Coma (26 page)

Susan stopped talking quite suddenly, expecting either laughter or anger. But Stark merely rotated in his chair, looking out over the city again.

“Foul play. You do have an imagination, Dr. Wheeler, no doubt about that.”

Stark turned back toward the room, rising up and walking around his desk.

“Foul play,” he repeated. “I must admit I’d never even considered that.” Stark had been briefed only that morning about Cowley’s discovery of the drugs in locker 338; that information had disturbed him. He leaned against his desk and looked down at Susan.

“If you think about foul play, motive becomes of paramount importance. And there just isn’t any motive for such a series of heartbreaking episodes. They are too dissimilar. And coma? You’d have to implicate some very clever psychopath operating on a premise that’s beyond rationality. But the biggest problem with the idea of foul play is that it would be impossible in the OR. There are too many people involved who are watching the patient too closely.

“Certainly investigative activities should be carried out with an open mind, but I don’t think foul play is possible in this instance. But, I must admit, I had not thought of it.”

“Actually,” said Susan, “I hadn’t planned on suggesting foul play to you, but I’m glad that I did so that I can forget it. But back to the problem itself. If antibody screening is too expensive, the chart review and interviews would be comparatively cheap. I could take that on myself, except I’d need a little help from
you.”

“What kind of help?”

“First of all, I’d need to have authorization to use the computer. That’s number one. Secondly, I’d need authorization to get the charts. Thirdly, I may have run into a problem downstairs.”

“What kind of a problem?”

“Dr. Harris. He’s the one who blew his cool. I think he intends to have my surgical rotation here at the Memorial cut short. It seems that he is not fond of women in medicine, and perhaps I have served to underline that prejudice.”

“Dr. Harris can be difficult to get along with. He’s an emotional type. But at the same time he’s probably the best mind in anesthesiology in the country. So don’t damn him until you see his other side. I believe he has specific personal reasons for his attitude toward women in medicine. It’s not admirable, perhaps, but it is potentially understandable. Anyway, I’ll see what I can do for you. At the same time I must tell you that you have picked a very touchy subject to become involved in. You have undoubtedly considered the malpractice implication, the potential bad publicity for the hospital and even the Boston medical community. Tread lightly, young lady, if you choose to tread at all. You’ll make no friends on the course you are embarking on, and it’s my opinion you should drop the whole affair. If you choose to go on, I’ll try to help you, although I can guarantee nothing. If you do turn up any information, I will be happy to offer an opinion. Obviously the more information you have, the easier it will be for me to get you what you need.”

Stark moved toward the door from his office, opening it.

“Give me a call later this afternoon and I’ll let you know if I’ve had any luck with your requests.”

“Thank you for your time, Dr. Stark.” Susan hesitated in the doorway, looking at Stark. “It is reassuring that you have not lived up to your reputation of being a man-, or should I say, woman-eater.”

“Perhaps you will agree with the others when you find time to come on teaching rounds,” said Stark, with a laugh.

Susan said goodbye and left. Stark returned to his desk and spoke into his intercom, talking to his secretary.

“Call Dr. Chandler and see if he has talked with Dr. Bellows yet. Tell him that I want to get to the bottom of those drugs in the locker room as soon as possible.”

Stark turned and looked out over the complex of buildings that made up the Memorial. His life was so closely linked to the hospital that at certain points they merged. As Bellows had told Susan, Stark had personally raised an enormous amount of the money it had taken to revitalize the hospital and build its seven new buildings. It was partly due to his fund-raising abilities that he was Chief of Surgery at the Memorial.

The more he thought about the drugs in 338 and their possible implications, the angrier he got. It was just another glaring example of how people in general could not be trusted to think in terms of the long-run effects.

“Christ,” he said out loud, his eyes mesmerized by the swirling snow clouds. Fools could undermine all his efforts at ensuring the Memorial’s position as the number one hospital in the country. Years of work could go down the drain. It underscored his belief that he had to attend to everything if he wanted it done right.

February 24

7:20 P.M.

