Side Effects

by Michael Palmer

  "You rang? " Sheila Pierce saved Kate from a response. Fortyish, with a trim, efficient attractiveness, she had, Kate knew, earned both bachelor's and master's degrees while working in the department. By the time Kate had begun her residence, the one-time laboratory assistant had become chief pathology technician. "Ah, Sheila, " Willoughby said. "Come in."

  "Hi, Sheila."

  Kate hoped there was enough reassurance in her expression and her voice to keep the woman from any further outburst, at least until they had a chance to talk privately. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second, then, mercifully, Sheila returned the greeting. The problem between them had, as Stan Willoughby suspected, arisen during Kate's computer-aided study of the pathology department's budget and expenditures, specifically in regard to a six hundred and fifty dollar payment for an educational meeting in Miami that Sheila could not document ever having attended. Kate had decided to drop the matter without involving the department chief, but the technician was clearly unconvinced that she had done so. "How's my new batch of silver stain coming?" Willoughby asked. "It's much, much thicker than the old stuff, " Sheila said, settling on a high stool, equidistant from the two physicians. "Fourteen hours may be too long to heat it."

  "I seem to recall your warning me about that when I suggested fourteen hours in the first place. Is it a total loss?"

  "Well, actually I split about half of it off and cooked that part for only seven hours."

  "And… "

  "And it looks fine… perfect, even."

  Willoughby's sigh of relief was pronounced. "Do you know how much that stain costs to make? How much you just saved me by… T' "Of course I know. Who do you think ordered the material in the first place, the Ghost of Christmas Past?"

  Willoughby shot Kate a what-did-I-tell-you glance, then he picked up the slides and paraffin blocks containing tissue from Beverly Vitale's ovary. "Dr. Bennett has an interesting problem here that I think might be well suited to my silver stain. Do you think you could make some sections and try it out?"

  "Your command is my command, " Pierce said, bowing. "Give me an hour, and your stain will be ready." She turned to Kate. "Dr. Bennett, I think you should have a little review session with our chief here on the basics of hypertension. On his desk, right next to his blood pressure pills, is a half-eaten bag of Doritos. Bye, now."

  Sheila Pierce dropped off the paraffin block in histology and then returned to her office. On her desk was the stain Willoughby had referred to as "his." Pierce laughed disdainfully. If it weren't for her, the stain that was soon to be known by his name would be little more than an expensive beaker of shit. There they sat, she thought, Willoughby and that goddamn Bennett, sharing their little physician jokes and performing their physician mental masturbations and issuing orders to a woman with an IQ-a proven IQ-higher than either of theirs could possibly be., One-fifty. That's what her mother said. Genius level. One hundred and fucking fifty. So where was the MD degree that would have put her where she deserved to be?

  Pierce glared at the small framed photo of her parents, carefully placed to one side of her desk. Then her expression softened. It wasn't their fault, being poor. Just their fate. They didn't want the stroke or the cancer that had forced their daughter to shelve her dreams and begin a life of taking orders from privileged brats who, more often than not, couldn't come close to her intellectual capacity. One hundred and fifty.

  What was Kate Bennett? One-ten?

  One-twenty tops. Yet there she was with the degree and the power and the future. Listen, Sheila, you're terrific at your job. I don't see that there's anything to gain by bringing this up to Dr. Willoughby, or even by making you reimburse the depailment. But never again, okay?

  "Patronizing bitch."

  "Who's a bitch?"

  Startled, Sheila whirled. Norton Reese stood propped against the doorjamb, eyeing her curiously. "Jesus, you scared me."

  "Who's a bitch? " Reese checked the corridor in both directions then stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "Bennett, that's who."

  "Ah, yes. What's our little Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm up to now?"

  "Oh, nothing new. It's that damn American Society meeting."

  "Miami?"

  "Yes. The time you assured me there was no way anyone would ever find out I didn't go."

  "She is a resourceful cunt, " Reese mumbled. "I'll say that for her."

  "What?"

  "Didn't she say she was going to do her Girl Scout good deed for the month and let the whole matter drop?"

