Death Benefit (3 page)

“Hi, my name is George Wilson. Pia Grazdani asked me to call you.”

“Hello, George. Pia told me you would be calling. I was Pia’s caseworker and her therapist for some time. Pia told me it was okay to talk to you.”

“Oh, er, okay . . .” Caseworker? Whatever George had been expecting, it wasn’t this.

“I know it’s extremely unusual for a therapist to talk to a stranger about one of her patients, but Pia asked me to speak with you.”

Therapist? This was going to be interesting.

“Normally I wouldn’t be speaking to you as I am since it’s against any number of rules of my profession, but Pia persuaded me to do so. If I can help Pia emerge from what she faced in her upbringing, I’m willing to do most anything within reason.

“I worked with Pia for years, since she grew up in foster care, including a stint in what used to be called a reform school. As a result, let us say that she’s always found it very hard to form any meaningful relationships. Trust is an issue. She didn’t tell me much about you, but I find the fact that she asked me to talk with you very encouraging. I think she wants you to know something about her, but she can’t tell you herself. So she asked the person who she believes knows her best to do it. Pia has different ideas about privacy and attachment than most people.”

That George knew from painful experience.

Without going into specific details, Sheila encouraged George to “keep trying” with Pia because it was her opinion he would be “good” for her. Sheila concluded by giving him her office number to have in addition to her cell phone number in case he ever wanted to call back. George never did, and despite Sheila’s disclaimers, he questioned the professionalism of the conversation. At the same time he appreciated the information. He never brought up the issue directly with Pia by saying that he knew she’d been through foster care but rather tried to get her to open up about her childhood in general. Unfortunately she always responded that it was something she did not want to discuss. It was a no-go zone. That was okay with George; he set it aside and didn’t think about it. He was giving her as much time as she needed.

George let out the lungful of air with pursed lips. The slight delay gave him a chance to collect himself and not blurt out something he’d regret later. He even tried to mask the fact that he was upset.

“Well, I hope your day goes as well as can be expected,” he said finally. “I know you can handle yourself, Pia. But I still don’t know how you can stand to work with him.”

“I don’t need to get along with him, George. It’s not kindergarten. If he tolerates me and I learn from him and he can help my career, that’s all I ask. We’re grown-ups—we don’t have to be friends.”

She’d used that line before, and George had to wonder, was she talking about Rothman or about him? George’s worry that Pia was going to abandon him resurfaced.

“Okay!” George said simply, while holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry to even mention it.”

“Stop apologizing!” Pia said sharply, looking at her watch. “You sound nerdy when you apologize. Now I really am going to be late.”

Pia hurried away. George asked himself what time Pia might have gotten up had he not gone to her room to wake her. He couldn’t help but notice that she’d not bothered to thank him, much less make a commitment to have lunch. Unfortunately it all was irritatingly pro forma.

 

 

P
ia showed her ID to the security guard with all the other students who were mostly first- and second-year heading off to their eight o’clock lecture. Instead of following them she took the elevator to the fourteenth floor of the Black Research Building and headed for Rothman’s sizable laboratory. He commanded the most space of any researcher in the entire center. As soon as she went through the anonymous-looking metal door and entered the suite, she could sense that the lab’s day was already in full swing. The three research technicians, Panjit Singh, Nina Brockhurst, and Mariana Herrera, were loitering around the lab’s communal coffeepot having already calibrated all the instrumentation that needed to be done on a daily basis. Rothman, fastidious about what he ate and drank, kept a Nespresso machine in his office that only he and Dr. Junichi Yamamoto, his senior associate, were allowed to use.

“Morning, Miss Grazdani,” said Marsha Langman, Rothman’s secretary, from behind her desk. One overdefined eyebrow was raised as she looked at the clock on the wall opposite. “You don’t want to make this a habit.”

Pia followed the woman’s line of vision and glanced at the clock. The second hand had just ticked past vertical: it was 7:49. Pia stopped and half turned toward Rothman’s ultraloyal retainer-cum-secretary for the inevitable reprimand.

“You know he likes everyone to be early,” Marsha said in an accusatory tone.

