The Program

by Stephen White

  He quickly regained his composure, which had only slipped about three degrees. While he moved his hand back and forth in the air between our chairs he asked, “Is this going to be a control issue between us?”

  Was that an accusation or was he intentionally providing me with a way out of my dilemma? I honestly couldn’t tell. I asked, “Does psychotherapy usually come to an end on control issues?”

  “Usually not, no. But sometimes.”

  I decided he was offering me an escape route. I said, “Then I’m afraid that it looks like this is going to boil down to be a control issue.” I put the lollipop back in my mouth.

  He stared past me, into the darkest part of the sky. After half a minute or so he said, “There’s something else, though. We’re going to have to talk about your relationship with … Carl.”

  I nodded and opened my eyes widely. “Because?”

  I knew that he couldn’t admit to me that Carl was his patient. That would breach Carl’s confidentiality. And if Carl had already told Dr. Gregory that he and I were friends, Dr. Gregory couldn’t tell me that, either. The fact was that Dr. Gregory and I couldn’t talk about Carl Luppo until I brought him up and even then Dr. Gregory couldn’t admit that he was treating Carl.

  Dr. Gregory was stuck. I could tell from the look on his face that he knew he was stuck, too.

  He said, “Ron Kriciak is looking for you.”

  “I guessed that he would be. It’s possible that a marshal—one of his colleagues—broke into my house last night. Landon and I left the place where we were living. I don’t have much faith that WITSEC can protect me any longer.”

  “Ron seemed sincerely concerned.”

  “I’m not convinced. He may be or he may not be. Some of his colleagues certainly are not.”

  Dr. Gregory digested my words. “Kriciak would like me to let him know if I hear from you.”

  As evenly as I could, I asked, “Will you do that?”

  “Not without your permission.”

  “Good. You don’t have it.”

  He almost smiled. “For some reason I suspected that,” he said.

  I sucked hard on the lollipop. So hard that my cheeks went concave. I said, “Are we okay? Doctor and patient okay?”

  He shrugged. His shrug was not as grand a gesture as Carl’s. He asked, “We have trust issues. We have control issues. I’m not convinced we can work them out, but I’m unwilling to decide tonight that we can’t. Are you planning to keep your next appointment?”

  “That may not be … judicious on my part. I’m trying to keep a low profile. Do you ever do any work over the phone?”

  “In an emergency, I have.”

  I had hoped our discussion would end up somewhere in this vicinity, and I knew what I was going to propose. “I think this is an emergency. Can you give me a phone number that you actually answer? One that doesn’t go to an answering machine. I’ll call you on your pager first and leave you a four-digit message. That will be the time I’ll call back.”

  Before he had a chance to agree or disagree, Lauren walked back out onto the deck. Dr. Gregory offered her his seat. She lowered herself gingerly and said, “While I was inside? I got a phone call from a man named Ron Kriciak. He said he was an inspector with the U.S. Marshals Service.”

  My lungs seemed to purge themselves of oxygen. Had Ron found me and followed me here already?

  Dr. Gregory was still standing beside his wife. He said to her, “Really? Ron Kriciak called for you?”

  “Yes, he asked for me. Wanted to talk one law enforcement officer to another. Mano a mano. He hinted that he’d like me to use my influence to ensure that my husband cooperate fully with reasonable requests for information from the U.S. Marshals Service regarding his clients.”

  I sighed, relieved that Ron was still looking for me.

  Dr. Gregory said, “And you told him …?”

  “That my husband is a stubborn man who tends to be resistant to most forms of cajoling.”

  “Most forms?” His voice momentarily took on an unfamiliar—for me at least—teasing quality.

  She teased him right back, saying, “That’s right, most forms.”

  Dr. Gregory said, “It’s not the first call like that Kriciak has made today. Teri Grady got one, too. She phoned me late this afternoon to give me a heads-up that Ron was pressuring her to pressure me about the exact same thing.”

