The Magic Bullet

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Not quite.”

  “We were for my mother, and we were for that little girl you released yesterday, Joe, and I was treating a girl about her age who died yesterday.”

  Weber blinked and then shook his head. “I don’t like this. I don’t mind telling you. I’m terrified, Allan.”

  “Don’t be. Months, maybe even weeks from now, you’ll be considered a medical hero. Look,” he added when Joe didn’t move, “if what I did with Wellman comes out, I’ll accept all the blame here. I’ll admit to doing anything and everything without your knowledge. You called me in as a consultant, and I went haywire. You won’t be blamed. I’ll put it in writing, whatever you want. Do you want me to speak to someone right now?”

  “No,” Joe quickly replied. “Not yet,” he added. “We haven’t confirmed anything, and no one really knows anything.”

  “Okay, then, we’re fine.”

  “Fine,” Joe repeated smirking.

  “Let’s follow up on Wellman and take this a step at a time, Joe.”

  “Is it all gone, the entire blood sample?”

  Allan nodded.

  “I didn’t know what dosage to apply, obviously, so I thought I would give him the whole thing. It was an all-or-nothing shot.”

  “Even though he was terminal, you were taking that shot with another human being’s life, Allan.”

  “We do it everyday, Joe. Stop sugarcoating. Every desperate physician out there with a terminal patient is throwing the dice with this protocol or that in hopes of a Las Vegas—style win. I did nothing different.”

  Joe nodded and then softened his face.

  “Toby thinks you might be a vampire. This will surely confirm it.”

  “I’d be anything to win this war,” Allan replied.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  They started out. All the technicians stopped to watch them leave.

  It was in the air.

  Something unusual was going on.

  It carried over to radiology. Morton Feinberg stared incredulously at the pictures. He looked at Joe and Allan and then at the pictures scanned of Paul Wellman’s lungs.

  “They’re gone,” he said. He had said it about twenty times to himself. “All the tumors are gone. This guy has clean lungs. What’s the story here? Look at his results from last week,” he continued and turned them to Wellman’s pictures where the tumors were clearly visible and invasive. “We’re talking maybe six days?”

  “It’s clearly a miracle,” Allan said. He looked at Joe, who was obviously at a loss for how to explain it without revealing Taylor. “I’ve been in the battle against cancer for years now, but I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ll have to review everything that was done to see about combinations of treatments and the like, don’t you think, Doctor Weber?”

  “What? Oh, yes.”

  “For now,” Allan said, “let’s not make too much of this, Doctor Feinberg. There are cases of spontaneous remissions, but no one to date has provided a logical explanation for them. You know what could happen. Desperate people calling Doctor Weber here expecting similar results and here we don’t know yet why.”

  Feinberg shrugged.

  “It’s your patient. Handle it whatever way you wish. Don’t worry about me. Whoever I told this to would think I had lost it anyway. I’m not that brave.”

  “Very smart,” Allan said. “We feel the same way, Doctor Feinberg. Joe?”

  “Thanks, Morton. We’ll redo these tests shortly, of course, to reconfirm.”

  “I’m here for you,” Feinberg said. He actually looked a little terrified.

  Allan smiled to himself. Perfect, he thought. He will keep his mouth shut.

  “Let’s go To my office,” Joe said.

  His offices were right across the street from the hospital, and he had no office hours until the following day. Neither of them spoke during their walk. Allan was far too excited, and Joe Weber couldn’t throw off his sense of foreboding. Why, he wondered, wasn’t he as ecstatic as Allan obviously was?

  As soon as he closed his private office door behind him, he spun on Allan.

  “You were exactly right with Morton. We don’t even know exactly how to explain the phenomenon, Allan, so if I were you, I wouldn’t think of rushing To make any sort of announcement.”

  “Of course not,” Allan said.

  Joe looked at him skeptically and then sat behind his desk. Allan sat on the light-brown leather sofa.

