Like Grownups Do (20 page)

“No,” Millie said. “I had a couple of Tylenol earlier, before…before any of this happened.”

“Which injury is causing you the most pain?” Jenson asked.

“My foot. No…my hand. Shit. My foot is throbbing but if I move my hand any at all, it
fucking
…sorry. If I move my hand at all it gosh darn hurts like the dickens.”

Jenson sat at the desk and unlocked a drawer. He rifled through the ample contents and spread eight small packets on the top of the desk. “What do we have here? Yeah, that should work.” Jenson looked up at Babe and then at MG.

“There are things I can do and things I cannot. There are drug reps in and out of this clinic
all day long.”
Jenson made a show of looking up at his diploma on the wall while pushing the packets of pain medicine to the corner of the desk. He stood and said, “I have to pee,” and left the room.

Jenson returned a few minutes later, talking on his cell. He ended the call and told Babe and MG that he was going to let Marshall in.

Dr. Thurgood Marshall Gates was an imposing figure. When he held a tongue depressor it looked as if he might be about to go after a stray stalk of broccoli stuck between a couple of his enormous teeth. The sight of Marshall away from the hospital and out of his lab coat flashed Babe back to his days in John Adams Hall.

Babe and Marshall became friends, even though Marshall spent most of his free time with his friends in the jock dorms. Marshall dwarfed most of the athletes but none of them had a mother waiting patiently for their son to become a doctor before taking his next step on his path to the Supreme Court. Babe thought that Mrs. Gates was probably still disappointed that Marshall had, at least for the time being, stopped at just becoming a doctor.

The residents of floor five nicknamed Marshall, ‘Optimus Prime’, after the leader of the Transformers. When residents assembled in the common area lounge, usually to watch a game on television, Marshall’s approach could be heard and felt. The floor would quake a little, sparking someone to cry out, “Optimus Prime is on the move. Autobots, let’s roll!” Marshall would round the corner to thunderous applause. His casual-time attire usually consisted of flip flops, cut off sweat pants, and one of his 4XL UMass sweatshirts.

Babe and Marshall embraced like old friends. They had spent some time together up until recently on Marshall’s breaks from the ER, during the times when Jill was admitted. Marshall shook hands with MG. Or rather, MG shook a couple of Marshall’s fingers. Marshall would have had nothing to worry about concerning the well-being of
his
hands should he have decided to become a dentist, but he would never have been able to get more than one or two fingers inside of anyone’s mouth.

Chad Jenson brought Marshall up to speed on Millie. They looked over the x-rays together. There was nothing broken in her foot, but it was badly bruised. Marshall splinted Millie’s two broken fingers, and put her in a sling. He looked over Millie’s face.

His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. Babe knew that Bradley Weyner was lucky to be nowhere near this room. Marshall shook his head and placed a small Band-aid over the cut under Millie’s right eye.

Marshall rolled his chair in front of Millie and took her left hand in his.

“You’re a very lucky girl, Millie. Two broken fingers—those will heal nicely. Take good care of them, please. Your foot is badly bruised, but the swelling makes it look worse than it is. When you can put some weight on it, walk on it a little at a time to help the circulation. Your eye will be fine, in time. Did Dr. Jenson give you anything for pain?”

Millie nodded.

“Let’s have you sit here another fifteen or twenty minutes to make sure there’s no nausea. We may need to try…something different,” Marshall said.

“Thank you so much, Doctor,” Millie said.

“Please tell me there is no chance of this happening again?” Marshall looked from Millie, to MG, to Babe. Millie shook her head, followed by the other two.

“Good. That’s good news.” Marshall stood and motioned Babe and MG out of the room.

Chad Jenson started working on four cups of coffee as Babe, MG, and Marshall took seats in the waiting room. Babe reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope. He laid it on the table in front of Marshall.

“Before anything is said, Marshall, I need to explain something. I work with MG. And MG works with Jack,” Babe said.

“As in, your father-in-law, Jack?” Marshall sat forward, his eyes bulging. He looked at MG.

“You’re a
Feeb
?”

“Easy, Marshall. There is
no
threat here.
None.
” Babe exclaimed.

“Dr. Gates,” MG began, “this whole situation is my…not fault, that’s not the right word. It was all my idea—all my doing. We needed help and we needed it to be discrete. I went to Babe because I knew he had been around doctors for a long time because of—”

“Because of my wife, Marshall,” Babe finished the thought.

“It’s the middle of the night. I don’t know what just happened, our friend is beat all to hell, we’re in a dentist office, and there is five hundred dollars on the table. Optimus Prime is freaking over the woman from the FBI.”

Babe turned and looked toward Chad Jenson, who had started toward them carrying coffees.

“And the dentist has spilled two cups of coffee and may have just shit in his pants.”

Jenson looked up, wide-eyed.

“I’m sorry. If anyone wants coffee, please get it yourself. I need to sit down.”

“I’m going to tell you whatever you want to know, Babe, but I need you to tell me about Millie and explain why there is an FBI agent in this office.”

“I’m not an agent, Dr. Gates,” MG said. “I’m an office manager and liaison. No badge, no gun, no arrest power, I don’t even have my own parking place.”

“Look, Marshall,” Babe said.

“We’re under a strict confidentiality agreement. What MG and I do is classified and has nothing to do with why we’re here. Millie is an office manager and secretary, slash receptionist and she works with us. She’s been dating this asshole and she caught him with somebody else.

