Cell

by Robin Cook

  A few weeks earlier, with his promise to Kasey in mind, George had tried a couple of online dating sites, but they turned out to be a bust. As far as he could tell, no one on those sites told the truth about anything. Maybe he should see Paula as a friend. She was a known quantity. Seven years before, he had royally screwed up what could have been a rewarding relationship, which might not bode well, but at least now there was a new element. Apparently a portion of her current success stemmed from her taking his idea of using a smartphone as a primary-care doctor. They had that in common. Maybe her invitation to visit was something he should take seriously.

  Out of desperation for human contact—any kind of human contact—George took another beer and went outside. He strolled over to the parking area behind his apartment complex. Earlier, when he’d arrived, he’d seen one of his neighbors, Sal DeAngelis, polishing his red vintage Oldsmobile convertible. The guy was nuts about the vehicle.

  Sure enough Sal was still there, polishing away. He had his earbuds in, and as George approached he could hear the tinny jangle of doo-wop music leaking out of the tiny speakers. Sal didn’t see him right off so George hung back and watched the man work. Sal lived next door and the men became acquainted from proximity more than anything else, sharing a common wall in their kitchens and living rooms. Sal was a friendly, outgoing, red-faced, stocky, retired plumber replete with a serious beer belly. He also was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, as well as a host of other medical problems, all of which he had been in the habit of discussing ad nauseam with George. Sal had never understood the fact that George was a radiology resident rather than a clinical doctor, so he constantly plied George with questions outside his specialty. Then a few months ago he had stopped. Although George had appreciated the respite from answering the same questions over and over, he was curious as to why they had suddenly stopped.

  As George watched Sal work, he realized sadly that after his living in Los Angeles for three whole years, Sal might have been his closest friend. It was unfortunate, because there was little commonality and few shared interests.

  As George observed his neighbor, he prepared himself to have a conversation about cars, and one car in particular. From previous interactions George was well aware that Sal’s fire-engine red convertible was a 1957 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket 88 with a 371-cubic-inch displacement Rocket V8 with J2 Tri-Power carburation. He also knew that it produced 277 horsepower under the control of a Jetaway Hydramatic transmission. George didn’t know the first thing about the engine or transmission in his own Jeep, but as for the vehicle in front of him, he knew everything and nothing. Finally, he reached forward and tapped Sal on the shoulder.

  Sal’s face lit up in a broad smile. He yanked out his earbuds.

  “George! Check it out,” he said, pulling George around to his side of the car. “Just today I found a pair of original, mint-condition floor mats.” He opened the driver’s door and pointed to two mats still wrapped in plastic. “They’re primo! Primo!” Sal also had the habit of repeating phrases.

  “Nice!” was all George could come up with. Floor mats were floor mats as far as he was concerned, but he didn’t want to dampen Sal’s enthusiasm. “Gonna take them out of the plastic?”

  Sal hesitated. “I’d hate to mess them up,” he said as he pulled George back to the front hood, which he was about to open. “Have I showed you my new carburetor yet—”

  George had seen the carburetor. At least three times, and he was not looking forward to a fourth viewing. He took a risk and steered the conversation away from the car even if it might open the proverbial floodgate. “How’s it been going with your urinary tract symptoms? Still get that burning?” Suddenly George’s curiosity had gotten the best of him. He also felt sorry for Sal since everyone else in the apartment complex steered clear of him so as not to have to slog through the same health-related conversations day in and day out. George knew the man had two older sisters and had even met them once during his first year in L.A., but George hadn’t seen them since, though Sal often talked about them longingly. The guy was pretty much alone in the world. All he had was the Oldsmobile. And George, for whatever that was worth.

  Just then the sound of a horn made both men jump. George looked around for the offending automobile. But there wasn’t any. The horn was the ringtone from Sal’s phone. The man snapped it up from the car’s front seat and switched on the speakerphone.