The gloom of the winter Boston night had long since invaded the city when Susan alighted from the Harvard line train at the open-air Charles Street MBTA station. The wind, still blowing in from the Arctic, whistled in the river end of the station and traversed the length of the platform in short turbulent gusts. Susan bent over as she headed toward the stairs. The train lunged and slid out of the station, passing her on her right, its wheels screeching as it turned into the tunnel.

Susan used the pedestrian overpass to cross the intersection of Charles Street and Cambridge Street. Underneath, the traffic had dissipated to a minor dribble of cars, but the noxious odor of exhaust gases still fouled the night air. Susan descended to Charles Street. In front of the all-night drugstore there was the usual collection of wayward individuals, either drunk or stoned. Several of them reached toward Susan, asking for spare change. She responded by quickening her step. Then she collided with a seedy, bearded fellow who had deliberately stepped into her way.

“
Real Paper
or
Phoenix
, beautiful?” asked the bearded fellow with seborrheic eyelids. He held several newspapers in his right hand.

Susan recoiled, then pressed on, ignoring the lurid jibes and laughter of the night people. She passed
down Charles Street and presently the surroundings changed. A few antique shop windows beckoned for her to dally, but the cold night wind urged her on. At Mount Vernon Street she turned up to the left and began to ascend Beacon Hill. From the numbers on the doors she knew she had a way to go. She passed Louisburg Square. The orange glow from the mullioned windows cast warm rays in the cold night. The houses gave a sense of peace and security behind their solid brick facades.

Bellows’s apartment was in a building on the left, about a hundred yards beyond Louisburg Square. The buildings along here sat back behind small lawns and towering elms. Susan pushed open a squeaking metal gate and went up the stone steps to the heavy paneled door. In the foyer she blew on her blue fingers while walking in place to encourage circulation in her feet. She always had cold feet and hands from November to March. While she blew and stamped she scanned the names next to the buzzer. Bellows was number five. She pushed the button hard, and was rewarded with a raucous buzz.

In a minor panic she reached for the doorknob, scraping her knuckle on the metallic guard on the doorframe as the door swung open. A small amount of blood oozed from her knuckle, and she lifted her hand to her mouth. In front of her was a staircase twisting up to the left. A shining brass chandelier hovered above, and a gilded frame mirror served to make the hall seem more spacious. By reflex she checked her hair in the mirror, pressing it down at her temples. As she climbed she noticed attractively framed Brueghel prints on every landing.

Exaggerating her exhaustion, she reached the top flight and paused, gripping the banister. Down the stairwell she could see to the tiled floor of the foyer, five stories below. Bellows opened his door before Susan knocked.

“There’s an oxygen bottle in here if you need it, Grandma,” he said, smiling.

“God, the air is thin up here. Maybe I should sit here on the steps and recuperate for a few moments.”

“A glass of Bordeaux will fix you up perfectly. Give me your hand.”

Susan allowed Mark to help her into his apartment. Then she took off her coat, her eyes wandering around the room. Mark disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses of ruby red wine.

Susan threw her coat over a straight-back chair near the door and pulled off her high boots. Distracted,
she took the wine and sipped it. Her attention had been captured by the room she found herself in.

“Pretty tastefully decorated for a surgeon,” said Susan, walking into the center of the room.

It was about twenty by forty feet. At each end was a large old-fashioned fireplace, and in each glowed a cheerful fire. The beamed cathedral ceiling was very high, perhaps twenty feet at the peak, slanting down toward both fireplaces. The far wall was an enormous complex of geometric shapes, some housing bookshelves, others objets d’art and a large stereo, TV, and tape system. The near wall was of exposed brick and covered with paintings, lithographs, and medieval sheet music, attractively framed. An antique Howard clock ticked unobtrusively over the fireplace to the right, a ship model adorned the mantelpiece to the left. Through the windows, on either side of both fireplaces, a myriad of crooked chimneys was silhouetted against the night sky.

The furnishings were of a minimum; Bellows had relied on a collection of thick scatter rugs, dominated by a blue and cream Bukhara in the center of the room. On it was a low onyx coffee table, surrounded by a large number of sizable pillows covered in shocking shades of corduroy.