  "That's what she said, but she and Dr. Willoughby are like that." Sheila held up crossed fingers. "Either she's already told him or she's going to hold the thing over my head forever. Either way She shook her head angrily. "Easy, baby, easy, " Reese said, crossing to her and slipping his hands beneath her lab coat. Sheila grimaced, but allowed herself to be embraced. Balding, moderately overweight, and wedded to three-piece suits, Reese had never held sex appeal for her in any visceral sense.

  Still, he was the administrator of the entire hospital complex, and time and experience had taught her that true sex appeal was based not so much on what a man could do to her as for her. "You have the most beautiful tits of any woman I've ever known, " Reese whispered. "Baby, do you know how long it's been?"

  She blocked his move toward her breasts with an outstretched hand. "It's not my fault, Norty. I'm divorced. You're the one with all the family commitments. Remember?"

  Reese gauged the determination in her eyes and decided against another advance. "So, " he said, settling into the chair by her desk, "Wonder Woman has been at it again, huh? Well, believe it or not, she's the reason-one of the reasons-I came down here."

  "Oh? "

  "Maybe you'd better sit down." Reese motioned her to her chair and then waited until she had complied. "Did you know that old Willoughby has decided to resign?"

  "No. No, I didn't, actually." She felt some hurt that Reese had been told of the decision before she was. "He's giving health as a reason, but I think the old goat just can't cut it anymore. Never could, really."

  Sheila shot him a look warning against any further deprecation of the man she had worked under for fifteen years. "That's too bad, " she murmured. "Yeah? Well, baby, hang onto your seat. You don't know what bad is. For his successor, your Willoughby wants to recommend one K. Bennett, MD."

  Sheila fought a sudden urge to be sick. For years she had, in effect, run the pathology department, using Willoughby for little more than his signature on purchase orders and personnel decisions.

  With Bennett as chief, she would be lucky to keep her job, much less her power and influence. "You said wants to recommend, " she managed.

  "Bennett refuses to give him the go-ahead until she's talked it over with her husband."

  She picked a tiny Smurf doctor doll off her desk and absently twisted its arm. "How do you feel about it? " she asked. "After what she did last year, writing what amounted to a letter of complaint about me to the board? How do you think I feel?"

  "So? " The blue rubber arm snapped off in Sheila's hand. "I won't have that woman heading a department in my hospital, and that's that."

  "What can you do?"

  The forcefulness in Reese's voice softened. "There, at least for the moment, is the rub. I've started talking to some of the members of the board of trustees and some of the department heads. It turns out that as things stand, she would have no trouble getting approval. It seems only a few beside me-" he smiled conspiratorially, "and now you know what an incredible pain in the ass she is."

  Sheila flipped the arm and then the body of the doll into the trash. "So we both know, " she said.. "Baby, I need something on her. Anything that I can use to influence some people. The prospect of dealing with Bennett's crusades month after month is more than I can take. Keep your eyes and ears open. Dig around. There's got to be something."

  "If I do find something, " Sheila said, "I'll expect you to be grateful.

  "I'll be very grateful." />
  "Good," Sheila said sweetly. "Then we shall see what we shall see." She rose and kissed him on the forehead, her breasts inches from his eyes.

  "Very grateful, " she whispered. "Now don't you forget that."

  She backed away at the moment Reese reached for her. "Next time, Norty.

  Right now I've got work to do."

  The Braxton Building was more impressive as an address than it was as a structure. At one time, the twenty-eight story granite obelisk had been the centerpiece of Boston's downtown financial district. Now, surrounded by high-rise glass and steel, the building seemed somehow iu at ease. No uninformed passerby could possibly have predicted from the building's exterior the opulence of the lobby and office suites within, especially the grandeur of the twenty-eighth floor, most elegant of the three floors occupied by the law firm of Minton/Samuels. J. Winfield Samuels selected a Havana-made panatella from a crystal humidor and offered it to his son. Jared, seated to one side of the huge, inlaid Louis Quatorze desk, groaned. "Dad, it's not even eleven o'clock. Didn't Dr. What's-his-face limit the number you're supposed to smoke in a day?"

