by Wally Duff
“He must enjoy this furniture,” I said, as I ran my hand over a table to my left. “It’s stunning.”
“A funny story about that. These pieces are of the Italian Renaissance style. Even I couldn’t afford some of the items Alan wanted, but I presumed at some point he wouldn’t know that they were reproductions.” She stifled a cough. “And that proved to be correct. Alan loves to sit in that chair over there and stare at the Rembrandt.”
“And the chair is a reproduction?”
“It is, but he doesn’t know it, poor old fool.”
61
We reached a single door under a smaller, arched portal on the far wall. The door had a combination lock. She punched in the combination and opened the door.
“We leave it locked at all times,” Marcia said.
“Is someone with Alan constantly?” I asked.
“Not yet. He is locked in, and so far there haven’t been any problems. Lori, his nurse, lays out his clothes in the morning. We eat most of our meals together in the big house. She leaves at five o’clock. When he tires, I walk back here with him, and he goes to bed.”
“Sad.”
“It is, but we are making the best of it.” She ushered me in. “It can be maddening talking to Alan. As I told you, this morning he was sharp as a tack, but then something happens in his head and the lights go out. Watch his eyes. That’s the clue.” She paused. “Sometimes changing subjects helps bring him back. He might not be cogent for long but while he is, pay close attention. He can come up with some brilliant observations.”
“Good to know.”
“You must check in with Lori, who is also his receptionist. She will escort you into his office. When you are finished, she will let you out.”
“Receptionist?”
“It’s a doctor’s office. What did you expect?”
“I thought Alan has some sort of dementia.”
“He does.”
“How can he still see patients?”
“He doesn’t, at least not in the conventional sense. Medicine was his life, and when he began to deteriorate mentally, he became understandably depressed, so I came up with a solution. I had his medical office reproduced in the new house. It even has his old desk. When someone comes to visit, they sit in there and he talks to them like he used to do with real patients. It gives him something to do, and it seems to make him happy.”
“What does he do the rest of the time?”
“He exercises.”
“You mean like using a treadmill or something?”
“Oh, no, it’s far more physical than that. Alan has a personal trainer and has had forever. For the past few years, it’s been a young man named Rod Falter. Ever since Alan’s brain blew up, Rod has been a lifesaver for me. They spend at least four hours a day together.”
“Alan can work out that long?”
“He jumps rope, lifts weights, and does yoga. He also plays tennis, both indoors and out, runs, bikes, and rollerblades for miles and miles, but always with Rod so he doesn’t get lost.”
“Don’t his mental problems impact his ability to work out?”
“No. Sadly, his physical status is that of a man several years his junior. I wish I could say the same thing about his brain power.”
“Personal trainers are expensive.”
“They most certainly are, but I want Alan to be content with the time he has left, and I don’t care what it costs.” Tears glistened in her eyes. She blinked them away and beckoned for me to go into the room. “Hurry up. You’ll miss your appointment.”
62
Marcia left. I heard the lock click as she closed the door behind her. I entered into a small waiting room. There were two patterned wingback chairs on either side of a French antique table. An Oriental carpet covered most of the dark wood floor. Four large oil paintings hung from two of the cherry wood walls. The third wall was covered with Dr. Peebler’s framed medical diplomas and awards. The only smell came from furniture polish. In the background, I heard Chopin being played on a piano.
On the fourth wall was an open sliding glass window. A woman wearing a white nurse’s uniform stared at me. She looked enough like Marcia that she could have been her daughter.
“Mrs. Thomas?” she asked.
I walked up to the window. “That would be me, but please call me Tina.”
“I’m sorry, but Doctor Peebler would never allow me to do that,” she said. “I am Lori Elliot, his nurse and receptionist. I have some papers for you to fill out.”
“Oh, see, there’s been a mistake,” I said. “I’m here to interview Dr. Peebler, not be seen as a patient.”
I winked at her so she would know that I was in on the charade.
She handed me a clipboard with a small stack of papers on it. “Dr. Peebler will not see you unless these papers are completely filled out.”
She didn’t wink back.
I sat down in the nearest chair. “Got it.”
While I filled out the papers, I had a moment where I wondered if giving my private medical information to him was safe. It seemed like this playacting was stretching things a bit. I wasn’t sure why a doctor with Alzheimer’s needed this much detail about my complete medical history, but if this was what it took to question him about Zhukov, I would do it.
