by Ruth Harris
“And I’ll have my lawyers check them out—”
Adriana had gotten what she wanted and Nicky turned his attention to more practical matters. “When will you be ready to start the tour?”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow after I see Dr. Jenkins—”
Adriana was unwilling to return to his office and so Nicky arranged to have Dr. Jenkins treat her at home.
“When can I schedule the first concert?” she asked. Once she had made her decision to go ahead with the comeback, she accepted the doctor and his injections as necessary.
“A year,” Gavin said. “Medically speaking, of course. Musically, you’ll have to decide yourself—”
“I can be ready in a year—”
“I’ll want to see you three times a week,” Gavin said. “After a while we can cut it down to twice and then eventually once a week. Right before the first concert, I’ll want to see you every day again—”
“That seems like a lot—”
“Not if you want to perform,” Gavin said. “You’ll have to follow a schedule. And you can’t walk out on me the way you did last time—”
“I won’t—”
“You need me,” Gavin reminded her. “And you’re going to use me—”
“And you’ll use me, too,” she said. “I have no doubt of that.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Not yet. But I’ll tell you when I do—”
“You don’t have to like me,” he said. “Not everyone does—”
He prepared the two injections — the goldsalts into the back of the neck and the mixture of amphetamine and vitamins into the left arm. He took her arm and he could feel her draw away as if the touch of his hand were unpleasant to her. Slowly he emptied the fluid into her veins and in a few seconds she stopped fighting him.
“It will be easier as the treatment progresses,” Gavin said, as he withdrew the needle.
“I know,” said Adriana. “That’s what I’m afraid of—”
That evening Gavin told Cleo about his conversation with Adriana Partos and thought she might have some comment to make. He was surprised by her silence.
Cleo was thinking about Adriana’s remark that Gavin was going to use her. Adriana was right and Cleo knew why. Adriana Partos was the person Cleo had been waiting for — the patient who would enable her to make her husband the most famous doctor in America.
26
Over lunch with her old friend Arthur Congden, associate editor of Image magazine, Cleo mentioned Adriana’s tour.
“But she’s retired, isn’t she?” asked Arthur.
“She was,” said Cleo.
“I heard she couldn’t play any more,” said Arthur. “Arthritis—”
“She had arthritis,” said Cleo, “but Gavin’s been treating her and the condition has disappeared.”
She told Arthur how many hours a day Adriana was practicing in the studio across from Carnegie Hall. She named the cities where Adriana would be performing and she even named the pieces in her repertoire.
Arthur couldn’t conceal his excitement. Adriana Partos was one of the few authentic superstars of the last twenty-five years but hadn’t been heard on a public stage for almost a decade. Arthur confirmed Cleo’s leak in a telephone conversation with Adriana herself.
Assured of the accuracy of Cleo’s information, Arthur ran the story announcing the comeback tour. In it, the magazine named Dr. Gavin Jenkins as the miracle doctor who was making it possible.
Cleo was so pleased by her success that she called the features editor of Social Notebook in Palm Beach and suggested a profile of Gavin. The editor, sensing a story that would interest his readers, sent a reporter and photographer to interview Gavin who talked about the “optimum” man and how creative people possessed the capacity to work faster, better, longer if only it could be released. They snapped photos of Gavin in his consulting room and the article referred to Gavin’s private practice and to his research at Lowell. The caption read “Medical Chic.”
Newsworld picked up one of Gavin’s quotes on how the world’s leaders were working at only a fraction of their capacity. An item ran in the “Newsmakers” section, along with a small photo of Gavin.
Gossip columnists started printing Gavin’s name in their columns. Someone coined the phrase “Celebrity Doctor” and society columnists wrote about “the beautiful Gavin Jenkinses (she’s heiress Cleo Eames Talbot).”
It was fun, it was harmless.
And their marriage had never been better.
“You were right,” Cleo told Bobbi.
The Image article, so helpful to Gavin’s career, was a major annoyance for Ames Bostwick. Nicky phoned constantly, wanting the latest details of the tour and, most of all, the profit-loss potential. Ames hated being hounded; he resented his financial future being controlled by Nicky; and he found it almost intolerable to dance to another man’s tune.
Ames dealt with the stress by eating compulsively. He gained eighteen pounds in three weeks.
“I can’t stop eating,” Ames admitted to Nicky. “I can’t control myself—”
“A shot wouldn’t hurt you, you know,” Nicky said, giving Ames Gavin’s number.
Ames didn’t think twice about it. He made an appointment, rolled up his sleeve, stuck out his arm, and said, “Okay, doc. Gimme a hit.”
In a week Ames lost ten pounds and began dropping into Gavin’s office almost daily. Somehow, the rest of Adriana’s bookings fell neatly into place, Nicky’s constant phone calls were less irritating and Ames discovered reserves of energy he didn’t know he had.
He felt confident and sure of himself, just the way he had back when he’d been a kid starting out, fearless and filled with energy. He renewed projects he had shelved and even initiated a few new ones. He was getting more done in an hour than ever before and there were more hours in a day, because now that he was seeing Dr. Jenkins, he didn’t need as much sleep.