  “You’re going to have to figure out a way to get the boy to give you another, perhaps more significant, sample and then start on a correct protocol for this. Take it back to Thornton Carver and get a real study begun. No more experiments on actual patients,” he emphasized. “I won’t be party to any. I mean it, Allan.”

  “Absolutely. You’re absolutely right.”

  “If you offer them money again, I wouldn’t offer them too much more. It will trigger anxiety. Maybe…tell them the samples were…”

  “Contaminated? Perfect. Good thinking, Joe. They’ll buy that. I’ll be very convincing, pretend to be the arrogant big-city doctor and blame the boondock laboratory here, blame myself for not rushing off to Los Angeles, and offer them…fifteen hundred this time. How’s that?”

  “They’ll buy the arrogant big-city doctor part,” Joe said dryly.

  “Very funny. You know what?” he continued before Weber could say anything else. “That’s what we’re going to do anyway. I’ll head back to LA. You won’t have to be involved in this at all after that.”

  For a split second, Joe’s ego flared. Allan Parker could win the Nobel Prize or something, and he would not even be a footnote.

  “I’m not saying I don’t want to be involved. If Wellman’s results hold up, I’m sure he’s not going to be complaining to any medical boards about me. Wellman certainly didn’t know what was happening.”

  Allan smiled.

  “Now you’re thinking sensibly. Of course, you’re going to be cited as part of this, Joe. You had the fore-sight to put me on the right track. If you hadn’t called me to begin with, where would I be with it? You had the insight, the right perception, and instincts.”

  “I mean, none of that is as important as our doing this correctly now, so the findings are accepted, that is,” Joe said. “I’m not trying to stroke my own ego.”

  “You don’t have to explain any of that Tome, Joe. I’m the one submerged in the damn cesspool of medical politics regarding cancer research. There’ll be lots of envious bastards out there either trying to hop on the bandwagon or knock us off. The concept of pure science is just that, a concept, not a reality. There’s no room for fumbling the ball.”

  Joe nodded and looked at him. Then he smiled.

  “Jesus Christ, Allan. I think this is really it.”

  “I know,” Allan replied.

  Finally, the two congratulated each other, pumping a handshake and beaming like two college buddies high on life and their futures.

  While across the street, Paul Wellman sat up in his bed and greeted his wife and friends, who literally had been planning his funeral. The festive atmosphere spilled out of the room and down the hallway to the nurses’ station.

  Happiness, like tragedy and sadness, was contagious, especially in a hospital so eager to welcome smiles and laughter.

  “You got to be kiddin’ me,” Jim Fields said, as he finished pouring his beer into his glass.

  Jim was the most finicky, neatest man Warren knew. He hated drinking out of a bottle. Even on a job site, he’d have a paper cup. His fellow construction workers nicknamed him Gentleman Jim. When he wasn’t working, he always wore a light-blue tie with his dark-blue shirt and a clean pair of jeans. His hair was trim, and he was never out in public without being clean shaven, reeking of some sweet aftershave.

  He turned on his stool at the Station House bar to look at Warren, who looked like he had throat muscles strong enough to suck the neck off the bottle.

  Warren wiped his lips with the back of his hand
and shook his head.

  “Swear to God,” he said. “One thousand bucks.”

  “Shit, man. I’d a done it for a hundred. That’s a lot of money for somethin’ like that, Warren. What’s up with that?”

  “This guy was weird,” Warren said. “He looked…like he was high on something.”

  “Yeah, well, I heard doctors do that. After all, they can get to any drug they want. Where’s this guy work?”

  “That’s another thing,” Warren said. “He don’t work in the desert. He’s from Los Angeles.”

  “No shit?” Jim sipped some more of his beer and thought. “Something don’t sound right is what I mean. So Taylor’s cousin needs his blood. He gives it, and she’s better today?”

  “She’s in school today. Demi won’t say it, but Ralph was choosing a coffin.”

