Nathan’s voice hardened. “Well, here’s something you don’t know, Mr. Ted Yost. Savage got bushwhacked into carrying the rider.”
Ted had a sudden migraine. He hadn’t had one in years, but his head was pounding and his face was being squeezed in a band of steel.
“Nathan, tell me what needs to be done. Is there anything we can do to stop Savage?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then tell me everything you know, and I mean everything.
Chapter 34
Garrett Rudge was into a slow boil. What he wanted was an update from all of Hygea’s six administrators around the country with a single conference call. That’s the way he preferred to do business. All this secrecy meant he was stuck with having to call each and every one of the six facility head honchos individually on a disposable cell phone. It took extra time; it took extra energy; and he was running out of both.
Looking over his shoulder, second guessing everything had gone on way too long. For God’s sake, he’d barely even used his land line in the past six months—and for some reason that irked him even more.
There’d been no complaints when he’d informed the different Hygea people that he’d be calling at an unspecified time outside of work hours. They all knew Hygea was a 24/7 commitment. That’s just the way it was. And if they were doing their jobs, got the yes votes from their committees, they would all be ready for the ‘go’ word. Ready to start the wheels of the future turning.
It had been a long day and a grueling task going over each facility’s plan of attack, then making certain they were all in synch with his master scheme. He’d already spoken to five of the facility administrators, and was now making his sixth and final call. Everyone would be primed and ready when he got the legislative green light on Wednesday.
“Good evening, Larry,” Rudge said. “Running a bit later than I intended; hope I’m not cutting into your dinner hour. Have I kept you from anything?”
“No, no. Just been sitting here reading a book”
And that really yanked Rudge’s chain. He’d been working non-stop all day with damn little time to even go to the john, much less read anything that didn’t have to do with Desisto. It only confirmed his impressions along with everything else he’d read about the man—capable; unflappable.
“I see,” Rudge said. “So it’s all lined up. No last-minute hitches.”
“Look Garrett, I’ve done my job. I’ve got one candidate and two backups if something unforeseen pops up. Remember, this is Chicago. Our fair city has its share of poorbies. The field doesn’t get any more fertile.”
“Poorbies?”
“You know, Medicare A people. No close families to run interference. Isn’t that what we’re shooting for?”
Rudge sat back in his desk chair and realized that this man was the ideal Hygea executive. Does what he’s told with no second thoughts.
“Funny, Larry, all the others administrators are … well, maybe anxious isn’t the word … but they sure as hell are antsy.”
“Antsy? You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve been working on this project for six months, just like you and everyone else. If I don’t have it together by now, I deserve to get my ass booted off the train.”
Supercilious bastard.
“Good,” Rudge said, “because I need to know you’re completely committed to the project; there can’t be any reservations by anyone.”
“No need to worry about me, Garrett. I’m ready to go; Chicago’s ready to go.”
And right then, Rudge knew that if he ever did find his way to a Washington appointment, Larry would be the one to fill his seat with no trouble at all. Rudge would just have to make certain it didn’t happen before he was ready.
* * *
Silence.
Darkness.
Emptiness.
Della Paoli forced her eyes open.
She looked from side to side.
I can see.
She wanted to shout with joy. But her lips remained dead and useless.
Then her mind went blank
What happened?
Everything was a blur, a swirl of everything. Then nothing.
Lost. Confused.
Where am I? Not at home. My room doesn’t look like this.
To the right, moonlight splashed through the vertical blinds of a narrow window. To the left, another bed—neatly made, but empty.
And then she remembered:
I’m in a hospital.
How long?
Quiet. Too quiet.
Where’s the hum? Click of machines, people?
A doctor was here. Said I was in some kind of accident. But something else is wrong.
She looked down to where her arms were tucked beneath the sheets. She tried to lift her hands, concentrated on making the sheets move. Then closed her eyes and imagined her hands picking up flowers.
Everything remained smooth, undisturbed. Her arms hadn’t moved.
She took a deep breath, tested her legs, went through an imaginary exercise of walking through the park.
Nothing.
Can’t concentrate, can’t understand, can’t put it together. Everything’s a jumble of bits and pieces.
What will they do with me? Send me away? To a nursing home?
No, no, no!
She didn’t want to go. Rows and rows of wheelchairs; people like empty shells staring out into space—no dreams, no future.
She closed her eyes, forced herself to look at her body again. Everything remained undisturbed. Not a ruffle. Nothing.
There was an IV next to the bed. She watched the fluid drip, feeding slowly into her arm like an icicle melting into a quiet pond.
Drip, drip, drip.
Then she heard it. A sharp intake of breath and the quiet breathing of another person.
Someone was in the room with her.
Who’s there?
Her eyes probed the shadows. She concentrated until her vision adjusted to the darkness in the corner of the room.
Two eyes stared back.