It took me fifteen minutes to fill out the forms. I walked to the window and handed the papers back to Lori. While she carefully reviewed them, I moved to the wall which displayed Peebler’s diplomas. He was a graduate of Harvard Medical School. He had taken his internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. He had one other advanced degree in neurophysiology from Johns Hopkins.
Awards from all over the world covered the rest of the wall. They had to do with the outstanding medical care he had given to his patients. The last one was dated three years ago, but after reading about his training, I felt my information was secure — even if his brain had blown up.
Lori finished with my papers and glanced up at me. “I’ll be right back.”
She left the room with the papers in her hands. The piano music suddenly stopped. I continued to study the wall with Peebler’s memorabilia.
“That’s impressive,” I said, when she returned. I nodded toward the wall.
“Dr. Peebler has amazing credentials,” she said. “It’s tragic that he can no longer use them on a daily basis, but the damage to your head will interest him.”
“I try to not think about it.”
“Getting blown up must have been frightful.”
I remembered waking up in the ICU in D.C. after suffering an epidural hematoma, a ruptured bladder and diaphragm, a collapsed lung, and lacerated liver.
I fingered the semicircular scar on the right side of my head compliments of the neurosurgeon who had saved my life. “It sure ruined a great haircut.”
63
Lori ushered me into a combination doctor’s office and examination room. It was decorated like the reception area, with the same cherry wood walls and a smaller Oriental carpet. Two oil paintings hung from the walls. On the right, totally out of character with the rest of the room, was a generic, gray metal desk with a computer. There were two metal chairs in front of it and one black leather chair behind it.
To my left was an examining table covered by white butcher’s paper. On the wall behind it was a blood pressure cuff and machine. Next to it were four white cabinets. Below them were a brown Formica countertop with a sink in the middle and four more white cabinets. A box of disposable latex gloves were positioned on the countertop edge closest to the examining table. A green wastebasket sat on the floor below the box of gloves.
“Please sit down in one of the chairs,” a male voice behind me said.
I complied and then turned around to find the source of the command. It came from a man doing a yoga headstand in the corner. He appeared to be about Marcia’s size. He had short salt and pepper hair. His face reminded me of a rodent with wrinkly skin and a pointy nose. It looked like he might
have had a nose job.
He wore a double-breasted blue blazer with gold buttons and a white pocket square. There was a red rose in his lapel. His wrinkled, beige cargo pants and white tennis shoes were a jarring contrast to his heavily starched white shirt and small black bowtie.
He read my medical history while he was still upside down.
“A significant blow to the head, yes, Mrs. Thomas?” he asked, as he turned the pages.
“Call me Tina, please,” I said. “I was in a coma for a few days.”
“Any residual neurological deficit?”
“I don’t think so. At least no one has said anything.”
“If there is, at least you’ll still be smart enough to be an orthopedic surgeon.”
I didn’t respond.
“That was a joke,” he said. “I am accustomed to people laughing when I say something funny.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that, but now that you mention it, some of the orthopods I’ve met aren’t too bright.”
He smiled, or at least it looked like he did. It was hard to tell with him being upside down.
“Quite so. The lowest quarter of any medical school class is populated by future orthopods and psychiatrists.” He closed my chart and performed a graceful dismount from his headstand.
He removed his rimless, half-reading glasses and tugged his blazer into place. His eyes were dark brown, almost black. He appeared to be fit, with almost no body fat. At five eight, I felt like I towered over him. He was an inch or two taller than the diminutive Marcia.
He extended his hand. “I am Doctor Alan Peebler.”
We shook. His grip was firm. He went behind his desk and unbuttoned his coat. He had a full roll of toilet paper on his belt.
64
Peebler sat down behind the desk. He pulled off one piece of toilet paper from the roll and wiped his nose. He wadded up the toilet paper and shot it into the wastebasket. He made it.
He looked up and stared at me. I stared back and couldn’t help but notice that his bowtie appeared to be a small black bat.
He didn’t say anything.
Sitting quietly, I put my hands in my lap and continued to stare back. After an uncomfortable five minutes of silence, I couldn’t take the pressure any longer.
“Dr. Peebler?” I said.
His dark brown eyes were vacant. “Yes?”
“I’m Tina Thomas,” I said, trying to get the conversation started.
