The First Immortal

by James L. Halperin

  “Court order?” Rebecca asked. “What for?”

  “Didn’t you know? To perform an autopsy on your father’s body.”

  “Isn’t Dad in Arizona?”

  “Yes,” Jan said. “But Brandon got a writ of habeas corpus. They’ll have to surrender the body.”

  “Why would we care about that now?” Rebecca asked.

  “First of all, if your father’s no longer frozen, we’ll have a much easier time challenging the Trust,” Noah explained. “Besides, it’s the only way to prove Tobias Fiske killed him. Otherwise he gets away with murder.”

  “Murder?” Max interjected. “Because he administered morphine to a dying man? I’m no fan of Dr. Fiske, especially after he gave Dad over to those cryonics people, but he didn’t murder anyone.”

  “Are you absolutely sure Ben was dying?” Noah asked, suddenly transmogrified into outright lawyer mode. “Isn’t there some chance he might have survived if Fiske hadn’t given him morphine?”

  “There’s almost no chance he’d’ve seen the next morning, no matter what anyone did.”

  “I sure hope Webster doesn’t—”

  “You sure hope Webster doesn’t what?” she shot back. “Doesn’t depose me?”

  “Well,” he said, “it’ll be a moot point after the autopsy.”

  “If he asks me,” Max said, her defiance conspicuous, “I’ll tell the truth.”

  “I know that,” Noah said condescendingly.

  “No you don’t,” she said. “You lawyers always recommend telling the truth; but you don’t mean it. You really mean: ‘Don’t tell any lies if you might get caught.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re all given a secret course in Articulate Sophistry. Tobias Fiske loved Dad as much as we do, and was only trying to do what Dad wanted him to do. You know it and I know it.”

  “Whoa!” Noah said, holding his palms toward her, part conciliation, part mockery. “We’re on the same side. Somebody conned your father. He paid those lunatics $75,000 to freeze his body, and then put millions into that ridiculous Cryonic Trust. That’s money he would’ve otherwise left to you and your kids. I’m trying to help you get it back.”

  “Yeah,” Max said, “that’s what it’s really about. Money. Well, maybe Dad got conned, or maybe those people believe their own fraud. Either way, it was his money and I don’t want any more of it than he decided to give me.”

  “Nothing can bring Ben back,” Noah said, his voice calm. “But at least we can still help ensure our children’s futures.”

  Rebecca decided she could no longer listen in silence. “When I first learned that Dad was having himself frozen, I felt betrayed. I wondered what I’d tell Katie and George; whether their Grampa was in heaven or in limbo. I certainly don’t know. But mostly, I couldn’t understand why he never told me. Why’d he let me learn of his plans only on the day he died? But now, listening to you and Jan talk about dissecting his body when you know full well that isn’t what he would’ve wanted, well, at least I’m starting to understand.”

  Jan felt her blood pressure spike; she’d never expected to have to defend her actions to her own siblings. “C’mon, it’s not like it’s actually Dad in that freezer.” She looked at Gary, hoping for some sign of approval from her big brother. “He’s surely in heaven by now. It’s only his corpse we’re fighting over.”

  Max also glanced at Gary. He felt compelled to speak. “The whole thing’s convoluted, all right. Don’t have a clue what I’d do if I were you. No kids to worry about, and let’s face it, I didn’t have the greatest relationship with Dad. So don’t look to me for the answer.” He raised his eyes to his grandmother as if in supplication.

  Alice forced her head up and gazed intently at her only grandson. Was now the right time to say it? She wavered only a moment, then said with a boldness intrinsic to her conviction, “I’ve been thinking about it for quite some time.” She laughed quietly. “In fact, thinking is just about the only thing I can still do well enough to please myself.”

  “And what do you think, Grammy?” Jan asked, expecting Alice to endorse her strategy.

