by Ruth Harris
Get HOOKED!
A Medical / Political Thriller
DOCTOR FEELGOOD
The miracle treatments of brilliant, charismatic, Dr. Gavin Jenkins, cure every illness and make every dream come true.
No wonder his famous patients adore him.
No wonder his name is their best-kept secret.
No wonder a beautiful heiress, enslaved by his tantalizing bedroom techniques, uses her wealth and social status to propel his career to new heights.
No wonder his influence runs from the world's richest and most famous to the inner sanctums of the White House itself.
No wonder Dr. Gavin Jenkins rises to the pinnacle of power and prestige.
No wonder he becomes enmeshed in a deadly web he himself creates.
HOOKED, a political-medical thriller, takes place in the mid-20th century. The story is based on the real-life "youth doctors" of the 1960s and is set in New York and Washington, a remote fishing village on the Turkish Riviera, Vienna, Cairo and aboard Lydia, the world’s most beautiful yacht.
“Truly one of the best books I’ve ever read! I luuuvvved the international jet-setting element, and the characters were each riveting in their own unique ways. I simply could not put it down! If I could give it 10-Stars, I would! It’s that good!!!”—D. D. Scott, bestselling author
1
The first time Gavin Jenkins saw Cleo Talbot she was naked. His fingers probed her vagina and then moved gently over her lower abdomen. Everett Storrick, Chief of Gynecology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, watched the young resident critically and conducted a follow-up exam as a nurse stood by.
The second time Gavin Jenkins saw Cleo was an hour later. She was in Room 344, dressed in a hospital gown and lying in bed. He saw on her chart that she was 31 years old, had been widowed for three years and had no children. He was pleasantly conscious of her classic good looks and cornflower blue eyes.
“What brought you here, Mrs. Talbot?” Gavin asked. He gave her his full attention and made notes as she spoke. He was tall, she noticed, and slender. His dark eyes, observant and intelligent, were almost black.
“I’m not sure I belong here, but I threw up last night. Then I fainted,” she began. She smiled. It was a good smile and brought warmth to her fair complexion. “My grandmother brought me. She insisted. ‘Just to be on the safe side,’” she said.
“When was the last time you vomited?” Gavin asked. “I mean before last night—”
“When I was ten,” she said. “I ate too much cotton candy at a country fair—”
He nodded and returned her smile, turning them into allies. “Have you fainted before?”
“Never,” she said with a slight shake of her head.
“Dizzy spells?”
She shook her head again. “I’ve been having off-and-on pain in my abdomen but it’s just about disappeared—”
“Had you been drinking?”
“I had half a glass of wine with dinner,” she said, noting his intense interest in her symptoms and his meticulous handwriting, so unusual for a doctor.
“How long since you’d eaten?“
“About an hour and a half,” she said. “I’d had broiled snapper and tomato salad—”
She turned her head as Everett Storrick walked into the room and watched as Gavin handed the older man her chart.
“Mrs. Cleo Talbot?” Dr. Storrick mispronounced her first name.
“Yes, but it’s pronounced ‘Clay-oh.’”
“I see.” He looked up from the chart, not bothering to hide a brief flicker of annoyance at being corrected. “You were admitted to the hospital last night?”
She nodded. “I’ve been suffering from abdominal pain, but it’s been waning,” she said. “I was explaining to your colleague just now—”
She gestured toward Gavin.
“Oh, Dr. Jenkins. He’s one of our young hot shots,” Everett Storrick said in the dismissive tone his residents had become accustomed to. “Please continue—”
“I threw up last night after dinner,” she said. “Then I passed out. Probably from the heat—”
“I’m the doctor. Let me make the diagnosis,” said Storrick with a slight frown. “You’re pregnant?”
She shook her head and a trace of sadness shadowed her eyes. “I can’t,” she said. “I mean, we tried when my husband was alive. We did everything possible, but I couldn’t—”
She let her words trail off and after the moment of silence that followed, Storrick had a question.
“When was the last time you had sexual intercourse?” he asked.
