Private Practices (35 page)

The vision of Claudia went swirling out of his mind and his forehead throbbed more and more violently. In his mind's eye he saw Sidney, but not the emaciated figure who sat opposite him now. It was the Sidney of a year ago, tall, husky, imposing. He was barging into his office and barking commands at him. Then he was younger. But still husky. Hulking. He was slapping him. He was shoving him. For one vivid moment he saw himself writhing in terror inside his mother's dark, cavernous cedar closet. Sidney was outside, pushing the door shut. He was crying and Sidney was laughing. Why had Sidney been so cruel as a child. Nothing he had read had ever adequately explained to him the roots of sadism. The reasons why it sprang up not only in the children of abusive parents but in those of the adoring as well. Now he could see Sara too. Her arms were opening wide for Sidney. Dangling at her sides for him.

But the past had ceased to matter. He had vanquished the past. He had sat in Alithorn's office and received Alithorn's instructions, while Sidney sat excluded and ignored. He had safeguarded Sidney's patients and cajoled and quieted them, while Sidney had done everything in his power to alienate and injure them. He had beguiled the Department of Professional Conduct into thinking he was Sidney and done a better job at calming them than Sidney could ever have done.

A dumb animal rage began boiling up in the pit of his stomach. He had been a shadow and he had become a man of substance. He had been a fool and he had become a clever man. He couldn't, he wouldn't, go back.

“Please, Ben?” Sidney said again.

He felt suitable words stirring in him. They were gathering on his tongue, pushing through his lips, coming to his aid. They were giving him a chance at survival, just as years and years ago they had once come to his rescue, enabled him to hold his own against Sidney. “Okay. All right. Okay.” At first his words were brief, miserly. “Okay, if you're sure it's what you want to do.” Then they began flying from his lips. “Sure. Let's try it. But remember, it was your idea, not mine. If it doesn't work, it isn't my fault.”

Sidney looked at him ecstatically. “Oh, it'll work. I'm sure of it.”

“All right, then.” His headache was gone. He felt marvelous. “When do you want to try it? I think the sooner the better.”

“Me, too,” Sidney beamed. “Absolutely.” He stood and put his arms around Ben, clasping him tight. “And thanks, old buddy.”

Together, they went through the shelves and cupboards in the hall bathroom, removing all the medicines and even the shampoos and colognes and shaving lotion. Sidney wanted the cabinets bare. “If you were delayed and had to get here late one time, who knows? I could swallow anything. It's been known to happen.”

Ben concentrated on the task at hand. His mind felt empty but, his arms filled, he made his way out to the kitchen and deposited the toiletries he was carrying. Sidney followed him, his arms also laden. Then Sidney went into his bedroom and emerged carrying his barbiturate vials. In the kitchen he said, “Don't forget to give me food when you give me the pills. Otherwise my weight might go down again and 10 percent less a day won't be quite as effective.”

Back in the bathroom, which was still steamy from his shower, he instructed Ben, “I'm going to take enough pills in with me to see me through the night. You won't need to give me any more until morning. Then, around seven, start me out with four hundred milligrams, and give me the same dose every five hours until the following morning. Then you can start going down.”

“You were taking two thousand milligrams a day?” Ben exclaimed. It was even more than he had calculated.

“Does that shock you? It shocked me a little when I got up so high and could still keep functioning.”

“No.” Ben tried to hide his surprise. “It was just that I'd figured on even less. Figured it was less, I mean.”

Sidney had dressed, discarding the bath towel for a pair of loose gray slacks, a white shirt, and his torn blue suit jacket and now he glanced at himself in the mirror and said distractedly, “Yeah, well, it doesn't make any difference. It'll just take a while longer to get completely clean.” He studied his reflection, shuddered, and turned away from it. “God, I hardly know myself.”

By the time it had grown fully dark outside, they had emptied out all the bathroom cupboards. Sidney sat down on the toilet seat and waved Ben away. “Let's get started.”

For one instant, Ben hesitated. “Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

“Sure I'm sure.”

Abruptly, Ben walked to the door and, his mind vacant of all further misgivings, went out and closed it quietly but securely.

