Deadly Cure

by Lawrence Goldstone

  “Thank you for your confidence. I also know I didn’t.”

  Turner McKee smiled and wagged a finger back and forth. “No. You hope you didn’t. I know you didn’t.”

  “Which implies that you know who did . . . what did.”

  “Both. But strongly suspect would be more accurate. Very strongly, actually.”

  The curtain was pulled aside and the man Dolph entered with the coffee. His hands were immense, dwarfing the cups. The smell of java, strong and rich, filled the room. He placed the cups in front of them, then retired as soundlessly as he had entered. Noah wondered if the man could speak at all.

  “One of the advantages of proximity to a waterfront,” McKee said, gesturing with his head to the coffee. “Access to imports at a low price. Sometimes no price.”

  They each took a sip, eyeing each other. “By the way,” McKee asked, “are you Abel Whitestone’s son?”

  “Yes.” McKee’s constant evasions were maddening, but this was a man who required his theatrics. “Do you know my father?”

  “I’ve heard the name, that’s all. Fine doctor, your father.”

  “Thank you. Yes, he is.”

  McKee allowed the flash of a smile to come and go. “Difficult to find honorable men these days.”

  “I agree, but might we return to the subject at hand? You distinctly used the word murder. That implies intent.”

  “Or willful negligence,” McKee replied.

  “So children are dying due to willful negligence. As a result of experimentation. I assume you mean by physicians. Over a wide geographic area.”

  “Not only physicians.” McKee idly scratched his chin with an extended forefinger. “Dr. Whitestone, do you think $75 million is a lot of money?”

  “I assume the question is rhetorical. Why that specific figure?”

  “That is the sum of profits earned . . . stolen to be more precise . . . by the Patent Medicine Trust just last year.”

  “I am aware that patent medicines are a scourge, Mr. McKee. I inveigh against their use every day. I have threatened patients, cajoled them, and begged them. Usually to no avail. But patent medicines had nothing to do with the death of my patient. The boy hadn’t been taking patent medicines. I was assured so by his mother and I believe her.”

  McKee shrugged. “Perhaps he hadn’t.”

  “What’s more, there is no Patent Medicine Trust. Trusts are legal entities, which I assume a Yale graduate should know.”

  “Don’t be naïve, Dr. Whitestone. Whenever a group of businessmen band together to buy Congressmen, restrict competition, fix prices, prohibit regulation, ensure obscene profits, all to the detriment of the public, that is a trust whether they set themselves up as a legal entity or not. Even Bulldog Roosevelt knows that.” McKee gave a sad shake of his head. “The National Wholesale Liquor Dealers Association, the Proprietary Medicine Association, and the American Pharmacists Council spend tens of thousands of dollars each year doing all of those things so that they can continue to poison gullible members of the public with patent medicines. Oh, there’s a Patent Medicine Trust, all right.”

  “In other words, all of these perfectly legitimate trade groups are part of an evil conspiracy.”

  “Perhaps money means nothing to you, but for $75 million these men will bribe, steal, even murder to maintain their monopoly. Why do you think I duck around corners like a thief? Money is moving everywhere. Not just in the halls of government. Some of your colleagues accept handsome rewards from drug manufacturers to prescribe products without inquiring first what is in them. Or whether they have been tested. Patent medicines. Prescription medicines. Public welfare means nothing. People are dying, doctor. Make no mistake. Usually the poor and indigent. Often the victims are children, or the old, the weak, the infirm.”

  “And my patient, you are saying, was dosed with a medicine, an opiate, whose properties and effects were untested?”

  “Each of the children who died was treated for a cough with what their doctor called a new miracle drug. Other than your patient, they were all poor and uneducated. And your patient was not really your patient, was he? He was Frias’s.”

  “I was only called because of emergency.”

  “Precisely. Here is my proposal. If I aid you in proving what actually killed your patient, will you help me in exposing the abuses by the drug trust?”

  “Tell me first where Dr. Frias fits in all of this.”

