“Yes. It is urgent. I wouldn’t pressure you, but since these circumstances are so extraordinary, I think it would be best if you would agree to . . . permit me to make the appropriate arrangements.” He knew how to bring the authority and dignity of his position into play, and he did it now as emphatically as he could. “You certainly can understand, can’t you, why your sister deserves the best care possible.”
“I can’t afford it,” Sven croaked.
“I’ll do what I can to help you find the means,” Dover said, speaking gently and evenly. “Will Colney can help out, if you like.”
“Not with charity,” warned Sven.
“With finding a way to pay for your sister’s treatment,” said Dover in the same calm drone. “You certainly want her to have the best treatment, don’t you?”
“Sure.” He was fidgeting, his fingers moving restlessly over his jacket, stopping at the zipper, then sneaking off to hide in the pockets. “But the cost.”
Dover knew that if Sven ever learned how expensive the treatment would be, the enormity of the figure would terrify him. “That’s why I want you to talk with Will Colney. He has excellent sources for community assistance, and surely all the years your sister has devoted to his congregation will guarantee that he will do his utmost for her.” He took a pad of paper from the top drawer of his desk. Most of his notes and records were, in fact, kept on his personal computer in the next room, but he knew that most of his patients did not trust the thing, and so he still kept up the practice of written instructions and notes. “I’m going to give you the name of the assistant administrator at the hospital. I want you to go over and talk to her, and arrange for your sister to be transferred to Portland.”
“I won’t get to see her,” said Sven, sounding lost.
“Until she gets well, she’ll have to be kept in isolation, in any case. You see, we don’t have enough information on what’s wrong with her, and until we do, we must make sure that she does not spread her disease to anyone else.” He knew that he ought to soften the blow somehow. “You know that Kirsten would not want to bring illness to anyone.”
“Or any misfortune,” said Sven automatically. “She’s a good Christian woman. She wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt anyone.”
“Yes,” said Dover. “Now, you go talk with Miss Bradshaw and she’ll arrange everything.” He had already spent ten minutes on the phone with Toni Bradshaw, and knew all that was needed now was Sven’s signature on four different forms.
“I don’t have time to take her to Portland,” Sven began.
“It will be arranged. You don’t have to do it, Mister Barenssen.” Now Dover gave his very best sympathetic smile. “You’re doing the right thing to help your sister. I know how difficult it must be, but it is the right thing.” He resolved to call Will Colney after he straightened out the medical transfer. From the look of him, Sven would need the comfort his minister would offer.
“The assistant administrator at the hospital?” Sven asked as he stared at the piece of paper Dover had handed him.
“Yes; she’ll be expecting you.” He made a great show of looking at his watch. “I have another patient, Mister Barenssen. I really must—”
“Sure.” Sven got up and wandered to the door. “Thanks. I’ll go right over to the hospital. Right now. Do you think they’ll let me look in on Kirsten?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” As soon as he was alone, Dover picked up the phone and alerted Toni Bradshaw. “Call Medi-Copter and tell Eherman that it’s urgent. And when Barenssen gets there, let him have five minutes with Kirsten. It might help him, and God knows it won’t change her condition.”
“All right; I’ll call you as soon as I talk to Eherman.”
Dover’s next call was more complicated, since it required that he speak with three people in quick succession and the Center for the Study of Environmental Medicine was new enough and big enough to confuse everyone.
“Doctor Maximillian Klausen,” Dover said to the automatic answerer. “This is Doctor Elihu Dover calling.” He then waited for three minutes listening to a soft-rock rendition of the Sleeping Beauty Waltz until Max Klausen’s familiar growl came on the line.
“Is this about the woman we discussed yesterday?” Klausen interrupted when Dover began to fill him in.
“Yes. I’m arranging to have her transferred to you now.” He wanted to remind Klausen that there was such a thing as professional courtesy, and the least he could do was be permitted to finish his comments, but instead he added, “She’s going to need some kind of financial aid. The family is poor.”
“I’ll get Sandy on it,” said Klausen. “How’s she coming?”
“I’m arranging transportation with our local MediCopter,” said Dover severely. “They’ll notify you of their time of arrival.”
“Fine. What about the history and tests results?”
“I have a modem on the computer and so does the hospital. The records will arrive before the patient if your lines are clear.” He was getting huffy and knew that he ought not to be so offended.
“Good. I’ll give you a call after I’ve had a look at her. How late will you be available?”
“I take calls until ten-thirty, and after that my service screens them.” He paused. “When you find out what the trouble is, I want to know about it.”
“You got it. I’ll switch you to admissions.” Without any further comment the line went silent for almost a minute.
By the time the admissions clerk had switched Dover to the research lab, Elihu Dover had a headache and his face felt stiff, as if it had been covered in a thin layer of plaster. He repeated the basic information to a softspoken young man who sounded as if he belonged in high school.
“Condition of the patient?” asked the young man.
“It will all be sent,” said Dover.
“Is the patient alert? Is the patient coherent?” The questions might have been about Dover’s preference in toothpaste for all the interest they expressed.
