Extreme Measures (8 page)

“That’s nonsense. I told you, the committee has already made its—”

The dial tone cut him short.

The Proctor Building, a thirty-year-old, ten-story monument to the monolithic architecture of the late fifties, held most of the research labs at White Memorial. The biochemistry unit filled the eighth and ninth floors. At one time, laboratory space—especially at WMH—had been at a premium. Now, Eric noted as he wandered off the elevator and down the dimly lit corridor, several of the labs were deserted.

It was nearly nine-thirty. Following the bizarre phone call earlier that morning, he had gone for a prolonged walk along the Charles, over the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge, and then back by the Museum of Science. Part of him still clung to the hope that the eerie call was part of some elaborate spoof. But he knew otherwise.

Caduceus
. The staff and twin serpents symbolizing medicine. He had looked up the word, hoping that some aspect of its definition might give him insight. All he had learned was that in mythology, the staff was borne by Hermes, the wing-footed messenger of the gods, patron of travelers and rogues, conductor of the dead to Hades, known for his invention and cunning.
How it had come to signify the healing arts, he had not yet learned.

Throughout the walk, just over four miles, he had played and replayed the brief conversation in his mind. It simply made no sense.
Administer a treatment in a manner unfamiliar
 … What sort of treatment? To what end? How could Caduceus promise him the E.R. appointment when that decision had already been made?

He had entered the hospital through a side entrance and stopped by the speech pathology lab. The speech therapist, a bright, enthusiastic woman, was pleased to demonstrate for him the voice device, known as an artificial electrolarynx. Pressed tightly against a “sweet spot” beneath the jaw, it transmitted impulses from the mouth and worked whether its user had a functioning larynx or not. The voice it produced when Eric tried it was virtually indistinguishable from that made by the therapist. On a whim he had asked her if anyone at the hospital had borrowed such a device or shown a special interest in it. Her response had been a predictable negative.

His size-thirteen sneakers propped on his desk, Dave Subarsky was sipping coffee as he pecked with one finger at his computer keyboard.

“Greetings, Doctor,” Eric said. “I’ve been sent here by the Nobel Prize Committee to check on what you’re up to.”

“I’ve been expecting you,” Subarsky said, hitting the return key. “Convey my thanks to your committee, and tell them that I—and my trusty IBM here—are on the verge of proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone with no income, eighteen hundred dollars in monthly expenses, and three thousand dollars in the bank, cannot stay out of the poorhouse for more than two months.”

“That bad, huh?”

“It’s starting to look that way.”

“Something will turn up.”

“Maybe. But it ain’t gonna be a grant from the Sackett Foundation.”

“You heard?”

“Uh-huh. This morning. The cupboard is bare. I tried telling them that a mind was a terrible thing to waste, but they didn’t buy it. They said my work was too theoretical.”

“They’re nuts. That stuff you’ve been doing with progressive DNA mutation has tremendous clinical potential.”

“Maybe,” Dave said, his voice drifting off. “Maybe so.”

“You’ll find a way.”

Subarsky flipped off his computer.

“That I will, my friend,” he said. “So, today’s the big day, yes?”

Eric shrugged.

“I think so.”

“I thought the committee was meeting this afternoon.”

“As far as I know, they are, but … David, there’s something I want to tell you about, but it’s got to stay between us.”

“No problem.”

Eric hesitated, then recounted the eerie call.

“Does any of that mean anything to you?” he asked.

“Aside from suggesting that there’s someone running around White Memorial with a screw loose?”

“David, I tell you, the guy who called may be crazy, but he—or she; I really couldn’t tell—sounded like he knew exactly what he was doing. Any thoughts at all?”

Subarsky drummed his fingers on his ample gut.

“Only one. That stunt we pulled with the laser hardly went unnoticed.”

“Tell me about it. Joe Silver was thinking about reporting us to the Human Experimentation Committee.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“Well, for one thing, we saved the guy’s life.”

“Minor detail.”

“And for another, I convinced my esteemed boss that the only danger of the procedure was that it might not work, and that my hand was poised with a cardiac needle, ready to drive it home, if that was the case. He made it clear, though, that if we ever felt the urge to try out our toy again, we had better have an okay from the committee and a release from the patient.”

“As if that dude was capable of signing a release.”

“What’s the point you’re driving at?” Eric asked.

“The point is that the whole goddam hospital knows what we did. This Caduceus may see you as someone who might be willing to bend the rules a bit in the interest of getting some stuff done around here; something that hasn’t been approved by the H.E. Committee. Isn’t that what it sounded like?”

“Sort of. But that damn electrolarynx sure gave the whole thing a sinister cast.”

“Regardless, we should know whether or not the guy is for real in a few hours.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, “if Marshall gets that job in the E.R., I think you can safely say that Caduceus is a bag of shit.”

“What if I get it?”

Subarsky lowered his skateboard-sized feet to the floor.

“In that case, my friend,” he said, “I guess you won’t really know.”

T
he administrative wing of White Memorial, located on the ground floor of the Drexel Building, was designed to impress. Crystal chandeliers overhung Oriental carpeting, and cracked, ornately framed oil portraits lined the walls. Guarding the entry to the corridor, a busty, broad-shouldered receptionist coolly appraised Eric from behind a Louis XIV desk.