“This is beautiful,” said Susan twisting around in the center of the room and then collapsing on an armful of cushions. “I never expected anything like this.”

“What did you expect?” Mark sat down on the other side of the low table.

“An apartment. You know, tables, chairs, couch, the usual.”

They both laughed, aware that they really did not know each other very well. Conversation remained on a frivolous level as they enjoyed the wine. Susan hopefully pointed her stocking feet toward the fire, to warm her toes.

“More wine, Susan?”

“For sure. It tastes wonderful.”

Mark disappeared into the kitchen for the bottle. He poured each of them another glass.

“No one would ever believe the day I’ve had today, incredible,” said Susan, holding the glass of wine between her eye and the fire and appreciating its deep luscious red glow.

“If you haven’t abandoned your suicidal crusade, I believe anything. Did you go and see Stark?”

“You bet your ass, and contrary to your fears, he was very reasonable . . . more than I can say about Harris or even Nelson, for that matter.”

“Be careful, that’s all I can say. Stark is like an emotional chameleon. I usually get along with him extremely well. Yet today, out of the blue, I found out he’s furious at me because of some nut putting half-used medicine in a locker that I had used for a while. He doesn’t come to me and ask me about it the way a normal human being would. Instead he sics poor old Chandler, the chief resident, onto me, and Chandler cancels a case of mine to ask me about it. Then later he calls me out of rounds to tell me Stark wants me to get to the bottom of it. You’d think I had nothing to do.”

“What’s this about drugs in a locker?” Susan remembered the doctor talking to Nelson.

“I’m not sure I have the whole story. Something about one of the surgeons coming across a whole bunch of drugs in an OR locker which old friggin’ Walters still had assigned to me. Apparently there were narcotics, curare, antibiotics—a whole pharmacy.”

“And they don’t know who put them there or why?”

“I guess not. It’s my idea that somebody’s been saving the stuff to ship off to Biafra or Bangladesh. There’s always a couple of people around with some cause like that. But why they’ve been storing them in a locker in the lounge is beyond me.”

“Curare is a nerve blocker, isn’t it, Mark?”

“Yup, a competitive nerve blocker. A great drug. Oh, in case you haven’t guessed, we’re dining here tonight. I got some steaks, and the hibachi is all set on the fire escape outside the kitchen window.”

“Couldn’t be better, Mark. I’m exhausted. But I’m also hungry.”

“I’ll put the steaks on.” Mark walked into the kitchen with his wineglass.

“Does curare depress respiration?” asked Susan.

“Nope. It just paralyzes all the muscles. The person wants to breathe but can’t. They suffocate.”

Susan stared into the fireplace, resting the edge of her glass against her lower lip. The dancing flames hypnotized her and she thought about curare, about Greenly, about Berman. The fire crackled suddenly and angrily spat a red-hot coal against the screen. A piece of the coal ricocheted off the screen, landing on the rug
to the side of the fireplace. Susan jumped up, flicked it off the rug and pushed it harmlessly onto the slate hearth. She then walked over to the kitchen door, watching Mark season the steaks.

“Stark actually was interested in what I had found out and has already tried to help. I had asked him to help me get the charts of the patients on my list. When I called back later this afternoon, he said he had tried to get them for me but had been told that they were all signed out to one of the professors of neurology, a Dr. Donald McLeary. Do you know him?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know very many of the nonsurgical types.”

“To my way of thinking, it makes McLeary look rather suspicious.”

“Oh oh, here we go again, imagination plus! Dr. Donald McLeary mysteriously destroys the cerebrum of six patients . . .”

“Twelve . . .”

“OK, twelve, and then he signs all their charts out to eliminate any chance of suspicion. I can just picture all this in the headlines of the
Boston
Globe.
”

Mark laughed as he put the steaks on the hibachi through the open window, then drew it down against the cold.

“Go ahead and laugh, but at the same time come up with an explanation for McLeary. Everyone else so far has expressed surprise at the idea of relating all these cases together. Everyone except this Dr. McLeary. He has all the charts. I just think it’s worth looking into. Maybe he’s been investigating this thing for some time and he’s far ahead of me. That would be nice to believe and if so, maybe I could help him.”