  "I pay Shrigley to fix me up so I can do whatever the hell I want to do, not to tell me how many cigars I can smoke." He snipped the tip with a bone-handled trimmer and lit it from the smokestack of a sterling silver replica of the QE 11. "I swear, if Castro had found a way to keep these little beauties from making it to the States, I would have found a way to cancel the bastard's ticket years ago. Think of it. We'd probably have world peace by now because of a cigar." He took a long, loving draw, blew half of it out, inhaled the rest, and gazed out the floor-to-ceiling window at the harbor and the airport beyond. Jared sipped at his mug of coffee and risked a glance at his watch.

  Win Samuels had summoned him and Win Samuels would tell him why when Win Samuels was good and ready to do so. That was the way it had always been between them and, for all Jared knew, that was the way Jared Winfield Samuels, Sr. had related to Win. The notion left a bitter aftertaste.

  Beyond his grandfather, the family had been traced through a dozen or more generations, three centuries, and three continents. Not that he really cared about such things. His years of rebellion in Vermont had certainly demonstrated that. But now, with the possibility that he represented the end of the line he was… more aware. "So, how's Kate?

  " The older Samuels was still looking out the window when he spoke.

  "She's okay. A little harried at work, but okay." It was unwise, Jared had learned over the years, to offer his father any more information than asked for. At seventy, the man was still as sharp as anyone in the game. What he wanted to know, he would ask. "And how are the negotiations coming with the union people at Granfield?"

  "Fine. Almost over, I think. We're meeting with them this. afternoon. If that idiot shop steward can understand the pension package we've put together, the whole mess should get resolved with no more work stoppage."

  "I knew you could do it. I told Toby Granfield you could do it."

  "Well, like I said, it's not over yet."

  "But it will be." The words were an order, not a question. "Yes, " Jared said. "It will be."

  "Excellent, excellent. How about a little vacation for you and Kate when everything is signed and sealed. Goodness knows you deserve it. Those union thugs are slow, but they're tough. Bert Hodges says his place in Aruba is available the week after next. Suppose we book it for you, "I don't… what I mean is I'll have to talk with Kate. She's got quite a bit going on at the hospital."

  "I know." Win Samuels swung around slowly to face his son. At six feet, he was nearly as tall as Jared and no more than five pounds heavier. His rimless spectacles and discreetly darkened hair neutralized the aging effects of deep crow's feet and a slightly sallow complexion. "What?"

  "I said that I knew she was having a busy time of it at the hospital."

  Samuels paused, perhaps for dramatic effect. "Norton Reese called me this morning."

  "Oh? " The statement was upsetting.

  For five years, Jared had handled all of Boston Metro's legal affairs.

  There was no reason for Norton Reese to be dealing directly with his father, even allowing that the two of them had known each other for years. "He tells me the head of pathology is retiring." Jared nodded that the information was not news. "He also said that this head pathologist, Willoughby, wants Kate to take over for him."

  "She mentioned that to me, " Jared understated. "Did she now? Good. I'm glad you two communicate about such minor goings on." The facetiousness in Samuels's voice was hardly subtle. Kate's independence had been a source of discussion between them. on more than one occasion. Somewhere in the drawer of that Louis Quatorze desk was a computer printout showing that while he had received forty-nine percent of the total vote cast in the congressional race, he had garnered only forty-two percent of the women's vote. To Win Samuels, the numbers meant that if Mrs.

  Jared Samuels had been out stumping for her husband instead of mucking about elbow deep in a bunch of cadavers, Jared would be packing to leave for Washington. Self-serving, contrary, disloyal, thoughtless-the adjectives had, from time to time, flown hot and heavy from the old man, though never in Kate's presence. Toward her, he had always been as cordial and charming as could be. "Look, Dad, " Jared said, "I've still got some preparation to do for that session at Granfield. Do you think …"

  "Donna, " Samuels said through the intercom, "could you bring in another tea for me and another coffee for my son, please?"

