"I know, but it's Alberto," Diane said. "Sore throat. He said he'll only see you-you know how he is."

During the summer months, Alberto followed his father, who was a gardener for UCLA, around campus on his skateboard, causing damage to stairs, curbs, and himself. David had always treated him warmly, and Alberto sometimes made up excuses to come in and talk. David excused himself and headed down the hall, walking beside Diane.

"I hear they ID'd someone," she said. "You have something to do with that?"

He nodded. "Fill you in later. What time are you off?"

"Six. Then I'm on again at ten, filling in for Marcy."

"Okay. Let's meet over at Carson's around six-thirty. Make sure he still has his head screwed on."

"Ever try to suck your own dick, Doc?" The boy's smooth-skinned face looked up at David. Alberto wore his hair long in the back, and it bunched above the collar of his jacket. Sitting on the examination table with a beat-up skateboard across his lap, he looked even younger than his twelve years. His eyes always squinted, ever so slightly, as if needing constant protection.

"Not recently, no," David said. "I have a bad back." He walked over and closed the door, then studied Alberto. The boy was clearly sick, his face pale and tired, except where his lips were stained purple from some candy he must've eaten earlier. "Something you want to talk about?"

Alberto shrugged. "I tried once," he confessed. His heels drummed against the base of the examination table. "Does that make me gay?"

David touched Alberto's forehead-hot-then walked his fingertips up along the back of Alberto's jaw, feeling for swollen glands. "Why would that make you gay?"

Alberto pulled away. "Well, I like girls. I'm dying to get laid, even. I don't want to be gay." His eyes pooled with concern. "But, I mean, I almost had a dick in my mouth."

David inhaled deeply and held it for a moment. "Well," he began, in a textbook voice, "gender roles are a complicated and… " He paused, then rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "No, Alberto, it doesn't make you gay."

The relief in Alberto's eyes was palpable.

"Now can we focus on your sore throat?" David felt again for Alberto's glands, and Alberto winced slightly when David found them. David grabbed a tongue depressor from a Pyrex beaker. "Open up. Open." Alberto refused, and David squeezed his cheeks gently until he complied. Red beefy throat, enlarged tonsils with exudate mucus-what David's mother would have called "angry throat." "Oh boy, kiddo. We have some activity going on in here. Does it hurt?"

"I had to spit into a bag last night because it hurt too much to swallow."

"Why didn't you come in?"

Alberto looked down. One of his untied shoelaces trailed along the tiled floor. "We don't got insurance no more. My dad got laid off, and I didn't want to cost him nothing more."

David crouched, resting his hands on Alberto's knees. "Alberto, listen to me. If you ever feel sick, you come in here. Don't worry about money. Okay? Now say aah."

Alberto opened his mouth, and before he realized what was going on, David had already swabbed him with the elongated Q-tip. He handed it to Jill outside. "Let's get a Rapid Strep on this."

He ducked into the doctors' lounge and called Carson but got the machine. Someone had taped Clyde's police composite to the wall, and David studied it as he left a message. "Carson, it's Dr. Spier. I hope you're doing all right. I'm going to stop by around six-thirty, and I hope we'll be able to talk then."

Jill met him in the hall on his way back to Alberto's exam room and walked alongside him. "It's positive," she said. "First strep of the day."

"All right. The patient has a penicillin allergy. He's also got no insurance, but I just met with a rep from Biaxin, and I stowed a bunch of samples in the locked drawer in Three. Would you mind grabbing them for me?"

David swung into the exam room and faced Alberto with a resigned smile. "You have group A betahemolytic streptococci, aka strep throat. I'm going to get you some antibiotics. You'll take one in the morning, one at night, for ten days. Now, this particular drug has a side effect. It'll give you a dry metallic taste in your mouth, so you'll want to get some Altoids or strong suckers so you can- " He froze.

Two minutes later, having paged Ed three times consecutively from the doctors' lounge, he had him on the phone. "I have something," he said.

"L' Ermitage. Twenty minutes."

Chapter 40

A man impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit with a shimmering blue tie, his gray hair coifed, paused in front of David. Still dressed in his scrubs and white medical coat, David slumped on a leather couch in the elegant cocktail lounge of the modern, upscale hotel. A fire flickered beneath the screen to his right, though it was August. Before him, on a simple glass table, sat a tray containing jars of wasabi peas, Parmesan twists, and herb-cured olives.

"Nice outfit, Spier," the man said. "I appreciate your not calling attention to us."