Without remorse - Tom Clancy [152]
'I do not abase myself before women!' the doctor hissed. A little more pressure on the hand caused his face to change. Only a little additional force, he knew, and things would begin to separate.
'You have very bad manners, sir. You only have a little time to learn better ones.' Kelly smiled. 'Now,' he commanded. 'Please.'
'I'm sorry, Nurse O'Toole,' the man said, without really meaning it, but the humiliation was still a bleeding gash on his character. Kelly released the hand. Then he lifted the doctor's name tag, and read it before staring again into his eyes.
'Doesn't that feel better, Doctor Khofan? Now, you won't ever yell at her again, at least not when she's right and you're wrong, will you? And you won't ever threaten her with bodily harm, will you?' Kelly didn't have to explain why that was a bad idea. The doctor was flexing his fingers to work off the pain. 'We don't like that here, okay?'
'Yes, okay,' the man said, wanting to run away.
Kelly took his hand again, shaking it with a smile, just enough pressure for a reminder. 'I'm glad you understand, sir. I think you can go now.'
And Dr Khofan left, walking past the security guard without so much as a look. The guard did give one to Kelly, but let it go at that.
'Did you have to do that?' Sandy asked.
'What do you mean?' Kelly replied, turning his head around.
'I was handling it,' she said, now moving to the door.
'Yes, you were. What's the story, anyway?' Kelly asked in a reasonable voice.
'He prescribed the wrong medication, elderly man with a neck problem, he's allergic to the med, and it's on the chart,' she said, the words spilling out rapidly as Sandy's stress started bleeding off. 'It could have really hurt Mr Johnston. Not the first time with him, either. Doctor Rosen might get rid of him this time, and he wants to stay here. He likes pushing nurses around, too. We don't like that. But I was handling it!'
'Next time I'll let him break your nose, then.' Kelly waved to the door. There wouldn't be a next time; he'd seen that in the little bastard's eyes.
'And then what?' Sandy asked.
'Then he'll stop being a surgeon for a while. Sandy, I don't like seeing people do things like that, okay? I don't like bullies, and I really don't like seeing them push women around.'
'You really hurt people like that?'
Kelly opened the door for her. 'No, not very often. Mainly they listen to my warnings. Look at it this way, if he hits you, you get hurt and he gets hurt. This way nobody gets hurt except for a few bent feelings, maybe, and nobody ever died from that.'
Sandy didn't press the issue. Partly she was annoyed, feeling that she'd stood up well to the doctor, who wasn't all that good a surgeon and was far too careless on his post-op technique. He only did charity patients, and only those with simple problems, but that, she knew, was beside the point. Charity patients were people, and people merited the best care the profession could provide. He had frightened her. Sandy had been glad of the protection, but somehow felt cheated that she hadn't faced Khofan down herself. Her incident report would probably sink him once and for all, and the nurses on the unit would trade chuckles about it. Nurses in hospitals, like NCOs in any military unit, really ran things, after all, and it was a foolish doctor who crossed them.
But she'd learned something about Kelly this day. The look she'd seen and been unable to forget had not been an illusion. Holding Khofan's right hand, the look on John's face had been - well, no expression at all, not even amusement at his humiliation of the little worm, and that was vaguely frightening to her.
'So what's wrong with your car?' Kelly asked, pulling onto Broadway and heading north.
'If I knew that, it wouldn't be broke.'
'Yeah, I guess that makes sense,' Kelly allowed with a smile.
He's a changeling, Sandy told herself. He turns things on and off. With Khofan he was like a gangster or something. First he tried to calm things down with a reasonable word, but then he acted like he was going to inflict a permanent