  Lauren asked, “How is she?”

  To his wife, Dr. Gregory said, “Sick of bed rest but she’s doing okay. She asked about you and said to say hello.”

  I asked, “Who is she?”

  Dr. Gregory opened his mouth as though he was going to answer, but he didn’t speak. Lauren said, “Teri Grady’s a psychiatrist in Denver. She’s on pregnancy leave from her position as the regional psychiatric consultant to the Witness Protection Program. My husband has been filling in for her during her absence.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  The people from WITSEC were definitely trying to find me. They were pressuring my doctor and now they were pressuring my new lawyer. But at least it didn’t seem like they knew that Landon and I were still in Boulder.

  5

  Though the night had turned cool, Lauren opened all the windows in the bedroom before she stripped off her nightgown and climbed into bed.

  “You’re hot?” Alan asked.

  She nodded and gestured at her gut. “I don’t just have a bun in the oven. Sometimes I think I have an oven in the oven.” She busied herself with the complicated task of arranging pillows to support her body’s unfamiliar form.

  When Lauren was done with the pillow gymnastics, Alan started to rub her lower back and said, “You can’t help her, babe, you know that, don’t you?” His inflection made it clear that he was saying that she shouldn’t help, not that she wasn’t able.

  Lauren intentionally ignored the clues in his tone. She asked, “What do you mean I can’t help her? I don’t know any such thing.”

  “I mean it’s too dangerous. For you and for the baby.”

  Lauren sighed, then stilled her breathing. “This is… awkward territory for us, Alan. Let’s be careful here, ourselves. There are certain things about the work we do that we can’t discuss with each other. We’ve always respected that.” She was glad that the lights were off and that she was facing away from him on the bed. She didn’t want him examining her eyes for truth.

  He said, “I am being careful and I’m trying to be discreet. All I’m saying is that her life is much too dangerous. You shouldn’t be involved.”

  “And you should?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted them back. They sounded childish.

  “I didn’t know what I was getting into. I think you do.”

  “Maybe I do. But I don’t see how you might know what I am or I am not getting into. I haven’t told you anything. And if she’s told you anything, you can’t talk about it with me.”

  “The very fact that you aren’t willing to talk about it tells me that you’re involved professionally with her. That’s all I need to know to make me concerned for you and our baby.”

  “Is it?”

  “What does that mean?”

  Lauren felt trapped. She’d just succeeded in getting the pillows just right—for a few blessed moments her womb actually seemed to be floating in zero gravity. But she felt a strong need to be facing Alan to continue this conversation. “Come over to my side of the bed for a second,” she said.

  “What?”

  She laughed. “Get out of bed and come over here. I want to look at you, and I have these damn pillows in a position that’s almost Zen in its perfection and I don’t want to move.”

  He climbed out of bed, avoided tripping over Emily on the way, and knelt beside his wife. “You know you look lovely. Cindy Crawford has absolutely nothing on you,” he said.

  She laughed again. “Although I think I like having you kneeling naked at the side of my bed pretending that I’m beautiful, your flattery won
’t work.”

  He smiled. “You look lovely whether my flattery works or not.”

  Lauren got serious. “Ever since I saw her in your office, I’ve told you that I wanted to help her, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Given an opportunity, I’m not going to turn my back on her.”

  He touched her naked abdomen.

  “Don’t play the baby card on me, Alan. I’m as capable of taking prudent risks as you are.”

  “You sure you want to use me as a comparison?”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  He touched her nose and then her lips before he said, “She doesn’t know what’s out there. I don’t know what’s out there. The marshals don’t know what’s out there. How can you possibly decide what’s prudent?”

  chapter

  ten

  A BAD CASE OF STREP

  1

  Jeremiah Krist’s road style was completely antithetical to that of Barbara Turner. While he was on assignments, Krist preferred to travel like a business executive. Whenever possible he chose big, anonymous hotels, and, using one of his many fake identities, he booked every detail of his travel in advance over the Internet. On this trip he was a purchasing manager for Texas Instruments.

