Brains

by Jaq Wright

  ◆◆◆

  “Why are you so worried about this?” Jack asked.

  Cathy had been agitated all day. “Letters from attorneys freak me out. The only lawsuit I've ever been around was when a worker in Dad's construction company fell off a ladder and ended up with a broken back and ruptured spleen. It wasn't Dad's fault, but it soon became clear that in America, that's irrelevant. That's all my folks talked about for months. The stupid worker had broken company rules with the load he was carrying, and he had been smoking pot, but the ladder manufacturer ended up paying a LOT of money.”

  “What about your Dad?”

  “Oh, his company was dropped from the suit.”

  “So, no big deal for you guys.”

  “Are you really not worried?”

  “Not about this. Just annoyed. Well, maybe a little worried about my patient and HIS patients, but not about a few letters from attorneys.”

  After church, he and Cathy usually took a nice, long nap. He called Dr. Overbridge's number just before lying down. He got the recording.

  “This is Augustus Overbridge. It is now Sunday, October 23rd, and I am resting at home. I am in good health and don't need anything. Thank you for calling.”

  Jack left a message. “Please call me back so that I can talk to you. I would like to verify how you are doing. I also need to ascertain that you do not constitute a danger to yourself or others. If you do not respond by six p.m., I will be forced to assume, based on the circumstances, that you are incapacitated, and I will have the police come check on you.”

  “Let's see if that will get him.”

  Dr. Overbridge had heard the call, and the message. Since his number was private, he really had not expected calls from anyone other than Tucker. He was sure that Jack would check on him. It was only logical. He was going to have to deal with him at some point before tomorrow, or he would likely try and prevent him from going to work. Which could not be. He had eleven surgical procedures planned for this week, five of them aneurysms, and he had brains to save.

  Most importantly, on Tuesday, he was operating on Pierre Lemieux. He was going to compensate for the loss of his son's legs. Nothing could delay that.

  Far from quieting his ghosts, the events of the past two days had just raised the volume. Perhaps he had been meant to die, and, having tricked Death, he would be subject to more haunting. Perhaps death was the only way to redemption.

  ◆◆◆

  Jack's phone rang at 5:59.

  “Hello.”

  “Augustus Overbridge, responding as requested. I assure you, I am doing quite well. Thank you for your concern, but there is nothing to worry about.”

  “Are you really planning on going to work tomorrow? After having had a craniotomy on Friday? Seriously? How will you wear a head light? Are you able to stand? Come on, man, be reasonable.” Jack was exasperated.

  “I am quite competent, and quite serious.”

  “Why, may I ask, are you so opposed to giving yourself time to heal?”

  “I will heal at the same rate at work or at home.”

  “I insist on examining you tomorrow before you see patients. I have a responsibility to both you and the public. I don't have anything until nine tomorrow. Would you like to meet me at my office at eight? I am on the seventh floor at Lexington Medical.”

  “It would appear that you are determined. Admirable. Very well, eight o'clock.”

  Jack hung up. HE was getting a headache.

  Dr. Overbridge, in fact, had the mother of all headaches. He was determined that he would be ready to go in the morning. He had a few things to do.

  First, the staples. They might catch on my headgear. Jack was right about that. He took a shower, washing over his incision gently with some dishwashing soap he found under his kitchen sink, making sure to clean off all the residual betadine. He had not had any shampoo for years, and did not wish to waste precious energy resources by going out to get some. He carefully dried his head, and checked his reflection. The line of staples over the right side of his scalp looked like a zipper. Probably not the best look.

  He stood in front of his shaving mirror, and carefully pried out the first staple with the tweezers. He then applied super glue to the wound edges and waited for it to dry. It took him nearly a half hour to repeat the process for the seventeen staples, but when he was done, the incision looked much less shocking. Jack would certainly have placed a layer of deep sutures, he thought, and anyway, super glue is a perfectly safe wound closure material. Perhaps tomorrow he would inject some local anesthesia into the incision to make it easier to get through the day. No harm in that. None at all. He smiled at himself. That felt odd. His facial muscles were not used to that much exercise.

  The great thing about New York was that you could have any kind of food delivered at any time. He had a delightful dinner with bouillabaisse, asparagus, bread and cheese, all delivered fresh from Rive Gauche on 88th. His housekeeper should be there in the morning to provide his usual breakfast. He called her, just to make sure. Left a message, of course. They had almost never actually spoken during the dozen years she had been working for him.

  Chapter 20

  Monday, October 24

  New York

  What a crazy weekend, Jack mused as he walked the dozen blocks to his office. What should I do with Overbridge? Can I really let him just go back to work like nothing happened? And what was so compelling that he couldn't take a few days off? He jumped back to avoid a bicycle messenger, then crossed the street and into LexMed. The security guard looked up.

  “Mornin' Doc. Surgery today?”

  “No, just in a little early. Have a nice day.”

  Other than the surgery center, not much really got going at the clinic until about eight, and the seventh floor was deserted. He went to his corner office and booted up the computer. There was always plenty of charting to do.