  Alice surveyed the table, making eye contact with each person seated, then she focused on Jan. “Ever since Benjamin was a little boy,” she began, “he was a thinker. Oh, I’m not saying he didn’t have emotions like everyone else—he most certainly did—but your father was a careful, deliberate man. And he was a doctor, a man of science. So I have confidence his decision was carefully researched and calculated. Now I don’t claim to understand anything about this cryonics business, but if my Ben thought it worth the risk, that’s good enough for me.”

  No one spoke. Not one of them would have been more surprised had she started dancing on the table.

  “But the viability of cryonics isn’t even the real issue here, is it?” she went on. “Fact is, Jan, your father’s intentions were quite clear. He wanted his body frozen, along with the bodies of any of us willing to follow him when we die, and he wanted most of his money—money that he earned—set aside to pay for it. So what it really boils down to is: Whose life and whose money is it? I believe my son’s wishes should be honored. Period.”

  Jan felt like a treed cat staring down from the limb at a German shepherd. “Grammy, I’ve talked to you about this lawsuit at least a dozen times. Why didn’t you ever say that to me before?”

  Alice smiled. “This is the first time anyone here has asked for my opinion about it, dear.”

  May 14, 1990

  —After a seven-year legal battle, the parents of 33-year-old Nancy Cruzan await a Supreme Court ruling on whether they may remove a feeding tube that has kept their irreversibly brain-damaged and unconscious daughter alive since her automobile accident in January 1983. The taxpayers of Missouri have already paid over $1 million in medical costs, and even more in legal expenses, despite Cruzan’s parents’ wishes. “I think most people would agree,” explains a spokesman for the state, “that it’s simply wrong to stop feeding any person who’s still alive.”—As unification plans draw steadily ahead, East and West German economists meet to iron out details of a treaty to merge their currencies along with all monetary and social policies.—Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev rejects as “irresponsible” the notion of “shock-treating” the Russian economy through immediate conversion to free markets. Gorbachev maintains that such a transition must come gradually, and only after extensive public debate.—Scientists at International Business Machine’s Almaden labs spell the letters I-B-M in xenon atoms, thus demonstrating the feasibility of precise manipulation of single atoms.

  Justice delayed is justice denied.

  Somewhere long ago Tobias Fiske had read that aphorism, and assumed he understood its full meaning. But today he recognized the shallowness of his comprehension at the time, as opposed to now. This recent insight had been acquired at great personal cost; his life had been on hold for over eighteen months, with no end to the ordeal in sight. In the wake of the publicity of the charges, his practice had diminished by nearly a third. Worse yet, his concentration was off, his ethics thus forcing him to refer his most complicated, and therefore most lucrative, operations to other cardiologists. As his savings rapidly dwindled, he suspected also that the stress was starting to affect his health.

  “The wheels of justice grind slowly,” Webster commiserated.

  Toby gazed blankly out Webster’s office window. Tiny wisps of cotton-ball clouds decorated the azure sky. The Quincy Market courtyard was jammed, the weather far too glorious to consider lunching indoors; yet another day that Toby Fiske could not appreciate as long as he remained in purgatory.

  “The Phoenix got another restraining order this morning,” Webster added. “That’s certainly good news.”

  “How long’s it good for?”

  “Three months. Time enough to prepare an expert report on the viability of cryonics. Then Butters’ll have to get his expert to tear our expert apart, which should take another six months, at least.”

  “You’d thin
k something would’ve happened by now,” Toby griped. “Some kind of decision one way or another.”

  “Possibly in New Hampshire or Texas, but not in Massachusetts,” Webster explained. “Besides, the longer it takes, the less likely you’ll serve jail time. You’re sixty-five, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they’d be hard-pressed to throw a seventy-year-old doctor in jail even if a jury found you guilty of second degree manslaughter. And no jury’s going to convict you of murdering Ben.”

  “Sure hope you’re right. From my perspective, I’m already in jail. It’s a limbo where life is simply less valuable.”

  “Might seem that way now, but believe me, jail would be far worse.”

  “I guess the toughest part is not knowing.”

  “I understand, Toby. Still, my job is to keep you out of jail and keep our friend Ben Smith from being thawed, dissected, and buried. That’s gotta be my entire focus if I’m to do my job well.”

