Michael Palmer - Side Effects

I almost had Betsy in a roadside park because I wanted to wait until the last minute."

Kate crossed to her friend and wiped the dried blood from her face with damp gauze. "Let's see, " she said finally. "As I see it, you want me to arbitrate a disagreement in medical philosophy between the chief of ENT surgery, who also happens to be a professor at Harvard, and the chief of E. Sandler Interior Designs, Inc…"

"Kate, please."

Ellen's grip on Kate's hand and the quaver in her voice reflected a fear far more primal than Kate had realized. Kate turned to the surgeon.

"Pete?"

Colangelo shrugged. "I get paid to do surgery and give advice," he said.

"If you're asking me whether I think admission is one hundred percent necessary, the answer is no. However, as I said, I get paid to give advice, and observation in the hospital is my advice."

Before Kate could respond, a white-coated technician from the hematology service entered and handed her three lab slips, two pink and one pale green. She studied the numbers and felt a grinding fear and anger rise in her throat. "Lady, " she said, struggling to mask the tension in her voice, I'm going to cast in with Dr. Colangelo. I think you ought to stay."

Ellen's grip tightened. "Kate, what do the tests show? Is it bad?"

"No, El. A couple of the numbers are off a bit and should be rechecked, but it's not bad or dangerous at this point."

Silently, she prayed that her judgment of the woman's strength was correct, and that she had done the right thing in not lying. Ellen studied her eyes.

"Not bad or dangerous at this point, but it could be. Is that what you're saying? " Kate hesitated and then nodded. Ellen sighed. "Then I guess I stay, " she said. "You shouldn't be here long, and you'll have the very best people taking care of you. I'll help you make arrangements for the girls, and I'll also let them know what's going on."

"Thank you."

"I know it sounds foolish to say don't worry, but try your best not to.

We'll keep an eye on your nose and recheck the blood tests in the morning. Most likely you'll be home by the end of the weekend."

Kate fought to maintain an even eye contact, but somewhere inside she knew that her friend didn't believe the hopeful statement any more than she did. "It's the Omnicenter. Somehow I just know it is."

Kate grimaced at the coffee she had just brewed, and lightened it with half-and-half ferreted out from among the chemicals in her office refrigerator. "The Omnicenter is just that pile of glass and stone across the street. Every one of these reports is negative. Bacteriology, chemistry, epidemiology. All negative. Where's the connection? " Tom Engleson flipped through a sheaf of reports from the studies Kate had ordered. There was nothing in any of them so far to implicate the outpatient center. "I don't know, " Kate responded, settling in across the work bench from him. He was dressed in jeans and a bulky, ivory fisherman's sweater. It was the first time she had seen the man wearing anything but resident's whites. The change was a positive one. The marvelous Irish knit added a rugged edge to his asthenic good looks. "I think it's a virus or some sort of toxin… or a contaminant in the pharmacy. Whatever it is is in there." She jabbed a thumb in the general direction of the Omnicenter. "The pharmacy? These reports say that the analyses of Ginger Rittenhouse's medications and of the ones Zimmermann sent you were all perfectly normal. Not a bad apple in the bunch."

"I know."

"So…?"

"So, I don't know. Look, my friend has whatever this thing is that has killed two women. Platelets seventy thousand, fibrinogen seventy-five percent of normal. You saw the report. Not as bad as either of the other two, at least not yet, but sure headed in the wrong direction." Her words came faster and her voice grew more strident. "I don't really need you to come down here and point out the obvious. For that I can go get Gus from the newsstand outside. I need some thoughts on what might be the explanation, not on what can't be." Suddenly she stopped. "Jesus, I'm sorry, Tom. I really am. Between political nonsense here at the hospital, the mess with Bobby Geary and his damn amphetamine addiction, two young women dying like ours did, the everyday tensions of just trying to do this job right, and now Ellen, I'm feeling like someone has plunked me inside a blender and thrown the switch.

You don't deserve this."

"It's okay. I'm sorry for not being more helpful." He was unable to completely expunge the hurt from his voice, and Kate reminded herself that while the five or so years difference in their ages meant little in most areas, hypersensitivity might not be one of them. "If you think it's the pharmacy, " he said, "maybe you should call the FDA."

"One jot of evidence, and I would. I'm the one who talked her into going to the Omnicenter in the first place." Absently, she slipped her hands into her lab coat pockets. In the right one, folded back and again on itself, was the cardboard and plastic card containing what remained of Ellen's Omnicenter vitamins plus iron. She set them on the bench. "No luck finding any of Beverly Vitale's vitamins? " she asked. "None."

Kate crossed to her desk, returned with a medication card similar to Ellen's, and slapped it down next to the other. "I think we should try one last time with our friends at the toxicology lab and their magic spectrophotometer. Ellen's vitamins and these. If the reports come back negative, I shall put all my suspicions in the witch hunt file and turn my attention to other pursuits-like trying to regain some of the respect that was snatched away in the Bobby Geary disaster."

"Don't worry, " Tom said, "you still have respect, admiration, and caring in a lot of places… especially right here." He tapped himself on the breastbone with one finger. "Thank you for saying that."

"Whose pills are those other ones? " he asked. "Huh?"

"The other card of pills, whose are they?"

"Oh. They're mine."

There was an air of excitement and anticipation throughout the usually staid medical suite of Vernon Drexler, MD. The matronly receptionist bustled about the empty waiting room, straightening the magazines and taking pains to see that the six-month old issue of Practical Medical Science with Drexler's picture on the cover was displayed prominently enough to be impossible for Cyrus Redding to miss, even if he were ushered directly into the doctor's office. In the small laboratory, the young technician replaced the spool of paper in the cardiograph machine and realigned the tubes, needle, and plastic sleeve she would use to draw blood from the arm of the man Drexler had described as one of the most influential if not one of the wealthiest in the country. Behind her desk, Lurleen Fiske, the intense, severe office manager, phoned the last of their patients and rescheduled him for another day. She had been with Drexler in 1967, when Cyrus Redding had made his first trip up from Kentucky. Nineteen sixty-seven.

Fiske smiled wistfully. Their office in the Back Bay section of Boston had been little more than two large closets then, one for the doctor and one for herself. Now, Drexler owned the entire building. It was twelve-thirty. Redding's private 727 had probably touched down at Logan already. In precisely an hour, the woman knew, his limousine would glide to a stop in front of their brownstone. Redding, on foot if he could manage it, in his wheelchair if he could not, would be helped up the walk and before entering the building, would squint up at their office window, smile, and wave. His aide, for the last five or six years a silent, hard-looking man named Nunes, would be carrying a leather tote bag containing Redding's medicines and, invariably, a special, personal gift for each of those working in the office. On Redding's last visit, nearly a year before, his gift to her had been the diamond pendant-almost half a carat-now resting proudly on her chest. Of course, she realized, this day could prove an exception. Some sort of pressing situation had arisen requiring Redding to fly to Boston. He had called the office late on the previous afternoon inquiring as to whether, as long as he had to be in the city, he might be able to work in his annual checkup. "Mrs. Fiske, " Drexler called from his office, "I can't remember.