  “Hello, Sal, it’s Dr. Wilson. You’re on speakerphone. Is it all right for me to talk?”

  “Yeah, sure, it’s okay. Sure,” Sal responded.

  “I’ve noticed two things over the last few minutes,” the physician said in a rich baritone. “Your blood sugar has been falling lower than I would like and your heart rate is over one hundred. Take a moment and have something healthy to drink, like orange juice, and then rest for a spell. Is that possible?”

  “Can I finish polishing my car?”

  “I’d rather you did not. It would be much better if you got some sugar now, along with some rest. When your pulse rate stabilizes, I’ll let you know. Then you can go back to polishing the car.”

  “Okay, okay.” Sal turned off the phone and glanced guiltily at George.

  “What doctor was that?” George knew that Sal’s primary-care doctor had been Dr. Roland Schwarz, and that clearly was not he on the phone.

  Sal glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot. He shielded his face with his hand and spoke in a low voice. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone but you are a doctor, so it probably doesn’t matter. My new doctor is something called iDoc. It’s a—”

  “I know what it is,” George said. He was shocked. iDoc again! “When did you start using the app?”

  “It’s been a month or two now, I guess. Month or two. I can’t remember exactly.”

  George was taken aback. After a presentation that day heralding a new paradigm for medicine based on digital technology, he found out his neighbor was part of the Amalgamated beta test. It was a shock, not as much as ascertaining his deceased fiancée was part of the program, but a shock nonetheless.

  “Can I see your phone?” George asked.

  “Sure. Sure.” Sal handed it over, pleased that George was taking an interest.

  George turned the phone over in his hand. The phone’s protective case was a startling electric orange. “Quite a shocking color,” George said.

  “I picked that out myself. I was always misplacing the damn thing. Now it’s hard to miss.”

  George turned the phone over to look at the screen. He stared at the iDoc icon on the screen, just like the one on Kasey’s phone and just like the one on the huge LED screen at the Amalgamated presentation. “How long did you say you’ve had it?”

  “Can’t remember exactly. My mind isn’t sharp as a marble anymore.” He laughed at his own joke. “A couple of months or so, I guess.”

  George suddenly understood why Sal’s medical questions had stopped. He had a 24/7 doctor in his pocket who didn’t mind being asked the same questions over and over. “Do you like having a doctor to talk with whenever you want?”

  “Love it. I use it all the time. Love it,” Sal said. “I used to have trouble remembering to take my meds, but not now. iDoc tells me whenever I need to take something. And it’ll remind me if I forget. But most important, I don’t have to think about the insulin anymore. It’s automatic. Auto—”

  “What about Dr. Schwarz?” George interrupted. “You used to see him quite a bit.”

  “Not anymore. Nope. Not anymore. He put the reservoir thing in, but that was the last time I saw him.” Sal raised the waistband of his T-shirt to show George a thin, nearly invisible scar on his left lower abdomen.

  George’s reaction was complicated, adding to his general unease.

  “But you’re by far the best doctor I’ve ever met. The nicest, too,” Sal said. He seemed to have sensed George’s n
ot-so-positive reaction.

  “And the name, Dr. Wilson?” George asked. “Where did that come from?”

  Sal blushed. “I hope you don’t mind. I had to pick a name . . .” Sal didn’t finish his sentence.

  “It’s okay. Really! Thanks, Sal. I’m flattered. But I gotta go. Make sure you follow iDoc’s advice and rest up.” George handed Sal back his phone. “Catch you later, buddy.”

  “Later, Doc. Later,” Sal said, watching George walk off. He pocketed his phone and started to put away his polishing kit.

  George headed back toward his apartment, going through the back gate. He took in the relative rundown condition of the complex, which didn’t improve his mood. With a wry smile he imagined how it must compare to Paula’s home. Although he’d never been to her house, he knew Santa Monica had become a high-end neighborhood loaded with celebrities and studio executives living in multimillion-dollar homes.

