Run the Numbers
Chapter Four
As they came to the end of the hall leading out of the emergency department they had to stop and wait for an elevator to arrive to take them up to the first floor and the X-Ray department. Sitting nearby a rather distraught woman held a long piece of paper in her hands talking to a man sitting next to her.
"Emergency room visit $1,542; Ambulance $345; ALS $265; Supplies including all the drugs and IVs $836.45, $365.89, $630.75; Medical consultation $2,540… Do you have any idea what this is all going to add up to?"
"$6543.09"
Jerome looked down at Charlie and said, "What was that buddy?"
Charlie had his eyes closed as a wave of nausea washed over him, yet that didn't stop the flood of numbers dancing before his minds eye.
"$1,542; $345; $265; $836.45, $365.89, $630.75; $2540 adds up to $6543.09"
Jerome shot a look back at the woman who had turned in their direction at Charlie words with a stunned look on her face, then back at Charlie.
"You just added all that up in your head!"
Just then the elevator door opened and Jerome pushed the stretcher in still marveling at what Charlie had just done. Another orderly ran into the elevator just as the doors were closing and said, "Hey ya J. What's shakin"
"Yo Jerry you got a calculator on ya?"
Jerry patted his pockets down but came up empty and shrugged his shoulders "Sorry dude, whatch' want a calculator for?"
A man in a suit standing next to Charlie's stretcher pulled a small calculator out of his pocket "You can use mine if you'd like."
Jerome took the calculator and said, "OK my friend what is 436 X 789?"
Charlie didn't even need to concentrate. The answer just materialized in his head and he replied, "344,004"
Jerome, Jerry and the man in the suit all looked at Charlie amazed.
"OK, OK how about 1785 X 3924?"
Once again the numbers seemed to just flow in his mind like water and he answered, "7,004,340"
The elevator doors opened and they all just stood there for a second. Jerome handed the man's calculator back to him and pushed Charlie out into the hallway.
"Rockin' dude, yer a regular genius!" Jerry said in complete awe.
"I am?"
Charlie was somewhat surprised by this young mans reaction to what seemed to him to be fairly elementary mathematics. Jerome began to move the stretcher down the hall to the X-Ray department with Jerry tagging along. After parking Charlie against the wall in what looked like a sort of stretcher waiting area Jerome moved off to turn in a paper to the woman at the window.
"So whose this guy anyway?"
Jerome glanced back at Charlie and said, "No idea and he don't know either. Someone smashed his head in and he can't even remember his own name."
Jerry looked back at Charlie. "How can he dope out the numbers like that and not know his own name? Dude, I'll betcha he's some sort of Rainman or something like that."
Jerome scowled at his friend and said, "Na, the Rainman was autistic. This guy's no retard, he might be a teacher at some technical school though. Whoever he is, that was totally cool. I'll bet he'd do a righteous deal in Vegas."
Trevor Baker and Michael Reed stood waiting in the hallway of the busy emergency department while the doctors tried to revive Devlin who had stopped breathing just before they arrived at the hospital.
Michael speaking in a low voice said "What if he dies, Trevor?"
Trevor tried to see through the glass of the treatment room that Devlin had been taken into. Suddenly an announcement came over the loud speaker.
"Code Blue in Treatment Room 4!"
Nurses and doctors came running from several different directions toward them. Trevor and Michael moved back against the wall to allow them to pass and enter the room. Trevor could only see shadows but it was clear that there was a frenzy of activity happening behind that closed door.
The police officer that had brought Charlie in stepped out of the lounge and both Trevor and Michael turned their backs to him and moved down the wall toward a counter where doctors were reading and writing in a stack of charts.
The door behind them opened and a couple of nurses stepped out.
One of them said, "It's a shame really. He was so young…" but they couldn't catch the rest of what was being said as the nurses passed out of earshot.
"We need to get out of here Trevor."
To leave they would have to walk right passed the cop who was standing directly in their path and Trevor was concerned that their faces might be in circulation after the theft from Bio-Gen. Trevor walked in the opposite direction and around the corner of the counter where the doctors were working on charts. He was looking around considering the best way for them to leave without attracting notice when an orderly walk right passed him and called out to one of the doctors at the desk.
"Yo Doc Caster, you know your John Doe with the head injury?" One of the doctors looked up and the orderly continued, "You should check with colleges and see if they have a math professor missing."
