The Fifth Vial

by Michael Palmer

  “Both of these are substantially accurate,” she managed, “but I don’t think they capture the motivation behind what I was trying to do.”

  “Nat,” Berenger said, “I promise you that we understand that there was nothing overtly malicious in your motives.”

  Seated next to Berenger, Millwood nodded his agreement.

  “I’ll be more than happy to admit that what I did was wrong, and to apologize to Dr. Renfro.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Ms. Reyes,” Goldenberg said. “Dr. Schmidt, who as you know is Dr. Renfro’s chief of surgery, has insisted that you are unfit to be a physician and he has demanded that you be expelled from the medical school.”

  The words were a dagger thrust into Natalie’s chest.

  “I can’t believe this. My grades have been honors level, and as far as I know, my clinical work has been strong.”

  “Actually,” Goldenberg said, “while there has never been anything negative reported about your work with patients, there have been several complaints suggesting a consistent lack of respect for authority, an intolerance for some of your residents, and even some of your classmates, and an arrogance that one faculty member has suggested could be a source of serious problems in the years to come.”

  “I just can’t believe this,” Natalie said again. “My only incident with a classmate that I know of was when I refused to partner with him because he was throwing cadaver parts around the anatomy lab.”

  “Excuse me, Dean, for breaking in here,” Veronica said, “but I feel as if I need to back Natalie up on this one. When Dr. Millwood called and told me what was happening, I asked him to find out if I could come. I appreciate your allowing me to. The student Natalie was speaking of was totally inappropriate, and deserved her response. Natalie and I have been close friends since before we started med school. I wanted to make sure you knew how well-liked and respected she is among almost all the students, men and women, and also how difficult Dr. Renfro can be at times. He and I clashed more than once during my surgical rotation.”

  “But you never ended up being reported to me,” Goldenberg said.

  “No,” Veronica said, clearly deflated. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Kelly.”

  “Nat,” Millwood said, “didn’t you stop to think about the trouble you were asking for by bringing back a patient that a senior resident had discharged without even consulting him?”

  Natalie shook her head. “I know now that it was wrong, but I was upset with Dr. Renfro, and all I was thinking about was the patient, a poor old drunk whom I felt was being booted out of the hospital without a complete evaluation of his problems.”

  Millwood turned to Goldenberg, as did Berenger. Natalie watched her future unfold in an unspoken three-way conversation, battling back the knee-jerk urge simply to say, “Oh, screw this! I quit.” Veronica, probably sensing that, subtly raised a calming hand. Finally, Goldenberg nodded that he had reached a decision, and turned to Natalie.

  “Ms. Reyes, there are a number of faculty members, including your two biggest boosters here, who have written glowing evaluations about your potential to be an exceptional physician. I also appreciate the effort your friend Ms. Kelly has made to be here today, as well as the things she has had to say. I know for a fact that you are being seriously considered for selection into the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society. I can assure you now that will not happen. You are an unusual person, with many fine qualities, but there is an edge to you—call it hardness, call it arrogance—that will contribute nothing toward making you the sort of physician we want to graduate from this school. With the help of your supporters here, I have decided that expulsion is too severe a punishment for what you have done—but not by much. As of today, you are suspended for four months. If there are no further incidents after that, you will graduate with the next class after yours. Other than a legal challenge in court, there is no mechanism in place for reconsideration of this decision. Do you have any questions?”

  “My residency?”

  “Nat, we’ll go over the possibilities for you later,” Berenger said. “I can tell you that your place in the surgical program at White Memorial will be filled by someone else.”

  “Jesus. What about my work in your lab?”

  Berenger got tacit approval from Goldenberg before responding.

  “You can still work for me, and even attend grand rounds and any other conferences you wish.”

  “Making this decision doesn’t please any of us,” Goldenberg said.

  “It seems too harsh to me,” Natalie said coolly, much closer to an angry outburst than to tears.

  “Possibly, possibly so. But it is the hand you have dealt yourself.”

  “Tell me one thing, Dean Goldenberg. Would we still be sitting here if the CT scan I ordered on that poor man had shown a large clot pressing on his brain?”

  Across from her, Terry rolled his eyes and sighed. Veronica shook her head.

  Sam Goldenberg seemed almost ready for the question. He fixed some papers in front of him, then leveled his gaze at her.

  “Since part of the issue here is your assault on Dr. Renfro’s clinical judgment, I feel the need to remind you that there was no such clot. The CT scan on which you staked your medical school career was normal, Ms. Reyes. Absolutely normal.”

  For nearly ten seconds after the final passage of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in F major had drifted through Queen Elizabeth Hall, there was absolute silence. Then, as one, the audience erupted, leaping to its feet, drowning out the quivering echo of the last note with shouts and applause.

  “Bravo!”

  “Huzzah!”

  “Wunderbar!”

  The seventeen-year-old beauty, cradling her two-hundred-and-ninety-year-old Stradivarius as if it were a newborn babe, beamed as she gazed out across the throng. She looked too small for the stage, but everyone who knew music, and that was most of those in the hall, knew she was a titan. Her accompanist took his bows and then left the stage so that she might bask in her return to performing—the moment many had felt might never come.