  His flight from St. Petersburg into Chicago was delayed by thunderstorms, and he barely made the last connection of the day from O’Hare to Denver, sprinting down the Jetway with about thirty seconds to spare before the cabin doors were sealed. Once safely on the ground in Colorado, he drove his rental car—a big Mercury—away from Denver International Airport and took it directly to the Omni Interlocken Hotel in Broomfield, about ten minutes east of Boulder on Highway 36.

  Krist had chosen the Omni because it was big, it was new, it catered primarily to travelers doing business in the adjacent Interlocken Business Park, and because every guestroom was equipped with a T1 Internet line for rapid connections to his laptop.

  Krist was asleep in his fourth floor room by midnight. He set his travel alarm for five-thirty. He’d asked for a western facing room, knowing that he’d wake up to a stunning view of the Front Range.

  The first thing Krist noted at breakfast was that doing business in Colorado didn’t seem to require a business suit. Despite the fact that the hotel catered to out-of-town visitors to the big corporations that had sprawling campuses in the nearby business park, only two of the thirty or so businesspeople he spotted in the hotel restaurant were wearing business suits.

  And they were both women.

  Ties, too, seemed to be optional. He guessed that only about half the men were wearing neckties.

  Back up in his room after breakfast, Krist traded in his brown suit for khakis and a black blazer—the paraphernalia of Krist’s line of work required a jacket, after all—but he ditched his tie. A quick glance in the mirror convinced him that he now looked the part of a businessman from Texas with an appointment at Sun Microsystems or Level Three Communications.

  Krist booted his laptop and checked his e-mail for fresh updates from Prowler. Nothing new had arrived since he’d gone downstairs for breakfast, so he reviewed the information that he’d already been sent about Dr. Alan Gregory and decided that since he had only one lead, there was no reason not to follow it.

  FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Krist found a parking spot at a meter on Walnut Street in Boulder and made his way up the sidewalk to the building that his records showed housed Dr. Gregory’s office. Once there, Krist climbed the wooden stairs of an old Victorian house. The sign outside indicated that Dr. Gregory shared the office with another psychologist, a woman name Diane Estevez.

  From the porch, Krist peered through the front window into a parlor/waiting room that was separated from the rest of the house by a closed door. In the waiting room, a woman in her fifties was sitting on a burgundy sofa reading the New Yorker. She glanced up at him for a second before returning her attention to the magazine.

  No secretary or receptionist that Krist could see.

  He walked back down Walnut and found a pay phone near Ninth Street. He called Dr. Gregory’s office number and got a recording. Jeremiah Krist hung up before the beep.

  Probably no receptionist.

  Using the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, Krist walked back toward Dr. Gregory’s building. A man with a ponytail and a dangling gold earring shaped like a whale’s tail was stepping out the front door of the Victorian. A young woman—no more than nineteen years old—was heading up the steps. She had a tiny leather backpack strapped to her back.

  The man held the front door for her as she entered. He smiled at her. She didn’t seem to notice.

  Krist kept walking.

  Although he wasn’t averse to being the beneficiary of miracles, he didn’t have any illusions that his target was going to conveniently arrive at Dr. Gregory’s office for her regularly scheduled appointment. Nonetheless, Krist had been hoping to find a clinical operation that was a little less opaque than Dr. Gregory’s appeared to be. A conveniently bored secretary or receptionist could have filled him in on a lot of details of what was where and who was who behind the closed door that led away from the waiting room.

  Frustrated, Krist decided to check out Dr. Gregory’s house, hoping, in the end, that it might turn out to be the more efficient place for a chat.

  ON THE WAY to Dr. Gregory’s home, Krist got lost twice after he turned off South Boulder Road. The secondary streets in this part of the country were poorly marked, and Krist was almost certain that the map he’d downloaded off the Internet lacked at least three of the little lanes he passed. In his head he was already drafting a scathing critique that he would e-mail back to the company that provided the map.

