Weapon of Choice

by Patricia Gussin

  You wouldn’t be touching me if you knew where I just came from.

  “You do know that Norman retired last year. Now that I think of it, you weren’t at the party.” The woman could not shut up.

  “Keystone Pharma went all out. A gala affair in the Commonwealth Club at the William Penn Inn. I guess that was too much, to expect you to come from Bethesda to Philadelphia.”

  Nice of you to let me make the decision. I wasn’t invited.

  “Then we moved to Longboat Key, it’s a barrier island off Sarasota. Norman was out in Tampa Bay when he got hurt, and this is the closest hospital, so I’m stuck here.”

  “Norman has blood clots, you said?” Victor asked his first question.

  “Oh yes, they’re giving him heparin, but there’ve been bleeding complications. Something about getting the right dose. You can’t believe how many times they take his blood in that ICU. The man’s a pincushion. I can’t stay very long, can’t stand to watch, and the smell in there makes me woozy.”

  “Norman’s here? In the ICU?”

  “For now. Once his blood tests come back okay, they’re going to move him into a private room. God knows we can afford it. You can’t believe the options and all the stock Keystone gave him. You’d be astounded.”

  Naomi still had not asked anything about him. Like, why would Victor be in a hospital cafeteria in Tampa?

  “I’d like to say hello to Norman.” Norman, on his mind since Sunday night, now an apparition?

  “Oh, he’d love that. They restrict visitors to family only, but I’m sure I can talk them into letting you see him. You can’t believe how bored Norman is. They won’t even let him make phone calls.”

  They deposited their eating utensils in the proper bins and placed their empty trays on the belt, Victor accompanied Naomi to the elevator, up to the seventh floor. He walked with her, unchallenged, into the surgical ICU. Victor had never been in the main ICU—Matthew’s room was separate—with its own entrance. He was surprised at the bustle of nurses and technicians and the cacophony of sounds. Victor’s parents had tried to convince him to be a real doctor, an M.D., but hospitals made him physically ill. Alone in the isolation room with Matthew, Victor had managed, but now as Naomi led him toward her husband’s bed, he felt a wave of nausea. He pulled out his handkerchief, now well used, and coughed into it.

  “Sir?” a nurse looked up. “Are you okay? If you have any infection, you shouldn’t be in here. These patients are very ill.”

  “I’m fine,” Victor said. “Allergies.”

  The nurse had already turned away to tweak a patient’s IV line.

  “Look who’s here, Norman.” Naomi’s husband had been asleep, but she had not seemed to notice, or to care.

  Victor’s one-time mentor—turned traitor—slowly opened his eyes, looking about.

  Trouble focusing? Victor hoped not. He needed Norman alert, oriented, and motivated.

  Norman ran his right hand—the one not tethered to an IV board—through crew cut salt-and-pepper hair. “What do you need now?” he growled. “Can’t you people give me a moment’s rest?”

  Naomi stepped forward to adjust his pillow. “Victor Worth is here, darling.” She moved aside so Norman had an unobstructed view of Victor, and vice versa.

  “Sorry about your injury,” Victor said as recognition dawned on Norman.

  “Victor? What are you doing here?”

  “Right now, I’ve come to check in on you,” Victor said. Could he overcome his disgust and discuss his son with this ruthless traitor?

  “Well, I’m just great right now.” Norman faked a smile. “Got some obscure clotting problem. Threw a pulmonary embolus. Went into cardiac arrest. They can’t get the blood thinners right. I had a gastric bleed, one thing after another—”

  “Darling,” Naomi interrupted, “I heard the doctors talking. They are going to move you out of ICU in a couple of days once the main danger passes. Good news, right?”

  “I want out of this place.” Norman sighed. “But I could live with a private room, a television, and a phone—anything would be a step up from—this.”

  “What’s going on in your life, Victor?” Naomi asked. “You still a bachelor?”

  “Afraid so.” Should he tell them about Matthew? No, of course not.

  “Naomi, why don’t you give us a few moments?” Norman asked. “Just move this goddamned pillow over toward me. Please.”