  Standing in the tenth row center, an Indian man, resplendent in his tuxedo, continued applauding as he turned to his taller companion.

  “Well?”

  “I am very proud of her, and very proud of us,” the other man, square-jawed and elegant, said. “The scar down her chest has barely healed, and yet there she is.”

  “Beautiful. Just beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the ‘Spring’ sonata played with more feeling or technical brilliance.”

  As was the Guardians’ policy, the men never spoke one another’s names in public, and even on their frequent conference calls used only Greek pseudonyms, which each of their members was required to commit to memory.

  The tumultuous applause continued, and the young virtuoso, destined now to enthrall the world for decades to come, took one curtain call after another.

  “Those roses she is carrying are from us,” the Indian said.

  “Nice touch.”

  “I agree, thank you. You know, it is amazing what the minor addition of a new heart and lungs can accomplish in the right body.”

  Three

  The unexamined life is not worth living.

  —PLATO, Apology

  Nailed.

  Ben Callahan set the stack of five-by-seven glossies on his desk, then popped two Zantac antacid pills into the back of his throat and washed them down with his third cup of coffee of the morning. Another shitty beginning of another shitty day. Maybe it was time to give his friendly neighborhood career counselor a try. Outside, a chilly, vertical rain was snapping against the grime on his office window. Yesterday it had reached 101 with a humidity of, like, a thousand. Today, 55 and pouring. Summer in Chicago. You just couldn’t beat it.

  Ben spread the photos across the desk in two rows. God, but sometimes he detested earning a living this way. He would have detested it even if the living he was earning amounted to a
nything substantial, which it most certainly did not. Well, at least Katherine de Souci would be happy. She had demanded that Ben “nail the bastard,” and now Robert de Souci had, in fact, been nailed, although not quite in the way Katherine had expected.

  So what if Robert was active on the board of a dozen or more charitable foundations? So what if he was, from all Ben had been able to ascertain, a terrific father and enlightened corporate CEO? Katherine, whom Ben had come to think of as something of an amalgam of Lizzie Borden and his ex-wife, had her suspicions of infidelity, and now, thanks to crackerjack private detective—make that private eye—Benjamin Michael Callahan, she had her proof. And soon, she would have her gazillions in settlement, as well as her husband’s surpassingly handsome head on a platter.

  There were just two problems.

  Robert’s secret lover was a he, not the she Katherine had expected, and the significant other in question was a man Ben knew well. Caleb Johnson, a pillar of the black community, was arguably the finest, fairest, most intelligent criminal judge in the region. It was possible the judge could survive this looming scandal, but not without a significant reduction in his influence on the bench and around the country. And this was a man who had earned and deserved all the influence he possessed.

  Ben flipped the edge of a small stack of unopened bills with his thumb. Katherine de Souci’s check would make every one of them disappear like David Copperfield, with enough cash left over to actually buy something.

  He slid the photos back into their manila envelope and prepared to call Katherine. Who in the hell cared what the fallout might be? He had been given a job, he had taken it, he had spent the advance and most of the per diems, he had done the work. Case closed.

  Admittedly, this career had been something of a miscalculation on his part, but when he chose it, he was legitimately excited about becoming a detective in the mold of his fictional heroes—knights-errant like Mike Hammer, Travis McGee, and Jim Rockford. He knew he’d have to start slow at first, taking whatever cases came in. Unfortunately, those cases—chasing bail jumpers, philandering spouses, and deadbeats of one kind or another—remained his primary source of income, and with few exceptions, had never amounted to anything approaching noble. Not a single, mysterious, alluring dame-in-distress in the bunch.

  Now he was about to take a pile of money from someone he didn’t like in exchange for ruining the lives of two men he respected.

  De Souci and Johnson should have been more discreet, he tried to reason. There were all those under-funded charities and all those African-American kids looking for role models who were counting on them. They should have thought things through a little more. There were ways the guys could have stayed undetectable, or at least more undetectable, but for whatever reason, maybe just the blindness of love, they had chosen not to take them.

  Now there were photos.

  Ben picked up the phone, dialed Katherine’s number, and as usual went through her private secretary to speak with her.

  “You have something for me?” the socialite asked without even deigning to say hello.

  Her voice grated over the phone. Ben flashed on her perfectly made-up face—so proud, so tight, so haughty. In a life already boringly full of possessions, privilege, and victories, he had uncovered the evidence that would make her day. Katherine de Souci, come on down! You’re a winner and you’re next on The Price Is Right!

  For several moments there was only silence.

  “Well?” she persisted.

  “Um…actually, I don’t have anything, Mrs. de Souci. Nothing. I think your husband’s clean.”

  “But—”

  “And the truth is, I don’t think I can take any more of your money. If you want to keep pushing this matter, I would recommend you find someone else.”

  “But—”

  “Goodbye, Mrs. de Souci.”