“Lock it,” Sidney called out, his voice muffled by the door. “You'd better keep it locked.”

Ben turned the key.

“See you at seven,” Sidney shouted.

“See you.”

At a quarter of seven he was packing a flight bag with a few journals to read on the plane and an extra shirt in case the humidity made the one he was wearing look limp. His plane didn't leave until eleven, but he could go around to the office and start canceling his day's appointments.

His minimal packing accomplished, he went into Sidney's room and snapped on the TV. The neighbors were used to its sound. Sidney had been in the habit of playing it all day long, and always very loud. It would be a good idea to leave it on so that it could mask any sounds Sidney might make. For surely he would be noisy. Once he realized that he was alone, he would undoubtedly begin to shout and to tug and wrench at the door with his thin, ineffectual arms. And of course after the barbiturate hunger struck him, he would scream. But he was too weak to make too great a commotion. And most likely he would go into convulsions by nightfall, so that by the time most of their neighbors returned from work, he would be utterly silent.

Of course, he could be unlucky, Ben thought, listening to the impressive sounds of the TV. Sidney might be one among the small percentage of addicts who did not experience convulsions on abrupt withdrawal. But it was worth taking the gamble. The statistics were with him. Chances were Sidney would have severe seizures and, left unattended, die. Still, to be on the safe side, he ought to leave him unattended for as long as possible. Perhaps nightfall was really too much to hope for. He would have to take a late plane back from St. Louis, and yet make it look as if he had tried quite hard to catch an earlier one.

Turning away from the TV, he started the air conditioner. The room, as usual, smelled rancid and he hoped the air conditioning would make it less foul. Then he thought of opening the windows and really letting the room air out. But he decided against it. When he returned from St. Louis and called the police, they would wonder why a man with Sidney's medical knowledge would have been so foolhardy as to have attempted the notorious dangers of abrupt barbiturate withdrawal. They would have to be convinced of Sidney's lack of judgment these final weeks, and Ben's words would mean nothing. Even Alithorn's description of Sidney's irrationality in his office two days ago would be but a suggestion, an innuendo. But Sidney's garbage-strewn floor and the rank odors emanating from every corner of his room would shout out his judgmentless decay.

Shutting off the air conditioner, Ben started for the front hall door.

He tried to move quietly when he passed the bathroom, but Sidney must have been listening for him. He called out at once, “Thank God you're up. I don't think I could have waited a moment more.”

“It's not seven yet,” Ben answered him loudly. “It's just ten of.”

“Well, start me out anyway,” Sidney said. His voice sounded thin and tremulous.

“Ten more minutes.”

“I need it now,” Sidney called out. “I'm shaking.”

“You told me not till seven.”

“Don't be such a stickler,” Sidney shouted. “My head is exploding. I feel sick. Really sick.” Suddenly he began kicking on the bathroom door.

Ben lifted his foot high and kicked it from his side. “Cut it out! You'll wake the entire building!”

“Then give me the pills,” Sidney pleaded.

“I will at seven. But only if you quiet down. If you make noise, I'll make you wait. I swear I will.”

Behind the bathroom door, Sidney quieted down.

“Good,” Ben said. “That's it.” Then he walked noiselessly past the bathroom and let himself out of the apartment.

Claudia was astonished to see him. And happy, he thought. She was in a private room and when he knocked and entered, she slid from the bed and embraced him heartily before retreating to her usual more formal greeting, the familial brush of her lips against his cheek. He had a moment of holding her in his arms, her body sensuous in a white satin nightgown, her heart beating loudly against his. Then she stepped back and exclaimed, “Ben! I can't believe it! What are you
doing
here?”

“Are you sorry I've come? Shall I go?” he teased her, glancing at the door as if ready to leave on command.

“Oh, no! I said you didn't
have
to come. That everything was all right. But as long as you're here—” She took his hand and held it tightly in both of her own.

“It was Sidney's idea. He's been terribly worried about you and Ezra.”