  George’s apartment complex, likely built in the sixties from the look of it, was an eyesore. It was a poorly constructed U-shaped structure, just like a gazillion other apartment buildings strewn across the greater Los Angeles area. Inside the U was a small, unappetizing pool ringed by a few scraggly palm trees and other plantings fighting for life. The building was two stories high with mostly one-bedroom units, although there were a few studios and two-bedroom apartments as well. The building manager lived in a ground-floor studio next to the back gate. His contribution to the building was a bad joke, as George had come to learn over the years. At exactly 3:00 P.M. every day the guy began drinking. If he made an on-site inspection of an apartment past 3:00 P.M., a drink was always in hand. And since he was hungover every morning, he was MIA before noon.

  The ground-floor units of the complex had small fenced-in patios facing the pool. George estimated that the rickety fences hadn’t seen a coat of paint in at least ten years. George occupied a one-bedroom unit, as did Sal. Sal’s apartment was just to the left of George’s, and on the other side a wannabe actor slash waiter. His name was Joe. George didn’t know the last name, and he didn’t want to.

  The actor’s apartment, like Sal’s, was the mirror image of George’s but, unfortunately for George, their bedrooms shared a shoddily constructed common wall without insulation. Consequently, George already knew quite a bit about the actor, since he could hear the man’s conversations as clearly as if he were in George’s apartment. Joe worked at a nearby Beverly Hills restaurant and had lots of one-nighters that he picked up at the dive bars on Sunset over in West Hollywood. These sexual escapades often woke George up. A few times, desperate to get back to sleep, George pounded on the common wall, but it had never done any good. It was apparent that Joe’s attitude toward women was not all that different from Clayton’s.

  Since George had so many nights that required him to stay in the hospital on call, he’d tolerated the Joe the Actor issue, but now that he was about to begin his final year of residency, which had no scheduled night call, he knew he was going to have to do something.

  George skirted the pool, glancing over at two inked-up twenty-something girls floating on rafts. They lived in one of the upstairs units. They were drinking PBR beers from tallboy cans and didn’t acknowledge George as he passed. He assumed his lack of body art combined with his somewhat combed hair was a factor.

  Rounding a sad-looking palm tree, George started toward his door. Besides Sal, George was friendly with only one other tenant. His name was Zee, and George really didn’t know him all that well. He wasn’t even sure if Zee was his real name or not. He was in his mid-twenties and used to work for a computer gaming company. He had gotten laid off when a major new product bombed upon its release. According to Zee, he had nothing to do with that particular product, but since he was the low man on the totem pole, he was one of the employees who got their walking papers. Now he supported himself playing poker on the Internet, a career choice George never knew existed until Zee gave him the 411 on it.

  George knew Zee to be incredibly computer savvy and capable of fixing anything and everything associated with hardware and software. That talent had come in handy on occasion. Zee had helped George with a number of iPad and iPhone issues. George was also aware that Zee was an accomplished hacker since he had regaled George with hacking stories while fixing whatever computer device wasn’t working. It seemed to George that Zee hacked secure sites just for the fun of it. Zee bragged that he could hack into anything.

  Slamming the door behind him as he entered his apartment, George was in a strange mood. iDoc had invaded his world without his even having been aware of it. And it was an idea he had supplied to one of its creators! He wasn’t sure if he was depressed or just pissed off about the whole thing. The distinction probably didn’t matter.

  “Shit!” George shouted while glancing at the bare shelves in his refrigerator. He had forgotten to stop at Ralph’s grocery on his way home. The empty fridge underscored how sad and devoid of pleasure his life was.

  He looked around the room. He had no pictures on the walls and no photos. There had been a few of Kasey, but after she died he put them away. They were too painful to look at every day. His only addition to the furniture that had come with the apartment was the flat-screen TV and a bunch of radiology textbooks. Sad. Very sad indeed.