“She’s a really tough girl, Marshall. I think I can guarantee you he that won’t be heard from again. Millie is afraid of losing her job, and as crazy as it may seem considering the nature of our business, well, you know what they say about a nail that sticks its head up.”

“Yeah, it gets hammered down. That’s one shitty deal, Babe. It’s real good that this guy is out of the picture. You know, if she had been much worse there wouldn’t have been anything we could do.”

“We’re extremely grateful, Dr. Gates. You have been just wonderful,” MG said.

“I’m happy to help, MG. And you call me Marshall.”

“So, for the love of
GOD,
Marshall, what just happened?” Babe asked, bringing his hands to his cheeks and pulling down to stretch the skin around his weary eyes.

Marshall sipped his coffee and turned to Chad Jenson. “You okay with this?”

Jenson shrugged.

“I know you must feel like you’re in the middle of a mafia plot or something, especially because of the money,” Marshall said.

“But it’s not what you’re thinking, not at all. Nobody is buying drugs or renting hookers or running gambling rings, or anything like that. Chad and I were recruited about the same time, but we didn’t even know each other before that.”

“Recruited? That sounds
exactly
like the mafia, Marshall,” Babe said.

“Hang on, Babe,” Marshall said.

“There’s a group, hell there might be a bunch of them for all we know. I was introduced to this group of doctors by doctors that I already
knew.
They took us to this exclusive country club—steak and lobster, open bar, and real Cuban
cigars in a great room with an almost infinite ceiling. Thirty-foot waterfalls spilling into the most realistic looking rain forest pool you can imagine.

“I know you’re thinking that something crooked is about to happen but you would be mistaken. These doctors, in highly choreographed precision, began to lay out photographs. They covered up the biggest antique table I’ve ever seen, it was like something out of Camelot. All the pictures came in pairs; Befores and Afters.”

“There were pictures that showed deformed limbs, before and after. Facial disfigurements repaired; artificial limbs where limbs had been missing. Cleft lips and cleft palates: All races. All ages. Kids.
LOTS of kids.
They told me that none of these people were insured at all and none had any money for this kind of work. It made me tear up, man.

“These are my brothers, my fathers, my colleagues, and I was so damn proud. I told them, ‘This is some
extremely
impressive pro bono work. I want to help. What can I do?

“One of these physicians, a little old guy, he pointed this bony finger at me and looked me in the eye. He said, ‘These cases before you represent most of the extensive,
real
pro bono work done in this country over the course of a given year.’ I said, ‘I don’t understand’. So, Babe, MG, I’m going to present to
you
what was presented to me.”

“First of all, do you have any
idea
how many people need what you needed tonight? I’m talking about
discretion.
And I don’t mean the
bad
kind of discretion. Not people running from the law and not gut shot criminal types.

“Think about
everything
that can go wrong between the navel and the thighs. In almost all of
those
cases,
somebody
doesn’t want somebody
else
to know about it. Doctors aren’t worth a shit at hiding, Babe. We have big old hospitals and big old clinics all over the place. We have big old
LOUD bright red ambulances
that will pick you up and bring you to our big old
brightly lit
facilities with bright corridors and bright waiting rooms—maybe there are a few
lawyers
hanging around along with some
reporters.
You see where I’m going?”

“But you’re charging money,” Babe said.

“There are a ton of legal issues you’re not talking about. People could go to prison for…”

“You have to let me finish, Babe,” Marshall said.

“That money right there is just a handshake. It’s not a payment. Think of it as a ‘love offering’. Hell, pick it up and put it back in your pocket if you want to. The thing we
need
is your partnership. If our clients have no stake at all in this, no ties at all, then maybe they run their mouths a little more. Yeah, that money will get used. I’m on lunch break myself, but this is Chad’s clinic. And he will have to show up here in…shit.”

Marshall looked at his watch.

“Chad, it’s four-thirty, you might want to go get some sleep. I‘ll make sure the place gets locked up.”

“Are you crazy, Marshall? You’re spilling our guts to the FBI and you think I’m going to go have a nap?”

Marshall chuckled.

“Yeah, I guess that was kind of dumb. Did you pay attention to the exam room Millie is in? The x-ray machine?”

“That wasn’t a dental x-ray machine,” MG said, the mental gears falling into place.

“No ma’am, it’s not. But that’s not the kind of thing that’s going to set off alarms anywhere, is it? Especially if it just shows up in this little bitty back room without an invoice,“ Marshall said.

“Getting back to the navel and the thighs—example one. A wealthy family gets in touch with us because Junior came home from spring break with big old sores on his privates. Mommy and Daddy are horrified but they’re more likely to have that kid buried under the yacht shed than to be humiliated by a case of VD going public.

“Example two; we have some entertainment types that have, shall we say, exotic
needs.
Imagine some pop star showing up at the ER at two in the morning with flashbulbs going off and being asked for autographs while he’s lying face down on a gurney with a Perrier bottle stuck in his ass. Sorry, ma’am.”

Marshall lowered his head.

“Don’t apologize, Marshall. You tell a really good story,” MG said.

Marshall sat back in his chair.

“These are just a few examples. It’s not always rich people or famous people. And we don’t do everything. If Millie had been in much worse condition we would have had to walk away. We’re not set up to handle major bone breaks. We can do stitches but nothing even
close
to surgery. You may not get anything for pain, and if you do it will be samples. If anything smells like criminal activity, we walk away. We damn sure don’t cover up for battered women, either.

“If I didn’t know you, Babe, and I got a look at that girl in there, we wouldn’t be here right now.”