  “I’m not certain. I was hoping you might help in that regard. You certainly have motive for doing so.”

  “You are obviously a journalist of some sort.”

  “Of some sort.”

  “Of what sort, Mr. McKee?”

  “I work for New Visions magazine.”

  “The socialists. Radicals. As I suspected.”

  McKee leaned back. The insouciant grin returned. “Actually, I consider myself more of an anarchist.”

  “If I am not mistaken, you are the people who featured a cover depicting the flag with the red stripes dripping blood.”

  “You disapprove.”

  “Of course I disapprove. Any decent person should.”

  “My country, right or wrong?”

  The same phrase Alan had used. “I can be willing to disapprove of some of my country’s policies without disapproving of my country.”

  “If you say so.”

  “So let me understand you, Mr. McKee. You have perceived that I am in trouble, so you have hauled me off to a clandestine rendezvous, spewed out a stream of unsubstantiated accusations, indicting businessmen, those in government, and even doctors—the very people you loathe—and now you expect me to be so outraged that, without verifying any of your diatribe, I leap to aid you in trying to uncover some shadowy cabal? To sweeten the mixture, you dangle Dr. Frias in front of me. All of which will help you sell more copies of your magazine. Sorry, Mr. McKee. You’ll have to find someone more credulous.”

  McKee shook his head. “I was wrong about you, Whitestone. You’re not as astute as I thought.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m no naïf, Mr. McKee. Of course, I realize that occasionally a physician will violate his oath. Perhaps, as you imply, Dr. Frias is one of them. But the problem of corrupt doctors is hardly the endemic situation you describe. Your politics have run away with your objectivity.”

  “You think so, doctor? What if I can prove it to you that my theory is sound?”

  “How could you do that?”

  “Let us leave that aside for a moment. Let us simply hypothesize that I could.”

  “I would be extremely disturbed.”

  “Disturbed enough to help me?”

  “But I don’t think you can.”

  “Come by the offices. We’re near Cooper Square. If you find my evidence lacking, you may leave uncorrupted, and I will promise never to cross your path again.”

  “You have no evidence about Dr. Frias specifically, I presume.”

  “Not yet. Although I adore his new automobile. Don’t you?”

  “I will not deny that I would be interested to learn what killed poor Willard Anschutz,” Noah said despite himself.

  McKee’s brow furrowed. “Did you say Anschutz? Was that your patient’s name?”

  Noah nodded. “I thought you knew everything.”

  “I heard the essentials, but not all of the details. Anschutz as in Pug Anschutz?”

  “Yes. That was his house you saw me walk out of. How do you know him?”

  “Pug Anschutz is a killer, Dr. Whitestone. A murderer whose crimes are excused because he wears a uniform while committing them.”

  “You seem addicted to hyperbole, Mr. McKee.”

  “Hardly. Pug has been serving in the Philippines under General Merritt, helping put down the revolt. Not really a revolt when one understands that Filipinos simply wish for the independence our government promised them if they supported us against Spain. Only after they helped us kick the Spanish out did we inform them that we were now their rulers instead. They th
en had the temerity to fight back. There have been stories filtering out of Manila about some unpleasant treatment of ‘rebels.’ Extremely unpleasant. Entire villages have been razed to the ground. Upward of one hundred thousand Filipinos have died. Women, children. The army has made no distinction. Colonel Anschutz is one of the men in charge of ‘pacifying’ the native population. He approaches the task with enthusiasm.”

  “Propaganda,” Noah replied. “I know their forces are no match for ours, but no American would behave so barbarically.”

  “Oh yes, Dr. Whitestone. It must be socialist propaganda. Nonetheless, I hope for your sake you have resolved your difficulties before he arrives home.”

  “Do you believe that threatening me will cause me to break down and throw in with you?”

  “No. You are clearly a man of strong, if misguided, resolution.”

  Noah stood. “Thank you for the coffee, Mr. McKee.”

  They passed through to the bar, which had acquired two additional patrons. McKee nodded to the ever-silent Dolph, then walked out onto the street. Noah was about to begin the walk to Adams Street, but McKee placed a hand on his wrist.

