Duby's Doctor (4 page)

Tourists might exit The Mayfair and enjoy all
the surrounding quirks and qualities of Coconut Grove, but for
Carinne that was not an option. She was a valuable asset to Kyle
Averell, and she was kept safe and secure in the same way he kept
his antique porcelains, European sports cars, and uniquely
fashioned diamond jewelry. He would as soon leave his wallet on the
street as allow Carinne to stroll the sidewalks with
heaven-knows-whom.

Trish was usually patient with Carinne. Mr.
Averell paid well for patience, discretion, and vigilance. The silk
caftan perusal had gone on too long, however, and Trish was
observant enough to know that Carinne was not even close to making
a decision.

“Go ahead,” Trish urged in a best-girlfriend
tone. “If you want, get it. Rico can carry it.”

Carinne glanced over her shoulder to where
the massive man waited against the nearest wall. She could not see
his eyes, but she knew that behind his sunglasses he was watching
her every move and the movements of anyone who came within yards of
where she stood.

She remembered a different day, months ago,
when a Mayfair clerk had wrapped a parcel for Carinne and then
asked, “Would you like us to have this delivered, Miss
Averell?”

Carinne had smiled, and a twinkle of
mischief had danced in her eyes. “That won’t be necessary. Dubreau
can carry it.”

The clerk had looked skeptical. “Are you
sure, miss?”

“
Absolutely. Dubreau doesn’t mind.”
Carinne had taken the parcel, turned, and stacked it atop a pyramid
of packages already in her bodyguard’s arms. “You don’t mind, do
you, Duby?”

The voice of a
longsuffering, unseen man had vibrated from behind the packages.
“
Non, mademoiselle
.”

Carinne recalled stifling a giggle. She had
often enjoyed testing the good-natured bodyguard’s strength as well
as his patience. He had never failed a test of either.

Trish broke into Carinne’s reverie. “Corinne
Elaine?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said let the chauffeur carry it for you.”
Everyone knew Rico was no chauffeur, but one did not blather about
bodyguards (or assassins) in public.

“No. No, I don’t really want it,” said
Carinne. “Thank you,” she told the attentive clerk.

The girls drifted out of the dress shop and
moved on through the mall. Rico shadowed them from a polite
distance. Trish looked back at him frequently.

“He is creepy, isn’t he?” Trish said with a
theatrical shudder. “I mean, we know he’s with us. Everybody around
knows he’s with us. Why does he stay so far away?”

Carinne didn’t have to look to know where
Rico would be. Dubreau would have been beside her, or right behind
her. She hadn’t needed a hired companion when Dubreau was there. He
was always close enough that she could whisper outrageous comments
to him or hand him embarrassing articles to hold up for her perusal
while he blushed adorably.

“Daddy doesn’t like them to get too close,”
she said to Trish. “It’s just as well. You think you’ve made a
friend and they just disappear, poof, without a word.”

A few days later Mitchell Oberon escorted an
older man into the physical therapy department. He was her former
medical school professor and mentor, Dr. Ehud Goldberg, and she
hoped to impress him with her work.

Mitchell was providing patient background to
Dr. Goldberg as they entered the gym-like facility.

“And the brain’s language center doesn’t
appear to have been damaged as severely as we thought at first,”
she was saying. “He still has no memory from before his accident,
but his English seems to be returning – uh – somewhat.

“Not to minimize the long-term effects of
traumatic brain injury, but it’s the knee that I’m proudest of. I
really appreciate your taking the time, Doctor. I don’t mind
telling you, it was a real mess. Shot to pieces, literally. Anybody
else would’ve amputated, no question. Wait ‘til you see it, only
weeks after the final surgery. You won’t believe it.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Goldberg, looking
past Mitchell and across the room.

“What?” she said, turning to look.

At the far end of the room, Jean moved
trancelike through a complex martial arts kata. He was shirtless,
in jogging shorts, and sweat glazed his skin. Except for the ace
bandage on his left knee, and the many old scars on his body, he
might have been Adonis, gliding through the fighting exercise as if
it were ballet. Mitchell tried to remain aloof and professional,
but it required a deep breath.

“I haven’t seen scars like that since I was a
medic in a combat zone,” the older doctor said.