  Carla, his medical assistant, rushed in at a quarter to eight, saw his door was open and popped her head in.

  “Good morning, Dr. Tucker. Need anything?”

  “Yes, I have an add-on coming at eight. Name is Overbridge, Augustus.” He spelled it for her. “You can get the info from the Lenox Hill system. He had surgery Friday night. Just put him on the schedule as a post op.”

  “Sure thing. I didn't think you were on call this weekend. Something special?”

  “Unusual, anyway. Just get it in the computer, thanks.”

  Dr. Overbridge entered the office suite at precisely eight o'clock, and Jack took him immediately back into an exam room. Looks pretty good, Jack thought. Walking normally, good color. Overbridge pulled off his knit cap. Okay, the staples are gone. Jack poked at the incision. Super glue. Dr. Overbridge was silent, and had grimaced almost imperceptibly. Nice job, really, he thought. No sign of infection or fluid collection. Minimal bruising. Bone plate feels stable. Pulse, respiration, and blood pressure all normal. Coordination and reflex testing normal. Normal, normal, normal. Nothing about the man other than the incision itself would have indicated that he had been all but dead three days earlier. Remarkable.

  “Okay, you win. I have no basis for stopping you from going to work, and therefore I will, of course, not be speaking to anyone regarding your case. For now. I want to see you again tomorrow morning, however.”

  “Tomorrow I have surgery at eight at Our Lady. It will not be convenient to come down.”

  “How about if I come up there? Maybe I could come to the OR and see how things are. I would be able to stay until about 9:30.”

  Dr. Overbridge looked at him carefully, weighing the risks. “Completely unnecessary, but if you have the time and inclination, I will not bar the door.”

  “Fine, then, that's settled. I will be at your office tomorrow morning at seven-thirty, so I can have a quick look at you first.”

  “Do what you must.” He turned and left. Jack stared after him.

  ◆◆◆

  When Dr. Overbridge arrived at Our Lady, he immediately w
ent to the locker room, changed into scrubs, and put on an OR cap. He then went to clinic and saw his morning patients dressed like that. His nurse must have thought that odd, as he always, always, always changed back into a shirt and tie before donning his white coat for clinic work, but she did not say anything. Dr. Overbridge did not invite conversation.

  Although he would never admit it, he was concerned about the surgical case that was starting at noon. Not an aneurysm, but a tumor on the nerve to the patient's left ear. It was a combined case with one of the ear surgeons. The good news was that it was a case done sitting down, which would be easier. The bad news was that it was likely to last for several hours. His head was throbbing, and he was worn. He needed to be sure he could get through the case without Dr. Blake noticing anything unusual. He could not afford questions. Not this week.

  He stood at a mirror, and carefully injected bupivicaine, a long lasting anesthetic, into the incision. The pain disappeared. He replaced the surgical cap and headed over to the OR.

  ◆◆◆

  Cathy's day started at just before nine in the headquarters of the Lake Foundation on 2nd Avenue and 44th, near the United Nations building. The Lake Foundation had a twenty-billion dollar endowment, and was therefore second only to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in total assets, with nearly twice the resources of the Ford Foundation. Cathy enjoyed her job immensely. When she had initially taken the job, she had spent nearly a third of her time in-country in Central America, coordinating childhood immunization drives and lobbying with the local governments for improved sanitation. Now, eight years later, she was increasingly in New York. As the Foundation's programs had become more successful, in large part due to her efforts, she had hired assistants in each of her countries who lived there full-time, and she spent more and more of her time trying to get things done at the U.N., or with A.I.D. She still traveled from time to time, but was usually only gone for two weeks or so every quarter.

  She pulled up her file on her current project. For the last three months, she had been working almost exclusively on a large sewage treatment project in the southern part of Honduras. Choluteca was a city of around 150,000, which had the infrastructure and hygiene available for about one-fifth that many people.

  As was always the case in Central America in general, and in Honduras in particular, nothing was straightforward or easy. International gangs were the middlemen that moved drugs and other contraband through the country. Corruption was rampant, both in the local police and in the national government, and there was semi-open warfare between the gangs and the cops. Honduras was the most dangerous country in the Americas, with a murder rate twenty times that of the US. The going rate for a hit was only three hundred dollars. Although San Pedro Sula in the north was the worst, things were not much better in Choluteca. It was unthinkable that anyone would object to better sewage, but the motivations for the different factions were often obscure and hard to anticipate.

  She thought about her upcoming meeting with the Honduran Ambassador to the UN and the Minister of Health, who was in town for an international conference. The governmental permits for her new plant had been stalled by minor bureaucrats who expected bribes. She had long since given up on using any construction company other than the one owned by the mayor's sleazy brother, and that would normally have helped facilitate the process, except that the mayor had just come out against one of the two major gang leaders in that part of the country, and so was living under threat of death, complicating all the negotiations.

  She was not about to give up. She had succeeded in building a total of three of these new plants, two in Guatemala and one in El Salvador. The best estimate on lives saved by the improved sanitation was between eight and nine thousand. Per year. She was proud of the Foundation and her part in it.