Ames was getting the kind of massive publicity for Adriana’s comeback tour that he was famous for and Adriana, to her surprise, began to look forward to being on stage again. Just as Gavin had predicted, her pain had gradually retreated and then left her fingers completely. She could move them effortlessly and she practiced for hours until muscle memory returned and she could play with the skill and thrilling emotion that had made her one of the most famous women in the world.
Gavin administered gold salts, traditionally used to reduce arthritic inflammation, but took the precaution of making certain that the medication had not caused a depression in her white cells. On the occasions she mentioned feeling jumpy, he added dionine to her treatment and reduced the amphetamine dosage when, on two occasions, her pulse rate was elevated. On another occasion, he gave her diuretics because she complained of feeling bloated. Between visits, he put her in cervical traction.
A few months before the first concert, Gavin injected cortisone into the back of her neck. It gave Adriana a sense of well-being and there was no question in her mind that by opening night she would be playing even better than when she had been in her prime. She was aware of a heightened command of tonal shadings and she pedaled to give a nuanced sense of shifting harmonic color. Her musicality had always had a basic dignity overlaid with a fiery, intense emotion, but now she was becoming nobler, more inward, more mysterious and meditative than ever.
Nicky could sense the difference in her. She was excited about her practice sessions and looked forward to her tour. Her optimism and intensity spilled over into their personal relationship.
Sex had always been good between them, but now it was spectacular and there was an intensity about her lovemaking that reminded Nicky of the way it had been aboard Lydia with Gail. He said nothing, but he had no doubt that Gavin Jenkins was responsible, now as then.
Adriana’s excitement over her tour increased every day. She was convinced that it would be nothing short of a total triumph. Even though Ames admitted that he had just been making a sales pitch, s
he believed now that she did owe something to the millions who worshiped her; she did owe something to the genius with which nature had bestowed her.
She got so she could barely wait for the first concert, the first glowing reviews, the first baskets of red roses, the first time that, again, she would hear a hall resounding with “bravos.” She would have everything in the world: her art, her ego, her lover.
Adriana lived through the preparation period in a heightened state that approached ecstasy.
27
It had become fashionable to be treated by Gavin Jenkins. The list of his patients read like a Who’s Who of prominent people. There was the anchorman for the seven-o’clock news whose comments influenced the nation’s thinking; the alcoholic star of a Broadway musical who depended on Gavin’s shots to get her through every performance; a famous fashion model who swore that Gavin’s shots helped keep her fabulous body fabulous. In every field — finance, industry, the arts, politics — the people at the top visited the fourteen-room suite on Beekman Place. Gavin was not called the Celebrity Doctor for nothing.
Because Gavin was accustomed to treating influential men and women, the phone call from Washington D.C. did not surprise him. The man who was requesting an appointment insisted on speaking with Dr. Jenkins personally and, when Gavin picked up the phone, his caller dictated the arrangements.
Dr. Jenkins would fly to the nation’s capitol via private plane and arrive late at night in order to keep his visit a secret. He would not carry a medical bag; instead an ordinary briefcase. He was to tell no one except his wife where he was going or who he was treating.
The night before Gavin was to leave for Washington, a plain manila envelope was delivered to his home by messenger. The envelope contained a set of medical records and Gavin stayed up to study them.
The records revealed that the patient had a compression fracture of a lower vertebrae resulting in severe lower-back pain. The fracture was a result of a carefully concealed car crash on a California superhighway and the patient had been treated with Novocain, Robaxin, Valium, procaine, and cortisone. None had been effective in relieving him of constant pain.
It seemed that James Santana, the President of the United States, liked the company of young women. It also seemed that he liked to drive too fast in the middle of the night.
Gavin was surprised at how good-looking the President was. Photographs accented the downward lines that ran from nose to mouth; in real life, the lines were there, certainly, but they were nowhere as deep as Gavin had expected. The nose that photographed like an errant ski jump was, in fact only slightly upturned at the tip. Above all, the body that was always encased in nondescript dark-blue suits was amazingly youthful for a man of fifty-four, with well-developed musculature in the shoulders, a lean waist, and long, beautifully shaped legs.
He was lying nude on a massage table in a dressing room just off the basement pool of the White House while Gavin examined him for the first time.
“Jeee-sus,” hissed the President through clenched teeth as Gavin moved his hands over the crushed vertebrae. He was seeing Jenkins because none of his other doctors were worth a damn and because his wife’s sister, Gail de Córdoba, had called him a miracle worker.
“I’m sorry,” said Gavin. “But I have to find out what’s causing you so much pain—”
“It hurts like hell and it gets worse all the time—”
“I’m being as gentle as I can, Mr. President,” Gavin said.
He continued his examination of the spine, sciatic-nerve impulses and located the neural terminus of the President’s pain. When Gavin was finished, he told the President he could get dressed.
“You’re not going to give me a shot?”
“I don’t want to treat you until the lab work is completed and I look at the X-rays—”
“Why not?”
