Bad Blood

by E. O. Chirovici

  But to move on … I’ve been a board member of more than a dozen foundations and charities. For a time I taught English at a school in Bangor for children with special needs. I’ve also volunteered for a home help program for the needy in Mineral County, where I live. I’ve never had the time to feel bored or to ask myself too many questions.

  Two years ago I was diagnosed with a virulent form of leukemia. They told me it could be genetic—my paternal grandfather died of the same cause. I didn’t feel sorry for myself and I didn’t complain. I’ve done everything the doctors have told me to do and signed all the checks they demanded, but three months ago they told me I’d lost the battle and that there wasn’t much more they could do. The medicine has done its job and given me an extra year of life.

  I’m not afraid of what is to come and I don’t think it makes any difference whether it happens tomorrow or ten years from now, as long as my departure causes nobody any pain.

  But there’s still one thing I must resolve, and it’s a matter of life and death, to use an expression that might sound ridiculous given the situation I find myself in. And I’m convinced that you, James, can help me in this respect.

  I can tell you only face to face what it’s all about, and this is why I hoped that I might have the opportunity to speak with you that evening. But I didn’t want to insist, lest you think I was intruding and thereby compromise the chance of you accepting my proposal. I also think that what I’m going to tell you will fit in with your scientific interests concerning altered states of consciousness.

  If you accept, you’ll be my guest here in Maine for a few days. My lawyer’s name is Richard Orrin and you’ll find his contact information attached below. He’ll fill you in on the practical details.

  Each day is precious, James. My only hope is that you’ll come to a decision quickly and that your decision will be positive.

  Until then, I would like to assure you of my esteem and best wishes.

  Yours,

  Josh

  At the end of the message I found the phone number and address of his lawyer.

  I spent the whole evening thinking about Fleischer’s message.

  The style of the letter was fluent and coherent. The information that my online search brought up broadly confirmed its contents. Fleischer was a real patron of the arts in the county where he resided, and the local press was peppered with his praises. He’d helped poor teenagers attend university, battered women build new lives for themselves, ex-convicts integrate back into society, and children with special needs get the best care and education. He’d become an almost legendary figure, a saint and a guru all rolled into one. The “terrible illness” that had lately begun to consume him was alluded to discreetly and with compassion by the local reporters.

  Everything he’d written seemed to be true. And a man who had dedicated his life to helping others deserved to receive a helping hand in return.

  The release of my book had marked the end of my grant from the J. L. Bridgewater Foundation and I felt like I could use a break. For the last few months I’d been in a relationship with a colleague of mine, Mina Waters, but two months before we’d agreed to stop seeing each other. Neither of us was at an age to harbor any illusions, and it was clear that something just wasn’t working. I missed her sometimes, but not enough to break our agreement and call her.

  So I had enough time on my hands, even if the few days Joshua Fleischer anticipated were to become a longer stay. I was almost sure that my visit would involve therapy sessions, a kind of preparation for death with a man who, according to his own declarations, didn’t believe in God or the afterlife and therefore couldn’t find comfort in religion. And this was an even greater reason to appreciate his philanthropy. I’ve never believed in the charity that springs only from faith, in the philanthropy of those who sign checks for foundations in the same way as they’re obligated to pay taxes, of those who put money in the poor box as an offering to a deity they fear rather than out of a feeling of humanity.

  two

  ORRIN’S OFFICE WAS ON East 31st Street, in an old eight-story brownstone that was home, as far as I could tell, to a number of healthy businesses.

  An assistant met me in the lobby and showed me to the third floor, which was entirely taken up by Orrin, Murdoch & Associates. Just as the clock in the waiting room struck ten, I was ushered into an office with walls upholstered in leather and a floor of exotic wood. Orrin stood up and shook my hand. He was middle-aged, tall, and bald. The wall behind his huge desk was covered with framed diplomas, and some golf trophies were displayed in a glass cabinet.

  It all looked exactly as you’d have expected it to look, and this struck me as disappointing rather than reassuring, given that the tone of Joshua Fleischer’s message had hinted at mysteries and enigmas waiting to be solved.

  Orrin told the assistant that we weren’t to be disturbed for half an hour, no matter what, indirectly informing me of the length of our meeting. After I refused the offer of a beverage, we sat down in two armchairs that flanked a coffee table.

  “I understand that you have accepted Mr. Fleischer’s offer,” he began, studying me carefully as he spoke.

  “Well, in principle, yes,” I said, “but as I don’t know what it’s all about yet, I hope that our meeting will be enlightening, with a view to my final decision.”

  The corners of his mouth dropped a bit. “Unfortunately, Dr. Cobb, I’m not able to offer you any details additional to what you’ve already discussed with Mr. Fleischer,” he said. “My only role in this matter is to assure Mr. Fleischer that from a legal standpoint no information about him or any third parties with whom you may come into contact during the days you’re to spend with him will be made public in any form. To put it simply, we’re dealing with a non-disclosure agreement. He asked me to handle it because I’m based in New York and he wanted to make sure the matter would be taken care of before you traveled to Maine. I’ve known Mr. Fleischer for over ten years.”

