The Society

by Michael Palmer

  A trim, attractive Asian woman approached him from one of the seats to his right. Her ebony hair, cut in a pageboy, was very appealing.

  “Yes?”

  “Dr. Grant, there’s no reason you should remember me, but there’s no reason I would ever forget you.”

  “I’m embarrassed I don’t re—”

  “Please don’t be. My name is Grace Davis. That’s my husband, Mark, over there.”

  Will glanced over at an athletic-looking man in his early forties—business or perhaps law was his guess. He also caught sight of the ornate grandfather clock that Jim Katz had lent the practice. In forty-eight minutes he had to be on the road.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m still not able to—”

  “My maiden name was Peng. Grace Peng. For more than a year I was a regular at the—”

  “Oh my God! Grace! I don’t believe this.”

  Excitedly, Will held her by the arms and studied her face. It was most definitely Grace Peng, but it wasn’t. The Grace Peng he knew was a woeful, down-and-out alcoholic who was a regular patron of the Open Hearth a decade ago. She was a woman of intelligence and potential, whom he and everybody else around the Hearth was drawn to and wanted to help. But sooner or later, her anger and virulent drinking drove them all away. More than one of the volunteers and staff—perhaps Will included—predicted a premature and possibly violent death for the woman.

  “Gosh, but you look wonderful. How long has it been?”

  “More than ten years since I saw you and also since I had my last drink.”

  Inadvertently, Will glanced at the clock again. Forty minutes.

  “It sure looks as if you have a tale to tell,” he said.

  “I’m so sorry. You’re in a rush. I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

  “No! Well, I mean yes. I have a speech to give tonight in Boston. I’m a little nervous about it.”

  The transformation in the woman was absolutely astounding. She was always filthy and disheveled—more so even than most of the Open Hearth patrons. To the best of Will’s memory, Grace had gone off to yet another treatment center and had never been heard from at the Hearth again. If, as she said, it had been more than ten years ago, the twins were about to arrive and he was hustling about trying to hook up with a practice. His involvement with the place he had helped found fell off for a couple of years.

  “I had no idea you were working here,” she said.

  “Well, who are you here to see?”

  “Dr. Hollister.”

  “For?”

  “I was referred to her by the clinic where I had my mammogram. They’re suspicious of cancer.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I certainly hope that’s not the case.”

  “I’m afraid it is. My husband has my mammograms. It’s not that big, but even I can see it.”

  Thirty-five minutes.

  “Dr. Hollister is one of my partners. You’ll really like her.”

  “Now I don’t want her to be my doctor.”

  “Why? You said you haven’t even met her.”

  “I want you, Dr. Grant. If I had known you were here, I would have insisted they refer me to you.”

  “But—”

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re in a hurry. I’ll just cancel this appointment and reschedule with you. We can talk then.”

  “Grace, we make it a point in our practice not to switch patients.”

  “I’m sure Dr. Hollister will understand when I tell her that I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.”

  Thirty minutes.

  Will sighed inwardly. “Why don’t you and your husband come into my office,” he said.

  “There is so much about me and my upbringing and my life that I would never let you or anyone else at the soup kitchen know,” Grace said as Will held her mammograms up to the window. As she predicted, the cancer was quite easily discernible—a marble-size density in the upper outer quadrant of her left breast. If the adjacent lymph nodes were cancer free, the lumpectomy to remove it would be quite routine. “You and some of the others at the soup kitchen were incredibly kind and nonjudgmental,” she went on, “but you were the only one who really pushed through my anger and denial to talk with me. Even when I was filthy and acting abominably, you kept trying. Then one night you told me that it was horribly difficult for you to see so many patients who wanted to live but had terminal illness, then to have to come to the soup kitchen and see me systematically killing myself. You gave me the name of a priest. Do you remember?”

  “Father Charlie,” Will said wistfully. “I remember now. He was a patient of mine, sober in AA for many years.”

