Noble Vision (12 page)

“Oh?”

“In fact, I couldn’t wait to finish the game so we could talk. That’s why I let you win.”

“Yeah, sure you did.”

“Let’s go to my place.”

They walked soundlessly down a carpeted corridor to the locker room of the Oak Hills Athletic Club, with Randy affectionately throwing an arm over his brother’s shoulder.

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David relaxed in a beige leather chair facing a teak desk, looking comfortable in his brother’s home office. Lemony walls, light wood furniture, and a large-leafed philodendron gave the room an airy feel. Randy stood outside the door of the second-floor office, calling to his wife from the balcony.

“Say, Beth, do we have any champagne?”

“I think so. Why?” A sweet voice rose from the floor below.

“We have something to celebrate. Come and join us.”

“We do?” asked David.

Minutes later Randy’s attractive, redheaded wife appeared with a champagne bottle on ice and three crystal glasses.

“Now what do we have to celebrate?” David asked, as he hugged Beth in greeting.

“The end of your frustration, brother.”

“The end?”

“Yes.”

“What are you two talking about?” Beth asked.

Randy popped the cork with a flourish and filled the glasses. “I propose a toast,” he said, standing behind his desk in the sun-filled office, his arm around his wife. “To the completion of David’s research and to the medical breakthrough of the century!”

“To David!” Beth smiled warmly, raising her glass to him.

Randy clicked his glass against Beth’s, and the civilized chime of resonating crystal filled the room. The object of their salute, however, did not smile or touch his glass as the couple drank.

“Won’t you cheer for a worthy cause, brother?”

“The BOM just denied me permission to do any more animal studies.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Randy, reaching for his briefcase.

Sensing that the two men were beginning a meeting, Beth quietly slipped out the door.

“There’s a loophole,” continued Randy.

“What?”

“You know, of course, that John Carter won’t be returning to work after his stroke. His resignation as our chief of neurosurgery is effective the last day of this month.”

“So?”

“I discovered something interesting.” Randy settled in his chair. “Shortly before his stroke, Carter received a generous research grant from the BOM. He got it because he’s the head of our neurosurgery department and we’re the main teaching facility in that discipline for West Side University Medical School. Carter received permission to establish a lab, to experiment on animals, and to employ research fellows.”

“So how does that concern me?”

“The hospital can transfer Carter’s grant to the next chief of neurosurgery.” Randy pulled a paper out of his briefcase. “This letter from the BOM outlines the terms of the research.” He slid the paper to his brother.

David read a description of the abundance of animals permitted to John Carter, the money for laboratories and fellows, and the criteria for the grant, which fit his own project. David stared at the paper for a long moment after he had finished reading. Finally, he pushed it back across the desk to Randy, his hand moving slowly, as if forcing a heavy weight.

“Don’t ask what you’re going to ask me, Randy, because I can’t do it,” he whispered painfully.

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“I’m offering a starving man a truckload of steaks.”

“No.”

“David, you’ll have all the animals you need and a crop of postgraduate fellows falling out of the trees like apples to assist you. Another year is all you’ll need. I know you’ll work day and night, you’ll answer all the remaining questions you have, you’ll polish your new procedure and be ready for human trials—before you have a chance to regret your decision to accept this opportunity.”

“I can’t.”

 
“And while you’re completing the animal studies, things could change. What if Mack Burrow loses the election and becomes a pimple on the nose of history? What if more hospitals fold and the people finally get fed up? What if the new governor is forced to abandon CareFree?”

“Then he’ll invent FearFree or TearFree.”

“But what if they’re finally forced to leave us alone? Then the way will be clear for our Institute for Neurological Research and Surgery. Have you forgotten the dream we’ve had since high school?” Randy leaned over the desk excitedly, trying to engage David, who sat back, crossing his arms skeptically against his chest. “Once such an institute is free to turn a profit, Riverview’s board of directors will fund it, and if they don’t, we’ll find other investors who’ll want to make a fortune. Leave that to me. With you as medical director and me as president, how can we fail? David, you’ll have patients begging for your new treatment; you’ll have doctors to train; you’ll have a research lab; you’ll have a dozen other projects you’ll want to start—”

“Randy, please!”

“The world will have a momentous medical breakthrough, your new treatment, which will launch the Institute for Neurological Research and Surgery. And I . . . I’ll get to leap out of bed every day, rushing to get to work, because I’ll have a hundred ideas that I’ll want to try, that I’ll be
free
to try. My work will be a story of progress and success, instead of . . .”—his eyes dropped—“well . . . never mind.”

“I know you’re unhappy,” David said sadly.

Randy ignored the comment. “With all that’s still possible, why won’t you accept the opportunity I’m throwing at you?”

“Because in order to get the grant, I’d have to replace John Carter as the new department head, and that thought should scare you, not make you want to throw a party.” He gestured to the champagne bottle. “Besides, I’d never be accepted.”

“With your clinical record, the surgeons
will
accept you in the chief’s post,” said Randy with conviction. “Oh, there’ll be some griping because some of them want the job, but that kind of politics can be handled. And although you’re young for the position at thirty-seven, your accomplishments, especially the separation of the twins, will silence any objections.”

“But the board of directors would never approve of my other record, the one I have with CareFree. And they’d be smart not to, so let’s drop the matter.”

“Believe it or not, David, the board is open to considering our star bank robber as its next chief of police.”