“She is disoriented and frightened,” Dover said with meticulous precision. “She is used to living in a small community, and she is strictly religious. If one of your ministers is available when she arrives, it would help her. Provided that the minister is Fundamentalist in his outlook.”
“Fundamentalist? Here?” There was polite incredulity in the young man’s voice.
“Then find one. Surely you have Fundamentalists in Portland.” He cleared his throat. “Also, she is a spinster; she is easily upset if she has to take off her clothes in front of a man, even a physician. Arrange for a nurse to be present for all examinations. Otherwise you will upset her unnecessarily.” He tried to imagine the young man—was he as smug as he sounded or had he merely been on the phone too long that day? was he a resident, an intern, a nurse, an orderly, or some kind of clerk?—so that he would be able to enlist his sympathy on Kirsten Barenssen’s behalf.
“We’ll take care of her,” said the young man. “Will you want reports on her progress?”
“Yes. And all information about her condition. In case I happen upon another case.” This last he said with heavy emphasis in the hope that it would have some impression on the young man.
“You got it,” said the young man blithely and hung up.
Elihu Dover stared, fuming, at the receiver in his hand, and then shook his head. There was no dealing with the bureaucrats, he reminded himself, which was why he had remained in Sweet Home instead of finding work in a larger place. He got up and stretched, heading for the window where he could see the sleet that would make his drive home miserable.
On impulse he picked up the phone and dialed home. “Eunice,” he said when he heard his wife’s voice, “I think I’m going to come home a little early this evening. It’s been a complicated day.”
“El, are you all right?” she as
ked with a trace of humor in her words.
“I’m okay,” he said slowly. “I’ve got two more appointments here and then I have to stop by the hospital, but I’ll be as quick as I can.” He smiled at the receiver as he pictured his wife’s face. “Are you in the mood to have dinner out?”
“Now I’m certain you need help,” Eunice said, actually laughing. “What have you been up to?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when I see you,” he promised, hoping that the familiar comfort of her presence would end the nagging sense of disaster that had haunted him all afternoon.
“Tell you what,” Eunice said, “I’ll call The Embers and ask them to reserve us a table for six-thirty. That way, even if you do take a little longer at the hospital, we’ll be ready to have a pleasant evening.”
“You’re an angel,” he said with feeling. “Wear that deep red outfit, will you?”
“Some angel,” she scoffed affectionately. “All right. Anything else you’d like, El?”
He sighed. “Nothing you or I can do anything about,” he said, gloom descending upon him once more. “I’ll see you in a bit, darling.”
“You take care of yourself, El,” she said, her voice as near scolding as it ever got.
He held the receiver more tightly. “Anything for you.”
“Flatterer,” she said indulgently, and then added with the perspicacity of thirty-one years of marriage. “Over dinner you can tell me what’s troubling you.”
He knew better than to deny his concerns. “Thank you; I was depending on that.”
“Depend away,” she said, and hesitated once more. “Don’t let it wear you down, El.”
“I won’t,” he said, and then amended, “I’ll try not to.” There were so many things he rarely said to her that he wanted her to know: how much he valued her, how he appreciated her calm good sense, how important she was to him. Instead he made a kissing noise at the receiver. “See you in a while, Eunice.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she said, and hung up.
—Gerald Plaiting—
On one side of his desk Gerald Plaiting had a stack of article reprints and textbooks; on the other side he had the files for eight of his patients. It was almost ten-thirty and he was suffering from eyestrain that made it difficult for him to focus on the billboard opposite his windows, yet he was determined to get through the material in the hope it would shed some light on the cases he had been handling. He pinched the bridge of his prominent nose between thumb and forefinger, and considered having a sixth cup of coffee.
There was a knock on his office door and he looked up sharply as Muñoz, who was head of night security for the building, opened the door. “Just checking, Doctor,” said the uniformed man.
“I’m glad you’re here,” said Plaiting. “Working late like this, I get scared sometimes.” It was no more than the truth, and he said it with feeling, but he knew that Pablo Muñoz took it as a compliment and a sign of respect.
“You don’t need to be with my staff and me around. We haven’t had any trouble in more than three years.” He took justifiable pride in this, for most medical buildings in the San Fernando Valley had some kind of theft or vandalism on an average of every fourteen months; Muñoz’ record was excellent.
“Thank goodness.”
“I’ll tell my man in the parking lot to keep an eye on your car. It’s that new methane Saab, isn’t it?” This query was only for good manners—Muñoz had the make and license plate number for every person working in the Victory Plaza Medical Building.
“That’s the one.”
“What do you think of it? I don’t like gas lines, but I don’t know about the methane engines,” said Muñoz, not moving from his place in the door.
“I like the car. It handles well and gets good mileage; you don’t have to wait at the methane stations and there’ll be more of them in a year or two.” He sighed. “And we aren’t going to run out of methane for a long, long time.”
