He laughed harder, and Jeremy joined in. The two of them talked some more, and the poor fellow got into topics he’d never opened up about to anyone. Raged about his illness, his wife’s, the prospect of childlessness; there was plenty to be angry about. After an hour, he seemed calm, but Jeremy wouldn’t have been surprised if next time he did show up armed.
When the two of them exited the room, three members of the useless security detail the hospital employed were standing by, trying to look competent.
Jeremy said, “Everything’s under control. You can go.”
The biggest guard said, “Now, Doc—”
“Go.”
The time he spent with the poor man cheered him. Someone else’s problems. He’d snapped to attention like the faithful member of the mental health army he was. Any good soldier knew the key to efficient battle: death of the individual in service of the greater good.
Feeling noble and depersonalized, he returned to his office.
Angela had called thirty minutes earlier. He paged her, was transferred to Thoracic Medicine, where a ward clerk told him Dr. Rios had just been called to an emergency lung surgery.
That puzzled him. Angela was a medical resident, not a cutter. No doubt, there’d be an explanation.
He glanced at the sheaf of scolding papers, left to collect his mail. A hefty stack, today; he sorted through the usual memos, solicitations, announcements of conferences and symposia, came to a large, brown interoffice envelope at the bottom.
This one had been sent from the Department of Otolaryngology. No name in the recipient blank. He’d last consulted on an ENT case several months ago—an inner ear tumor that had proved fatal—wondered what they wanted, now.
Inside the envelope were photocopied pages that had nothing to do with ears, noses, or throats.
A seventeen-year-old article reproduced from an ophthalmology journal.
Ablation of corneal tissue using the CO2 Vari-Pulsar
4532 2nd Generation Laser Scalpel . . .
The authors were a surgical team headquartered at the Royal Medical College of Oslo. An international team—Norwegian names, Russian names, English names. None of them meant a thing to Jeremy.
Obviously a mistake; he’d gotten someone else’s mail, not a rare occurrence for the parcels that zipped through the mail tubes veining the hospital’s moldy walls. Perhaps some secretary had confused psychology with speech pathology.
He phoned Otolaryngology and spoke to a male secretary who hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. Tossing the article in the trash, he put aside the envelope for further use. Fiscal responsibility and all that. Financial Affairs had issued yet another order to tighten up.
As he folded it, something rattled inside. Something had wedged at the bottom, and he pulled it out. A small, white index card, a typed message.
For your interest.
He took another look at the envelope. No name in the recipient blank; this had to be a mistake. He rarely saw eye patients, couldn’t recall one in ages—the last, he was fairly certain, had been five years ago, a blind woman who’d decided to curl up and die. After two months of psychotherapy, Jeremy believed he’d helped her, and no one had told him different. No, there could be no connection to this. Why in the world would he have an interest in lasers?
He retrieved the article from the wastebasket, read it, found it to be typical medical jargondygook, stuffed with numbers and tables, barely comprehensible. He cut to the summary. The main point was that seventeen years ago laser scalpels had been judged to be a good, clean way to cut.
Cutting techniques . . . Humpty-Dumpty . . . no, that was silly. If his mind hadn’t been addled by the last night’s booze and confusion and pontification about criminality, he’d never have stretched that far.
What a strange night. In retrospect, comic and surreal. He smiled painfully, remembering his acute bout of neediness. Why had he ever cared what a group of elderly eccentrics thought of him? Even if they asked him back, he wouldn’t accept.
Tomorrow was Tumor Board. He was curious how Arthur would treat him.
Then a thought occurred to him: Perhaps Arthur had sent the article.
No, the pathologist handwrote with a fountain pen, used that heavy, blue rag paper. A traditional man—an antiquarian, as witnessed by the vintage suits, the old car, the quaint vocabulary.
A typed message on anything so mundane as an index card would be out of character.
Unless Arthur was being coy.
The obliqueness fit—that would be just like the pathologist. Gregarious one day, frosty the next.
A game player, everything a puzzle. Was this a challenge to Jeremy to figure out?
Ablation of corneal tissue? Laser eye surgery? Had Arthur assumed Jeremy would share his eclectic interests? The old man hopped around from butterflies to carcinomas to Grand Discussions of Issues That Matter, so why not lasers?
Still, his approach to Jeremy hadn’t been scattershot. On the contrary, Arthur had sought to find common ground between the two of them. Pathology and psychology converging. Sharing the cold, black space where twisted minds brought about bloody deaths.
The roots of very, very bad behavior.
Arthur had had a very clear focus, and Jeremy had been right about his invitation to supper having something to do with that.
He recalled the pall that had set upon the room after someone—the writer, Maynard, he was pretty sure—had said, “Expediency trumps virtue.”
“Yet again,” the woman judge, Balleron had added.
Then, the silence. Nothing weighty was being discussed—something about fruit, grapefruit—those other things—pomelos. Sweet taste, but they shipped poorly.
Yet, for just a few moments, the mood in the room had changed.
Expediency trumps virtue.
What a strange bunch, no point wasting any more time on them.
Same for this—laser scalpels . . . just a postal snafu; he was making too much of it.