  “A strong code of ethics does exist in my profession, as you probably know,” I said. “Without the consent of the client, I’m not allowed to make public or use any information I might glean during therapy sessions, not without a warrant.”

  “I’m aware of that, of course, but we don’t even know whether it will be a matter of therapy sessions, do we?”

  He opened an elegant leather portfolio and removed a contract, the sheets held together with a paper clip.

  “We’re a green company and all our contracts are signed electronically,” he said. “You’ll receive your copy to sign by email later today. This will be the first contract, which deals with the ‘medical services’ you’ll undertake to provide for Mr. Fleischer. I’m afraid it sounds rather vague, but it’s the term he chose.”

  He gave me the pages and I read them carefully. I was to undertake to provide “medical services” of an unspecified nature within a given period of time—six days. Mr. Joshua Fleischer in his turn undertook to pay me a high five-figure sum, in advance. The sum was much larger than what I usually charged and I told the lawyer this.

  He shrugged and said, “The sum is Mr. Fleischer’s decision, so I have no comment to make. If you believe your services are worth the money, then all the better for you. Now, here’s the non-disclosure agreement.”

  He handed me the second contract, which was far more complex than the first. It was worded in such a way as to ensure that while I was providing the medical services stipulated in the first contract, not even the smallest detail of any information I might come into contact with would ever travel beyond Fleischer’s property.

  Nevertheless, one of the clauses stated that in the event that I should consider any item of information to be of sufficiently large scientific importance to be used in a future research paper, I could use it, provided that I change the names of those concerned and never reveal their identities.

  It all seemed within the bounds of common sense and professional ethics, so I had no qualms in givin
g my consent.

  Orrin replaced the contract in the portfolio. “This will be good news for Mr. Fleischer,” he said. “There are a few more details that need to be taken care of: the bank account where you’d like the money to be paid—I’ll be handling that—and the email address at which you’d like to receive the contracts for your electronic signature.”

  After giving him a business card and my bank details, I thought the meeting had come to an end, but he didn’t get up, so I remained seated. He was running his fingers over the case containing the contracts and seemed to be thinking deeply about something, staring into space. On his right wrist he wore a copper bracelet, the kind used to ease rheumatic pains.

  “As I mentioned earlier, I first had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Fleischer about ten years ago,” he said at last. “In all this time he’s never ceased to amaze me with his immense capacity for kindness. There have been people who’ve taken advantage of him, people he helped and who then hurt him. But he’s never seemed to regret even for one moment the things he’s done and the way in which he’s chosen to live his life. I’m happy, now, to have been able to do him this service, which, given his health, will probably be the last.”

  I made no comment and let him continue. He went on, “I know that you’re highly respected for what you do and that you enjoy the esteem of the scientific community to which you belong, but I won’t hide the fact that I carried out a little investigation of my own when Mr. Fleischer informed me of his intentions two weeks ago.”

  The feeling that somebody has been rummaging through your affairs is always unpleasant, but I had nothing to hide and I told him so. He nodded and said, “I did discover something that—gave me a pause, however, all the more so given that it’s been treated with the utmost discretion by the press, to put it euphemistically.”

  I already knew what he was referring to, but I kept quiet and carried on listening.

  “Three years ago, in the summer, to be precise, one of your patients, Miss Julie Mitchell, committed suicide in her apartment in Brooklyn,” he said.

  “It happened on the evening of June 23rd,” I replied. “Miss Mitchell had been diagnosed as bipolar five years previously and had attempted suicide three times before she began therapy sessions with me. One attempt was very severe and she survived only by the skin of her teeth.”

  “However, her parents sued you for malpractice,” he stressed.

  “Her parents were crushed by grief. They’d been living a nightmare for years, and they allowed themselves to be played along by an unscrupulous lawyer—please excuse the expression. The DA’s office dropped the case. Such things are terrible, but they happen. As a practicing therapist one has to take into account the possibility of such developments in certain cases. I have many years of clinical experience, Mr. Orrin. I didn’t just set up practice on the Upper East Side as soon as I graduated, smoking a pipe and treating rich young widows. I was born and raised in a small town in Kansas, to a working-class family. What are you suggesting?”

  “I didn’t mean to upset you,” he assured me. “It’s just that a question mark remains, and—”

  “Well, every man’s life is full of question marks,” I said. “That’s why we’re human beings and not robots.”

  “All the same, I think I’ve managed to upset you.”

  “Please don’t flatter yourself. You haven’t done anything of that sort. Probably you tried to convince Mr. Fleischer to abandon his plan in regard to this contract, based on a single tragic incident.”