“I’m not late,” said Pia. Students were supposed to begin lectures and other activities at eight unless they had been on call the night before for specific rotations that required it.

“Ah, but you aren’t early either. Let’s not start the month off on the wrong foot. And I should warn you, you’ll be having some company in your office. There’s a man from maintenance in there trying to find a problem in the wiring. The security system is down.”

“How long’s that going to take?”

Marsha, a middle-aged African-American woman in a lab coat her position didn’t call for, made a face that said,
How would I know?

Pia was exasperated. There was barely room for her in what was generously described as an office.

“Is the chief going to have time for me this morning?” Pia was one of the handful of people who didn’t reflexively kowtow to Rothman and wait for him to come to them. As Pia asked the question she turned to fully face Marsha. The research technicians were quiet. Pia wondered if they’d timed their coffee run for her predictably not-quite-early arrival and were eavesdropping for any possible gossip.

“You know how pressed for time he always is,” Marsha said. “He’s being pressured to finish his most current salmonella typhi experiment with Dr. Yamamoto. We have to e-mail the manuscript to
The Lancet
in the next day or so.”

Marsha always talked as if she were actively involved in the research. It was part of her strategy of erecting barriers and building sand traps for those wanting time with Rothman. She watched over him like a killer guard dog.

“He’s been in since six”—“in” being the biosafety level-3 lab, frequently referred to as BSL-3, where the work on the salmonella strains was being done. “I’ll see if I can get word to him that you want to speak to him.”

“Thank you,” Pia said, her eyes betraying irritation. “Getting word” to Rothman meant flipping a switch and talking to him by intercom. Hating to waste time and having finished the last project he had assigned to her, Pia needed to see Rothman to find out what she was going to be doing that month. And now there was some workman in her office to complicate things.

Pia was fortunate to have an office at all. Few of the other people in the lab had such a privilege. When Rothman’s chief technician was fired after getting into an argument with Rothman over some picayune detail of lab procedure, his successor, Arthur Spaulding, took an office nearer the biosafety level-3 area, and Pia took over Spaulding’s broom closet. Pia saw that her office door was ajar, and she bristled. There were sensitive files in there, even if only a handful of people on the planet would understand what they meant. As she entered she saw that her bench area that also served as her desk was occupied—an electrical blueprint was laid out on the flat surface and there were tools and wires strewn on top. In the corner of the tiny, windowless room was a stepladder with a human form standing on the top platform, head and shoulders hidden up inside the dropped ceiling. Three panels had been taken down and stacked against the wall.

“Excuse me!” Pia called out. When there was no response, she called louder, “Hey, you up there!”

Pia’s sharp words caused the man to flinch and hit his head on a pipe up in the ceiling. The man let out an indistinct curse and slowly emerged from the ceiling. After taking one look at Pia, he climbed down from the stepladder. He was about forty-five with grayish stubble and salt-and-pepper hair, wearing dark blue coveralls. His forehead was deeply lined, and he had the sunken cheeks and pale complexion of a lifelong smoker. His body was thin but muscular. His security tag read “Vance Goslin.”

“How long are you going to be?” Pia demanded. She had her arms akimbo.

Goslin was struck immediately by Pia’s remarkable and exotic beauty, her glowing, flawless skin, her full lips, and, perhaps most of all, her huge dark eyes. Adding to her allure was her apparent confidence and forthrightness. In Goslin’s world, girls who looked like Pia acted significantly differently. He was more than casually attracted to her. He was intrigued.

“Depends when I find the problem,” he said. He pointed to two areas on the blueprints lying on the bench. He had a distinct accent that Pia thought she recognized, especially given the name Goslin. “If the problem is here, it’s easy to fix. If the problem is there, it’s harder, but one way or the other we’ll get it done. It might even be done by tonight.”

Goslin nodded as he finished talking, eagerly continuing to scan Pia’s shapely body as he’d done while he’d been talking. He did it overtly, as if it were a matter of right. Eventually his gaze alighted on Pia’s hospital ID. “Grazdani,” he voiced, raising his eyebrows questioningly. “Now, that’s an unusual name.”

Pia didn’t respond, making him think she might be hard of hearing.