  Jared sank back in his seat and stared helplessly at the far wall, a wall covered with photographs of politicians, athletes and other celebrities, arm in arm or hand in hand with his father. A few of them were similar shots featuring his grandfather, and one of them was an eight by ten of Jared and the President, taken at a three-minute meeting arranged by his father for just that purpose. With a discreet knock, Samuels's sensuous receptionist entered and set their beverages and a basket of croissants on a mahogany stand near the desk. Her smile in response to Jared's "Thank you" was vacant-a subtle message that her allegiance was to the man on the power side of the Louis Quatorze. "So,

  " Samuels said, settling down with a mug of tea in one hand and his Havana in the other, "what do you think of this business at Metro?"

  "I haven't given it much thought, " Jared tied. "As far as I know, nothing formal has been done yet."

  "Well, I'd suggest you start thinking about it."

  "What?"

  "Norton Reese doesn't want Kate to have that position and, frankly, neither do I. He thinks she's too young and too inexperienced. He tells me that if she gets the appointment, which incidentally is doubtful anyhow, she'll run herself ragged, burn out, and finally get chewed to ribbons by the politicians and the other department heads. According to him, Kate just doesn't understand the way the game is played-that there are some toes that are simply not to be stepped on."

  "Like his, " Jared snapped. "Jared, you told me that the two of you were planning on starting your family. Does Kate think she can do that and run a department, too? What about her obligation to you and your career?

  It's bad enough she's married to you and doesn't even have your name.

  Christ, her looks alone would be worth thousands of votes to you if she'd just plunk her face in front of a camera a few times. Add a little baby to that, and I swear you could make a run for the Senate and win."

  "Kate's business is Kate's business, " Jared said with neither enthusiasm nor conviction. "Take her to the Caribbean. Have a talk with her, " Samuels reasoned calmly. "Help her see that marriage is a series of… compromises. Give and take."

  "Okay, I'll try."

  "Good. Kate should see where her obligations and her loyalties lie. Ross Mattingly may be on a downhill slide, but he still managed to hang on and win the election. Don't think he's going to roll over and play dead next time. The fewer liabilities we have the better. And frankly, the way things stand, Kate is a minus. Have I made my thoughts clear?"
>
  "Clear." Jared felt totally depleted. "Fine. Let me know when the Granfield business is done, and also let me know the date you two decide on, so I can tell Bert Hodges." With a nod, Winfield Samuels signaled the meeting over. In his sea-green scrub suit and knee-length white coat, Tom Engleson might have been the earnest young resident on a daytime soap opera, loving his way through the nurses one moment, stamping out disease the next. But his eyes gave him away. Kate saw the immense fatigue in them the moment she entered the resident's office on the fourth floor of the building renovated by the Ashburton Foundation and renamed in memory of Sylvia Ashburton. It was a fatigue that went deeper than the circles of gray enveloping them, deeper than the fine streaks of red throughout their sclerae. "Been to sleep at all? " Kate asked, glancing at the clock as she set two tinfoil pans of salad on the coffee table. It was twenty minutes of two. Engleson merely shook his head and began to work off the plastic cover of his salad with a dexterity that was obviously far from what it had been when he had started his shift thirty and a half hours before. Studying the man's face, Kate wondered how residency programs could justify the ridiculous hours they required, especially of surgical trainees. It was as if one generation of doctors was saying to the next, "We had to do it this way and we came out all right, didn't we? " Meanwhile, year after year, a cardiogram was misread here, an operation fumbled there, never a rash of problems, just isolated incidents at one hospital then another, one program then another-incidents of no lasting consequence, except, of course, to the patients and families involved. "I hope you like blue cheese, " Kate said. "Gianetti's has great vinaigrette, too. I just guessed."

  "It's fine, perfect, Dr. Samuels, " Engleson said between bites. "I've missed a meal or two since this Vitale thing started yesterday morning."

  "Eat away. You can have some of mine if you want. I'm not too hungry.

  And it's Xate. We pathologists have a little trouble with formality."

  Engleson, his mouth engaged with another forkful of salad, nodded his acknowledgment. "Sorry I missed you when I was here last evening. The nurse said you were in the delivery room."