Royal Pains : Sick Rich (9781101559536)

by Lyle, D. P.

  “Statement?” Jill asked.

  “Evan thinks his outfit should suggest power and wealth,” I said. “Be CFOish.”

  Jill laughed. “Not sure what that would be.”

  “Something cool and professional,” Evan said.

  “Why not go as a bookkeeper?” Jill said.

  Evan stared at her. “Do you and Hank compare notes?”

  “What about you?” Divya asked Jill. “What are you going to wear?”

  Jill sat next to me on the sofa. “It depends on Hank.”

  “He said he was going to wear nothing,” Divya said.

  Jill laughed. “That could get interesting.”

  “Actually I said I was going as myself,” I said.

  “That works for me,” Jill said. “I’ve got so much going on right now that looking for a costume is the least of my worries.”

  Jill’s project, and major headache for the past three months, was organizing the First Annual Hamptons Health and Fitness Fair at the high school. With the Fourth of July falling on Monday, the fair would be held on Saturday and Sunday—the second and third. It was not only to promote fitness and a healthy lifestyle but also to raise money for the high school, Hamptons Heritage Hospital, and Jill’s community clinic.

  “What’s the latest?” I asked.

  “We have all the tent booths set up around the track and football practice field. I saved HankMed a prime corner one. Near the entrance and directly across the field from the Hamptons Heritage booth.”

  The booths went for a thousand dollars each, but Jill had comped ours since we would be providing care to the attendees and those who would participate in all the athletic events she had planned.

  “Thanks. We’ll come by tomorrow and check it out.”

  “Looks like I’ll be there all day, so anytime.”

  “What about the weather?” Divya asked. “Isn’t it supposed to rain this week?”

  Jill nodded. “They said maybe Wednesday or Thursday but the weekend will be clear.”

  “They’re only right about half the time,” Evan said. “You’d think they’d have weather prediction wired by now.”

  “It’s not an exact science,” I said.

  “But there’re a gazillion satellites that can see things all over the world. They should be able to tell us if it’s going to rain or not.”

  “I think it’s particularly unpredictable this year,” I said. “Isn’t this a La Niña year? Or is it El Niño? I can’t keep those two straight.”

  “Me either,” Jill said. “All I know is that the weather guy says it’ll be clear this weekend.”

  “Either way, I’m sure everything will work out just fine,” I said.

  Evan tossed the Caesar salad he had made in a large wooden bowl. Divya cleared away her papers and laptop. Evan then carried the lasagna and the salad to the table, placing the former on a large quilted pad. Plates and flatware followed.

  “Dinner is served,” Evan said.

  While we ate, the conversation turned to Evan’s fund-raising. He had taken on the task of selling the booths and collecting donations from local businesses and the Hamptons’ more wealthy citizens. A job that required schmoozing, something Evan held a PhD in.

  “I honestly don’t know how I could have pulled this off without Evan’s help,” Jill said. She looked at him and smiled. “He’s been a real trouper.”

  Evan beamed and his chest expanded a few inches.

  “He is a salesman,” I said. “Annoying at times, but he can sell.”

  “When you have a good product, selling it is easy,” Evan said.

  “Well, you’ve done an incredible job.”

  “Almost all the booths are sold,” Evan said. “Only two left. I have a couple of appointments tomorrow, so those should be filled then.”

  Evan went on to rattle off the names of some of the companies that had donated money, concluding by saying that they had already passed their goal.

  “Really?” Divya asked.

  Jill nodded. “Actually we’re way over our goal. And that’s not counting whatever comes in from Evan’s charity walk on Sunday.”

  “I’m impressed,” Divya said. She lifted her wineglass. “A toast to Evan.”

  We clinked glasses and took sips.

  “What do you want?” Evan asked.

  “Me?” Divya replied. “Why would you ask that?”

  “You’re being nice.”

  “I am nice.”

  “Just not to me.”

  “You rarely deserve it. This time you do.”

  There’s nothing like the sounds of home.

  The conversation returned to the health fair but unfortunately just as quickly flipped back to costuming. Not a subject that interested me a great deal but one that Evan had his teeth into. Obsession and Evan are old friends.

  “I still like the idea of a swashbuckler,” Evan said. “I can see myself as Blackbeard.”

  “Or perhaps the Scarlet Pimpernel,” Divya said.

  Jill laughed so hard she nearly choked. When she got her breath back she said, “You’d look so cute in tights.”

  “You guys are funny,” Evan said. “I’m talking about a sword and an eye patch and maybe a jug of rum.”

  “Rum?” I asked. “That’s what we need. Evan the drunk pirate.”

  “I wouldn’t fill it with real rum. Maybe tea or lemonade.”

  “That’s so Pimpernel,” Divya said. “A lemonade-drinking swashbuckler. Mr. Flynn must be spinning in his grave.”

  “Maybe we should all visit that cool costume shop in East Hampton,” Jill said. “They even supply the local theaters. They’d have all types of costumes.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “Maybe then Evan can make a decision and I won’t have to listen to this anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that,” Divya said.