  “Wait. Where are you off to?”

  “I have an appointment in Manhattan.”

  “Very well. We must take different paths. I am prone to attracting the attention of parties you would not wish to meet. You return from the direction we came. Some vigilance on your part would not be misplaced. I will navigate my own course. Perhaps we can meet later at the magazine.”

  “I don’t expect so,” Noah said, but McKee had already left, walking close to the buildings of Front Street until he disappeared around a corner.

  TEN

  DAY 3. FRIDAY, 9/22—2 P.M.

  Two years before, Columbia College had moved from its home on Forty-Ninth Street and Madison Avenue to Morningside Heights, far to the north and west. The Ninth Avenue line, New York’s first elevated railway, had only recently been extended north to accommodate travel to the college. The project had required the tracks to be over one hundred feet off the ground and, at 110th Street, make a sharp ninety-degree turn that was quickly dubbed “suicide curve.” The Ninth Avenue line was now the most popular in the city, with New Yorkers of all ages often riding solely for pleasure. There was something remarkable about speeding north on two thin rails, tons of metal roaring so high above the vehicles and populace below as the train hurtled from station to station in a giant game of urban leapfrog.

  Noah had not been on the elevated since the extension. Many of his fellow riders, even those seated, grabbed for handholds as the train neared suicide curve. Others, like Noah, stood at the windows, which had been opened from the top so that passengers might lean out a bit to greater appreciate the experience. The excitement in the car was as palpable as on the giant new Tilyou Ferris Wheel at Steeplechase Park in Coney Island.

  The train slowed almost to a crawl, but still women gasped as it turned. Noah leaned out as well, not as far as some of the adolescents who rode the train for excitement, but sufficiently that he felt suspended in the air twelve stories above the ground. He was focusing on two men, their hats so far away as to be reduced to dots, when he felt a shove in his back. The window was not open near enough to present danger, but with his attention on the street below, the sensation caused him to reach out blindly for something to grab.

  Noah whirled about and was confronted by a ruddy, thick-featured man with a handlebar mustache.

  “Sorry, mac,” the man said. “The car lurched.”

  Noah had not felt the lurch, but accepted the man’s apology.

  “Still,” the man added, “I suppose it is best not to take foolish chances.” With that, he tipped his hat and walked to the far end of the car.

  When the train finally pulled into the station at 116th Street, most of the riders were chattering in exhilaration and relief. As Noah got off, the man who jostled him smiled and gave a small wave. Perhaps there had been something to Turner McKee’s tale after all.

  Minutes later, Noah stepped inside the wall of Columbia’s beautiful, manicured quadrangle. A wonder. McKim, Mead & White’s creation had certainly satisfied university president Seth Low’s desire for an “academic village” modeled after an Athenian agora. New York University, where he had attended medical school, had consisted of a series of timeworn buildings on which his fellow students had bestowed the epithet The Dungeon.

  Abraham Jacobi’s office was in the eastern wing on the second floor, guarded by an unsmiling, middle-aged woman with thick spectacles, a severe bun, and the posture of a Prussian colonel. When Noah gave his name, she told him curtly that he was expected and ushered him through the door. Jacobi was standing at the window, looking out over the campus. He turned as Noah entered.

  “So what is this mystery Alan De Kuyper tells me only the great Jacobi can solve?”

  He was a small man, bald on top, with a wild fringe of white hair around the sides. His jowls sagged and pouches protruded under his eyes. He walked with a slight limp. But even with all these signs of age, Jacobi exuded vibrancy, as if a much younger person lay inside a deteriorating shell.

  “A child died in my care. The circumstances seemed singular. Alan feels certain that you are the only man in New York who can help me pinpoint the cause.”

  The pediatrician emitted a single snort. “Just give me the details, young man. Without the treacle.” Although he had been in America for almost four decades, Jacobi’s accent, while vestigial, was guttural, distinctly German.