“Because, Mr. President, if I’m right, the source of your pain is neurological,” said Gavin. “Local injections aren’t going to help—”
“The other doctors gave me locals—”
“All of them?” replied Gavin. He couldn’t believe that no other doctor had come to the conclusion that he had. This was the President of the United States. He would have had the best doctors in the world, wouldn’t he? On the other hand, thought Gavin, although other doctors may or may not have reached his diagnosis, the fact was that no other doctor had access to the sophisticated drug therapy he had spent years researching, creating and perfecting.
“When will you be finished with the lab work and the X-rays?” asked the President. He bent over slowly, clearly in great pain, to retrieve the clothes neatly piled on a wooden folding chair.
“You’ll have X-rays taken later today,” said Gavin. “I’ll have the lab process your tests and tissue samples right away—”
The President watched as Gavin opened the briefcase, cracked the cellophane wrapping on a fresh syringe and proceeded to add a mixture of liquids to the syringe.
“What’s in that?” asked the President.
“Dexedrine, hyaluronic acid, vitamins—”
“Dexie?” asked the President. “You mean greenies? I used to take them in college before exams so I could stay up all night and study—”
“If you took it, I’m glad you stopped,” Gavin said. “Dexedrine is not something to be taken casually—”
“Greenies never hurt me,” said the President, holding his arm out.
James Santana watched Carl find a vein and swab the surface skin with a wad of cotton. He didn’t take his eyes away as the needle punctured the thin skin and plunged into the bluish vein. He followed with his eyes as the fluid left the syringe and entered his bloodstream.
Gavin noticed how the patient was transfixed. His patient. A man just like any other that he treated. A man under his control, as all of them were.
As he withdrew the needle, the President slumped in relief. Then he sat up straight, stretching his spine, enjoying pain-free movement for the first time in years.
With a swift movement, the President got up, rolled down his sleeve, picked up the jacket hanging on back of the wooden chair and strode to the small elevator that connected the White House basement to the First Family’s apartment and the Oval Office. He jabbed the button impatiently and then abruptly turned around.
“You, Dr. Jenkins, you can go now,” he said absently, his mind already on important matters of state. It was almost as if he had forgotten Gavin’s existence.
Gavin responded with a thin smile. He knew that before long he would not be so dispensable.
28
The President accepted Carl’s status as a well-known doctor with a combination of wry amusement and indifference. He was too involved in matters of state to concern himself with Dr. Jenkins’ activities away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
What James Santana did not anticipate was the emergence of Gavin Jenkins, Superstar. Gavin was initially dubbed “The Celebrity Doctor” because of all the famous people he treated and inevitably he became a celebrity himself. Neither Gavin nor Cleo were completely prepared.
It started when the television program This Week decided to film an eleven-minute segment with Gavin called “A New Kind of Doctor.” The interviewer spent three afternoons in Gavin’s office and another at his home conducting the interview. The questions were probing and, at times, almost impertinent, yet Gavin’s answers were forceful and convincing.
Even Cleo and Gavin were impressed when they saw the segments edited together at a private screening at the CBS Broadcast Center. Cleo hoped the attention would add to Gavin’s reputation. Gavin hoped he would create a small stir inside the medical world.
The stir was not small and it was not limited to his own profession. This Week received a record number of letters, the majority from women, who wanted to find out more about Gavin Jenkins. They made it clear that it was the man more than the treatment that intrigued them. Three weeks later, This Week ran a three-minute segment about the volume of mail with th
e host commenting that America had apparently found a new kind of sex symbol.
Gavin and Cleo joked about it but Image magazine reacted not with amusement but heightened interest. Their “Medicine” section had been working on a cover story about scientists of the future: the James Watsons, William Masterses, Christiaan Barnards, and Jonas Salks. Image had been planning a composite cover featuring sixteen doctors who were the bright hopes of tomorrow. The cover was an accurate reflection of the story but when the editors heard about This Week’s mail, they decided that Gavin Jenkins had “animal appeal” and put him on the cover all by himself.
For the first time, Gavin was recognized on the street. People approached him and asked for autographs. Requests came into his office for speaking appearances around the country. Women’s clubs wanted him to talk and New York’s two largest lecture bureaus both wanted to sign him. Newspapers around the country had their New York correspondents call and arrange interviews. Cleo discovered that she didn’t have to phone the papers anymore to suggest stories. Now the papers called them.
Gavin was being talked about but he was still not major news as Ames Bostwick discovered when he tried to persuade an important talk show to accept Gavin as a guest. Ames had booked Adriana Partos for a ninety-minute interview to initiate publicity for her comeback tour. Three days before the taping, Adriana changed her mind. She was just too busy preparing for the concert to take time for a television interview.
Ames suggested Gavin as a substitute guest but the staff of the show felt that he was not a strong-enough name to carry a ninety-minute show all by himself. Ames persisted and gave the same hard sell about Gavin that he had been delivering privately to his friends. The show, persuaded by Ames’s enthusiasm and unable to book another headliner at the last minute, finally agreed to have Gavin on the program.
The taping itself went fine. The host spent most of the time talking about Gavin’s famous patients — the ones who didn’t mind being identified publicly, which of course did not include President Santana. Gavin knew he was there to help promote the tour and he talked about Adriana with so much warmth and affection that viewers were convinced they were close friends.