Filling his head with a flotsam of random thoughts because he was avoiding his chapter.
Still, his thoughts shifted back to Arthur. Treating him coolly for no apparent reason—rudely, really.
A puzzle. But not an important one.
Jeremy folded the card into an airplane, sailed it into the wastebasket. Followed up with a toss of article. The envelope, too, fiscal responsibility be damned.
Two paragraphs of chapter outline stared up at him from his desk.
Time to put aside silly stuff. Confront his creative inadequacies.
19
It was 10 p.m. and they were in Angela’s bed, naked in the dark, wide-awake.
They’d been together nearly three hours. Angela had phoned just as Jeremy was preparing to leave the hospital. She said, “Good, I got you.” Her voice was faint.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “No, I’m lying. Can we get together, maybe a quick dinner, then just hang out at my place?”
“Sounds like a plan. Any dinner in particular?”
“How about that Italian place over on Hampshire—Sarno’s? It’s close and I need to move my legs.”
“Sarno’s it is. On me.”
“No, it’s my turn to pay.”
“You get no turn. You’re a starving resident, deserve a free meal.”
She laughed. Nicest sound he’d heard all day.
They met at the hospital entrance and walked, arm in arm, to the restaurant. Angela wore a long, navy blue coat. Her dark hair streamed over the faux-fur collar. She looked waifish, young, worn, and stared at her feet, as if needing to orient herself. The rain was light, dissipating from their clothes almost instantly.
Jeremy put his arm around her shoulder, and her head dropped. He kissed her hair. If she’d put on makeup, it had faded long ago. The shampoo she’d used that morning was tinctured with operating room antisepsis.
Within seconds, she was leaning against him. Heavy, for a woman so thin. They
moved slowly and awkwardly through the three dark blocks to the restaurant.
When Sarno’s neon sign—the tricolor boot of Italy—came into view, Angela said, “Jeremy, I’m so tired.”
She got down a third of a plate of pasta carbonara and half a glass of iced tea. Jeremy was back to his feeble appetite; last night’s gluttony seemed distant, an aberration. He picked at his ravioli, managed to finish a glass of coarse Chianti.
They bickered playfully over the check and Angela finally allowed him to pay. Her beeper went off, and she phoned in. She returned to the table smiling. “That was Marty Bluestone—another R-II. Tomorrow night’s his anniversary, and he wants to take his wife out. So he offered to finish my shift tonight. I’m free till tomorrow.”
Beneath her blue coat, she wore resident’s casuals—sweater and jeans and tennis shoes. Relieved of the garment and her stethoscope, she looked like a college kid.
“On the phone you said everything wasn’t okay.”
“I was just being a baby,” she said. “It was right after I got off shift.”
“Tough day, huh?”
“One of those. Couple of problem bleeds, a few other bad surprises.” She gave her pasta another go, gave up.
“This morning, I watched Dr. MacIntyre crack the chest of a woman who’d never smoked. Her right lung was black as coal. It looked like barbecue ash. The left one’s not much better. I didn’t have to be there, but I’d done the intake and liked her. And I wanted to see what really happens to my patients. Jeremy, she’s a really sweet, kind woman, used to be a nun, served the poor. Now she’s got nothing but agony to look forward to.”
“Poor thing.”
“She came in thinking she had bronchitis, or maybe a cold gone chronic. I did the old blow-the-ball test, and her lung capacity was the lowest I’ve ever seen, it’s amazing she could stand on her feet. I sent her straight to X-ray. I started with her, so I ended up with her. It was the attending’s job to give her the diagnosis, but he punted to me—too busy. I sat down with her, told her she needed to be opened up and why. She didn’t even blink. Just said, ‘Thank you, Doctor, for letting me know so kindly.’ ”
“You must’ve done a good job.”
Angela’s eyes watered. She wiped them, reached for Jeremy’s Chianti. “May I?”
“I’ll order you a glass.”
“No, let’s share.” She sipped, held the glass out. They linked arms and Jeremy drank. He’d seen that at a wedding—an ethnic affair—maybe a Jewish wedding. Bride and groom entwined. Heady symbolism.
He said, “Not a smoker. Any secondhand smoke?”
“Her father,” said Angela. “He’s old, sick with diabetes, she’s been taking care of him for twenty years in a two-room apartment. He chain-smokes and it circulates and she breathes it in. He had a chest scan last year. His sugar’s 320 and his circulation’s shot, but his lungs are as clear as bells.”
“Sins of the fathers,” said Jeremy, without thinking.
“Guess so.” Her voice was low and defeated. She played with her fork.
Jeremy wondered if he’d come across glib. He said, “You’ve earned some relaxation. I’d be happy to provide aid and comfort.”
“Sounds good—let’s go.”
She’d taken the bus to the hospital, so Jeremy drove her home. During the ride, she kept her hand on his thigh. Once, at a red light, she leaned over and kissed him deeply, and he heard her purr.
When they got to her place, the routine commenced: She seated him on the ratty couch and disappeared into the bathroom to change into her green robe. The struggling houseplant on her windowsill was gone. The apartment was no less shabby for its absence.