Mitchell called out, “Johnny, what are you
doing?”

Jean startled like a sleepwalker coming
awake. “Nothing!” He stopped mid-exercise, stood straight and
still, and looked at her warily.

“It’s okay,” she soothed. “You’re not in
trouble. Who taught you those exercises?”

His eyes shifted as if searching for an
answer, but he apparently couldn’t remember where he learned the
workout. He shrugged. “They just came. They feel good.”

Mitchell asked, “What about the exercises I
prescribed for you?”

Another shrug. “They didn’t feel so
good.”

“Uh-huh.” She had no response for that.
“Okay. Well, this is Dr. Goldberg. He came by to see my knee.”

Jean pointed to his ace bandage. “This is
Michel
’s knee.”

“I thought as much,” Goldberg said with a
smile. “And how do you like Mitchell’s knee? Does it work well for
you?”

“
Oui
, yes.
Michel
builds
great knees – right,
Michel
?” Then he dropped into a stage
whisper as if sharing a secret with Goldberg. “God’s knee is
better, though.” He pointed to the unbandaged right leg.

Goldberg chuckled. “Yes, well, God’s been in
the business a little longer than Dr. Oberon. You’re French, aren’t
you?”

“
Non
,
monsieur
.”

Mitchell looked embarrassed. She sent Dr.
Goldberg an apology with her eyes. “Of course you are, Johnny,” she
said with an encouraging smile.

“
Non
,” he said, unconcerned.

Goldberg patted Mitchell’s shoulder to let
her know he understood brain-damaged patients. “Well, in any case,
it was nice meeting you, John.”

“
Jean
.”

“Right.
Jean
. Nice meeting you,
Jean
-who-is-not-French. Keep up the good work.”

“You, too,” said Jean, and returned to his
kata.

Mitchell ushered Goldberg out of the
room.

In the hallway, Goldberg asked, “What is he?
Army Ranger? Navy SEAL? A mercenary?”

“Uh, he’s a vegetarian,” said Mitchell. “I’ll
get you the x-rays. They’re fascinating.”

That evening in the tiny, cluttered room that
served as Mitchell’s office, she and Stone had reached a stalemate
after an hour’s discussion. At least, it had begun as discussion.
During the hour it had morphed into debate, then argument, and
finally highly-charged silence.

Mitchell’s pacing footfalls echoed in the
tile-floored space.

Stone slouched in a side chair, watching
her.

Mitchell’s shoulders drooped from having
worked ten hours and sparred verbally for an hour more. “No, no,
no, no, no, no!” she said at last, shaking her head while she
continued pacing. “It just won’t work.”

She stopped in front of Stone and looked into
his face. “Look,” she said, “he’s a grown man. He must have been
living somewhere.”

Stone nodded. “And when this is all over, he
can go back there. But right now, it isn’t safe. They’re sure to be
watching his old place.”

Mitchell began pacing again. Two steps east,
pivot, three steps west, pivot, one step east. Again she stopped
and addressed Stone.

“But, he needs special attention,” she said.
“He still has so much to re-learn. I work all day. I can’t be
expected to deal with that.”

“Lots of parents work.”

“Yeah, but they don’t have
two-hundred-fifty-pound preschoolers!” Mitchell almost resumed
pacing, but she swung back toward Stone with a new thought. “Geez,
how could I even afford to feed him? I’m on a salary, here. It
might be different if I were in private practice – ”

Stone answered before she could complete the
sentence. “I’ll get his work accepted at a gallery in South Miami.
His paintings will sell. You’ll get along.” He caught her eye and
added slyly, “Maybe better than you think.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She scoffed. “I’m old
enough to be his ... sister.”

Two steps east, pivot, three steps west,
pivot, three steps east...

“Dr. Oberon, it’s been over two months,”
Stone crooned soothingly. “He can’t stay here in the hospital any
longer, and you said, yourself, he’s not recovered fully. Even if
he weren’t in danger, he couldn’t live alone – ”

“What kind of danger? You said as long as
people thought he was dead, there’d be no danger.”

“And that’s all the more reason not to expose
him to society at large. We can’t take a chance he might be
recognized, alive and well and presumably able to identify the
people who tried to murder him.