  “I’ll stay, darling. I just came from the cafeteria—”

  “I want to talk shop with Victor,” Norman said. “Good-old-days stuff. You’ll be bored. Go call the kids or something.”

  “Well, okay, Norman.” To Victor, she said, “I’ll catch you later.” Her lips brushed his cheek. “You need a shave—and a change of clothes. I just can’t believe running into you.”

  As Naomi withdrew, an alarm screeched. Nurses and doctors rushed to a bed across the room, and Victor swallowed a surge of bile.

  No sooner had the commotion quieted down around the other bed than Norman challenged his unexpected visitor, “What are you really here for, Victor? I was your boss for fifteen years; I know it’s something else. What’s up?”

  Victor blinked, tried to sort out his thoughts. Rationally, he knew that Matthew seemed to be improving without ticokellin. Still, Victor wanted it, was entitled to it. Ticokellin, though flawed, had been his invention. Not only had he discovered the new class of drugs from which Norman had selected the wrong analog for development, but he’d genetically engineered the most virulent and resistant of staphylococci bacteria so that he could thoroughly test the series of new chemicals.

  Now, standing at Norman’s bedside, Victor felt a wave of white-hot anger. He’d warned Norman not to take the cheapest analog to the clinic, but Norman had ignored him and now ticokellin was dead in the water. Keystone Pharma would have to start all over again with a safer analog, surely the one he’d earmarked in the first place.

  “Norman, I’m not going to beat around the bush. You being here in the ICU, and I’m sorry that I have to ask, but I need some ticokellin. I have a friend—” Some protective instinct told him not to say son.

  Norman tried to jerk his head up off the pillow, but his IVs and probably his fractured hip held him back. Victor heard the beep-beep of Norman’s heart monitor get faster.

  “You can’t be serious, Victor.”

  “Norman, take a breath. Please—just hear me out.”

  “No use. Before you even start, I’ve got bad news. Keystone Pharma stopped the clinical trials. They weren’t going to tell me, but I’ve got my contacts.”

  “Then use your contacts to get the ticokellin, Norman. I need that drug for my friend.”

  “What part of ‘no,’ don’t you get? I can’t get a goddamned drug that’s been withdrawn. Victor, stop being so naïve. Haven’t I always said you’re too academic? You wouldn’t last a day in industry.”

  A reminder to Victor that this was the prick who’d stood in the way of his getting a cushy job at Keystone Pharma, too.

  “You must have some stashed away. If not—with your connections—you know you could get some. Just call somebody there. Somebody who used to work for you will have access.”

  “No way. When I retired, I retired. I’m not doing research on the side. I’m not even consulting. I’m golfing, and sailing—well, I was sailing.”

  “Back in the labs, you know, we always squirreled away drugs we were working on. Hell, I first learned that from you, so don’t try to deny—”

  Norman’s color had faded to an ashen pallor. The heart rate monitor had not increased, but abnormal beeps were making Victor nervous. He was so close—he would get that ticokellin. He knew that Norman could get it.

  “Forget it. Pharmaceutical companies are not like academic or government labs. Every milligram of every chemical is closely controlled. I’m telling you, Victor, I can’t get it for you. The goddamned CEO, the guy who just got the Nobel Prize, Paul Parnell, couldn’t get it for you. G
od couldn’t get it for you. Forget it.”

  “Let’s talk about something else. Did you hear that Naomi and I went to Stockholm with the Parnells when the old man got the prize? That was one grand event, the company plane, the works.”

  Victor squeezed his hands together so tightly that they felt numb. Had Norman always been this egotistical? Now, with Matthew so sick, just a room away, this bastard brags about his luxury travel and connections to the rich and famous. Norman had changed after he went to work for Keystone Pharma. He’d sold his soul, but he’d also sacrificed the life-saving drug series that Victor himself had discovered. And now, Matthew needs that drug and can’t get it. Does Norman give a fuck? “Forget it,” Norman’s exact words. Victor would not forget it. He now saw the equation very clearly. Matthew deserves to live. Norman deserves to die. Victor took a deep breath. Retribution.