  “No shit?” Jim said. It was closing on becoming a chant. “Somethin’ don’t sound normal, Warren. A thousand dollars. Man, I’d look into that some more. Hey, if you see this doctor again, tell him you know someone who’d give twice as much blood for five hundred.”

  “You said a hundred before.”

  “Yeah, but somethin’ don’t sound normal.” Jim sipped his beer. “Maybe you should ask somebody.”

  “Huh? Who?”

  “Another doctor.”

  “I don’t know any doctors. I ain’t been to a doctor in twenty years.”

  “No shit?”

  “That’s the truth. I take care of myself. I don’t even carry health insurance. I wish I knew more about this whole thing though.”

  Jim shrugged. “You could maybe talk to Doctor Edwards?”

  “That workman’s compensation quack?”

  “He’s still a doctor.”

  Warren thought, sucked some more beer. “He’d probably charge something.”

  “Might be worth it,” Jim said. “Somethin’ don’t sound normal. If this doctor comes around again, and you want to negotiate, it’d be better if you knew somethin’ intelligent to say, don’tcha think?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “Say, I just remembered that Basil Cotter’s going to see him this afternoon at two’bout his leg. Needs another month of checks. You could go along with him and maybe start a conversation. Basil won’t care.”

  Warren nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Not like you got somethin’ else important to do,” Jim said, smiling. “Like I said, maybe you’ll learn somethin’ that’ll get you more moola out of this doctor from Los Angeles if he comes callin’ again.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Warren said. He nodded. “Something is definitely not normal.”

  “Absolutely,” Jim said. He adjusted his tie and brushed down his shirt. “Give Basil a call. He’s home workin’ on his limp. I swear he oughta be in show business.”

  “What else do you think this all is, if not show business?” Warren quipped, gesturing to indicate the world.

  Jim smiled. “I hear ya,” he said. He finished his beer. “I hear you real good.”

  Warren thought a little more and then got Basil Cotter’s phone number from Jim. Two hours later, he picked him up at his apartment complex and drove him to Indio where Dr. Gordon Edwards had his office above a small motel.

  Gordon Edwards had not started with the intention of becoming a half-assed physician, but early on in his career he was caught in three serious malpractice cases, one following the other too soon for the insurance companies. His premiums skyrocketed, and the medical office rent choked him. He couldn’t find a doctor willing to take him in as a partner and retreated to the medical life and career he now enjoyed. He didn’t consider himself incompetent or mediocre by any means. He thought of himself as unlucky and abused by the system. Consequently, he actually took pleasure in screwing insurance companies and government agencies. Every phony prescription he wrote and every false diagnosis he made gave him a sense of revenge. There was no other explanation for him continuing what he was doing. Medicine had long since lost its excitement. He was only in his early forties and seriously considering going into law. “If you can’t beat them, join them” should have been written across his forehead, he thought.

  He was a little suspicious of Warren Moore accompanying Basil Cotter. He didn’t like his patients, if he could still call them that, presenting him with possible witnesses. Just to be sure, he gave Basil as close to a legitimate examination as possible. As Gordon was writing up his findings, Warren began with, “I’ve got a weird situation involving a doctor from Los Angeles.”

  Gordon looked up. His thoughts were written across his face: so that was it. Warren was looking for an expert witness in some lawsuit.

  “I don’t testify against other doctors, no matter what I’m offered,” he said.

  “I ain’t talking about court or anything like that,” Warren said. He looked indignant.

  “Oh. Well…” Gordon checked his watch to clearly indicate he was finished, but Warren went right into the events concerning Taylor, and when he mentioned the thousand-dollar payment, Gordon sat back.

  “A thousand dollars? Just for no more than a normal blood screening?”

  “That’s it, Doc.”

  “Describe that little girl’s problem again.”

  “I don’t know how to describe it. She had some cancer, leukemia or something. She was dying is all I was told. Maybe it was bullshit, but everyone in the family took it very seriously, and the only time I saw her, she looked sickly Tome.”

