Noble Vision (43 page)

The spokeswoman looked timidly at the secretary, as he had a reputation for demanding that others fulfill their obligations. He had asked for a decision and the advisors had given him none. Would he order them to deliver a verdict that they found impossible to render? Surprisingly, Warren, looking tired and weak, only nodded.

“Thank you, Ms. Farley.” Although his next words were addressed to the entire courtroom, he looked directly at David: “We’ll adjourn until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. At that time I will give you my decision.”

Chapter 22

Trapped

An evening breeze stirred through the shade trees and flowed into the open windows. The warm air was like the last gasp of summer, thought David, sitting next to Nicole in her living room. In two days autumn would arrive, a time when the leaves would reach maturity, then die with grace and beauty. His eyes traced the svelte lines of his dainty companion, who wore silk slacks and a sweater. The short puffed sleeves of her outfit accentuated the thinness of her arms. Nicole was in the summer of her life, and he would permit nothing to cause her decline.

Mrs. Trimbell had retired to her room, exhausted from the trial that day. Nicole, resisting her own fatigue, turned on the television to scan the news stations, despite David’s protest. The trial was the major story of the day, and the likely topic of discussion on the evening talk shows and news broadcasts.

“We proved our case today,” Nicole said with radiant innocence. “Surly everyone will agree.”

“Don’t count on it.”

She located a channel announcing the stories in the headlines: “Tomorrow Secretary of Medicine Warren Lang is expected to issue a decision in the case involving his son’s experimental surgery on dancer Nicole Hudson,” said the newscaster. “Sources in the Burrow Administration believe the verdict will affect the secretary’s credibility as head of the BOM and his chances of running on the governor’s ticket. We also have word that Governor Burrow will announce his running mate tomorrow. For more on this story, let’s go to his campaign headquarters in Albany.”

Nicole switched the channel to another news station. David felt as if he and his patient were about to be swallowed by a large shadow cast by a small man named Mack Burrow.

“Should CareFree be canned, as David Lang and Nicole Hudson suggested at their hearing today?” the host of a talk show asked a political analyst.

“We must respect the law and achieve social change within the system,” said the analyst. “If we don’t enforce CareFree’s rules, we run the risk of anarchy.”

“Doctors like David Lang should be reducing the spiraling costs of health care, not devising ways to spend more,” said another analyst. “That’s why the government must step in.”

“But David Lang says that government interference caused the soaring demand and spiraling costs of health care in the first place,” interjected the host.

“How we got where we are is irrelevant. What’s important now is to prevent the problem from worsening, and only the government can do that.”

Nicole once again changed the channel.

“Dr. David Lang and his patient Nicole Hudson today complained that CareFree is too restrictive. How do you respond to that?” a reporter asked Assistant Secretary of Medicine Dr. Henrietta Richards.

“CareFree is an outstanding program with a distinguished record of helping people,” replied Dr. Richards authoritatively.

“Then why have doctors left New York State in record numbers since the start of CareFree?”

“Oh, that’s not the fault of CareFree but just the normal human reaction to
change
. Studies show that people don’t accept change well at first.” Dr. Richards smiled pleasantly. “But their resistance passes after an adjustment period.”

“How about Dr. Lang’s charge that the doctors can’t decide for themselves how to handle cases?” asked the reporter.

“Our administrators always listen to the doctors’ requests. A healthy exchange of opinions occurs constantly. CareFree shouldn’t be viewed as
imposing
its views on the medical community but rather as
collaborating
with it.”

With an angry snap of her finger on the remote, Nicole searched for a better channel.

“Should society allow its doctors to make a pile of money off the sick?” asked Miriam Bell, a talk-show hostess who had just signed a four-million-dollar contract with her television station.

“I believe that the profit motive is incompatible with the life of a healer,” replied guest Ronald Wells, a lawyer whose recent defense of a football player in a rape trial brought him a fee of two million dollars.

“And bending the rules for family members is definitely a no-no for a public official,” interjected another guest. “CareFree will have to punish David Lang, or else Warren Lang can kiss his political career good-bye.”

David took the remote from Nicole’s hand and muted the sound. She rubbed her eyes wearily.

“Let’s not dwell on the news, Nicole.”

She nodded.

“Mrs. Trimbell tells me you’re sleeping fitfully and crying out in the night.”

She sighed.

“What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“It’s a nightmare I used to have as a child, at times when I felt . . . trapped. I was free of it for years . . . until recently.”

“What’s it about?” He took her hand.

Her face grew intense, as if troubled by an inner vision. “I dream that I’m in a big church and men are taking me away. I scream and try to break loose because I want to stay with a nun called Sister Luke, but they won’t let me. It’s the way I was carried off from a neighborhood parish as a child and placed in foster care.”

“I see.” David left her side to get a glass of water from the kitchen. He gave it to her, along with tablets from a bottle that he took from his pocket.

“Mrs. Trimbell called me this morning, concerned about you. So I brought these pills to help you sleep.”

He sat on the couch next to her.

“I suppose I should take them. Thank you.”

“Tonight I want you to forget about the trial and to think only about something that’s pure pleasure.”

She threw her head back wistfully. “I’ll dream of the Phantom . . . naked.”

His mind burned with wild thoughts of lifting the dainty bundle, carrying her into the bedroom, and making her dream a reality. She would have no nightmares then! Instead, he stood up abruptly, distancing himself from his temptation.

“Take the pills, will you, so I can get going?”

She swallowed the medicine, curious at the sudden brusqueness in his voice.

“I’ll see you tomor—” he stopped, catching an image on the television screen.