“Really?” Claudia, releasing his hand, looked surprised and doubt flickered across her eyes. “On the phone I didn't have that impression. Not when I spoke to him the night before. In fact I wasn't even sure that he understood that Ezra was early. Or cared.” She frowned and he could see that her heart had begun to harden toward Sidney.

“Well, perhaps he didn't at first,” he said, apologizing for Sidney as he had learned to apologize for him in the office, his voice thoughtful and sincere. He felt immensely competent. More competent than he'd ever been before. More competent than he'd ever before imagined he could be. “You may be right about his early reaction. But when I got home from work last night he kept pumping me for all the details. He was very worried for you. And Ezra, of course. I kept telling him that I'd questioned both you and the pediatric resident quite closely, and that everything was fine. But Sidney was concerned that possibly you and the pediatrician were being less than straightforward.”

Claudia sat down on the edge of her bed, her forehead furrowing. “What do you suppose made him so concerned all of a sudden?”

“Your call,” he said with exhilaration. “Yesterday morning I thought he'd been unaffected by it. At least in any meaningful way. I told you that when we spoke, didn't I? But last night there was something altogether different about him. I noticed it as soon as I got home. He'd showered. I can't tell you when he did that last.”

Claudia was looking at him dubiously, her eyebrows arched.

“I'm beginning to change my mind about him,” he went on. “I think there's hope after all.”

“That's a turnabout.” Claudia had her head to one side, as if she were suspicious. Watching her, he realized what a good job he'd done only yesterday of persuading her of how desperate Sidney's condition was. “The thing is,” he continued, trying now to let his voice reveal awe, “that last night Sidney was full of plans. And not vague ones, either. He was specific, practical.”

“Really? Like what?”

“He said he would check into Downstate's detoxification unit on Friday. He was that definite.”

Claudia at last seemed impressed. “And you thought he meant it?”

He nodded. Soon he could relax. Soon her vanity would go to work to corroborate his story. “It was your call that did it.” At once Claudia's white cheeks flushed with a pale, prideful pink. “If he does what he says he's going to do,” he added exuberantly, “if he goes into the unit on Friday, he could well be out by the time you bring Ezra home.”

A shadow drifted across Claudia's face then, and he wondered if she would admit to him that she was no longer certain she wanted Sidney back. But as usual, she hid her more troubling thoughts, and when she spoke she tried to explain away the change in her expression as concern for Sidney. “You don't think he'd try to withdraw on his own, do you?”

He sat forward, looking startled. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, you know the way he is. How he always likes to be in charge.”

“Do you suppose—” he started to say, his face wreathed with worry. And then he shook his head vigorously. “No. Sid's too smart for that. Much too smart.”

“I guess so,” Claudia nodded in agreement. “I guess you're right.”

“I'm sure I am.” He glanced at his watch then and sighed. “And now you'd better take me over to the nursery. I've got a lot of questions and I've only got an hour or so.”

“Only an hour? You're not staying overnight? You could stay at Bootie's. I'll call her and—”

“I can't,” he said regretfully. “I wish I could. But I don't like to leave Sidney overnight.”

“Oh. Of course.” Claudia stood up quickly, bending to put on her slippers. “You're absolutely right. What time is your plane?”

“Four-thirty.” Marveling at the curve of her buttocks beneath white satin, he nevertheless remembered to add, “That's the last direct flight. After that, it's milk train planes.”

“You'd think there'd be more direct flights,” she said wistfully. Then she straightened up. “Well, let's get going. I can't wait till you see Ezra.”

He took only a quick look at Ezra, but spent a long time talking to Dr. Hess, the pediatrician in charge of the prematurity nursery. “My brother couldn't come himself,” he explained. “But needless to say, he was very worried about the baby. He felt quite strongly that one of us should come and see you. There's just so much you can be sure of on the phone.”

“He needn't have worried,” the youthful Hess said. “The boy's coming along nicely. He's gained one-half ounce already. Still, I can understand your brother's wanting one of the two of you to come out and talk. I'd be concerned if my wife delivered in some unfamiliar hospital. They say many chefs won't eat in restaurants because they know what goes on in the kitchen.”