  He drove on. It appeared that the lane he was on dead-ended near the last two residences, precluding a casual drive-by. The lane widened between the two houses. After that, a small turnaround in front of a barn marked the end of the road.

  In front of the larger of the two houses, a young boy was playing a version of Frisbee that required him to try to get the flying disk to land in one of various laundry tubs that had been scattered around on his front lawn. The game seemed to require a lot of running and jumping and squealing. A woman—from her grim countenance Krist guessed she was chronically depressed and in her thirties—sat in the shade offering occasional encouragement that sounded to Krist like, “There you go, Jonas.”

  Krist held the car’s speed under ten miles per hour and tried to look lost. He gripped his rental car map in one hand and kept twisting his head around as though he were hoping he might stumble upon a landmark.

  Once he was opposite the house, the boy named Jonas stopped running and tossing Frisbees into laundry tubs, and he froze his eyes on Krist and the Mercury.

  The woman took her eyes off the child, rested her hands on her lap, and stared at the car as though she hadn’t seen one in weeks.

  Krist spotted the brass number on the house behind them and knew that it wasn’t the number for which he was searching. Dr. Gregory lived in the other house. Krist threw the map down as though he were disgusted and proceeded to the end of the lane where he pulled the big car into a creeping U-turn that carried him right past Dr. Gregory’s front door. On his slow pass-by he endeavored to memorize every detail he could about the house and the locale.

  One of the first things he noted was a small sign by the front door announcing that the home was protected by an alarm monitored by a company called Alarms Incorporated. He also noticed a chain-link dog run.

  Inside the run was a big bucket for water. But no dog. Krist guessed that Gregory would be the kind of guy who would own a golden retriever or a black Lab.

  Without another glance at the woman or the boy, he made his way back down the lane.

  Other than the presence of an alarm, and the possible presence of a dog, Krist couldn’t have been more pleased with what he had learned. Gregory’s house wasn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere. But it was close enough to the mi
ddle of nowhere for what he had in mind for later that day.

  HE DROVE BACK toward Boulder and stopped in a parking lot on Twenty-eighth Street about a block away from the local Hertz office. He tugged on the latch that would pop the hood of his Mercury, climbed out of the car, and opened his pocketknife. After a moment’s deliberations, he sliced a hole in one of the hoses that circulated coolant to the radiator.

  As soon as he confirmed that antifreeze was dripping freely from below the car, he squeezed back behind the wheel and drove straight to the rental car company lot where he traded his defective Mercury for a huge GMC four-by-four.

  Now, in Boulder, he’d fit right in.

  2

  The morning after our visit to Dr. Gregory’s house, Landon woke up with all the signs of strep. Fever, sore throat, stomachache. I knew the contours of my daughter’s strep symptoms as well as I knew the signs of my menstrual distress.

  And sometimes it seemed as though she got strep as often as I got my period.

  I also knew the treatment she would need. The doctor would look at her throat, feel her nodes, give her a rapid strep test, and begin an overnight culture from a swab from her throat. As soon as the rapid strep showed positive—and it would—the doctor would prescribe erythromycin twice a day for ten days. After one day of medication Landon would no longer be contagious to others. After three doses of medication she would no longer be punky to me.

  Both were important milestones.

  The consequence of not promptly treating strep infections is rheumatic fever. Not treating Landon’s strep was absolutely not an option.

  The trouble was that I didn’t know how to get her the medicine she needed. I didn’t think I could risk walking into a doctor’s office or emergency room. Surely, as soon as I went to register Landon as a new patient, my WITSEC-provided identification would be entered into some computer system that was on-line with some other computer system, and our presence would be red-flagged by some vigilant U.S. marshal who was assigned to stare at his computer monitor until the name Peyton or Landon Francis showed up someplace.