  Toby simply nodded.

  Thank God the Trust was paying his bills, Webster thought. Somehow the money would have felt less satisfying had it been coming from this bedeviled man.

  The Phoenix had been active in the case, refusing to release Ben’s body, and filing motion after motion in federal and state court both in Massachusetts and Arizona to fight extradition. Judges and their clerks were typically open to the argument that there was no reason to rush an autopsy of a body frozen in liquid nitrogen; such bodies were unlikely to change in any forensically material way. Still, the legal work was expensive. Even with their attorneys working pro bono, the Phoenix had already spent well over the $75,000 Ben had paid them for his suspension. Webster considered that as further evidence of their sincerity. And the Phoenix’s lawyers, both cryonicists themselves, understood the routine, having been involved in similar cases before, which made them very useful allies. Webster found their principled intelligence remarkable, and all too rare.

  What he failed to consider was that to these lawyers, the Phoenix was no mere client: Each case delineated issues which they believed might someday save, or cost them, their own lives.

  “How far along are we?” Toby asked.

  “If I had to put a number on it, two more years before the autopsy issue is irrevocably decided, and three to six before your case is finally settled. The best thing you can do is go on with your life; learn to deal with the uncertainty. Set it apart in your mind.”

  Toby sighed. “I’m just used to knowing where I stand, I guess. I’ve been a careful doctor, Pat; believed in the sanctity of life, respect for the patient. Learned it from watching Ben. It worked, too. I must know two hundred other doctors in Boston, but only five or six, besides Ben and me, who’ve never been sued for malpractice. Ben was careful and open because it was his nature, but I had to work at it. Maybe I also knew deep down that I couldn’t take the pressure if I ever screwed up.”

  Webster tilted his head slightly. “If you had to do it over, would you have done it differently? The morphine, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” Toby answered immediately. “I’d’ve made damn sure Harvey Bacon never saw that syringe.”

  Webster laughed. This man seemed to be one of those rare clients he could have been friends with—if only they’d met under different circumstances.

  The attorney had often considered himself fortunate to practice in a state where everything took so long, even those rare litigations where neither side employed delay tactics. And Webster had always been a master of delay. Like shooting fish in a barrel, he would find himself musing. But at least for this moment he wished there were some way to help Toby deal with the pressure. He felt nothing but admiration and gratitude toward him: admiration of Toby’s steadfast and rare loyalty to Ben Smith, and gratitude for the personal gain Toby’s loyalty had bestowed upon he himself.

  Yep, he didn’t know what he’d do if Toby had had to pay him. But no sweat; the Trust could easily afford it.

  Over the past eighteen months, his firm had billed the Smith Family Cryonic Trust $1,572,400, plus out-of-pocket expenses.

  March 1, 1991

  —Pentagon sources estimate the Iraqi death toll from the recently concluded Gulf War at up to 50,000, while just 79 Americans died in combat. Yet few Americans express sympathy for the enemy dead and their families, despite the powerlessness of Iraqi soldiers to resist the commands of their own country’s totalitarian regime.—General Motors Corporation engineers demonstrate a scale model of an automobile, less than 1/200th of an inch long, with doors that open and close, and a working motor.

  Gary stood before the middle-aged woman who sat planted like a shrub at her cluttered desk. “Please don’t try to bullshit me, Ms. Forman. I’ve seen your second and third floors.” He tried smiling to temper harsh words with gentle charm, but facial muscles betrayed his emotion. A part of him could still see the neglected, blank shells, those pathetic remnants of human beings, strapped to wheelchairs and drays, some moaning, others with eyes darting about in random bewilderment, or staring for hours at fixed points on the walls or ceiling or empty air. Gary could still hear their voices. Last week, when he’d prowled the halls of the second floor, they’d cried out to him, never using his true name, mistaking him instead for their sons, grandsons, husbands, or friends they hadn’t seen in years, perhaps long dead; or merely hoping against reason that this man might be here to give them some attention, to distract them from their interminable boredom, relentless pain, and hopeless isolation.