“Your name is unusual. Is it Italian?” he said, raising his voice. He had assumed a wry smile as if he knew Grazdani was not Italian. It was his way of flirting.

“No, it isn’t Italian. And why are you shouting?”

Pia had talked about her Albanian heritage maybe twice in her life and she wasn’t about to do it now with this person. There were thousands of Albanians in New York City, and Pia remembered enough of the language to recognize an Albanian accent when she heard it. Once when she was ordering a slice of pizza, two young men behind the counter started a frank appraisal of her physical attributes in their language before Pia asked them in English if they wanted her to talk to the manager about their rudeness.

“Actually I’d guess Albanian,” Goslin said, the smile continuing. “I’m of Albanian descent, and I have a lot of Albanian friends here in New York. They work in maintenance like me. We’ve kinda taken over the business. . . .”

Pia wasn’t listening. It was barely an hour since she’d been dreaming about one childhood nightmare and now this man was reminding her of another—her father—which added to her growing irritation. Even though she was offering nothing to this maintenance worker that he could take as encouragement, he was still talking, trying to engage her in conversation.

“So where are you from?” he asked. His eyes narrowed and head tilted, as if he were about to make a guess. Such a situation was not uncommon for Pia. Many people, particularly men, tried to guess her genealogy from her appearance, usually coming up with such suggestions as Greek, Lebanese, or even Iranian, but she wasn’t going to play the game with this guy even though he’d been correct about her name. Her father was indeed Albanian, although her mother was Italian.

“I’m American,” Pia said. “Hurry up with what you’re doing! I’m going to need my office sooner rather than later.”

“And what do you do?” Goslin asked, vainly trying to keep the conversation going.

Pia didn’t answer. She walked out of the room, pausing only to pick out a couple of files she thought she might need.

To the surprise of the lab technicians, who had moved from the coffee nook to their respective individual benches, Rothman suddenly emerged from the biosafety unit. This was a surprise because everyone expected that he would be closeted in there for the day, as had been the case for the last several weeks. As a stickler for rules, he had gone through the airlock and removed his protective lab garb and donned his street clothes. Without a lab coat on, he resembled a gentleman banker more than a research scientist coming from working with extraordinarily deadly typhoid-causing salmonella. Although asocial to a fault, he was a careful dresser, a disconnect as it suggested he cared what other people thought. But he didn’t. The clothes were purely for him and the ensemble was the same day after day: conservative three-button Italian suit, pressed white shirt, dark blue tie with matching pocket square, and black penny loafers. He was not a tall man, but he projected well and appeared taller than he was. Moving quickly, he was an intimidating figure with martially erect posture and an expression that did not encourage conversation. His dark brown hair was cut conservatively to match his suit. His almost invisible rimless titanium glasses were his only concession to current fashion.

As Rothman strode toward his private office, the eyes of the technicians followed him. It was immediately apparent to all of them what had brought Rothman out of the biosafety unit. Catching sight of Pia, he had motioned for her to follow him. As the office door closed, the lab technicians exchanged knowing looks with a tinge of collective jealousy. All of them knew that with the pressure of the upcoming
Lancet
article, Rothman would never have left the biosafety unit specifically to talk to them. In their minds Pia was a kind of teacher’s pet made worse by her not being all that friendly. Similar to Rothman, she was always too busy for small talk and kept to herself. On top of that, they all thought she was a bit too good-looking to be a medical student and thought captiously she would have been better suited to playing one on TV. Pia was an enigma to the laboratory staff, made more interesting by the gossip that had it she was going to be a nun.

If the lab technicians had had the opportunity to view the scene inside Rothman’s office, they might not have felt any jealousy whatsoever. It appeared more like Rothman and Pia were engaged in an arcane ritual, rather than having an actual conversation. Neither looked at the other throughout the entire, brief encounter. After Rothman told her he wanted her to edit the current salmonella study for
The Lancet
that day, he picked up one of two copies of the paper from his desk, which he was now studying intently. Pia appeared equally distracted, her arms crossed, looking at her feet. The uninitiated might sense a social ineptness on both sides as the awkward silence extended; a clinical psychologist, given enough time, might talk more in diagnostically precise language.