“The last time?” she said. “About two weeks ago.”
“I see,” said Dr. Storrick. He raised his eyebrows slightly and crossed the room. He nodded to Gavin, beckoning him to follow. The two men walked into an adjacent consultation room and Gavin shut the door behind them.
Storrick was a short, trim man of military bearing who wore his prematurely white hair in a crew cut. He was a skilled surgeon and a stickler for the rules. Gavin had learned from him but concluded that his by-the-books approach kept him from displaying the creativity Gavin considered crucial in a truly first-rate doctor.
“Very well, Doctor, begin,” Storrick said and seated himself at his desk.
“I would say Mrs. Talbot probably has endometriosis,” Gavin said.
“Explain—”
“Vomiting. The fainting. The on and off pain—”
“I suppose you’d deal with it by giving her some of those hormones you’re so impressed with?”
Three weeks ago Gavin had suggested a new postoperative hormone treatment he’d read about in a Canadian medical journal for a patient who had just undergone a hysterectomy. Everett Storrick had turned down his suggestion, refusing to take as-yet unknown risks with what many doctors still considered an experimental medication.
“I’d consider it,” said Gavin. “I believe hormone therapy is a viable treatment in such cases—”
“Maybe in Canada but not here in the United States,“ said Dr. Storrick. “And especially not for PID.”
“PID?” blurted Gavin. “You think she has gonorrhea?”
“I do,” Storrick said. “Her tubes are enlarged and therefore most certainly inflamed. She vomited and then fainted for no apparent reason—”
“But she said her symptoms have been diminishing—”
Storrick gave no indication that he had heard Gavin speak and went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted.
“She might very well have had an acute onset within a few weeks after intercourse,” he said. “Still, the source of infection doesn’t necessarily have to be the fellow two weeks ago—”
“What about the smear?” Gavin asked. “It’s negative—”
“Many times you don’t get a positive smear,” Storrick pointed out. “It’s not unusual—”
The two men faced each other in silence for a moment. “She wasn’t able to get pregnant during her marriage,” Gavin said. “Mightn’t that be due to endometriosis?”
“That’s also a consequence of gonorrhea, if I recall correctly,” Storrick said sarcastically. “Her infection could well be one of long standing.”
He tossed the medical chart at Gavin, got up and and opened the door into the hall. Then he turned back.
“Schedule Mrs. Talbot for an exploratory first thing tomorrow morning,” he said.
“Tomorrow?” Gavin said. “You’re sure?”
“You heard me,” Storrick snapped. “‘Clay-o’ needs a complete pelvic clean out.”
“You’re scheduled for surgery in the morning,” Gavin told Cleo a few moments later.
“Surgery?” asked Cleo, looking surprised. “For what?”
“Dr. Storrick thinks your fallopian
tubes will have to come out,” said Gavin. “Between his examination and the symptoms you described, he thinks you’re suffering from an infection—”
“He’s talking about a hysterectomy?”
Gavin nodded. “Dr. Storrick is cautious,” he said. “He doesn’t like to take risks with his patients—”
“But the pain is almost gone,” she said. Then, although she couldn’t have said quite why, something about the young doctor’s manner — his intelligence? his willingness to defy authority? — gave her confidence. “Do you think I have an infection of the fallopian tubes?”
“I think,” Gavin said, speaking very deliberately, “that you should get dressed and get the hell out of here as soon as you can.”
She was silent a moment, her eyes wide with surprise. “Why?”
“Because Dr. Storrick is wrong,” he said. “I think you have endometriosis—”
“I see,” said Cleo. “You think I should get a second opinion?”
Gavin nodded. “At least one—”
2
One week later, Cleo Talbot telephoned Gavin Jenkins to thank him.
“You were right,” she said. “I’ve seen two other gynecologists and they both agree with you—”
“Dr. Storrick is a good surgeon,” said Gavin.
“But not much of a diagnostician—”
“No one’s perfect,” Gavin said.
“Even you?”
“I might be the exception,” Gavin said.