  ◆◆◆

  The phone in Maxwell's pocket vibrated urgently. He pulled it out.

  “Yes, Boss.” No one else used this number.

  “Is everything satisfactory?” Perez was calm, but Maxwell could feel the tension in his voice.

  “Completely. The MRI was done this morning, and the techs are working on spinning the mesh as we speak. We should have it ready by Wednesday around noon, sterilized and ready to go.”

  “And the videos? Are they satisfactory?”

  “Perfect. Blaylock says that they are all time and date stamped, and proud Mamacita did us the favor of labeling most of them. There are more than enough. We have workers looking at all the snippets of five minutes or longer, and should have plenty of material ready by the time we have the subject calibrated.”

  “Very well. What are you doing with the subject and the woman?”

  “The woman was told that they have been kidnapped, and that her husband was returned to Mexico, where he is raising money for their release. She thinks she is still in the D.R. She has been told that if she gives us any trouble, that we will kill her and traffic the boy to a dealer in Thailand. Santiago was most convincing. She just sits and stares at the boy, who is enthusiastically playing video games. All being recorded, of course, for additional data. I do not anticipate any difficulties for the time we need.”

  “Please convey my satisfaction to Santiago.” Perez hung up.

  ◆◆◆

  Overbridge was picked up at his office by a car service at six p.m., and was back in his apartment twenty minutes later. He examined his incision closely. Everything looked fine. He called for Thai food, ate, and sat himself up in bed on pillows. He fell into a restless sleep.

  The nightmare was vivid. He was back with Benje in Vietnam. The jungle was hot and humid, and he had just blown the head off of an enemy soldier, when the blood and brains from Benje's own mortal wound sprayed over him. He crawled over to where Benje's body was lying, face down, and rolled him over, only to see the face of Alexander Lake. The dead eyes suddenly opened and fixed on Overbridge. “Incompetent,” the dead man mouthed, and then was still.

  Overbridge woke up, sweating and trembling. He had rolled off of his stack of pillows and nearly off of the bed. His head was throbbing with every heartbeat, and he started counting the beats as he struggled to his feet and to the bathroom, where he swallowed three Tylenol and gripped the sink to keep upright. Looking into the mirror, he got control of himself, drank a swig of Mylanta, and headed back to bed. He was helpless to stop the parade of images – Benje, Lake, Pierre, and finally Monique, but after what seemed an eternity, he was finally able to fall back to sleep.

  Chapter 21

  Tuesday, October 25

  New York

  Jack arrived at Our Lady early, just after seven. It was not at all imposing. It did not even have the look of an old beautiful building gone to seed. It simply looked like it had been built as utilitarian, and had gone downhill from there. He went through the metal detectors and signed in with the guard at the desk, who gave him a visitor's badge and directions to Dr. Overbridge's office. Everything about the place was dingy, and from the walls which needed both a scrubbing and a coat of paint to the chain-link fence along the sidewalk guarding the windows, it looked more like a prison than a place of healing.

  Why is he here? Jack wondered. Despite the incident with Mr. Lake, Dr. Overbridge had been on the fast track in academia at the Neurological Institute of New York when he had decided to leave. He could also easily have secured positions at New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center, or New York University, or anywhere else in the country, for that matter.

  Jack had certainly never been here before. He had little reason to go into East Harlem, and there was nothing about Our Lady of Salubrious Penitence to attract him.

  He waited outside Dr. Overbridge's office. Precisely at 7:30, the elevator doors opened, and he strode deliberately down the hall, stopping six feet from Jack.

  "Good morning, doctor. I trust you had no difficulty getting here?"

  “No, no problem,” Jack assured him. They went into his office, where he removed the black watch cap. Which he had been weari
ng with his dark gray suit.

  The incision continued to look good, and there was, as yesterday, no specific problem that Jack could see.

  They rode down to the operating rooms together and walked up to the control desk.

  “This,” proclaimed Dr. Overbridge, “is Dr. Jack Tucker from Lenox Hill. “He will be observing surgery with me today.”

  The charge nurse looked up, surprised. “Uh, hello, Dr. Tucker. You’ll need to go down to administration and register for temporary privileges. Should just take a few minutes.”

  “Naturally, I should have expected that.” Jack shook his head in self-annoyance. “I probably should have started there.

  “I will meet you in the OR,” Overbridge said.

  There was a barely perceptible twitch of a smile as Dr. Overbridge watched Jack go down the hall to the elevators. Overbridge went to the pre-op area to greet his patient. He had worn a pink power tie today, and had decided that his incision looked acceptable, so he was bare-headed.

  Pierre Lemieux was lying on a stretcher in pre-op. He was accompanied by Maxwell, who handed Overbridge a thick envelope, which he slipped into the large side-pocket of his white coat.

  Lemieux smiled broadly. “I'm ready. Give me back my legs.”

  Overbridge glanced around. “We are here to clip your aneurysm,” he said, a little loudly. “The risks are infection, bleeding, permanent brain injury, and death.” He started to turn.