“Then you must be twisting their minds out of whack.”

“I’ve already been . . . well, campaigning on this. . . . I didn’t tell you, but—”

“I don’t want you campaigning for me! It’s too risky for you.”

“Nevertheless, I can get the board to approve you. Because I worked as a medical researcher before switching to hospital administration, I have the pull to recommend a clinical appointment.”

“Does the board now endorse surgeons knifing inspectors?”

“They don’t know about that, and they won’t find out. The BOM doesn’t want Senator Carlton getting curious about what really goes on. His niece is one patient who can get anything her doctor wants.”

“I still wouldn’t be approved by the board. You’d have to be blackmailing the members.”

“If I had anything on them, I would,” Randy said, smiling. “Actually, almost everyone on the board owes me a favor or two, and now’s my time to cash in. There’s just one condition you’d have to agree to. You’d have to address the board personally and assure them—
convince
them—that you have reformed. You must be very persuasive when you tell them that you’ll comply with the practice parameters, that you’ll never receive another fine from the BOM, and that you’ll conduct yourself in a way that will not embarrass the board or compromise the hospital.”

“No.”

“The board will approve you, David, if you promise to obey CareFree’s rules.”

“No.”

“Then how will you complete your experiments? You’ve already applied to every agency that deals with science, medicine, education, or research, and they’ve all turned you down. So what’s left? Are you going to throw away seven years of experiments—seven years of your life—and abandon your dream?”

Randy’s blue eyes stared across the desk at David’s green ones.

“This is your last chance, David. If your promise to the board is compelling, they’ll trust you.”

“Will you, brother? Will you trust me?”

Randy knew what David meant. A tinge of worry shaded the administrator’s face.

“I’ve heard you say many times that you need to keep your job until the kids are through with college.”

Randy and his wife had three gifted children whose artistic and scholarly talents were nurtured through special lessons and private schooling and whose college tuitions were looming. Both parents worked; however, Randy’s job provided the larger income to support the children’s futures.

“Now you want to walk a tightrope with me,” David continued. “What are you going to tell your kids—
my
two nieces and nephew—if I pull you down with me when I crash?”

“You can’t allow that, David. For your own sake, you can’t . . . crash.”

“I don’t want you running any fan clubs for me. In fact, I’d feel a lot better if you joined my critics.”

“For the sake of your research, for your career, for everything you love, for our dream, for Pete’s sake, David, give in! You can’t fight them; they’re too strong. You have to
compromise
.”

David had no reply.

“Please, David, accept this opportunity and learn to do things differently. Before you see a patient, be sure you’re allowed to. Before you order tests, get approval. Before you admit a patient, study the rules. Before you drill a hole in somebody’s skull, read the guidelines. Before you make adjustments, ask. Learn to hit the ball on your knees. You can’t wallop it over the fence. The game doesn’t exist on that scale anymore. Either you play by the new rules or spend your career in the dugout. Damn it, brother, I’m offering you a chance to run around the bases! Won’t you be smart and accept it?”

David stared across the desk at his own features framed in blond hair, but it was not Randy that he was seeing. Two sights forced their way into his awareness: He remembered the first rats that he had operated on unsuccessfully seven years ago, when he had nothing more than a hunch to try, and he saw the final cats that he had operated on just months ago, proving at last that his hunch was right and leaving him with a burning desire to operate on a hundred more animals, a hundred at once, at that very moment, because he could not sleep or eat or even wait until the next morning to unravel the amazing puzzle that had held him spellbound for seven years. But he had no clearance to proceed, only a roadblock to frustrate him.

“David.” His brother’s whisper was like a hidden voice from his own consciousness. “I know you want to accept. Couldn’t you find a way?”

David pushed aside the glass containing his untouched champagne. “No, Randy, I can’t. Besides, my brother would despise me if I did.”

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That night a strong wind hissed through the fragrant shrubs of a garden, warning of a thunderstorm. The gust blew through opened French doors and into a lit study. David sat at his desk, the pages of a notebook crackling in the wind. He kept a collection of notes and drawings of his surgeries. Like the pages of a detective thriller, his entries chronicled the absorbing dramas of his life: the tales of diagnosis, treatment, and results. That night in his home, he sketched the brain of Eileen Miller, the patient he had saved when his wife was attending the banquet for the governor. He drew the woman’s brain as he had first seen it—distorted, swollen, wild with blood; then he drew it again as he had left it—calm, clean, restored.

He began writing his notes: “A subdural hemorrhage in the posterior fossa—” But his mind kept wandering to his conversation with Randy, as it had all day. Against his will, his mind was searching for a way to accept the unacceptable.
No
, he told himself, forcing his attention back to his task.

He raised his head when he heard footsteps approaching. He saw Marie standing at his half-opened door, wearing a silk dressing gown and high-heeled slippers. The scent of her perfume floated through the air as she entered the room. She took a seat facing him, the rich tan of her slender legs a provocative contrast to her white silk robe. He looked at her with the purity of a monk.

“How long are you going to be angry, David?”

“She almost died, Marie.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“You were her doctor.”

“Eileen Miller only said she had a headache. She didn’t think to tell me that a baseball hit her on the head.”

“Why didn’t
you
think? Why didn’t you ask? Why didn’t you take a better history?”

“I can’t send every patient who has headaches for a brain scan, David. No one can fault me for that—except you, of course.”