Noble Vision (24 page)

He held her hand still, but what he really wanted was to pull her up to dance. He thought of his first hopeless experiments seven years ago, of the lonely nights spent in a dingy lab, of the countless failures over the many years when he had nothing to kindle his dream but his own stubborn vision of what might be. Then he thought of the past night in the OR, of how he worked smoothly, precisely—almost effortlessly, were it not for the seven years of honing his efforts so that he could experience the most glorious moment of his career.

“The procedure worked exactly as I had hoped,” he continued, his voice sounding as fresh as daybreak to her, his puffy eyes and unshaven face hidden from her view. “Everything went just—” He suddenly lost his voice when a figure appeared at the doorway. “—fine,” he finished an octave lower, staring at the block of ice that was his brother’s face.

Nicole felt his fingers tighten over her hand. Something seemed to be wrong.

“I heard footsteps,” she whispered. “Who is it?”

Neither man answered.

“Who’s there?” she repeated uneasily.

“It’s someone I have to talk to, Nicole, so I’ll let you rest.”

The cheerful tone of the Voice had vanished, and a disturbing thought seeped into the fog that was her mind. “Did you . . . get in . . . trouble?”

“The operation went smoothly; neither one of us got in trouble.”

“I mean . . . the . . . law.”

He hesitated because the face staring at him from the doorway now looked like a portrait drawn by an enraged artist.

“Doctor . . .” She pulled his hand toward her, crimping the IV drip and setting off an alarm that startled her.

A nurse approached to assist. “Easy, Nicole. Don’t bend your arm, or it will kink the IV. Just move within the limits it allows.”

“Doctor . . . tell me! Are you in . . . any . . . danger—” A cry broke her voice.

“Don’t worry, Nicole. I’m sure everything’s fine.” David patted her hand and forced a laugh, while Randy’s violent eyes swept over the tender scene like a raging storm. “Now you must forget I mentioned that matter.”

“Okay.” She smiled peacefully, ignoring her instinct that all was not right with the Voice.

His words were the only beacon in the black ether around her. Her smile was the only ray of sunlight that would shine on him that day.

*
  
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*

“So everything’s fine?” Randy tried to whisper, but his voice threatened to roar. “I see you lie to your patients, too!”

David hastily grabbed Randy’s arm to push him out of Nicole’s earshot. The two walked into the doctors’ lounge. With the staff engaged in the morning’s surgeries, the brothers were alone in a room resembling the lobby of an inn after its guests had checked out, with plastic coffee cups littering the side tables and half-read newspapers tossed on the couches. Although he had not slept all night or eaten anything since the previous day’s lunch, David did not sit but stood straight, the way a convict faces a firing squad. Randy paced back and forth before him like a sentry.

“Yes, pal, everything’s just fine! Word of the surgery got out at dawn. I told the reporters that you had the
personal permission
of the secretary of medicine. He heard the news and hit the roof. That’s how I found out that my brother is a liar—I and the rest of the city.”

Randy paused to stare at David indignantly.

“I’m sorry, brother,” David said quietly, closing his eyes against an unbearable pain.

“CareFree suspended you as a provider, so the hospitals in this state are closed to you. Of course, the Riverview board revoked your staff privileges. Because you’re not licensed in any other state, you’re grounded.”

“I see.”

“You can kiss the director’s post good-bye. In the words of our chairman, he wouldn’t appoint you to chief of broom closets now.”

Randy continued to pace like an armed guard in front of the accused man in blue scrubs.

“Just this morning—what a coincidence!—CareFree denied Radiology permission to fix our Model 409 scanner, even though it just needs a routine repair that’s never been refused before. And the BOM decided that
all
the medical practices of this hospital are questionable, so every patient chart for the last year must be examined in a massive audit, costing six figures—with the hospital footing the bill.” He stopped pacing. “By the way, how did the surgery go?”

“Very well.”

“So what are the chances she’ll see again?”

“Ten percent.”

“You’re lying again, brother. Your face tells me better.”

“That’s
not
to be repeated to the patient.”

“It’s irrelevant because you can’t finish the job.”

David sighed tiredly. “Is there anything else?”

“Your wife switched to using her maiden name. She’s having her stationery redone.”

“I see. Anything else?”

Randy decided to omit from the litany the fact that his son, Stephen, an honor student, was suspended from school that morning for punching a classmate who called his uncle a butcher.

“The hospital’s project to reopen the Stanton Pavilion has been stopped. Just this morning—another coincidence!—the Commission for Environmental Protection found that a rare species of striped-tailed squirrel is living alongside the old building. It seems that our plans to reopen will endanger the critter’s survival, so bye-bye to the Stanton Pavilion, and bye-bye to you, pal, because you’re the most endangered critter of all!”

“Anything else?”

“The chairman of the board gave me an ultimatum: Either I publicly denounce you or I find another job.”

“Certainly you’ll denounce me! I insist. We have a deal. You promised.”

“Why did you lie to me, David?”

“You know why.”

“Did you ever lie to me before?”

“No.”

“How could you lie to your brother?”

“I didn’t lie to my brother. I lied to the president of this hospital, who must enforce laws that would have condemned my patient to a life of misery.”

“So instead you condemned yourself to a life of misery.”

“But I didn’t feel miserable. Last night in the OR, I felt happier than I’ve felt in years.” His head dropped. “Except about what I’m doing to you.”