* * *
Garrett Rudge edged out of Della Paoli’s room. He would never be able to explain the need to see her. All day he’d fought the urge until there was nothing else to do but go.
As he watched her open her eyes, he knew she must be trying to move beneath the sheets tucked neatly around her. That’s what he would do. But he also knew there was nothing she could do for herself. Not one single thing. She might as well have been a turnip.
But if it had been his sister Evelyn, would he have allowed anyone to take away a single moment of her life?
No. Not one second, no matter what her condition. He would have stopped anyone who tried to end her life.
But this woman had no champion. No advocate to fight for her life.
She lay in that bed understanding everything, doing nothing.
Would he have wanted his twin to live like that? A stone with a brain? Would he really?
No.
The questioning was over. This woman would cost Medicare hundreds of thousands of dollars for who knew how long—weeks, months, years? And to what end?
Della Paoli had been the right choice for Desisto.
Chapter 35
Garrett Rudge’s fix for insomnia was a long, hot shower—pounding water that cascaded over his body, breathing in the thick steam. It usually relaxed, even sedated him. But it hadn’t worked this time. After crawling back into bed, he tossed and turned, fought with his king-sized sheets until he’d created a mountain of linen bunched up all around him.
Fear, failure, disaster created a paralyzing trio of thoughts that spun through his head.
Six months of weekly meetings with the constant indoctrination of corporate culture, business philosophy, and vital healthcare statistics should have done the trick for each and every one of the committee members. Their heads should be filled with not only all the information Rudge had given them, but what they needed to do.
One fact remained: he either
got the yes votes he needed on Monday or he was through.
Thinking about it was exhausting.
In the beginning the challenge had been to keep the committee members from bolting from their conference room chairs so he could feed them the same boring material over and over.
Then he had to carefully weave in the financial relief that selective euthanasia could bring.
Was there something he’d overlooked?
He flung the balled-up sheets onto the floor.
Ted Yost? CORPS? They kept popping into his head. What happened to them? They seem to fade away much too easily.
He sat up, scooted back into the pile of sweaty pillows. Restless, he pushed out of bed, edged up to the railing of his bedroom loft and stared down into the black hole that hid his living room.
He thought about Della Paoli as he went down the stairs, the wall-to-wall carpeting soft under his bare feet. She had been at the edge of his thoughts all day. He wanted to know more about this chosen, ideal candidate for the Desisto Project.
He walked through the living room, but the atmosphere was thick, difficult to breathe. Here in the stillness was the place where he most often thought about his twin sister, Evelyn, and that final moment when his twin sister left this world, left him.
At the end, her face had shown a moment of sadness, a smile that revealed an eerie beauty, as though she’d discovered something wonderful. Would it be the same for Della Paoli as her last second was snatched away?
Rudge went to the wet bar, found the decanter of aged Spanish brandy. He lifted a small snifter and poured until the liquid reached the brim. Unable to swirl and inhale the aroma as he usually did, he drank it down in a single gulp.
Evelyn and Della Paoli were not all that different. Both were victims of diseases that the universe randomly tossed at them, like seeds scattered in the wind.
He’d known his sister. Known who she was. But Della Paoli? Who was she? What kind of person was she?
He slapped a hand on the wet bar. “What difference does any of that make? Della Paoli, John Doe, Jane Doe, who cares? It’s what has to be done.”
He shuffled back through the living room, clamping his still-stinging hand in his armpit.
“Fuck it! She’s going to die one way or the other!”
He stopped in front of the entertainment center, tapped the controls of the iPod-audio system link. Immediately the whole condo was filled with the rich sounds of Bach’s Concerto in D-Minor for Two Violins.
The structured rhythms of the music began to soothe him. Even before the concerto ended, his fears and priorities were in place again: The Desisto Project was necessary—for him, Galen Hospital, Hygea, the nation.
Satisfied, he forced himself back up to his bedroom.
“I need this, Evie,” he shouted back into the darkness.
* * *
“Damn it, Willa, it’s three o’clock in the morning and I can’t go on anymore about today’s committee vote.” Cliff Michaels paced around their living room, looked at his wife. “Enough!”
“Well, maybe we’d be cozy and warm in our bed if you’d had the balls to talk about all of this sooner,” she snapped. “This isn’t chopped liver. We’re talking about someone’s life.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Do you, really? I mean, I don’t understand how you could keep something this significant from me for almost six months.”
Cliff sat down next to her, tried to take her hand. She yanked it away, refused to allow him to touch her. He slumped, bowing his head almost to his knees. He knew she wanted to put the matter to rest as much as he did. But they continued to fight.
“It didn’t seem real to me, not until today. Hell, what do I know about medical economics?”
“That’s why you were there. To learn.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I’m on that committee for only one reason.” He held out a forearm. “See that, woman? That’s black skin. And that’s exactly why I’m there.”