  “And he was dying of cancer. You knew that when you sent me to him. He talked to me for a long time, then he arranged for me to go to a special treatment center. He never would tell me how it got paid for. I certainly didn’t have any money. I was there for nine months, during which time I had almost no contact with the outside world. While I was there, I got a letter Father Charlie had written to me just before he passed away, telling me how proud he was of me.”

  “He was a wonderful man.”

  “I went back to school in L.A. Eventually I got a master’s degree in social work and married Mark. It’s no surprise that I specialize in addictions. Last year Mark took a job as the head of the English department at Maplewood Academy, and we moved back here.”

  “Now this,” Will said, gesturing to the mammogram.

  “Now this,” Grace echoed wistfully, but without rancor.

  “And I can’t talk you out of wanting to change from Dr. Hollister to me?”

  “Absolutely not, unless you’re not on Steadfast Health’s list of approved providers.”

  “I am.”

  “Dr. Grant,” Mark Davis said, “take it from me. When Grace makes up her mind like this, there’s no sense even trying to argue with her.”

  “Okay, okay, you guys wait here. I’ll see what I can do.”

  As he left his office, Will stepped around the carton of material he had planned to review.

  Well, he thought, it’s a good thing no one ever died of humiliation.

  If Will expected Susan Hollister to give up her patient without discussion, he was mistaken. The two of them had clashed occasionally over treatment philosophy or a surgical approach, but even those conflicts were short-lived.

  “Will, why didn’t you just tell this Mrs. Davis that we simply don’t do things like this in our practice?” Susan asked. “You know as well as I do how many times when we’re covering for one another, a patient decides she likes me better than you because I’m a woman, or Gordo better than me because the patient’s Scottish, or you better than Gordo because you’re not overweight. If we aren’t firm about not doing this sort of thing, there will be nothing but chaos and discord.”

  A confrontation with Susan on this of all nights was the last thing Will wanted or needed. In no more than ten minutes he had to leave for Boston.

  “I thought that because Grace had never met you,” he tried, “and had a history with me, we might make an exception.”

  Susan was clearly exasperated.

  “I don’t think so. This woman was referred to me, and I feel as if I should take care of her.”

  Will checked his watch.

  “Susan, I can’t believe I’m stuck in the middle like this. Listen, why don’t you come over and talk to her. I only have a few minutes before I have to head into the city, and I’d like to get this resolved. The poor woman has breast cancer. It seems the least we can do in this situation is to let her choose someone she’s known for ten years to operate on her.”

  Susan glared at him for a moment, then visibly softened.

  “I’m sorry, Will,” she said. “You’re absolutely right. My nose was just out of joint. This isn’t the typical case I was talking about. You two do have a history. Go tell your Grace Davis that it’s fine for you to take care of her. I’ll even assist in doing the procedure if you need me.”


  Will felt a flood of relief.

  “Thanks, Suze. In case you couldn’t guess, at this moment, my mind is on other things than who does this breast biopsy.”

  “I understand. I’ll see you in Boston. And, Will, relax about tonight. I’m sure you’ll knock ’em dead.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Faneuil Hall had been a gathering place for the artists and intelligentsia of Boston for more than 250 years. Over that time, its grasshopper weathervane, still perched atop the building’s cupola, had become a symbol of “The Hub,” a city characterized by liberal thinking and more than 140 colleges and universities. Samuel Adams and other patriots once spoke beneath its roof, rallying the colonists to strike for independence from the British. None of the building’s history was lost on Will as he parked in a nearby garage, entered the first-floor market area, showed his ID to the guard blocking the stairway, and ascended to the second-floor meeting hall through a metal detector.