  Yet the third floor had been far worse. Its residents—inmates, he suddenly thought—had communicated at an even more primal level, often less cerebrally than infants, some wailing or whimpering, others vacant of any apparent soul. Surely this was what hell must be like, he’d decided as he walked those corridors just a few days ago. The fierceness of the thought surprised him; he’d even felt slightly ashamed.

  The matron across the desk scowled, the expression transforming her already homely features into a marvel of extraordinary ugliness. She wore a blue and white badge that read: Doris Forman, Asst. Senior Administrator, Brookline Village Nursing Residence. Her face was serious, stern, and almost comically puffy, and her body more distended than obese.

  Gary suddenly wondered if this woman, having chosen health care as her profession, had ever even tried to exercise or maintain a healthy diet. If he’d worked there, forced every day to see what aging could do to people, he knew damn well he’d fight against his own decay with his every fiber.

  “When?” Forman asked sharply, yanking Gary back from his mental digression. The woman was obviously surprised that anyone could or would have gone upstairs without her knowledge.

  “Last week. Thursday on the second floor, and Friday on the third. Told them I was visiting Ruth and Maurice Shapiro. Sorry about the white lie, but I had to see for myself, and not on one of your guided tours.”

  She said nothing.

  “Didn’t spot anyone living on the second floor who hadn’t had a major stroke, or worse. And the poor creatures who live on the third have no idea who they even are.”

  She hesitated a moment, no doubt angered by such blatant disregard of the rules. But she regained her composure. Apparently the What else could I do? expression on Gary’s face had disarmed her. “Care on level two would be more appropriate for your grandmother,” she said. “More staff per patient, and she needs a lot of help these days. She can’t go to the bathroom by herself anymore; can’t even sit in a wheelchair.”

  “You have to keep her on this floor! With her friends, whose minds are still reasonably sound.”

  “I just can’t do that. It’s not my decision to make.”

  “Look, I used to be a doctor myself. I hear your staff is excellent, and at least I didn’t see any signs of abuse; neglect maybe—”

  She cut him off. “If you used to be a doctor, then you also know that some amount of neglect is impossible to avoid. You’re not going to find people willing to give constant care to patients like ours
for the salaries we can afford to pay. It takes a lot of emotional strength just to look at people like that. You get hardened to their suffering after a while, or else you crack up.”

  “I know that,” Gary said. “Look, I understand this is one of the best-run nursing homes around. And I know you’re better equipped to care for terminal patients on the second floor. But my grandmother is not typical. At the rate her strength’s declining, her heart won’t last the month. Yet mentally, she’s completely sound. It’s a mixed blessing, but still a blessing. I don’t want her spending her last weeks around those people. If she needs extra help, I’ll pay for it.”

  “That would be expensive.”

  “Expense isn’t an issue,” Gary said, forcing himself to smile, to look into her glossy gray and bloodshot-red eyes and to somehow connect with this woman. “Look, she’s my Grammy! She changed my diapers; taught me the alphabet. She took me to feed the ducks in the park every Saturday when I was five. She was there when I graduated from high school and college—and the day I got my medical degree, when my own father was too busy to come. Any cliché you want, I’ve got it for you. She’s always been there for me, and I want to be there for her. It would be one thing if she was like those people on the third floor, but she’ll know what’s happening to her. She’ll know.”

  Forman just sat there, gazing back.

  Something in the nether regions of Gary’s subconscious told him to grin. “Aw c’mon, Doris. I love her.”

  For the first time, Doris Forman actually displayed a trace of a smile. “Like I said, it’s not my decision. But I can still pull a few strings. If I couldn’t, well, I’d have to leave this job, wouldn’t I?”

  Gary reached out, took her hand, and brought it to his lips. The woman blushed. He looked at her face, winked, and limped from the office.

  Gary set the video camera on the bureau table in Alice’s room and pushed the record button. “Grammy, do you know who I am?” he asked.