  I could almost see Evan’s mental wheels turning and then the light behind his eyes snapped on.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “A spy. I could go as a Revolutionary spy.” He took a bite of lasagna, his head bobbing as he chewed. “That would be so cool. After all, Evan R. Lawson is a superspy.” He held up his cell phone, aiming it at Divya.

  Evan R. Lawson is a superspy.

  Evan had once tricked Divya into saying a couple of nice things about him and had recorded her voice. He replayed them from time to time to annoy her. Like now.

  “When are you going to delete that?” Divya asked.

  “Probably never. I have another one if you’d rather hear that.”

  Evan R. Lawson is right.

  Divya rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

  “But I have proof that you think I’m a superspy and that I’m right.”

  “It was an isolated incident punctuated by a moment of weakness.”

  “A spy might work,” Jill said. “You could wear all black and a long trench coat.”

  “I could be like James Bond or Jason Bourne or George Smiley,” Evan said.

  “Maybe Inspector Clouseau,” Divya said.

  Evan R. Lawson is a superspy.

  Evan looked at Divya. “And you could be Mata Hari.”

  “Just so I don’t have to be Rosa Kleb.”

  “She did have cool shoes,” Jill said. “Not cool-looking, but that little knife blade in the toe could come in handy. Every time I have to negotiate with a vendor.”

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “Some of them could use a swift kick.”

  Better them than me.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning Divya and I headed out to see patients—three follow-up visits and one new patient. Evan went along to drive the new HankMed van. We had had it a few months now and
both Divya and I had to admit that it was cool. And it did help with making house calls.

  We could carry more medications and equipment with us. The portable X-ray and ultrasound machines alone saved time, money, and trips to the hospital radiology department. We could now perform these tests at the patient’s home. Convenient. The staple of any concierge practice. Our patients loved convenient.

  While Evan drove, Divya rode shotgun. I sat in the back with my laptop hooked up to the plasma screen that folded down from the ceiling. It wasn’t the forty-two-inch one that Evan had originally wanted but rather a more manageable thirty-two inches.

  “Check this out,” Evan said. “I can put the GPS map up on the screen back there.”

  Immediately the image of my laptop screen disappeared, replaced by the navigation window..

  “Pretty cool,” I said. “Now can I have my laptop back?”

  “Don’t you want to see where we’re going?”

  “I can look out the window for that. Right now I have to get these files up to date.”

  Evan tapped the dashboard touchscreen and the image on the plasma screen reverted to my laptop.

  “I hesitate to say this,” Divya said, “but I’m really impressed with the van. I had my doubts, but I must admit it has definitely made our job easier.”

  “Evan R. Lawson at your service. That’s my job. To make your life easier.”

  “And when you’re not as annoying as a green fly, you do fairly well in that regard.”

  Evan picked up his cell phone from where it lay in a central console tray and extended it toward Divya. “Would you say that again?”

  “Not likely. In fact if I get a chance to erase all the other stuff you’ve recorded, I will.”

  “Too late. I’ve uploaded it to my cloud.”

  “The cloud that floats around in your brain?”

  “Funny,” Evan said.

  It was. I laughed. Evan glared at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Don’t encourage her,” he said.

  “I need no encouragement,” Divya said.

  Evan R. Lawson is right.

  “Put that down.”

  He did.

  “Regardless,” Evan said, “I’m glad you’re mature enough to say I’m right when I’m right.”

  “Whether the van was useful or not was never a question,” I said. “The problem was being able to afford it. And to your credit, you did work that out.”

  Evan’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen as he picked it up.

  “Speaking of paying for it.” He punched the speakerphone button. “Hi, Rachel.”

  “Sorry to bother you but I wondered if either Hank or Divya could come by and take a look at one of my workers.”

  Rachel Fleming and her father owned Fleming’s Custom Shop, the birthplace of the HankMed van. Evan’s stroke of genius was to negotiate a deal where we got the use of the van for two years and then owned it in exchange for providing health care to their employees. We performed their employment physicals and took care of injuries and illnesses that occurred at the shop.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Oh, hi, Hank,” Rachel said. “One of the guys grabbed a hot muffler. Burned his hand pretty badly. I told him to put some ice on it. I hope that was the right thing to do?”

  “That’s exactly the right thing to do. We’re on our way.”

  Evan ended the call.

  “I guess you can program your GPS to actually take us somewhere,” I said. “Like Fleming’s Custom Shop in Westhampton.”

  “But I know where that is,” Evan said.

  “I just hoped fiddling with it would keep you occupied while I finish my notes.”

  Evan punched in the address and a blue line appeared on the dashboard map display. “Got it,” he said.

  “That was quick,” I said.

  “Evan R. Lawson is a master programmer.”

  I shook my head. “Okay, master programmer, follow the little blue line and let Divya and me get some work done.”

  “Divya’s not working.”

  Divya pulled her schedule book from her purse. “Now I am.”