The bathroom door opened, and Angela glided over, the robe firmly cinched. She sidled onto the couch, lay with her head in his lap. He touched her chin, stroked her hair.
She said, “Let’s get into bed.”
Her bedroom was chilly. When they drew the covers up around their necks, she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to do it, tonight. I just want to be held.”
“The wrong way?”
“As if I’ve been leading you on.”
“You haven’t.”
“Okay.”
They lay on their backs, holding hands.
Angela said, “You’re sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you. I do. Physically, I do. I just—mentally, it wouldn’t work. Okay?”
“No need to explain.” Jeremy brought her hand to his lips.
She snuggled close and slid down so that her head rested in his lap. Jeremy heard her let out a low, contented breath. For some crazy reason, the sound evoked Judge Tina Balleron’s murmuring voice.
An old woman but still . . . alluring. No, not her, specifically. Women. The sounds they made. The wonderful things they did. Jeremy preferred women to men. Always had. A certain type of woman especially: smart, bookish, tending toward reticence. Vulnerable.
Jocelyn had been none of that, and yet . . .
He bent low, cradled Angela’s head, kissed her brow.
She shifted position, reached down. “You’re interested.”
“Physically, only.”
“Bull.”
“I’m offended that you would think me so crass.”
She laughed and moved back to eye level. They began kissing, stayed with it for a long time. No groping, no tongue duels, just whispery grazes of lip upon lip.
Angela said, “Oh, boy.”
“What?”
“Just oh, boy. You make me happy.”
“I’m glad.”
“Do I make you happy?”
“Sure.”
“Are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you happy? It’s hard to tell; you don’t say much,” she said. “In general, I like that. My dad and my brother are talky guys. Great guys but overpoweringly verbal. Whenever my brother was home from college, I was relegated to bystander.”
“What about your mother?”
“She just leaves the room. Being a doctor, she can be as busy as she’d like.”
“The convenient patient call,” said Jeremy.
“You know of such things, huh? So tell me, why are you reluctant to talk about yourself?”
“It’s a boring story.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
Jeremy didn’t answer. Angela’s windows were covered by cheap shades. Moonlight transformed them to oversize sheets of parchment. Somewhere out on the street, a radio was playing. Scratchy rock music. A too-strong bass.
Angela said, “I’ve upset you.”
“Not at all.”
“I don’t want to be nosy, but we have been . . . intimate.”
“You’re right,” said Jeremy. “What do you want to know?”
“Where you were born, what your family’s like—”
“I don’t have a family.”
“None at all?”
“Not really.” He told her why. Kept talking. Starting with the accident, being shunted from place to place. The feelings of being alone—feelings he’d never put into words, not during his training analysis, not during clinical supervision, or pillow-talk ventures with other women.
Not with Jocelyn. He realized, with a shock, how little he and Jocelyn had talked.
He finished breathless, convinced opening up had been a grave mistake. A nice, wholesome girl from a well-to-do, intact family—a clan of confident professionals—would be put off by his rootlessness, the sadness of it all.
People talk about sharing, but you can’t share the past. Or anything else of consequence.
He was reflecting upon what that implied for his chosen profession when Angela sat up and cradled him and stroked his hair and played with his ears.
“That’s the whole sordid tale,” he said.
She placed one of his hands on her breast. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I changed my mind.”
“Not doing it.”
Later, when she began to yawn, Jeremy said, “I’ll let you sleep.”
“Sorry. I’m so bushed.” She squeezed him hard. “Do you want to stay the night?”
“I’d better not,” he said.
“You haven’t yet. I suppose there’s a reason.”
“I’m a restless sleeper, don’t want to disturb you. You’ve got a long day ahead of you, what with taking that guy’s shift.”
“Yes,” she said. “Guess so.”
Simultaneously they said, “The schedule.”
When she walked him to the door, she said, “So how was that dinner with Dr. Chess?”
“Not much of anything.”
“Was it a medical thing?”
“No,” he said. “More of a general thing. Believe me, it’s not worth getting into.”
He left her rooming house, got into his Nova and started up the engine. When his headlights went on, so did those of another car, behind him, midway down the block. When he pulled from the curb, the other car followed suit, driving in the same direction.
What the hell is this?
Jeremy sped up. The other car behind him didn’t. A big SUV from the height of the headlights. When he turned left on Saint Francis Avenue, it continued straight.
So much for high intrigue.
“I’ve got to get hold of myself,” he said, aloud.
No matter what those old fools think about reality, I need some.
20
Arthur wasn’t at tumor board. Another pathologist presided, an associate professor named Barnard Singh, bright and turbaned and dressed in a perfect gray suit. He got right to business, flashing slides of a synovial sarcoma. Gentian violet stain turned the specimens beautiful.
Jeremy asked the radiotherapist next to him, “Where’s Dr. Chess?” and received a shrug.
He sat through the hour, restless, and, despite himself, curious.
He called Arthur’s office extension, heard the phone ring. Went up to see his patients and tried three hours later. Not knowing what he’d say if Arthur picked up.
The Conspiracy Club Page 9