“What they want and what they get are two different things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Christ, I think you spend too much time with idealists, Cliff. Save the land! Save the whales! What about getting down and dirty and mixing with the rest of us?”
“That’s a cheap shot. You’ve never taken any more than a passing interest in anything I’ve found important.”
“That’s not true!”
“The hell it’s not! Those idealists are trying to do something for the planet. Dammit, why are you picking at that? Do I have to explain all of it to you.?”
“Of course not. You’re just overreacting.”
“Really? How many rallies have you attended with me? How much time have you put into saving the air we breathe?”
“You know damn well where my extra time and energy go, Cliff. It’s not that I think what you’re doing is unimportant, it’s just that you’ve never needed my help; the black children I tutor do.”
“You’re dead wrong. I do need your help. The planet needs your help. It’s past time for you and everyone else to wake up to that fact.”
She stood and circled aimlessly about the room. After about the fourth circuit, she walked up to her husband, stopped in front of him, and stared hard into his eyes.
“You’re so goddam selfish,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are all kinds of people out there who are ready to help you. And the issues you feel so strongly about cross all color lines. Most intelligent people today, regardless of their background, race, or education, are concerned about the environment.” She shook a finger at him. “But how many of them want to dig in and help poor blacks? Even our well-to-do brothers and sisters seem to have lost interest.”
“That’s a shot between the legs.”
“Is it?”
“Is there some point to all this shit?” he said.
“You bet your black ass there is.”
“Well, what the hell is it?”
She glared at him for several seconds, then plopped down on the couch, put a hand on his knee. “That committee you’re sitting on at Galen needs some contrast to all those white faces. With you there, it makes it look like they have a group that represents the entire community.”
“Isn’t that exactly what I said?”
“Not exactly. What I heard was you feeling resentful and sorry for yourself. Why not think of yourself as someone who represents millions of blacks, not just the committee’s token black. Can’t you do that, Clifford?”
“I only know how I feel. I have no way of knowing how millions of blacks feel.”
“You fight against the useless slaughter of animals, the rape of the land, the contamination of the air we breathe, but you don’t get that millions of people could be eliminated simply because they are black and poor?”
“Yeah, I get it. But there’s not much I can do about it.”
“So not knowing what to do, you do nothing? Those kids are not going to make it, Clifford. Not unless we help them. And regardless of the rhetoric, most whites simply don’t give a damn.”
Cliff closed his eyes. “I should never have agreed to sit on that damn committee.”
“Are you kidding? What if they’d chosen someone who was there just for the prestige? What then? You have a chance to make a difference. Take it, run with it.”
“Run where?”
“They’re going to let that woman die because she’s alone and poor. That’s murder. And she’s a white woman. If they can get away with this one, they won’t even think twice when it’s a poor black or Hispanic, or any other minority.”
“It’s not murder, Willa.”
“Like hell it’s not.”
“Ease up, will you. Most enlightened people today believe in euthanasia.”
“I think people also want the right to decide for themselves. I sure as hell don’t want the government or some goddam corporation making that kind of d
ecision because it’s the economically expedient thing to do.”
“I wish it was that clear-cut for me.” He stood, turned off the table lamp, and walked through the darkened room to the patio door. He stared at the shimmering dots of street lights that seemed to float down the hill and out to the bay. The deck door slid open smoothly and he stepped out onto the moonlit deck, lifted his eyes to the clear, star-filled sky.
Willa followed him, slid an arm around his waist.
* * *
Reverend John Bradberry lay awake in the semi-darkness.
A high, full moon seemed to highlight the empty space beside him where his wife should have been.
Audrey was in the spare room. He was alone for the first time in many years. He wanted to march down the hall, beg her to talk to him. But three days of silence had killed his courage to face her.
He forced himself off the bed and started to slip into his robe, then tossed it aside. The Bible on the bedside stand stared back at him. It brought no comfort.
The hallway was dark, but when he pushed open the door to the guestroom, moonlight was shining through a window and highlighted the bed.
For a long time he stood and stared at the outlines of her body lost in the covering blankets. He silently rehearsed what he wanted to say.
“Audrey?”
“I’m awake, John.”
“I’d like to talk to you. There are things I need to tell you, things about me, things that—”
“Not now, John. Just come to bed.” She moved over.
“Not until you know the truth.”
Audrey sat up, propped a pillow behind her head, and turned on the bedside light. He avoided her eyes and began to tell her about his life in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
“When I went there,” he said softly, “I was fresh out of seminary. Idealistic, ignorant about life. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t absorb the death and destruction all around me.”
“It must have been was awful.”
He felt her eyes searching his. “I lived with a Vietnamese woman and her children. They became very dear too me. Being with that woman saved my sanity. She was the only one I could hold onto in a world filled with blood and violence. Without her I would have gone mad.”
The Killing Vote Page 20