  Gordon shook his head.

  “Something doesn’t sound right, Mr. Moore. I couldn’t possibly explain anything or give you any advice without more information about the girl herself.”

  “Well, why would he pay the kid a thousand bucks? As I said, he didn’t take that much blood. What are they paying for a pint these days, for chrissakes?”

  “Nowhere near a thousand bucks. I can tell you that. Look, it’s not my field of expertise, Mr. Moore, but if I were to conjecture—”

  “Huh?”

  “Take a guess. I would surmise that there’s some research project, well-funded, and they’re doing work on DNA or something. Obviously, something has excited them about your girlfriend’s son’s blood. I have no idea what that could be.”

  “So, they don’t offer just anyone this kind of money?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Not for just that. People get paid good money to be part of a test group, but this doesn’t sound at all like that. Why don’t you just ask the doctor?”

  “He’s probably gone, and I don’t trust him. Something ain’t right about him.”

  “Well…no one’s the worse for anything, and your girlfriend’s son is a thousand dollars richer. Whether it had anything to do with the little girl’s recovery is something only the researchers will determine.”

  Warren nodded. He wasn’t learning anything much he could use.

  “What if that doctor comes back for more blood?”

  “That would probably mean there was something further to explore.”

  “What?” He almost added “damn it” out of frustration.

  “Something obviously to do with the immune system or tumor reduction, I’d surmise.”

  “A cure for cancer?”

  “I doubt that,” Gordon said, smiling. “Not just from his blood. But something that might some day lead to a cure perhaps. Medical research is a big business these days. Then again, what isn’t?” he asked, mostly for himself.

  “So, maybe we should ask for more money?”

  “I couldn’t say,” Gordon said. “Well…it never hurts to ask though, does it?” He smiled.

  “No,” Warren said. “Thanks.”

  “What the hell was that all about?” Basil asked him on the way back to Palm Springs.

  “I’m not sure, but I might just find out soon,” Warren told him.

  Basil thanked him for giving him a lift. Almost before the words were out of his mouth, Warren shot off.

  “Crazy bastard,” Basil muttered, looked at th
e paper that would get him his workman’s compensation, and put the rest of it out of his mind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Demi’s heart began to race when she saw Allan Parker step out of his automobile the moment she emerged from the beauty salon. She liked him well enough, but she had hoped, selfishly perhaps, that there wouldn’t be anymore direct contact with him and the research. Playing around with her son’s blood and health made her nervous enough without all the other possible ramifications afterward. Something wonderful had occurred. Jodi was okay. Taylor was part of it for a short while and that would be that. Nothing else would complicate their lives.

  She looked around as if searching for an avenue of escape. It was drawing close to the daylight saving time change, and she knew that it wouldn’t be long before she would leave work at twilight—especially because they were so close to the San Jacinto Mountain range, which seemed to grow taller and taller to bring down the sun earlier and earlier this time of the year.

  The traffic on Palm Canyon Boulevard was brisk. It was still a great time of the year to be in the desert, and visitors were flowing in to enjoy the weather at discount prices.

  “Hello, Mrs. Petersen,” Allan said, approaching her. “Do you need a ride home by any chance?”

  “No, thank you. I have my own car,” she said.

  Allan nodded and stood there smiling at her.

  “Anything wrong?” she asked.

  Now that he was here facing her, being in any way deceitful seemed impossible. Surely, he didn’t have to find ways To manipulate her. She was too nice, too trusting, and too loving. It made him uncomfortable to think about doing it, and besides, he wasn’t very good at deception. Just like he appreciated clarity in his work, he appreciated it in people, too.

  Besides, the fabrication about the blood being corrupted had major disadvantages. It would be unwise to give her the impression the laboratory was incompetent. It could influence her opinion about anything he told her afterward as well.

  “Nothing’s wrong, Mrs. Petersen. Something, however, is quite right.”

  “What?”

  “Can we get a cup of coffee or something? I would like to talk to you.”