Colin Harrison - The Finder

"I'm a physician and I just saw a lot of patients today, that's all."

At this Connie's posture softened, and she drew nearer, seeming to reappraise Ann with both admiration and a bit of fear, for people know that doctors know things the rest of humanity does not.

"May I ask your specialty?"

"I'm an internist. Internal medicine."

Connie sat down, intimately next to her. "I keep telling my husband he must see a doctor."

Ann nodded. Many wives said this.

Connie leaned closer, whispered. "Can I talk to you about this? He pees too often in the night. Maybe six or seven times."

"That is too many times."

Connie leaned closer. "And he has pain."

"When he pees?"

Connie winced, as if sampling such pain. "Don't think so."

"Trouble peeing?" Ann asked.

"Maybe. He's so private. I know he has pain you know, down there, down under there."

Benign prostate hyperplasia less likely, malignancy more so, she thought. PSA test. New inflammation test. Eliminate false positive. Biopsy probable. "Pain all the time?"

The question triggered alarm in Connie's beautiful face. "Maybe, but I think yes, all the time!" she whispered.

"Between his anus and scrotum. Sensitive to touch?"

"Well-" Connie drew a breath of surprise at the sudden clinical frankness of this question. And made a quick check that no one was listening to them from behind the lilies. "Well, yes. It worries me so much!"

Ann wondered if she had seen Connie's face before somewhere, an advertisement, perhaps. "He should see a urologist as soon as possible-I mean tomorrow-and get a digital exam."

"That's what he doesn't want…"

"He's going to have to get over that."

Connie was nodding frantically, eyes wet, apparently having forgotten the party.

"It's no big deal, frankly. As a woman, you know that, the way gynecologists poke into us."

"I've told him."

"He's never had one?"

"No."

Ann nodded. "Afraid?"

"Yes."

"You really should have a talk with him."

"Yes. He's so very tender down there."

"He needs an exam tomorrow."

Connie became tearful. "Doctor, do you-do you do them?"

"Almost every day."

"And the men-do they mind the fact that-"

"I'm a woman? No. They accept it."

Connie looked at her, a question seeming to tremble in her big beautiful eyes. "Would-would you, would you do it for him?"

"Of course, he can call my-"

"No, no, he's going to Germany tomorrow for four days, he's being picked up at six… no, no, I mean would you, could you now? Here?"

Here. Now. Not what she wanted to do but it was her duty, always her duty to help. Connie led her down a hallway to a sumptuous bedroom filled with Picassos on every wall, Manhattan sprawling below from two sides. This is real money, Ann breathed to herself. This is what Tom wants.

"Do you need anything?"

Yes, Ann said. Connie nodded. She picked up the phone, pushed one button. A servant was dispatched to an all-night pharmacy for rubber examination gloves and K-Y Jelly.

"I'll go get him," Connie called. "Please just wait-"

More than a few minutes went by. Was Tom wondering where she was? Not necessarily. He could easily be locked in a conversation on the far side of the room. She sat perched on an upholstered bench with her purse, which had a very small doctor's bag in it.

"— to do it, Bill, I absolutely insist."

Connie appeared at the door. "He thinks he's humoring me."

Martz stepped into the room, glowering. "I am."

"I said it would only take a minute."

Connie handed Ann a white bag from the pharmacy and pulled the door shut.

"Well, Doctor-"

"Please call me Ann," she said, "given that I am your guest."

Martz nodded obligatorily, his expression indicating he had no idea who she was. "Where do you practice?"

"I have my own office practice and I have privileges at Beth Israel."

"How many exams of this nature have you performed?"

"I don't know. Several thousand, perhaps."

Martz's eyes, yellowed by decades of golf, hung open as he stared at her. She could not decide if he found her attractive or whether his interest lay elsewhere. Maybe he hated his wife for asking him do this, maybe he hated Ann for agreeing to do so. Most likely he was examining her for signs that might tell him what she was learning about him. This was typical of patients; they studied the doctor who studied them. Up close she saw that he'd had dozens of tiny skin cancers removed, including on the outer edge of his lower lip. The divot in his lip suggested a healed knife wound, even a disregard for danger.

"I told your wife I'd do this," Ann said, "but of course, it's your decision."

"Let's do it. Then she'll let me alone."

Martz dropped his pants.

"Bend over, put your hands on the table," she instructed.

"How did she find you?"

"We got to talking."

"What a topic of conversation."

"Well, you know women," she said, lubing her fingers. "We do talk about everything."

"I didn't meet everyone," he growled, being polite, making conversation. "You came with-?"

She went in with the forefinger and middle finger together in one firm motion. He grunted. They all grunted, except the men who'd had anal sex; they anticipated the sensation and evaluated it. She moved her fingers up the inside of his rectum and felt the lateral and posterior walls for any rectal masses. Then she identified the prostate on the anterior wall and swept her fingers from side to side, noting smoothness, consistency, lumps, asymmetry, and size.

There was a lot of swelling, bad swelling.

"Excuse me," she responded, "what? Oh, I came with Tom Reilly. I'm his wife."

"Aah, I see." Martz stiffened, actually tightened his asshole. "Good to know that, Doctor. That is, aah, informative. I want you to know exactly what would make me… better, would reduce my difficulties."

In general she preferred that patients not self-diagnose. They were inevitably wrong, usually erring on the most dramatic side. She'd once had a woman come in with numb feet and insist she be tested for multiple sclerosis, when in fact the problem was that her shoes were too tight.

"… the change in my life that would be most prophylactic would be if your-"

She paid little attention to what he was saying, instead carefully feathering her fingers against the lumpy surface of the prostate, probing softly, seeing if she caused pain. The basic rule was that you pressed no harder than you would push against an eyeball. She arced her fingers back to the edge of the prostate to see if she could feel the shape of the swelling better, whether it involved one lobe of the prostate or both.

"Dr. Reilly?"

"Yes?" she answered.

"I said, if your husband-"

Martz's hand shot back and grabbed her own, pulling it out of his rectum, making a wet sucking sound. He turned toward her, underpants still at his knees, shirt and tie hanging down, and drew close, uncomfortably close to her. His large, loose-skinned hand lifted her smelly, gloved fingers up between them as his eyes stared into her face. "If Tom would do me the courtesy of telling me-" She fought Martz and tried to pull away, but his big hand held her fist tight, her authority as a physician gone. "-what the fuck is going on at Good Pharma." He saw her confused reaction. "Oh, your bright, ambitious husband knows something, Doctor. But he isn't telling me. Tried to pretend nothing is going on. Tried tonight, to my face, lied directly to my face, Doctor Reilly. Isn't telling me or anyone else, as far as I can see. I have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in his company. Do you understand? That is a lot of money, even for me. Other people's money, Doctor. The stock was going up. But now it is not. There's a piece of information I don't have! Tom has it, Doctor! Tom knows it! And I want him-" Now Martz was crushing her hand in his, leaning into her with the color rising in his face, his lip curled in anger, a primate showing his old teeth, her fingers with his blood-streaked shit on them an inch from her nose. "-to tell me!"