  There were still nearly forty-five minutes to go before he and Boyd Halliday were scheduled to square off. A sign at the foot of the stairs, adjacent to the metal detector, announced that, for security reasons, ticketed guests only would be admitted beginning thirty minutes before the forum. Two managed-care executives shot to death, a third killed by a bomb. Speculation on the killer’s identity and motive was rampant, with most guesses leaning toward a disgruntled HMO patient or patient’s relative. There was some pressure from law enforcement to postpone the forum or to cancel it altogether, but in the end, it was felt that the second floor at Faneuil Hall was small enough for private security and the police to cover, and that the public was sick of bending to terrorist threats of any kind.

  The meeting hall was inspiring—an elegant seventy-six-foot square featuring a thirty-foot-high ceiling and walls adorned with portraits of George Washington, Samuel and John Adams, and Daniel Webster, among others. Doric columns supported a three-tiered balcony running along the sides and back of the hall. Four hundred wooden folding chairs had been set out in neat rows. All would soon be filled. At the front of the hall was a stage and on it a draped dais with five name placards—Boyd Halliday, Excelsius Health; Marshall Gold, Excelsius Health; Roselyn Morton, Wellness Project; Thomas Lemm, MD, Hippocrates Society; Willard Grant, MD, Hippocrates Society.

  Willard!

  Could the forum possibly be off to a worse start, Will wondered. First, matters surrounding Grace Peng had eliminated his rehearsal time, now Willard. Will disliked the name as much today as he had the first time he was teased about it. He disliked it as much as he hated beets. He disliked it enough to have insisted that the shortened version be on all his diplomas and certifications, and had not changed it legally only because he had never gotten around to it.

  “Why not William?” he asked as his mother was cleaning him up from yet another losing fight.

  “Too common,” was her stock answer.

  Then, when Will was eight, Willard, the story of a social misfit who raised rats to be killers, hit the movie houses. Three years of being called Ratboy honed his temper and fighting skills, and cemented his feelings.

  Willard.

  “So, I think we’re ready, yes?”

  Will spun to the voice. Tom Lemm appeared calm enough. He was, as usual, conservatively dressed—dark suit, solid brown bow tie.

  “Ready as we’re going to be.”

  “I checked the PowerPoint stuff. It looks pretty darn good if I do say so.”

  “PowerPoint always looks good. What we have is pretty dry, Tom.”

  “Facts, not anecdotes. That’s what Jeremy said would win the day for us. I thought we agreed on that.”

  “I suppose we did. Tell me something, how did they know my name was Willard?”

  “No idea. Not from me, that’s for sure. You’ve always been Will to me. Why, is there a problem?”

  “No. No problem. Who’s Marshall Gold?”

  “Halliday’s business manager and right-hand man—sort of a data nerd, I think. I just met him for the first time.”

  “I’ve never even met Halliday in person.”

  “Well, thar she blows,” Lemm said, indicating a pair of men just to their left. “Let’s get the intros over with.”

  Marshall Gold, late forties, close-cropped gray-black hair, gold wire-rimmed glasses, met them first and shook Will’s hand firmly.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Dr. Grant,” he said, perhaps maintaining his grip for an extra instant. “You have the reputation as quite an excellent surgeon. We’re happy to have you on our panel of provider physicians.”

  “Thanks. Is that your job, the provider panel?”

  “Along with the other duties that go along with being Mr. Halliday’s personal assistant. I understand you two haven’t met each other yet. We should take care of that right now.”

  Will had seen some photos of the Excelsius Health CEO, but none of them conveyed the force of the man. He was slightly taller than Will, perhaps six-one, with dense, pure white hair, the weathered face of an outdoorsman, and eyes so intensely gray that Will wondered if he was wearing some sort of tinted contacts.

  “So, Dr. Grant,” he said, impaling Will with those eyes. “After years of sniping at us in the press, you finally get the chance at an all-out frontal assault.”

  Will was immediately en garde.

  “I hadn’t intended any sort of assault, Mr. Halliday, just a dissemination of the facts as I know them.”

  “Yes, of course, facts. That will be refreshing.”

