Killer Swell

47

One of the things I admired about San Diego was that despite the fact that the population in the county continued to grow, it hadn’t changed its attitude. Sure, there were more cars on the road and housing prices were soaring, but no one seemed stressed out by it. Everyone was happy to be in a beautiful city by the ocean with weather that bordered on spectacular.

I couldn’t say the same for Los Angeles. The Angelenos had seemed to adopt a hustle and bustle lifestyle that was more appropriate for the East Coast. The result was something that gave the city the feeling of a spoiled younger sibling, and I rarely enjoyed venturing into the area.

The drive up the snarled 5 and 405 through Orange County and Long Beach took me a little over two hours. I read somewhere that Southern California possessed eleven miles of permanently clogged freeway where the traffic was at a constant standstill. As I took the interchange to the 110 and entered the massive maze of concrete and asphalt that made up downtown Los Angeles, I thought eleven miles might have been a conservative guess.

The Westin Bonaventure is LA’s largest convention hotel, a series of circular glass towers that rise out of the financial district like something from the future. It boasted of spectacular views of downtown Los Angeles from the higher floors, but never mentioned the possibility of those views being choked off by the smog.

I parked in the massive garage and found my way inside the hotel. The enormous six-story atrium, housing restaurants, bars, and shops, gave me the feel that I was in an oversized greenhouse. I saw a sign that directed me toward the conference and meeting rooms and found a tall thin man in his forties sitting at a table next to a giant easel that said CALIFORNIA PHYSICIANS AND ADMINISTRATORS ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE.

“What can I help you find?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m actually looking for a person, but I have no idea where she might be.”

“Presenter or attendee?” he asked, grabbing a thick black binder from the corner of the table.

“Don’t know that either,” I said, shrugging.

He clutched the binder and looked at me. “Sir, are you here for the conference?”

“Actually, no,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’m trying to track down a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Her office told me I could find her here,” I said, trying to look harmless. “Charlotte Truman?”

He set the book on the table, frown lines wrinkling his forehead. “You’re a friend?”

Can’t fool everybody all of the time. I reached into my back pocket and flipped my license open at him. “Not really, but I do need to find Ms. Truman.”

He stared at the license, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Is she in trouble? Has something happened?”

“No, everything’s fine. I just need to talk to her.” I smiled. “I’m not looking to rock the boat.”

He looked at the license again, then at me. “I hope not. She’s giving the keynote address this evening. It would be a disaster if she weren’t able to do that.”

I tried to look sympathetic to his cause. “I promise. My visit will do nothing to change her availability for this evening.”

He bit his bottom lip for a moment, clearly not wanting to be a party to the potential ruin of the conference.

“Look, you told me she’s speaking tonight,” I said. “If you won’t tell me where she is now, I’ll have no choice but to hang around until I find her tonight.” I shoved my wallet back into my shorts. “Your call.”

His left eye twitched, then he opened the binder. He flipped through several pages, ran a bony finger down one, and tapped the middle of the page.

“The Santa Anita Room,” he said, pointing to his right. “Last room at the end of this hall.”

“I appreciate it,” I told him and started in that direction.

“Sir?”

I turned back to him.

He held up a plastic badge with a nylon string attached to it. The card in the clear plastic badge said VISITOR.

“This might make it easier,” he said, offering it to me. “You’ll look like you’re supposed to be here.”

I took the badge and hung it around my neck. “That, buddy, is something I don’t hear too often.”

48

The Santa Anita Room was one of those sterile spaces that could be divided up into sections with ugly partitions, but currently it was wide open and completely filled for whatever was going on.

About seventy-five tables dotted the room, six chairs around each. I didn’t see an empty seat anywhere.

The attendees were focused on a long table toward the front, where four people sat. Three men and a woman. The woman was attractive. Early forties, auburn hair cut to her shoulders, an expensive-looking navy suit. She gestured with her hands as she spoke.

“Our job,” she said, friendly but confident, “is to deal with the people, and the issues, that the rest of the hospital won’t. Can’t, in fact. They aren’t equipped with the knowledge to make those kinds of decisions. Their job is to save the patients. Ours is to ensure that they can continue to do that.”

A round of applause arose from the tables and one of the men on the panel stood.

“I think we’ll end on that note,” he said, smiling broadly at the audience, then at the three people to his left. “Let’s thank our panelists today. Chandler Mott, Damian Taitano, and Charlotte Truman.”

I eased into the back corner of the room as the audience stood and again applauded. The people began to trickle out of the room, smiling and whispering to one another, apparently having learned some big secret to hospital administration.

I let the room nearly clear out before moving toward the front and Charlotte Truman.

“That was fabulous,” a woman was gushing at her. “Exactly what most of us needed to hear.”

Charlotte Truman nodded graciously. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”

“I mean,” the woman continued, “I don’t think my hospital has any idea of the confrontations that I face on a daily basis.”

Truman began gathering up her belongings. “No, they probably don’t. But that doesn’t mean you’re any less valuable. Part of your job is to be good at thankless endeavors.”

“Yes, yes, I guess it is,” the woman said, nodding vigorously, as if the thought had never occurred to her.

Truman picked up the last of her folders and looked at the woman. “Great to meet you.”

“Oh, no,” the woman said. “The pleasure was mine.”

The woman turned from Truman and pounced on the man that had been sitting next to her.