  It took only fifteen minutes to reach Fleming’s. Evan swung into the lot and parked between two freshly waxed vans, one black with huge windows on each side, the other a bright metallic blue with a California surf scene on the side.

  Rachel came out the front door and walked toward us. She gave Evan a hug.

  My brother the charmer.

  “These new?” I asked, indicating the vans.

  “Hot off the press. Customers are coming to pick them up around noon.”

  “I like the blue one,” Evan said.

  “A guy is buying it for his son. He’s nineteen and moving to LA for school. Big into surfing, so this is what we came up with for him. The kid has no idea. I’m sure he’ll freak.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Evan said.

  Well, I wouldn’t for one, I thought. But then I’m not a West Coast surfer dude.

  “Come on,” Rachel said.

  We followed her inside. She led us down a hallway to the break room, where we found Ralph Beacon sitting at a wooden table with his forearm resting palm up on the surface. He cupped a baggie filled with ice in his hand.

  I sat down across from him. “How did this happen?”

  “A guy we did a job for a couple of weeks ago came in saying his muffler was making some odd noises. He was in a hurry, so I got right on it. But”—he shrugged— “I got a little ahead of myself and didn’t think that the muffler might be hot.”

  I lifted the ice bag. Several large blisters surrounded by erythematous tissue covered his palm. So did a greasy coating.

  “What’s this?”

  “Butter. My mother always said to put butter on a burn.”

  “That’s not exactly the best thing,” I said. “It tends to hold the heat in and make the injury worse. The ice is good, but the butter not so much.”

  Divya opened the medical bag and pulled out a pack of sterilized instruments and gauze. She handed me a bottle of Betadine solution. I soaked a square of gauze with it and grasped his wrist firmly.

  “This is going to be a little uncomfortable, but I have to clean it and get all this butter off.”

  “Go ahead. Couldn’t be any worse than grabbing that muffler.”

  I gently washed his hand, removing the butter and cleaning the damaged skin as best I could. Then we walked to the sink, where Divya rinsed his hand with a bottle of sterilized water. I patted it dry with a wad of sterile gauze and we returned to the table.

  I pulled on a pair of surgical gloves while Divya opened up the instrument kit. I removed the sterile tweezers and scissors inside.

  “The burn has probably damaged the skin nerves in the area, so this shouldn’t hurt much. If any. I just need to empty out these blisters.”

  It took only a couple of minutes to open them and drain the yellowish fluid that had collected inside. I then smeared the area with Silvadene cream, layered on a nonadherent Telfa pad, and stuffed the palm of his hand with a wad of sterile gauze. Finally, I wrapped his entire hand with gauze strips and taped it. It looked as if he was wearing a white cotton boxing glove.

  “Not exactly a Band-Aid, is it?” Ralph said.

  “It might look like overkill, but this is how an injured hand needs to be dressed. It’s called the position of function. Sort of a half fist. Makes the healing go better, with less chance of complications.” I smiled. “Of course, you’re going to have to keep this clean and dry. I’ll give you a prescription for some pain medications and antibiotics. I’ll also arrange for you to see a hand surgeon tomorrow.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “You don’t want to mess with th
is. If it heals well you’ll never have trouble with it. But if it gets infected, it can blossom into a really nasty third-degree injury and that changes the whole ball game. Surgery, skin grafting, loss of use of your hand, things like that.”

  He smiled. “You don’t sugarcoat it, do you, Doc?”

  “Sometimes. But not with something like this.”

  He glanced up at Rachel and then back to me. “What about work? I’ll still be able to work, won’t I?”

  “Only if you can do something that doesn’t require your hand. And something that will keep it clean and dry.”

  “I think a few days off might be best,” Rachel said.

  Ralph shrugged. “I have some vacation days built up. I can use them.”

  “You also have sick days,” Rachel said. “Let’s use those so you’ll get paid.”

  “How can I turn that down?” Ralph stood. He looked at his bandaged hand and then at me. “Thanks, Doc.”

  Ralph left the break room.

  “How’s the health fair going?” Rachel asked.

  “Great,” Evan said. “We have all the sponsors lined up and all but two of the booths sold. Tell your dad thanks for ponying up for one of them.”

  “You guys are going to have a booth there?” I asked.

  “We’ll be there promoting our sports nut line.”

  “Sports nut line?”

  Rachel laughed. “It was actually my idea but Dad jumped on it as soon as I told him. It’s really called our Sports Enthusiast Edition. We configure vans and SUVs for various sports. We have one for skiers, one for surfers, scuba divers, and even soccer moms.”

  “What exactly do you do?” I asked.

  “You saw the surfer one outside. And we just finished one for a scuba diving group. We created a custom top rack to hold an inflatable boat and racks in the back compartment for storing the tanks and other equipment. We even mounted an air compressor for refilling the tanks.”

  “Clever.”

  “Thank you. We can change out the roof racks so that the buyer can carry everything from canoes to skis. And we can configure the rear storage area to accommodate almost anything. Dozens of baseball bats and balls, surfboards, cross-country skis, you name it.”