  Without another word, Victor turned away from Norman and walked out of the ICU.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26

  ATLANTA

  Charles Scarlett had no chauffeur—he wanted his comings and goings private. Charles’s full-time housekeeper cleaned and cooked, his part-time gardener doubled as a handyman. No wife—never had had one. Parents were quite enough, and his were Atlanta socialites: his father, managing partner of the city’s most prestigious law firm—founded by his own daddy; mother, a debutante from old money with Southern roots dating back before the Civil War.

  Charles was an only child, precocious, but overweight even as a toddler, and from puberty, lacking in libido. Wealthy, aristocratic, educated, but genetics had failed him when it came to physical attributes. He’d ended up on the opposite end of the attractiveness scale from his parents: Rosabelle, a stunning beauty—never mind the fortune she’d invested in products and procedures; Charles Sr.—Chas—tall, lean, with a styled mane of silver hair, the epitome of the genteel politician, business tycoon, blue-blood lawyer. No wonder they were regularly featured in the society pages of the Atlanta Constitution.

  But, despite their aura of ostentation and pretentiousness, both parents loved their son, protected him fiercely for all his shortcomings; only in absolute privacy would they allude to Charles’s imperfections. Only once had Charles accidentally penetrated this privacy, a memory that would haunt him forever.

  Tonight he’d appeared dutifully at their home, as he always did for Tuesday dinner, a Scarlett family ritual with gourmet courses appearing on the candlelit table. He endured a full-court press interrogation by Mother. Uncomfortable enough, but not as bad as retiring with Father to the library, to smoke a foul-smelling cigar and to try to act as if they were good old buddies. Charles had to admit, he had nothing in common with either parent. Except for one particular passion: all three Scarletts were true patriots, pledged to support the fundamental principles of American civilization, liberty, justice, and national safety.

  Charles had known with certainty that this Tuesday evening would not go well. And sure enough, as if on cue, Mother asked about his job. They’d find out soon enough, so he’d told them about Stacy Jones’s promotion. Yes, he would now have a black woman, one year his junior, as his supervisor. This would bring shame on his parents, he knew, but what choice did he have until he transferred into another department?

  Mother’s hands flew immediately to her neck, and her face turned pale. For a moment no one spoke. Then Mother cleared her throat and said, “Charles, did you say that the colored woman in your department was going to be your boss? A colored person might be telling you what to do?”

  Her hands dropped the monogrammed linen napkin and started fidgeting. Turning to Father, she said, “Chas, darling, you have to do something. Use your influence at the CDC. Our son has a medical degree and a Ph.D. from Emory University. Get this substandard person out of there. Fired, transferred, anything. I can’t bear the thought of our own son ordered around by a colored person. Everything we’ve worked for, everything that my parents and yours stood for—the Scarletts’ long history of patriotism and devotion to this country.”

  Charles had never mentioned to his parents that Stacy trained at Harvard. Not that Harvard was better than Emory—certainly not in their minds.

  “Son,” Scarlett senior said, “I don’t know if I can get this turned around or not. You know what’s going on. First Maynard Jackson, now Andrew Young. Black mayors in the city of Atlanta. That black man, Julian Bond, getting the Bill of Rights Award from the ACLU. The law firm’s always getting pressure to support one Negro cause or another. Maybe if I’d known about this woman’s promotion before it happened, but we’re dealing with the federal government. You said it’s been announced?”

  Charles had known how this news would go down. “Yes,” he admitted, almost doubling over with the familiar, sinking burden of his parents’ shame, “it has.” He carried that weight every day, wore it like a mantle, but at times like these, it felt utterly crushing.

  “Charles, you are a white person.” His father seethed, his face turning beet red. “Non-white people must come under you. Automatically and always and in every circumstance. Do you recall nothing of the convention last year? Dr. Pierce recruited you, personally, to protect the world for white children.”