Muñoz nodded. “My wife is after me to get one of the methane vans. She keeps talking about the tax incentives, but I worry that they haven’t got the bugs out of them yet.” He nodded. “Well, thanks, Doctor Plaiting.” He backed out of the door and closed it, leaving Gerald alone once more.
By midnight he was no closer to answering his steadily multiplying questions. He rose and turned off the desk light, stretching to get the worst of the stiffness out of his muscles. He thought ruefully of the time not so long ago when his knees and elbows never popped, and his muscles were springy as new rubber bands. “Hazards of age,” he said, with his forty-third birthday facing him in a week. Then he winced inwardly, for there were six of his patients who would never see twenty, let alone forty-three. He stared at the eight folders and willed them to give up their secrets.
As he drove home to a cul-de-sac condo in Sherman Oaks, Gerald went over the cases once more. The first had been Eric Harmmon, who had died New Year’s Day. The next had been Estrella Cincel, the star gymnast at her junior high school; she had died last week. Then George Layton, who had died on his sixteenth birthday, two days ago. There were three more kids with the baffling, lethal symptoms, and two adults, each growing more debilitated every day, until the body simply could not keep going. Technically whatever was wrong with them had not actually killed them, it had merely created a physical condition where death was inevitable. Death, he realized, was a side effect. Gerald ground his teeth as he turned off of Ventura Boulevard.
As he drove up to his condo, he felt the usual pang of loneliness that was the legacy of his divorce two years ago, but his fatigue was more demanding than the darkness of the town house. He parked his car in front of the garage and stumbled toward the front door, ignoring the mailbox and a UPS delivery tag on the security gate. As he fumbled with the light switches in the hall, he wondered again if he ought to get the kind of circuits that would unlock the door and turn on the lights at the sound of his voice, but the notion passed quickly as he went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, staring at its contents before deciding on a cup of comfrey tea and a hot bath.
By morning, some of Gerald’s depression had lifted, but he had not yet come to any greater understanding of the disease that was claiming his patients. He coddled two eggs, adding sweet butter and a dash of paprika to the cup before sinking the coddler in hot water. While he made tea he made up his mind to send out a general inquiry to other physicians in the area to see if any of them had patients with similar symptoms. Perhaps he ought to be safe and include all of southern California; he was not eager to be branded an alarmist, but at the same time he could not bear to think that his negligence might add one more fatality to the list. He was still weighing these considerations when the phone rang.
“Plaiting,” he said as he picked up the receiver.
“This is Joel Price at West Valley Medical,” said his caller. “I’m with the Woodland Hills Clinic.”
“I remember you,” said Plaiting, frowning at the congealing mass of yolk at the bottom of the coddling cup.
“Look, I know that this is a little irregular, but I understand from Katherine Dial that you’ve had some cases recently that—”
“Anemia, lethargy, low fevers,” Plaiting interrupted. “Is that the one?”
“Sounds like it,” said Price. “I’ve had two admissions in the last week. I was wondering if you could spare me some time this evening. We’re listing this as toxic reaction, but I’m not so sure it is.”
“Okay; I was planning on calling Public Health and Environmental Services in any case. I’ll hold off until we talk.” He was relieved to find another doctor as troubled as he was, although the news that there were more cases did nothing to lessen his alarm. “How about eight?”
“Where?” asked Price. “I can come to you.”
“Do that, will you?” Plaiting asked. “I have some
test results that I’m expecting. It might help us.”
“And it might not,” said Price. “All right. I know where you are. I’ll try to be there at eight, but if I’m going to be held up I’ll give you a call.”
“Great. Thanks.” He started to hang up, then said, “Are your two still alive?”
“So far, but . . .” His words faded.
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” said Plaiting. “Can you get more blood work done on your two today? We’ll have current results to compare and that might tell us something.” He reached for his cup. “If you have information on toxic waste dumps in your area, bring it along. We might be able to figure something out from that.”
“I haven’t got it, but I can try to get it by this evening,” said Price. “Thank you for the help. I don’t like to sound weird, but this one has a very bad feel about it.”
“I know what you mean, and it doesn’t sound weird to me,” said Plaiting. “I hope we’re both wrong.”
“So do I,” admitted Price. “Okay. I’ll see you this evening. And maybe we can learn something.”
As Gerald Plaiting made his way through the morning traffic, he decided that he would program the medical records of his dead patients once more in the hope that he might discover what they had in common. “Even a bad case of flu ten years ago,” he said to the windshield. Terminal diseases had been triggered by stranger things, he knew, and he sensed that he could not afford to overlook anything in this instance. “There’s a key, there’s a key, there’s got to be a key,” he chanted in cadence with the tune on his radio. He turned off Ventura Boulevard and signaled to change lanes. Outside the sky was grey, some of it from winter cloud cover, some from the continuing battle with smog that was the bane of the greater Los Angeles area. “I wonder if it’s nothing more than smog?”
Reynaldo Bata was on duty at the parking lot entrance, and saluted Gerald as he raised the barrier. “Morning, Doc,” he called out. “How’s it going?”
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