  11

  L.A. UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

  WESTWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2014, 7:30 A.M.

  George entered the radiology main conference room, checking messages on his phone while balancing a cup of coffee on his iPad. For a small gaggle of first-year residents it was the first day of residency. He was still in a blue funk from the previous day and still couldn’t decide how he felt about Paula and iDoc.

  Feeling decidedly antisocial, George took a seat in the very last row. He liked a lot of his fellow residents and some of them were very accomplished, but he wasn’t close to any of them. For the most part, they were married, some with kids and living a completely different life from George’s. In truth he felt envious, and it made him miss Kasey that much more.

  George sipped his coffee and tuned out the welcoming speeches. He had heard them all, ranging from the warm to the threatening. George stifled a yawn as he eyed the first-year residents. There were more women than men this time around, and all appeared eager to go. They were scrubbed up in crisp, freshly laundered and pressed white coats. He had made it a point to look over the list of the first-year residents a few days before and noticed they were all married.

  George’s mind wandered as the meeting droned on. Over the last few months he was supposed to have been dreaming up some sort of research project for his fourth year, but he hadn’t given it much serious thought. He wondered about the possibility of doing a year of subspecialty radiology as a way of putting off the decision about what he was going to do after he graduated from the program. After the previous day’s presentation at Amalgamated, he wasn’t as sanguine about his professional future as he had been prior to it. Would he end up working for Amalgamated or its equivalent? Unfortunately he thought the chances were depressingly possible.

  At the conclusion of the department’s welcoming conference there was a modest spread of doughnuts and coffee to encourage mingling. George watched it all from the periphery, feeling disassociated. Just then Clayton caught sight of him and sidled over before George could escape.

  “The women are getting better looking every year,” Clayton whispered.

  “It’s just that we’re getting older,” George replied. “Plus they’re all married, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Clayton glanced over at George. “Someone got up on the glass-half-empty side of the bed this morning. What’s your first rotation this year?”

  “Supervising emergency imaging in the ER.”

  “Good!” Clayton said, pleased. “I had told scheduling to assign you there, but you never know. Can’t count on anyone anymore.
Listen: I heard through the grapevine that there’s a knockout first-year ER resident from Stanford. Single, since that seems to be a prerequisite for you. Her name is Kelley something or other. Check her out. I’m always thinking about you, buddy.”

  “Okay,” George said. He wasn’t interested, but he didn’t want to get into it with Clayton; better to let him think all was well with his clumsy efforts to fix George up. George definitely wanted to stay on the man’s good side. George saw Carlos Sanchez, the first-year that he was scheduled to supervise. It was an excellent opportunity to ditch Clayton. “Excuse me, that’s my newbie over there. Better go get him situated.”

  “Go to it.” Clayton smacked George on the butt with his folder. He had once confided that carrying a folder around always made you appear busy, and even better, you could end any conversation instantly just by waving it and saying you had to go. The guy was a superb radiologist and a great teacher, George thought, but he had his fair share of idiosyncrasies.

  George approached Carlos, a bright, eager Mexican American whose record George had perused when he’d gotten the assignment. Carlos had breezed through UCLA Medical School with stellar grades. With radiology being one of the more desirable specialties, all of the department’s residents had done extremely well in medical school, George included. When George first met the young man a few days earlier he’d been impressed with his eagerness. He had already read several of the main texts written about emergency imaging, but reading textbooks about what to do was one thing, actually doing it was another.

  “Hey, Carlos!” George said, offering his hand.

  “Dr. Wilson,” Carlos replied, grabbing George’s hand and giving it an eager pump.

  “Just George will be fine. I’m about to head out but wanted to let you know I’ll see you over in the ER after the reception.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Carlos said, setting down his coffee.

  “No! Stay and try to meet as many of the staff members as you can! It’s important for you to get the lay of the land. See you in a few!” George headed for the exit, waving over his shoulder in a fair imitation of Clayton.