  Charles suddenly had the resolve to speak up to the old man. The time had come. He’d intended to keep quiet about the plan that he’d been formulating. But now that Stacy had been promoted over him, he found the nerve. Yes, Father, I will do my part. You’ll see. “Father, I can’t tell you what I’m doing for The Order.” he said. “It’s that secret, but I can promise you that what I do will make a difference. A major difference.”

  “A major difference? I don’t think I can have that cigar with you tonight. I’m too riled up. A colored woman for a boss, now that is a major difference.” He shoved back his chair. “Rosabelle, I’m going to bed.”

  Mother reverted to her placating role, “He’s just upset, darling.” She hesitated, not knowing whether to follow her seething husband upstairs or stay to comfort her injured son.

  “I will not let him down, don’t you worry.” Charles stood at the door, not bothering to bestow upon his mother the obligatory kiss on the cheek.

  “He’s just upset, darling.” She stood there in the foyer by the oversized floral arrangement.

  Charles let himself out the paneled mahogany door and began the three-block walk through the elegant Buckhead neighborhood to his own home.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27

  As the staff gathered for rounds, Laura noted that all eight beds in the surgical Intensive Care Unit were occupied this day before Thanksgiving. Unusual, since elective procedures were usually postponed right before a holiday. The charge nurse explained that the medical ICU was overloaded and they had to take the overflow.

  “Too bad,” Laura said. “We all need a break and that’s not going to happen for you here.”

  Laura joined her chief resident, observing as Michelle adroitly organized the group of medical students, surgical residents, and attending surgeons. The rounding group went from bed to bed. A student presented a patient. The residents and attending physicians quizzed the student. Some questions were straightforward; some brutally obscure. Laura enjoyed the interplay of personalities and she knew the importance of a student’s ability to respond under stress. If the interrogation ever got out of hand, she would step in to restore any lost dignity.

  The first male student had begun. “This lung reduction patient is being weaned off the ventilator and is—”

  “Excuse me, Mr.—” Laura inspected the student’s name tag. “Mr. Riffy. Please begin again. Here’s how you start, ‘Mr. Kelly is a seventy-year-old gentleman, who—etcetera.’ ” She turned to Michelle. “You’ve got to brief them, Dr. Wallace. Our patients all have names.”

  Michelle half smiled. “Start again,” she instructed Riffy.

  Laura was gratified to see that Mr. Kelly was indeed doing well. She personally listened to
his lungs, for which he awarded her a big smile.

  They moved to a gynecological surgery patient, an E.R. nurse whom Laura knew, but not well. The next medical student presented the case, a hysterectomy, complicated by pulmonary emboli. Laura questioned her heparin dose, spoke briefly to the groggy woman, and the group moved on.

  A younger woman with internal bleeding following a colectomy for ulcerative colitis; an elderly gent, sitting up in bed examining them—not a surgical patient, overflow from the medical service. Then Laura’s patient, Tom Mancini. The students needed to know more about beryllium toxicity, but not today.

  “Carcinoma,” another medical student reported when Michelle asked about the pathology. The kid looked so glum that Laura thought he might shed tears. These are the good ones, the students who give a damn about their patients.

  A patient transferred from the medical ward occupied the next bed and the surgical rounding group passed by without comment.

  Another preppy-looking student presented the patient in the next bed. “Nineteen-year-old kid. Ran his motorcycle into an embankment. No helmet, no leg protection. Ruptured spleen, tear in the liver, fractured pelvis, compound fractures of both legs, a concussion.”

  Laura looked at the chart, “Trey Standish is fortunate to be alive.” What was it about that name? A friend of one of her daughters? Then Laura remembered. The patient’s name also was the last name of the owner of the company being sued for using beryllium. She was to testify in court against the elder Standish. Could this be the company owner’s son? In the same room as Tom Mancini—a victim poisoned by that company’s toxic operation?

  “So we have Matthew Mercer left,” Laura said as they finished rounds. Via the hospital grapevine, the surgical staff already knew Mercer’s diagnosis and when Laura suggested that only she and Michelle gown up to enter the room, nobody objected. The attending surgeons drifted away toward their offices or the hospital clinic. Laura dismissed the students and house staff, wishing them a happy Thanksgiving.