Cleo couldn’t quite decide if he were joking or not.
“Interesting,” replied Cleo with a laugh. Then she invited him to dinner. “As a thank you—”
He had grown up in rural Kentucky, he told Cleo, the only child of a country doctor who died of pneumonia when Gavin was 14.
“It had turned septic,” he said, as they sat in the seafood restaurant Cleo had chosen. “Penicillin would almost certainly have cured him but Dad was in a small local hospital and the doctors there weren’t aware of the latest treatments—”
“Did you know at the time?”
Gavin shook his head. “I wish I had,” he said. “I found out later. After Dad died, I began reading medical journals at the library—”
“So that’s when you realized—”
Gavin nodded. “That’s when I realized my father didn’t have to die. Not then and not from pneumonia—”
“That’s the source of your conflict with Dr. Storrick, isn’t it?” Cleo asked. “You think he’s too conservative. You think he should be more open to new ideas—”
Gavin blinked, surprised by the question. “How did you know?” he asked with a smile. “Are you a witch?”
“Maybe,” she teased. “Actually, it’s just woman’s intuition. He’s older, renowned. You’re young, ambitious—”
“It shows?”
“Perhaps only to me,” she said as they finished their dinner and rose to leave.
“No check?” asked Gavin.
“It’s been taken care of,” Cleo said.
They walked out to the parking area, not touching, but acutely aware of each other’s presence. Gavin could smell Cleo’s perfume — gardenia, he thought. Expensive, too. Gavin was even taller than Cleo had thought in the hospital and she sensed a coiled strength in his lean, long-limbed body. She wondered what he would be like in bed.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said, as they prepared to go to their separate cars.
“Thank you,” she replied. “For sparing me from butchery—”
“That’s not how I’d describe Everett Storrick.”
“You know what I mean,” Cleo said. Then she invited him to dinner.
“Next time it’s my treat,” he said.
Cleo shook her head. “Not at a restaurant,” she said. “At my grandmother’s. I’ve told Bobbi all about you. She’s intrigued by you—”
He leaned toward her and traced the contour of her cheek with his fingertip. “And you’re not?”
His caress, unexpected and uninvited, left a scalding trail.
Cleo pretended not to notice. “Bobbi’s been looking forward to meeting you—”
Bobbi Eames’s estate was in a pleasant neighborhood of Baltimore but hidden from the street behind a ten-foot-high brick wall. Inside, there was crystal and marble and mahogany. Even the air seemed to smell of money but it was not the surroundings that impressed Gavin, but Bobbi herself.
He knew from his conversation with Cleo that Bobbi was in her seventies but she appeared to be twenty-five years younger. She was trim and energetic, dressed in a flattering shade of dusty blue. A sapphire ring glittered on her finger.
“I’m Mrs. Eames,” she said, greeting Gavin with a firm handshake. “But you should call me Bobbi—”
He knew the name Eames well — everyone in Baltimore did. Eames was a big deal and Bobbi Ames was on the hospital’s board.
“Then, Bobbi,” Gavin replied with a smile. “I’m Gavin—”
“Yes, Dr. Gavin Jenkins,” said Bobbi, offering him a glass of sherry. “Cleo and I owe you a great deal. You saved her from something no woman should have to go through—”
“Menopause?” asked Gavin.
Cleo cringed at his bluntness but not Bobbi. Not at all.
“Exactly,” she said. “These days there’s no reason for any woman to be a dried up old lady—”
Dinner was boned squab with wild rice and buttered broccoli. Conversation moved from the Suez crisis, to concerns about President Eisenhower’s health, the Baltimore Colts and talk about the renovations to Bobbi’s guest house. Finally, over dessert of strawberry mousse, Gavin could no longer contain his curiosity about Bobbi’s youthful appearance and he asked her what her secret was.
“Cell therapy,” she answered. “Have you heard of Paul Neihans?”
“The Swiss doctor?” Gavin replied. He had heard of Dr. Neihans. He had heard he was a genius. He had also heard he was a quack and a charlatan.