  I glimpsed a flash of anger in his eyes. “It’s my duty to inform my client about the person with whom he’s going to have a contractual relationship,” he said. “And I’m not sure whether the phrase ‘incident’ is the most suitable, given that we’re talking about the life of a young woman. Furthermore, from the information I have, things were more complicated than you make them out to be. As far as I’m concerned, it isn’t even certain that Miss Mitchell committed suicide, Dr. Cobb. The DA’s office investigated the affair, and you were interviewed at a hearing before a commission of peers. The police also questioned you twice.”

  “It was a standard inquiry, which was absolutely normal given the circumstances. Miss Mitchell had moved out of her parents’ home a few months previously, so she was living alone and there were no witnesses. She left no suicide note, in contrast to her previous attempts. But the final conclusion was that she’d voluntarily taken an overdose of sleeping pills, and her death was a result of cardiorespiratory arrest. No accusation of malpractice was upheld after the commission hearing, and the police recommended that the prosecutors dismiss the case, which they did. Is there anything else?”

  “I also discovered that, although the concentration of the substance in her blood was twice the lethal dose, no traces were found in her stomach, which suggests that the victim might have been injected with the drug that killed her.”

  “The second medical examination cleared that up: the first result was, quite simply, a human error.”

  “You seem like a cynical and harsh man,” he concluded, clutching the edges of the portfolio on the table as if he were afraid I might snatch it from him.

  I stood up and he quickly did likewise. “I’ll be waiting for the contracts,” I said. “However, you can consider them as good as signed.”

  I left without waiting for his assistant to show me out. I heard him mutter something behind me, but I didn’t catch the words.

  Two hours later, I received the contracts by email. I signed them and sent them back. Toward the evening, Fleischer called me. He began by thanking me for having agreed to the contract.

  “I got the distinct feeling that your lawyer was trying to make me change my mind,” I told him, and I heard him sigh.

  He said, “Well, Dr. Cobb, it seems that sooner or later all wealthy men end up being surrounded by yes-men or idiots or people who are both. I don’t know how or why it happens, but I’ve observed that it does happen, no matter what. In the last few years, Richard has been trying to become more than my attorney, a kind of confidant, an adviser, or whatever you prefer to call him. And now he’s seething because I haven’t given him any details about what I want from you. Obviously, I didn’t take any notice of that story. May I call you James?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, please call me Josh. Well then, James, how will you be traveling, by car or by plane?”

  “By car. If I leave early in the morning, I should be there by evening, allowing some time to stop for lunch.”

  “You should take Interstate 91 and Interstate 84 and avoid Route 1 along the coast. The traffic is hellish and there’s not much to see anyway. You can stop off for lunch in Portland, there’s a restaurant just off the turnpike named Susan’s Fish and Chips. Try the lobster. When will you set off?”

  “The day after tomorrow, so I’ll be there on Wednesday evening.”

  “Do you have any special accommodation requirements, in regard to diet, for example?”

  “There’s no need for any special preparations,” I assured him, “thank you. But I should tell you that the sum stipulated in the contract is much too high, Josh.”

  “Nobody has ever complained about that before,” he laughed. “We’ll discuss the details when we see each other. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a reasonable sum. If you think it’s too large, then why not donate a part of it to a charity?”

  “How’s your condition?”

  “I’ve given up all treatment except for light painkillers. Fortunately I’m not in much pain, so I only take them rarely and I’m perfectly lucid. I had my last perfusion of cytostatic a month ago. I should mention that I agreed with the doctors that it would be the last. In any case, I’m confident that I’ll have enough energy to do what I intend to. You agreeing to this has given me a new lease on life, you know.”

  “Happy to help.”

  “We’ll see each other on Wednesday. Have a pleasant journey, James. And thanks again for coming.”

&nbs
p; Before going to bed I thought of Julie.

  She was twenty-eight when I first met her, and she was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. We began her therapy sessions in February, and the next year, in June, she killed herself.

  On the three previous occasions she attempted suicide, she’d used sleeping pills twice and slashed her wrists once. It’s generally accepted that suicides rarely change their methods. The attempts are either rehearsals for the big sleep or cries for help, which is to say that the suicidal person feels alone and unhappy and craves attention before it’s too late.

  But Julie wasn’t one of those typical cases. Up until the very end I was skeptical about the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. There were days when she seemed like the most balanced person in the world, establishing verbal contact without the slightest difficulty, even taking apparent delight in telling me details about herself. She wasn’t a marginalized person—she’d graduated with a degree in Anthropology from Columbia and taken an MA at Cornell. She’d found a job as a copywriter at a major advertising agency, where she earned a good salary and was well liked. She was rarely in a bad mood, and even when she felt sad, she was able to explain the reason to me clearly and to justify it rationally.

  She never knew her real parents. On her eighteenth birthday, her adoptive parents, whom she had up until then always believed were her natural parents, revealed that she’d been adopted at the age of one. They stubbornly refused to provide her with any information beyond that, claiming that they themselves didn’t know anything more, because of the policy of the orphanage from where she’d been adopted. But they wouldn’t even tell her the name of the place.