“And what about to
you
, David? You’ll never see an OR again unless you’re wheeled in on a stretcher! You lost the only chance you had to complete your research. Think of it! Seven years of your life down the drain. But that’s not all. You pushed the wrong buttons at the wrong time. You flung the rulebook in their faces; now they have to make good on their threats. And if the patient dies, you’ll be charged with manslaughter.”

“Nicole won’t die!”

“Regardless, what you did was an act of wanton self-destruction. You ruined your career. You’re going to be kicked out of medicine. And you did this on the eve of an appointment that would’ve led to the completion of your research and raised you to the pinnacle of your profession. Why on Earth did you do it?” Randy raised his arms, as if looking to heaven for the answer. “Why?”

“Because it was right.”

Randy burst out laughing. “Are you crazy? You did it because it was right? Where the hell do you see right in the world around you, pal? Would right take money from your patient to pay for other people’s treatments while hers is denied? And on the occasion of your greatest effort, would right want me—as your brother and as the president of this hospital—to plan your funeral instead of your parade? Would right allow Mack Burrow, who couldn’t cure an infected pimple, to be throwing the ball for medicine while you’re fetching it? If he really wanted to help people as he claims, wouldn’t right demand that he nurture your talent instead of stifle it?

“You did something because it was right, David, but that’s the surest way to be destroyed. If you and your patient can do whatever you please, then what do we need the governor and his program for? If you are right, it means CareFree is wrong. Do you think they’ll let you get away with that? Do you think they’ll exonerate you for the thing you did because of the ridiculous reason you give—because it was right?”

“I don’t care what they do.”

“But they run the world, brother.”

“They may run the world, but they don’t run me, and I won’t let them destroy my patient.”

“Then you should have been more cunning, David. You can’t come out against them so flagrantly. You have to treat them with respect. You have to cooperate. And then you have to sneak in ‘right’ when they’re not looking. And above all, you mustn’t let them know how much right means to you, and that you’d risk everything for it. They don’t like intensity. Impassioned people are difficult to control.

“So you have to grovel a little. Do you think that’s demeaning? What’s the alternative? Either you bruise your knees or you get flattened by a steamroller. Nothing gets done today without coming to terms with them. You have to
compromise
.”

“What compromise do you recommend? That I fix Nicole’s nerves so she can see, but only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays?”

“What I recommend has no bearing on your life. There’s only one man who can save you now—if he dares. So that’s a question you’d best ask
him
.”

David’s body stiffened. The serene glow lingering in his eyes from the successful surgery had vanished, leaving only the dark stare of a secret pain. The change in David did not escape the man who knew his face better than anyone.

“What’s the matter, David? Did you think we could avoid dealing with him?”

“What did he say?”

“He hasn’t made a public statement—not yet. But he called me. Oh man! He’s madder than you or I have ever seen him. He gave two orders, one for you and the other for me. He said that you were to march over to his Manhattan office as soon as you finished the surgery.”

“Okay.” David seemed ready to comply with the order as he walked across the surgeons’ lounge to the door of the locker room.

“You don’t want to hear this, David, but he’s going to throw you to the lions, and I don’t know how to stop him.”

“You’re not going to stop him! This is between him and me, and you’re to stay out of it. You must
outshout
the hospital board in repudiating me. You must publicly denounce me in the most scathing terms. And you must disown me as your brother. You promised you would! I insist you keep your word! That’s the only thing you can do to help me live with the fact that I had to perform this surgery in your hospital.”

Against his will, the molten anger drained from Randy’s face. “I think you’d best be on your way,” he said quietly.

David was halfway through the door when he stopped. “By the way, what was the other order, the one he gave to you?”

“He ordered me to keep all news from reaching you while you were still in the OR, so nothing would upset you during the surgery.”

Chapter 14

The Outlaw

When David left the hospital at noon to hail a cab, he noticed that the storm of the previous day had given way to a heat wave. He stepped off the sidewalk, the sun-baked tar in the street feeling sticky under his shoes. To his dismay, every taxi that passed contained limp passengers seeking reprieve from the punishing summer weather. Removing his suit jacket, he resigned himself to walking across town to the Manhattan office of the secretary of medicine. He joined the lunch crowd of damp bodies drifting through the steam room that was Manhattan, his sole source of pleasure becoming an occasional blast of cold air escaping from the door of an air-conditioned shop. Although David had just showered and dressed, the city was already rumpling his starched shirt and sapping what little was left of his energy.

He paused to hear a news bulletin from a street vendor’s radio: “A spokesman for the mayor announced that yesterday’s explosion in the theater district is being investigated. The blast injured two hundred people and damaged several buildings. Faulty piping found in the debris may have caused a gas leak that triggered the blast. The Bowing Construction Company, which installed the pipes as part of a government contract, has already been under investigation for making illicit payments to high-level officials, allegedly including the lieutenant governor, in exchange for obtaining public projects. In other news, CareFree suspended a Manhattan surgeon for operating on Nicole Hudson, the dancer injured in yesterday’s explosion. The agency charges that the doctor’s treatment was untested and unsafe for humans.”

David wondered if the oppressive climate in the city would stifle him and his patient. No, he vowed, it would not smother Nicole. CareFree might take medicine away from him, he thought, but there was something that no one could ever seize: the meaning of Nicole’s surgery as the most glorious act of his life. The operation gave her hope where none had existed, and it gave him a thrill unequaled in his career. Her treatment was the culmination not only of his seven years of research but also of everything he had ever wanted for as long as he could remember. His life was like a symphony begun in his childhood and still rising to its most thrilling movements.