“Dr. Neihans treated the Pope a couple of years ago,” Cleo said. “Everyone says the results are amazing—”
Gavin had heard rumors about the Pope and cell therapy but nothing had been published in any of the prominent medical journals.
“Do you know what Neihans does?” Gavin asked.
“He injects cells from sheep fetuses,” said Bobbi. “He uses the biggest needle anyone’s ever seen.”
“A wide-caliber syringe,” said Gavin.
“I don’t know what it’s called,” said Bobbi, “but I hear it’s very large—”
“‘You hear?’” quoted Gavin. “Doesn’t Paul Neihans himself treat you?”
Bobbi giggled and shook her head. “Neihans is a fanatic about not smoking or drinking, and I’m not about to give up my cigarettes. Or my glass of sherry,” she said. “I see Lars Mendl. He’s younger than Neihans and much more progressive but he’s based his own work on Dr. Neihans’s discoveries—”
“Dr. Mendl injects you with live sheep cells?” Gavin asked. His medical training told him that a patient injected with foreign cells would suffer anaphylactic shock and die.
“No, they’re not live,” said Bobbi. “They’re frozen. Dr. Mendl has a process by which he freezes the cells and examines them to make sure the animal is free of disease before injecting them.”
Gavin was riveted. Bobbi Eames was talking about a new kind of medicine and, judging from her appearance, one that worked.
“You’re sure this has been done successfully?” Gavin asked.
“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” Bobbi replied with a laugh. “Everyone goes to him. Movie stars, politicians, Somerset Maugham, Willy Cranford—”
“And you,” Gavin said, still astonished by Bobbi Eames’s youthful appearance and vitality.
“You seem interested,” said the ever-astute Bobbi who hadn’t gotten to be one of the richest women in Baltimore by being shy. “Would you like to meet Lars Mendl?”
“He’s coming here?” Gavin asked.
Bobbi shook her head. �
�You’re going there,” she said with the conviction of a woman who was accustomed to running things and getting her way. “You’ll go to Positano with Cleo and spend the weekend there at my villa. From there, it’s a quick drive to Lars Mendl’s clinic—”
But first a stop at the hospital and a meeting with an icily furious Everett Storrick.
“I don’t appreciate having patients walk out on me,” he told Gavin as they sat in Storrick’s office. “And I especially don’t appreciate having board members complain about me—”
“I don’t control what board members do or don’t do—”
“You never told me Cleo Talbot was Bobbi Eames’ granddaughter—”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know,” said Gavin. “If you were more cautious about your diagnoses, there’d be no problem in the first place—”
Everett Storrick turned red under his white hair and a vein throbbed in his forehead. “You’re telling me how to practice medicine?”
“I’m suggesting an area in which you might improve—”
Everett Storrick stood up and loomed over the seated Gavin. “And I’m suggesting you watch yourself,” he said in menacing tones. “I’m not going to forgive and I’m not going to forget—”
3
There was something about Gavin Jenkins — an almost arrogant quality — that challenged Cleo. Like her late husband, he was precise, controlled and extremely intelligent. Unlike her late husband, he had not been born with the advantages of money and worldly power. In fact, on occasion he could be abrupt and socially graceless, almost bordering on rude. She also noticed that although he spoke often of his father, he never mentioned his mother and brushed aside questions about her.
Beneath Gavin’s control, Cleo sensed a caged, almost wild, energy and it was this aspect of him — charismatic yet feral — that attracted her and repelled her.
They spent their first afternoon in Positano sitting on the terrace of Bobbi’s villa drinking Bellinis, a subtly intoxicating combination of champagne and fresh peach juice. Beyond the stone parapet of the terrace, the hill sloped down toward the water’s edge. Olive trees and herbs grew in tiered groves. The citric, powerful scent of lemons was in the air — lemons as large as oranges and almost as sweet. Below, white buildings clung to the steep cliffs, and out in the green-blue water, a gleaming white yacht moved gracefully toward Amalfi.