“Who knows what might happen if he were sent
to some rehab facility with hundreds of people coming and going all
the time? His picture was in the paper with his obituary. Sooner or
later, someone is going to think he looks familiar. Sooner or
later, somebody is going to look him up on Yahoo or Google or some
such thing. He’s much safer in a private home with one trusted,
familiar, trained medical person looking after him.”

A horrible new thought sprang into Mitchell’s
head. “Oh, no! My neighbors!” she wailed. She paced to her desk
chair and dropped into it. “I can’t move some young stud into my
condo. People will think we’re living in sin!”

Stone actually laughed out loud.

Mitchell felt insulted. “Would that be so
hard to believe? Is it so unlikely that I might have a gentleman
friend? Plain women have lovers just as often as pretty ones.”

Stone raised a hand and shook his head. When
he calmed himself, he looked into Mitchell’s shocked face and
smiled. “You misunderstand me, Doctor,” he said. “You’re thinking
your neighbors will be scandalized, and I’m thinking, ‘You live in
Coconut Grove. You could move in with three sheep and a midget, and
nobody in the Grove would bat an eye.’”

Mitchell did not smile. She leaned across her
desk and told him through gritted teeth, “You. Can’t. Make. Me. Do.
This.”

Stone’s smile remained solid. “I can arrange
it so that every friggin’ tax return you’ve ever filed in your
whole furshlugginer life is audited by the IRS’ equivalent of Darth
Vader,” he said. “And your life could get unimaginably complicated.
Bank accounts get frozen due to clerical errors. Cars get towed by
mistake. Telephones ring at all hours of the night. Credit cards
get declined. And, I haven’t even started to think creatively yet.
Believe me. You’ll. Do. It.”

Mitchell sank back into her chair,
defeated.

Stone stood up and loomed over her, satisfied
with himself.

“Congratulations,” he said. “It’s a boy.”

Stone left the room.

Mitchell’s head slumped forward into her
hands.

~o~ ~o~ ~o~

On a sunny morning a few days later, a happy
group of nurses, aides, and orderlies gathered in a hospital
corridor. They cheered when Jean emerged from his room followed by
Mitchell.

A small, mostly female, throng surrounded
Jean, scooped him into a wheelchair decorated with balloons, and
moved with him toward the elevators while offering farewells, phone
numbers, and best wishes. Dressed in shelf-creased new Bermuda
shorts and polo shirt, Jean had no luggage but carried his precious
paints and sketchpads in a plastic hospital tote bag.

Mitchell trailed the pack with only Nurse
Erskine to console her.

“I really appreciate your help setting up the
spare room – the extra sheets and all,” Mitchell said.

“No problem,” the nurse replied. “My
grandchildren will never miss them.”

Mitchell sighed. “I guess the first thing to
do is find him a school.”

Erskine nodded. “One with a good fine arts
program.”

“Mmm, eventually,” said Mitchell. “But first
I need a place where he can learn to read and count.”

On Day One of the school search, the
headmistress of Happy Times Nursery School looked across her desk
at Mitchell. Then she looked past Mitchell at Jean, his bulk
spilling over both sides of a tiny wooden chair from a preschool
classroom. Then she looked out the window at the small children
romping in the play yard.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We simply have no
vacancies.”

On Day Two of the school search, the
headmistress of Sunny Side Nursery School peered over her glasses
at Mitchell. She looked past Mitchell to where Jean was waiting in
the car.

“Is he retarded?” asked the headmistress.

“No. He’s just ... big,” Mitchell
answered.

“I’m sorry, we’re just not equipped to deal
with retarded children here.”

On Day Three, at Granny Murphy’s Daycare
Center, Mitchell and Jean entered the headmistress’s office. A
voluptuous, flirtatious young headmistress rose from behind the
desk and came straight to Jean. She leaned against him and stroked
his arm.

Jean smiled innocently.

“Well, hello-o-o-o,” crooned the headmistress
to Jean. “What can I do for you-u-u-u?”

“Are you Granny Murphy?” Mitchell asked.

“Mm-hmm,” said the headmistress, practically
climbing on Jean.

“Nothing,” said Mitchell. “There’s nothing
you can do for us. Thanks.”