Trevor and Michael were just about to make for the rear of the department when they stopped in their tracks at these words. One of the doctors at the desk set the chart he was holding down and stepped over to the orderly.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well he is some sort of math genius. We were waitin' for the elevator up to X-Ray and this woman was sittin' there complainin' 'bout her bill and rattled off all these charges and he added them up in his head! Then I tested him with a calculator. He's like some kind of human computer this guy. I'll bet someone's lookin' for him."
The doctor looked intrigued. "Where is he now?"
"He was done in X-Ray so I brought him back to curtain two."
Trevor and Michael exchanged excited looks and Trevor scanned the wall for the location of curtain two. He knew that it would be one of the cubicles with nothing but a curtain to give privacy from the busy ER and he quickly found it.
"Bring the car around to the loading dock behind the ambulance bay. There is a door leading out to that dock on the other side of the emergency department."
Michael glanced around the corner and saw that the cop had moved off and he turned back to Trevor and asked, "How are you going to get him out?"
"Leave that to me."
Trevor winked and Michael turned and left directly for the front door to get the car. Trevor walked purposefully toward the back of the Emergency room scanning the area for what looked like a lounge or changing room. He ended up walking almost all the way around to entire department and ended up near where the cop had been standing blocking their way but he did find the lounge.
He stepped through the door as though he had every right to be exactly where he was and when he entered he found that the lounge was empty. He moved quickly looking in the lockers until he found one that had a set of scrubs. He pulled them on quickly over his clothes and grabbed a name tag from the same locker. He pinned it haphazardly to the scrub top so that the picture was turned around the wrong way.
Trevor grabbed a wheel chair from the hallway and made his way to curtain two only to find the doctor who spoke with the orderly talking in low tones with a young man whose head was covered in a bandage.
"Sorry to interrupt Doctor Castor but they need him back in X-Ray. Apparently some of the films didn't come out and the Radiologist wants a few more pictures."
The doctor saw that the orderly had brought a wheelchair and turned to Charlie and said, "We'll talk when you get back from X-Ray. Are you up to a ride in a chair?"
Charlie who was already sitting up on the stretcher nodded and swung his legs out over the side. He swayed slightly but waved off the doctor who wanted to get him to lie back down.
"No please, I want to get up. This thing doesn't steer all that well and a chair ride will make me less dizzy, I think."
Charlie gingerly got down from the stretcher he had been laying in with the help of Doctor Castor and Trevor and into the wheelchair.
"Come and find me as soon as you get back from X-Ray."
Trevor smiled and said, "Will do doc." and headed down the corridor toward the end of the emergency department.
"So I hear that you are a bit of a math whiz."
Charlie was feeling nauseous and dizzy. Moving to the chair had not been a very good idea after all and he had not really heard Trevor's question. Charlie leaned forward almost tipping out onto the floor and Trevor quickly grabbed him around the chest to hold him back up in the chair.
"Hey fella, you OK?"
Charlie squeezed his eyes shut for a moment willing the dizziness to subside and after a moment he opened them and was somewhat startled by what he saw. They were not in front of the elevators leading to the upper levels of the hospital as he had expected but just heading through two swinging doors that lead to a loading area of some kind.
"Where are we going?"
Trevor looked out through the open door to the loading dock and saw Michael coming up the steps to the right of the dock. A man lay prone on the floor and Trevor looked quizzically at Michael.
"He said that I couldn't park here and was going to call security."
Charlie felt a deep fear grip his chest as he realized that the man on the floor was dead. There was a copious amount of blood around the man's head and his eyes were wide open in a look of surprise. Trevor and Michael took hold of Charlie under his arms and hauled him up out of the chair. He tried to resist but was far too weak and dizzy. They put him roughly into the back of a black SUV and then got in and sped away from the loading dock.
The false orderly was driving and the other man was rifling through a box on the floor of the front seat of the car. He pulled out what looked like a portable scanner. Charlie had fallen over to his side and was staring up out of the window of the car. The passing poles and trees were making him even more dizzy so he closed his eyes.
He opened them again when he felt the man in the passenger seat grab his hand and place it on the plate of the scanner. Charlie tried to pull away from him but the man had a strong grip.
"Hold still if you know what's good for you."
Charlie stopped struggling because this man had a deadly look in his eye and he had already shown no compunction about killing.
"I'll hack into AFIS when we get back and find out who our friend is."