  Noah told his story quickly and concisely.

  “Encephalitis?” Jacobi’s face puckered as if he had imbibed pure lemon juice. “Alan De Kuyper suggested that these symptoms were manifestations of encephalitis?”

  “I think it was more a wish than a suggestion.”

  “I certainly hope so. The cause of the boy’s death seems obvious. Why do you avoid it?”

  “Morphia poisoning?”

  “Of course.”

  Noah felt his heart sink. “So you believe my administration of laudanum—”

  “No, no. You are not culpable. The laudanum you administered could not have caused the boy’s death.”

  “It is kind of you to say so.”

  “I’m never kind. Except to children, of course. I simply state fact.”

  “How can you be so sure, Dr. Jacobi? What if somehow I gave the boy more than I thought?”

  “How much more?”

  “Four drops. Even six.”

  “You don’t know the difference between two and six? Even so, it wouldn’t have made a fig of difference. If you had given a five-year-old boy a sufficient dose to cause respiratory failure, he would have died in less than three hours. Children do not have the same responses as adults, you know.”

  “Could the boy have had an allergic reaction? One that delayed the effects of the drug?”

  “An allergic reaction that delayed the effect of the drug? Where did you attend medical school, young man?”

  “New York University.”

  “I must make a note to pay them a call and ask about their teaching methods.” Jacobi heaved a sigh, then gestured to a chair. “Have a seat . . . Whitestone, is it not? Like the village in Flushing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have a seat, Whitestone.” When Noah sat, Jacobi walked around to the front of his desk and leaned against it. His hands, thick and gnarled, like a laborer’s, braced on the top edge. “I realize that you are trying to find an explanation for your patient’s death. I am impressed that you are even testing hypotheses that would leave you at fault. All I can tell you is this: There is no pathogen or disease that I have heard of that would have accounted for the array of symptoms you encountered. No published case history anywhere. Any condition that could have been responsible for the first set of symptoms could not have also been responsible for the second.

  “Morphia, as I think we agree, seems to be the only answer. First in its absence, then in excess. But as I said, the lauda
num you administered could not have been the cause of that excess. I should also tell you that I would have done as you did. If I had encountered a similar pathology on my first visit and if I were forced to leave the patient for a number of hours, I, too, would have administered two drops of laudanum to alleviate the symptoms. In one so young, the risk of dehydration from diarrhea would exceed that of a small dose of the opiate. You were also correct in trying to coax water into the boy. If the authorities are fool enough to pursue the matter, I will be pleased to testify as such.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Jacobi. I am flattered.”

  Jacobi waved off the compliment. “Nonsense.”

  “If it was not the laudanum, what did kill the boy?”

  “Only one conclusion is possible. The boy was given another morphiate during your absence. Your faith in his mother’s veracity seems to have been misplaced.”

  “I was with Mrs. Anschutz, Dr. Jacobi. I simply cannot believe she was being duplicitous.”

  “Have you read any of the writings of the Austrian, Freud, young man?”

  Noah had not.

  “Freud writes about the mind, particularly how delusion or repressed memory can affect behavior. Fascinating hypotheses. Much of it will turn out to be rubbish, I expect, but there is certainly some truth in his work as well. Freud would assert that this Mrs. Anschutz, racked with guilt over providing the substance that caused her son’s death, forced the memory into what he calls the unconscious mind. In other words, she now believes her lie, her delusion and, in believing it, can then convince others that she is not being untruthful at all.”

  “I am certain I would have spotted signs of madness, Dr. Jacobi, no matter how convincing the delusion was to Mrs. Anschutz.”

  “But this isn’t madness, at least not in the sense we generally think of. The manifestation would be limited to this one incident. In all other aspects, the woman would appear to be quite normal.”

  “Do you subscribe to this theory, Dr. Jacobi?”

  Jacobi shrugged. “He has produced some very impressive case studies to back up his assertions. At worst, my boy, don’t rule out the possibility. If correct, you would simply need to confirm that the mother had medicated the child in your absence.”