  Please be more careful, Judge. Robert’s wife is vengeful, he wrote on a blank piece of paper. Then he signed it a Friend, slid it in with the photos, addressed the envelope to the judge with no return address, marked it PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, and set it aside until he left for whatever would pass today for lunch. Just in case, he decided, he would send it by registered mail. Outside, the rain continued pelting the city. Within minutes, any glow Ben felt at so gloriously disappointing Katherine de Souci had given way to his usual, baseline state of numbness and ennui. It was hard to believe a life once marked by enthusiasm and a spirit of adventure had come to this. It was even harder to believe that he really didn’t care.

  The phone had rung five or six times before he noticed and picked it up.

  “’Lo?”

  “Mr. Ben Callahan?” a woman’s voice said.

  “Yes.”

  “The detective?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “This is Professor Alice Gustafson’s office calling.”

  “Okay.”

  “Department of anthropology at the University of Chicago?”

  “Okay.”

  “Mr. Callahan, you had an appointment to meet with Professor Gustafson fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I had what?”

  Ben shuffled through the papers on his desk until he found his appointment book, optimistically containing a full page for each day of the year. The name Alice Gustafson, an address, office number, and the time fifteen minutes ago were written in his uneven scrawl on the page for today. Beneath the time were two words: Organ Guard. Only now did he remember taking the call, a week or so ago, from a secretary who didn’t exactly bubble over about the wonderful opportunity the job presented for him.

  He had agreed to the appointment without bothering to tell the woman he still had absolutely no idea what it was about. Now, it appeared, he had missed it. After four or five years in college, and a stretch as a high-school social studies teacher, he had rolled the dice and decided on life as a private detective. Now it seemed it was time for something else. Perhaps he would learn that he was better suited for life behind a hot-dog pushcart or maybe his true calling was as an animal trainer.

  “I…I’m sorry,” he said. “Something came up and I’ve been delayed.”

  “I guess,” the woman replied. “Well, Professor Gustafson says that if you’d like to reschedule the interview, she can see you at one today.”

  Ben scratched at the reddish brown stubble of five o’clock shadow that seemed to be appearing on his face earlier and earlier of late, and stared down at the words in his book. Organ Guard. Still no bells. He really had to start paying more attention.

  “This appointment,” he said, “can you refresh me a little?”

  Even over the phone he could hear the woman sigh.

  “You responded to an ad we placed in the papers about a year ago, requesting your services for Organ Guard. At the time we informed you and those others who responded that we were putting together a database of investigators for future jobs. You encouraged us to include you.”

  This has to be bullshit, Ben was thinking. He couldn’t remember the last time he had encouraged anyone to do anything.

  “So, what is this interview about?”

  Again a sigh.

  “Mr. Callahan, I believe Professor Gustafson has some work for you.”

  “And money to pay for it?”

  “I believe so, yes. So, will we see you at one?”

  Ben pulled his keyboard over and moved to go online to search for Organ Guard, then remembered that his browser service had been disconnected for the usual reason. Well, at least this didn’t seem to be another stalk-and-gawk infidelity job. After Lady Katherine de Souci, he might not have another one of those left in him.

  “One o’clock,” he heard himself say. “I’ll be there.”

  Ben was certain he had an umbrella someplace, but never used it. After checking the closet off his small, deserted waiting room, he gave up looking. A cab was a possibility, but also an expense, and one of the remaining spoils of his years as a teacher was a decent trench coat. Head do
wn, wearing the belted coat and a Cubs cap, he pushed twelve blocks through a penetrating rain, ducking into entryways for relief every minute or two. Haskell Hall, on Fifty-ninth, was an expansive, powerful stone building with deeply carved openings, anchoring a well-maintained, tree-lined quad.

  ALICE T. GUSTAFSON, Ph.D.

  MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

  was on a small, brass-embossed plaque beside the door of her third-floor office. Beneath it, a smaller plaque—letters mechanically carved in white into black plastic—read ORGAN GUARD INTERNATIONAL. The door was locked. Ben knocked softly and then a little louder.

  It was just as well, he thought. What he really needed to do at this point was to hunker down in his apartment with his cat, Pincus, and figure out what he wanted to do with his life if, in fact, he wanted to do anything at all. What about sales? Everybody needed a Mazda or a vacuum cleaner. He moved to knock again, then thought, The hell with it, and turned to go. A woman, arms folded, was standing just a dozen or so feet away, appraising him. Her plaid, long-sleeved shirt was tucked into carpenter’s chinos and cinched around her narrow waist with a broad leather belt and heavy silver buckle. She was sixty or so, with gold-rimmed glasses, a narrow, intelligent professor’s face, and graying dark hair, fixed in a short ponytail. Ben’s take on the woman, especially after three weeks of Katherine de Souci, was decidedly positive.

  “Mr. Callahan, I’m Professor Alice Gustafson,” she said. “Sorry if I startled you.”

  “Only a little. I guess I just flunked the catlike-senses part of my professional evaluation.”

  Ben shook her narrow hand which, it was sadly easy to tell, had the firm swelling of chronic arthritis in the knuckles.

  “Years of walking places where I didn’t want to disturb the people or startle the wildlife have given me a fairly soft tread,” she understated, opening her office with a key, and, Ben noted, with some difficulty.