“I’m Dr. Najarian,” he said. “I’m here for a committee meeting.”

After spending several hours with Subarsky, he had returned to his apartment and changed—first into the dark suit he had last worn at his med school graduation, and which he ultimately decided was woefully outdated; next into brown slacks and a tweed sport coat that turned out to have a two-inch tear along one shoulder seam; and finally into gray trousers and his navy-blue blazer. It was fortunate, he acknowledged, that he wasn’t any
more
nervous about the meeting, because the search for the right attire
had spanned his entire wardrobe. Still, the receptionist seemed to approve of the result.

“Dr. Teagarden’s committee?” she asked, smiling and pushing her shoulders back just a bit.

“That’s right.”

“Well, they’re just getting started. She asked me to have you candidates wait down there in the sitting room.”

“Urn … exactly how many of
us candidates
are there?”

“Oh, just two. Dr. Marshall’s already there.”

“Good.”

“He’s been here for half an hour.”

“Bad.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Listen, thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“No problem. If you need anything, my name’s Susan.”

Eric thanked her again and headed down the corridor.

“Anything at all,” he heard her say.

“So,” Eric said as he entered the plush sitting area,
“you’re
the other candidate the receptionist was talking about. What a surprise.”

“Just a second,” Marshall said, engrossed in a book, which Eric managed to see was something by John Updike. “I just want to finish this page. Updike’s some talent, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t read him.” In fact, Eric reflected somewhat wistfully, he hadn’t read anything outside of medicine in longer than he could remember.

“Well, then,” Marshall said with genuine enthusiasm, “you’ve got a real treat in store.”

With his tortoiseshell glasses and aquiline features, Reed Marshall resembled Clark Kent, and in fact was called that in some quarters of the E.R. Eric settled into a high-backed oxblood leather chair and watched as Marshall finished. The two of them had known each other since internship, and had shared
many of the victories and much of the heartache that went with becoming a physician. Two years older than Eric, Reed had a wife, a son, a circle of successful friends, and virtually universal respect around the hospital.

Initially, Eric had been put off by Marshall’s patrician roots and Harvard education, and by an aloofness that Eric interpreted as snobbishness. But one night, as they sat sipping coffee after working side by side on the casualties of a multivehicle catastrophe, Reed confessed that he was envious of Eric’s coolness under fire.

“That’s crazy,” Eric had replied. “You’re the iceman. Everyone in the E.R. knows it.”

“What I am,” Reed said, with deadly seriousness, “is scared to death of freezing up or of doing the wrong thing, and even more terrified of having anyone know how I’m feeling. In fact, I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

“Hey, don’t worry. Nothing you say will ever leave this room. You’re just exhausted right now, that’s all. Believe me. I’m frightened at crunch time too. How could anyone who’s human not be?”

“I didn’t say frightened; I said terrified. I want to laugh when someone says I’m as good at this as you are.”

“Listen, Reed,” Eric had said, “this isn’t a contest. We didn’t select ourselves for this residency—all those professors did. Our job is just to do our best. And believe me,
your
best is damn good.”

Beginning with that night, a mutual respect, almost a tacit friendship had grown between them. And over the years that followed, not once had either of them mentioned the exchange again. As far as Eric knew, Reed had come to grips with his dragons. Eric believed that in terms of knowledge, dedication, and rapid response to life-threatening emergencies, he held a definite edge on Marshall. But there were other intangibles—Marshall’s dry wit, poise, and eclectic
intellect—that made any choice between the two of them difficult.

“Any idea why they sent for the two of us at once?” Eric asked after Reed had set his book aside.

“Nope. All I’ve heard is that they’ve made their decision. Knowing ol’ Grendel Teagarden, we’ll probably learn that some hard-nosed woman from Stanford has been recruited for the position, and you and I are gonna be out of work.”

Sara Teagarden, the tyrannical chief of surgery, was as renowned for her outspoken feminism and undisguised partiality toward female physicians as she was for her skill in the O.R. Her volatile capriciousness had made or broken any number of careers.

“Are you sure you want this job?” Eric asked.

Marshall grinned.

“I’m sure Carolyn wants me to want it. You’re not married, so you don’t know that that’s quite enough.” He laughed somewhat wistfully. “Oh, I want it, too, Eric,” he said finally. “It’d be foolish to say I don’t, although even
I
can’t say how much. Put another way, my ulcer may be rooting for you, but my ego is pulling for me. Still, I see the whole question as moot because I have no doubt I didn’t get it.”

“Nonsense.”

“This from the man who not only is a legend at his work, but who just happens to have saved a trustee’s life.”

“He never even sent me a thank-you note.”

“Jesus. Well, that’s no surprise, given the holier-than-thou philosophy of this place. Speaking of which, before we get called in there, I want to thank you for doing your best not to make a big deal out of all this.”

It was Eric’s turn to smile.

“You mean not openly,” he said.

“Of course. The whole damn committee has been doing its best to set us at each other’s throats, privately and in public.”

“The famous WMH pyramid.”

“Exactly. Room for one and only one at the top. Survival of the nastiest. We both deserve a pat for not taking their bait. I know how much you want the position, and the real truth is, if it didn’t mean so much to Carolyn to stay around here, I might have actually considered pulling out of the running.”