He put his reading glasses back on and studied my chart. I saw his eyes flicker. “Thomas? Right, Thomas. Let’s see, the last time I saw you it was to assess your head trauma, isn’t that correct?”
“I, ah, yes.”
“Do you think you have any residual neurological deficit?”
“No.”
“If there is, at least you’ll still be smart enough to be an orthopedic surgeon.”
I didn’t respond.
“That was a joke,” he said. “I am accustomed to people laughing when I say something funny.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that.”
“The lowest quarter of any medical school class is populated by future orthopods and psychiatrists.”
He closed the chart.
“Now, let’s have a look at you.”
I considered running out the door, but I remembered a story my friend Eddie told me and opted for a different solution.
Eddie had a scrub nurse who had delivered twelve children and had an additional three miscarriages. Knowing that she was a good Catholic, he asked her how she stopped becoming pregnant. She said her husband was an alcoholic and used to come home in a drunken stupor on Friday nights. He would pass out and then wake up and want to have sex. She would give in, leading to the fifteen pregnancies.
One Friday night, she decided she’d had enough children. He woke up and made his usual sexual advance.
“You want to do it again?” she asked, knowing that he hadn’t done it the first time.
“What?” he asked, his whisky-soaked breath blowing in her face.
“When you came home, we had sex,” she said. “You were great. I can’t believe you want to do it again.”
“Huh?” he said as he rolled over and passed out.
She never became pregnant again.
“Doctor, you just examined me,” I said. “Do you need to do it again?”
He took off his glasses. His eyes were dull. “No, your neurological exam is well within normal limits. As I told you before, NSAIDs should take care of the headache that’s been troubling you.”
He closed the chart and stared at me.
65
“Doctor, I understand that you know Alex Zhukov,” I said.
He blinked, and his focus seemed to return. “And why would you be interested in him?” Peebler asked.
“I was doing a story on him, but I seem to have lost his body.”
“Explain, please.”
I told him about the first visit to Zhukov’s office. His eyes brightened as he listened.
“A bullet hole, you say,” he said, using another piece of toilet paper to wipe his nose.
“Between his eyes.”
He shot another basket with the toilet paper and then stroked his chin. “A bullet in the anterior midline would traverse the skull and cause considerable damage to the brainstem. Phylogenetically, the brainstem is the oldest part of the brain and controls all basic body functions like pulse and respiration. With these areas severely damaged, I assure you that he could not walk away.”
He was still paying attention.
Push him a little.
“He left a message on his computer that he had left for Brunei,” I said.
“Which you obviously do not believe.”
“I do not, but without a body, I can’t call the police.”
“Then find the body.”
“I don’t know where to look, and that’s why I need your help. I’m sure Zhukov is dead, and if I can find his body, I’ll have a story to write. Any background information you can provide might give me a clue as to where his body might be.”
He twirled his reading glasses around in his fingers. “I have known him for a long time. As a young man, he was a dentist in Russia, but he could not pass the certification test to practice in the United States. A shame, but he threw his energies into investing and, I’m told, became extremely successful.”
“I was under the impression that you had invested money with him.”
The lights went out in his eyes. “With whom?”
“Alex Zhukov.”
“I have known him a long time. As a young man he was a dentist in Russia but he could not pass the certification test to practice in the United States. A shame, but he threw his energies into investing and, I’m told, became extremely successful.”
I took Marcia’s advice and changed the subject hoping to get his brain back on line. There was another, more pressing, story that I needed help with.
“Do you know Diane Warren?” I asked.
66
Peebler’s head snapped up and his eyes shone. They seemed to change color from dark brown to coal black. “Diane Warren is a vile human being. She ruined several of my colleagues.”
“How so?” I asked.
“She bought their practices for inflated prices. In this medical climate of decreasing revenues, they greedily took her money without considering the consequences.”
“Which were?”
“They signed three-year employment contracts. When the time was up, she offered them a new contract for one half of the previous amount. To a man, the doctors wanted to resign, but she owned their practices, which included their equipment and all of their patient charts. In spite of that, the doctors quit and were left with nothing. To replace them, she hired FMGs for a much lower salary.”
“I heard that term recently. FMG means a foreign medical graduate.”
“Correct. A few are well-trained. Most are not, in my opinion, since their medical schools ar
e not up to par with those in the United States or England. But to stay in the U.S. they will work long hours for low wages. She charges the patients exorbitant prices for their slipshod care so she makes more money. Highly unethical.”