered copy of Golfer's World magazine sitting on the tabletop in front of him. It wasn't the periodical's content that was of interest to him; the magazine just seemed... lonely. It reminded him of all the times he got picked last for the dodgeball team.
Sure, the athletic kids were harder to hit, but he wanted to play too.
Just as he resolved to pick it up, the chronic cougher sitting next to him dove in and snatched it from the table. With a snort, he flipped through the ragged pages as if they contained the secrets of the universe.
Chris was almost amused. It was hard to believe the lung-challenged man had any interest in the sport of golf. With those bronchial issues, a walk across the room was probably an ordeal, to say nothing of chasing a little white ball across acres of pristine turf. He was coming to realize that the caste system of the emergency room lobby clearly defined status by the quality of the publication one was able to obtain---and a crappy magazine certainly put you higher in the pecking order than no magazine at all.
Finally, his name was called, and he followed a petite nurse down a short corridor, through a pair of swinging doors, and into a closet-sized examination room. With all the fury of a tropical depression, the nurse plugged a thermometer into his mouth, hustled him onto a scale, and inflated a blood pressure cuff around his arm, dutifully recording her findings on a chart that she miraculously held onto for the duration. The speed of this perfunctory examination was in stark contrast to the geologic pace with which patients were rotated into and out of the lobby.
Her duties complete, she excused herself and indicated that the doctor would be with him shortly.
As he waited, he perused the magazine rack on the wall. Here in the inner sanctum, there was no competition for prime reading material, and he was glad for the distraction. The silence, the aloneness, was almost unbearable. True, he'd become accustomed to solitude over the past year, but it was much less tolerable in this cold, antiseptic environment. At least at home, as long as he forced down memories of the blood on the front porch and in the foyer, familiarity kept despair at arm's length.
There was a rap on the door that preceded the physician's entry. Dr. Resnick was a handsome, energetic young man with dark hair and olive skin. He had a wide, bright smile that put Chris somewhat at ease, despite the fact that he'd developed a distrust of doctors over the years.
"Lost consciousness at the police station," he remarked as he read through the chart. "Vitals are... okay, although I'm a little concerned about your weight. You could stand to gain a few pounds."
"You guys always tell me that," Chris replied.
"I get it from my Jewish mother. Like her, I have a solemn duty to point out everything that's wrong with you, ask you a bunch of deeply personal questions, and cluck my tongue when I don't like what I hear. When I'm sure you feel really, really worthless, I'll tell you I only have your best interests at heart."
Chris managed a small smile. "I'll try to remember that when we get to the 'deeply personal' part."
"Any idea why you would have lost consciousness?"
"Stress, maybe?" Chris offered.
"Good guess. You've got some dark circles under your eyes. I'd bet you're having some sleep troubles as well."
"The odds on that one are better than the lottery."
"Blood pressure's a bit high for someone your age---also a nasty side effect of stress."
"Next you're going to ask if I'm seeing a psychologist." There was challenge in his tone.
Resnick pointed with his pen. "I couldn't help but notice the scars on your wrists."
Chris looked away and didn't respond immediately. After a somewhat lengthy and uncomfortable silence, he said, "That was a long time ago."
"So are you seeing someone?"
"No," he said firmly.
"Any reason why not?"
"I spent a year in an institution after the... after this." Chris gestured toward the scar on his left wrist. "I've seen enough shrinks to figure out they can't tell me anything I don't already know."
"You're sure about that? All of these symptoms are indicators of clinical depression."
"I don't have a chemical imbalance."
Resnick smiled and leaned against