“What is it?”

“It’s the commissioner for the blind. Remember the guy you decorated with your milkshake at the hospital? He’s on TV with the governor,” said David, engaging the sound. “He looks different now that he’s dry.”

“Today Wellington Ames, the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Disabilities, was promoted by Governor Burrow to one of the most coveted posts in state government, director of the Department of Human Services,” a reporter explained.

“During a lengthy search to fill the vacancy in Human Services, Commissioner Ames’s fine work in New York City came to my attention,” said Malcolm Burrow from a hotel podium. “It gives me great pleasure to award the director’s post to a distinguished official who has an outstanding record of public service.”

 
“It’s a great honor to be appointed to this position,” said Ames, standing next to Burrow. “I’ll be working closely with the governor on important matters for the people of New York . . .”

Nicole recognized the voice of the official who had wanted to place her in a home for the blind. He was the man who had visited her in the hospital on the day that she had received the Phantom’s roses, which was also the day that she had lost the Phantom’s letter.

*
  
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*

In a quiet neighborhood on Manhattan’s East Side, a man sat alone on the balcony of his penthouse. He glanced up at a misty sky and down at a deserted street. Dinner from a local restaurant lay untouched on a table. The evening was unusually quiet for the restless figure because it did not include a party, a banquet, a speaking engagement, a meeting, or a television appearance. Although he rarely thought of his wife, who had died several years ago, he missed her that night. He had canceled two engagements that evening—a trip to a shelter for the homeless and dinner at a posh restaurant. The conflict of opposites. For the first time that day, sitting alone in the darkness, he had no attendant to open his mail, to clear his food, to take his messages, or to keep his schedule. He felt revulsion at the thought of being around people and anxiety at the prospect of being alone. The conflict of opposites.

Nonsense!
he told himself. He just had indigestion, which made him melancholy. The discomfort worsened when he walked into his study to read a document that he had asked his secretary to prepare for his signature. It was his decision to punish David with the maximum suspension and fine for his unauthorized nerve-repair surgery, thus curtailing further treatment of Nicole Hudson. It was a noble act that would save an enlightened program and only temporarily inhibit his son’s career, he told himself. He wanted to sign it, yet he could not lift his pen to do so. He swallowed two antacid tablets to settle his stomach.

The doorbell rang. He answered it eagerly, relieved to have a moment’s escape from the task at hand.

“Good evening, Mr. Secretary.” Randall Lang bowed from the hallway.

The boyish tangle of blond hair looked as it always had, Warren observed, but the face of the child of his memory had lost its innocence. The once high-pitched voice that had called him Daddy was heavy with contempt.

“Come in, Randall.”

The son followed his father through a granite foyer into the living room. There an array of personal photographs displayed on the walls caught Randy’s attention.

“Now isn’t this quaint? A gallery of your career,” he said, examining the pictures. “Here you are, Mr. Secretary, among the new mommies holding their babies in the maternity ward.” He removed the picture from the wall and waved it at Warren. “No doubt CareFree brought the little cherubs into the world. I think the boys should be named Warren and the girls, well . . . how about Wareena?” He returned the picture to its place and moved to the next one. “Now here’s a nice shot. Mr. Secretary with a baseball cap, throwing out the first ball of the season. Wow! You’ve got to be important to do that! And look at this next pose. You’re in a hard hat breaking ground for the new wing of Buffalo General Hospital. I hope you didn’t get your French cuffs dirty. The hospital must’ve finally gotten through CareFree’s labyrinth of permits and approvals. The man next to you must be the hospital administrator, because his spine looks bowed from groveling. Didn’t that make you feel good, Mr. Secretary?”

“I know you despise me, Randall. What I don’t know is why you came here.”

The open contempt of his sons disturbed Warren. He wondered why he felt unsure of himself in the presence of something intractable within them.

“Excuse me for dallying over your photo gallery. It has special significance to me, because if my brother is destroyed tomorrow, it will have been to give you this wall.”

Randy stood behind a leather chair, leaning his elbows on the high back. His smile was derisive, but his eyes seemed to hold a long-standing pain.

“You’re wrong about me, son.”

“Am I?”

“Why did you come here?”

“Why does anyone come to you? I guess I did it the wrong way. I should have invited you to dinner, poured expensive wine down your throat, and inclined my head in a perpetual bow. I should have filled your gut with the nourishment you thrive on. Then I should only hint, indicate, suggest . . . without ever naming my purpose blatantly. Innuendo is so civilized, honesty so crass. Forgive my lack of finesse, but the plain truth is that I came to make a deal.”

The last word lingered in the room while Warren walked to an antique liquor cabinet. He poured cognac from a crystal flask into two snifters, handing one to Randy. The men sat in leather armchairs before a marble fireplace. Both drank rather than sipped.

“What kind of deal?” Warren asked suspiciously.

“Mack Burrow sends his goon squad to talk to me regularly. He wants the leading hospitals in key voting districts to support CareFree. He wants us to voluntarily educate the community by offering programs and seminars about the glories of CareFree. He calls this ‘enlightening the public through the progressive vision of the providers.’ I think in the old days they called it . . . propaganda.”

“So?”

“So I’m ready to boost Burrow’s campaign with a renowned hospital jumping on his bandwagon. He’ll get lots of votes from converting a disbeliever like me. I’m willing to be born again.”

Warren’s hand stopped in midair, with cognac swaying in a suspended glass. “I don’t suppose that your sudden enlightenment comes without strings attached.”

“You can guess the only thing you have that I want.”