Michael Palmer - Side Effects

"Travel history?"

"Europe, China, Japan. None to third world spots. I told her how envious I was of people who could play music, and she just smiled this wistful smile and said that every time she picked up her cello, she felt as rich and fulfilled as she could ever want to feel. I only talked to her for half an hour or so, Stan, but I came away feeling like we were… I don't know, like we were friends." Spend a day here sometime, Jared.

Come to work with me and see what I do, how I do it. "The hematology people are talking autoimmune phenomenon. They think the ovarian problem is long-standing, a coincidental finding at this point."

"Never postulate two diseases when one will explain things." Willoughby restated the maxim he had long since engrained upon her. "I suppose they're pouring in steroids."

"Stan, she's in trouble. Real trouble."

"Ah, yes. Forgive me. Sometimes I forget that there's more to this medicine business than just making a correct diagnosis. Thanks for not letting me get away with that kind of talk. Well, Doctor, I think you may really have something here. I have never encountered anything quite like it either."

"Neither had Dr. Bartholomew."

"That fossil? He probably has trouble recognizing his own shoes in the morning. Talk about a menace. AJI by himself he's an epidemic."

"No comment."

"Good. I have enough comments for both of us. Listen, Kate. Do you mind if I try a couple of my new silver stains on this material? The technique seems perfect for this type of pathology."

"I was about to ask if you would."

Willoughby engaged the intercom on the speaker-phone system one of the few innovations he had managed to bring into the department. "Sheila, is that you?"

"No, Doctor Willoughby, it's Jane Fonda.

Of course it's me. You buzzed my office."

"Could you come into Dr. Bennett's office, please? " There was no response. "Sheila, are you still there?"

"It's not what it sounds like, Dr. Willoughby," she said finally. "Not what what sounds like?"

"Sheila, " Kate cut in firmly, "it's me. We're calling because we have a specimen we'd like to try the silver stain on."

For a few moments there was silence. "I… I'll be over shortly, " the technician said. Willoughby turned to Kate, his thick brows presaging his question.

"Now what was that little ditty all about?"

"Nothing, really-, "Nothing? Kate, that woman has worked for me for fifteen years. Maybe more. She's cynical, impertinent, abrasive, aggressive, and at times as bossy as my wife, but she's also the best and brightest technician I've ever known. If there's trouble between the two of you, perhaps I'd best know about it. Is it that study of the department I commissioned you and your eomputer friend, Sebastian, to do?"

"It's nothing, Stan. I mean it. Like most people who are very good at what they do, Sheila has a lot of pride. Especially when it comes to her boss of fifteen years. I know it's not my place to decide, but if it's okay, I'd like the chance to work through our differences without involving you. Okay?"

Willoughby hesitated and then shrugged and nodded. "Thanks, " she said.

"If I were ever to take over the chairmanship of the department, I'd like to know I had a solid relationship with my chief technician-especially if she were someone as invaluable as Sheila Pierce."

"Invaluable is right. I keep giving her raises and bonuses even though she puts a knot in my ninny just about every time she opens her mouth.

Say, did I hear you just give me the green light to submit your name to Reese?"

"I said if and you know it."

Willoughby grinned mischievously. "Your voice said if, but your eyes…"

"You rang? " Sheila Pierce saved Kate from a response. Fortyish, with a trim, efficient attractiveness, she had, Kate knew, earned both bachelor's and master's degrees while working in the department. By the time Kate had begun her residence, the one-time laboratory assistant had become chief pathology technician. "Ah, Sheila, " Willoughby said. "Come in."

"Hi, Sheila."

Kate hoped there was enough reassurance in her expression and her voice to keep the woman from any further outburst, at least until they had a chance to talk privately. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second, then, mercifully, Sheila returned the greeting. The problem between them had, as Stan Willoughby suspected, arisen during Kate's computer-aided study of the pathology department's budget and expenditures, specifically in regard to a six hundred and fifty dollar payment for an educational meeting in Miami that Sheila could not document ever having attended. Kate had decided to drop the matter without involving the department chief, but the technician was clearly unconvinced that she had done so. "How's my new batch of silver stain coming?" Willoughby asked. "It's much, much thicker than the old stuff, " Sheila said, settling on a high stool, equidistant from the two physicians. "Fourteen hours may be too long to heat it."

"I seem to recall your warning me about that when I suggested fourteen hours in the first place. Is it a total loss?"

"Well, actually I split about half of it off and cooked that part for only seven hours."

"And… "

"And it looks fine… perfect, even."

Willoughby's sigh of relief was pronounced. "Do you know how much that stain costs to make? How much you just saved me by… T' "Of course I know. Who do you think ordered the material in the first place, the Ghost of Christmas Past?"

Willoughby shot Kate a what-did-I-tell-you glance, then he picked up the slides and paraffin blocks containing tissue from Beverly Vitale's ovary. "Dr. Bennett has an interesting problem here that I think might be well suited to my silver stain. Do you think you could make some sections and try it out?"

"Your command is my command, " Pierce said, bowing. "Give me an hour, and your stain will be ready." She turned to Kate. "Dr. Bennett, I think you should have a little review session with our chief here on the basics of hypertension. On his desk, right next to his blood pressure pills, is a half-eaten bag of Doritos. Bye, now."

Sheila Pierce dropped off the paraffin block in histology and then returned to her office. On her desk was the stain Willoughby had referred to as "his." Pierce laughed disdainfully. If it weren't for her, the stain that was soon to be known by his name would be little more than an expensive beaker of shit. There they sat, she thought, Willoughby and that goddamn Bennett, sharing their little physician jokes and performing their physician mental masturbations and issuing orders to a woman with an IQ-a proven IQ-higher than either of theirs could possibly be., One-fifty. That's what her mother said. Genius level. One hundred and fucking fifty. So where was the MD degree that would have put her where she deserved to be?

Pierce glared at the small framed photo of her parents, carefully placed to one side of her desk. Then her expression softened. It wasn't their fault, being poor. Just their fate. They didn't want the stroke or the cancer that had forced their daughter to shelve her dreams and begin a life of taking orders from privileged brats who, more often than not, couldn't come close to her intellectual capacity. One hundred and fifty.

What was Kate Bennett? One-ten?

One-twenty tops. Yet there she was with the degree and the power and the future. Listen, Sheila, you're terrific at your job. I don't see that there's anything to gain by bringing this up to Dr. Willoughby, or even by making you reimburse the depailment. But never again, okay?

"Patronizing bitch."

"Who's a bitch?"

Startled, Sheila whirled. Norton Reese stood propped against the doorjamb, eyeing her curiously. "Jesus, you scared me."

"Who's a bitch? " Reese checked the corridor in both directions then stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "Bennett, that's who."