  That did it. Halliday had only one chance to make a first impression, and as far as Will was concerned he had used his poorly. They were enemies and would remain so until the man did something incredibly admirable.

  “I had been led to believe that this evening was going to be a civil discussion of the issues,” Will said, feeling the heat in his face that used to follow being called Willard.

  Halliday’s smile held no warmth.

  “Dr. Grant, you are publicity director of an organization that is trying to hurt my company, if not put it out of business altogether. I intend to be civil with you only as it suits my purposes.”

  “Well, well, well, I see that we’ve all gotten acquainted with one another,” Roselyn Morton gushed as she approached the four combatants.

  She was a lusty woman, straight out of the society pages, meticulously coifed and wearing a form-fitting designer dress that aesthetically could have been a size larger, or even two. The four men introduced themselves and shook her hand, although it was clear to Will that she and Halliday had some prior connection.

  Morton took several minutes to review the format of the evening, which she said was to be a brisk, issue-oriented presentation and discussion surrounding managed care. There was to be a fifteen-minute opening from each side, followed by ten minutes each spent addressing the points made by the other. Next there would be five questions for each team chosen by a Wellness Project committee from audience submissions, with a strict two-minute limit on the answers.

  “If I tell either of you that time is up, I would like you to stop immediately,” she said. “Mr. Gold and Dr. Lemm may speak at any time, but the minutes they take will be counted against your side. Lastly, there will be five minutes for each team for summation. The side that goes first at the beginning will go last here. If all goes well, we’ll be done in an hour and twenty minutes. Questions?”

  “Who goes first?” Will asked.

  Roselyn Morton looked over at Halliday.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Dr. Grant,” Halliday said. “I was asked about this a couple of weeks ago, and said it was perfectly all right with me if your side went first.”

  “Did Dr. Purcell know that?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Well, he didn’t say anything to me about it.”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Morton pleaded, “supposing we simply flip a coin. Winner goes first. Dr. Grant?”

  “Heads,” Will said, certain only that if Halliday wanted him to go first, the
re must be some disadvantage for him to do so.

  “Heads it is,” Morton sang out.

  From a spot beside the stage, Will and Tom Lemm watched the sellout crowd assemble. There were uniformed security people patrolling the main floor and up in the balcony, and Will knew there were police scattered about in street clothes as well. Reporters and cameramen filled the back of the hall.

  “So, Will, what’s your take on Boyd Halliday?” Lemm asked.

  “Clearly not a man who enjoys coming in second.”

  “Do you?”

  “I hope I don’t disappoint you, Tom, but my finish-first-at-all-costs phase caused me nothing but trouble and pain. Most of the time now I’m more than satisfied with just competing and trying my best, regardless of whether I win or not. In fact, except for in the OR, I think winning is often vastly overrated. Christ, is that the governor?”

  “This is big stuff, Will.”

  “Tell me again why I’m the one with the dueling pistol and you’re the second?”

  “Because I’m dull and I can’t stand to lose. Listen, don’t worry. You’ll handle this guy fine.”

  Jim Katz and his wife, Julia, entered with Gordo and his wife, Kristin. Behind them came Susan, who was unaccompanied but looked less drab and bookish than usual in a tweed wool suit. Cameron was the first to spot Will and pointed him out to the others, who smiled and waved. Then he left the group to give Will a bear hug.

  “No kilt?” Will asked.

  “Knowing your curiosity about what lies beneath, I dinna want to distract you. Are you ready for battle, Braveheart?”

  “Gordo, the truth is this all sounded better when I said I’d do it than it does right now.”

  “I can’t believe it. The lad is cool as kelp in the operating room, and here he is shaking in his boots.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m allergic to humiliation.”

  “Well, you better be entertaining. I told Kristin this was our night out for the month.”

  “Hey, easy does it. I can’t handle any more pressure.”

  “Well, then, make us proud.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “What’s this Willard thing?”