Michael Palmer - Flashback

The Chevy, now traveling at nearly ninety miles an hour, tore through the protective steel as if it were cardboard, crossed a narrow stretch of grass and gravel, and then hurtled over the edge of the gorge.

Strapped to his seat, Andy O'Meara watched the emerald trees flash past.

In the fourth second of his fall, he realized what was happening. In the fifth, the Chevy shattered on the jagged rocks below and exploded. ill THE CAFETERIA OF Ultramed-Davis, like most of the facility, had been renovated in an airy and modern, though quite predictable, style. The interior featured a large, well-provisioned salad bar, and a wall of sliding glass doors opened onto a neat flagstone terrace with a half-dozen cement tables and benches. Pleasantly exhausted from his three-hour cervical disc case, Zack sat at the only table partially shaded by an overhanging tree and watched as Guy Beaulieu maneuvered toward him through the lunchtime crowd. During the summer Zack had spent as an extern at the then Davis Regional Hospital, Beaulieu had been extremely busy with his practice and with his duties as president of the medical staff. Still, the man always seemed to have enough time to stop and teach, or to reassure a frightened patient, or to console a bereaved family. And from that summer on, the surgeon's blend of skill and compassion had remained something of a role model for Zack. "So,"

Beaulieu said as he set down his tray and slid onto the stone bench opposite Zack, "thank you for agreeing to dine with me."

"Nonsense, " Zack replied. "I've been looking forward to seeing you ever since I got back to town. How is your wife doing? And Marie? "

"Clothilde, bless her heart, is as good as can be expected, considering the filthy stories she has had to contend with these past two years. And as for Marie, as you may have heard, she grew weary waiting for you to propose and went ahead and married a writer-a poet of all things-from Quebec."

Zack smiled. He and Marie Beaulieu had been friends from their earliest days in grammar school, but had never been sweethearts in any sense of the word. "Knowing Marie, I'm sure he's very special," he said. "You are correct. If she could not have you, then this man, Luc, is one I would have chosen for her. In an age when most young people seem to care for nothing but themselves, he is quite unique-consumed by the need to make a difference. He works for a village newss'der and crusades against all manner of social injustice while he waits for the world to discover his poems."

"Kids?"

"They have two children, and I don't know how on earth they manage to feed them. But manage they do."

"And they're happy, " Zack said. "Yes. Poor and crusading, but happy, and as in love-more so, perhaps-than on the day they were married."

Zack held his hands apart. "C'est tout ce que conte, n'est ce pas?"

Beaulieu's smile was bittersweet. "Yes, " he said. "That is all that matters." He paused a beat for transition. "So, your old friend Guy Beaulieu is a little short of allies in this place."

"So it sounds, " Zack said, picking absently at his salad. Beaulieu leaned forward, his eyes and his voice conspiratorial. "There is much going on here that is not right, Zachary, " he whispered. "Some of what is happening is simply wrong. Some of it is evil."

Zack glanced about at the newly constructed west wing, at the helipad, at the clusters of nurses and doctors enjoying their noontime breaks on the terrace and inside the cafeteria. "You'll understand, I hope, if I say that I see little evidence of that around me. Could you be more specific?"

"Your father spoke to you, yes?"

"Briefly."

"So you know about the lies."

"I know something of the rumors, if that's what you mean."

Beaulieu leaned even closer. "Zachary, I beg your confidence in this matter."

"That goes without asking, " Zack said. "But I have to warn you of something. The Judge on Sunday, and you again this morning, suggested that at least some of your quarrel might be with Frank. You should know that I have absolutely no desire to take sides in that disagreement.

Your friendship means a great deal to me. I don't know if I'd even be a surgeon today if it weren't for your influence. But Frank's my brother.

I can't imagine lining up against him."

"Even if he was in the wrong?"

"In my experience, Guy, right and wrong are far more often shades of gray than black and white. Besides, I tried my hand at crusading during my years at Boston Muni. All it got me was a tension headache the size of Alaska. I should have bought stock in Tylenol before I took my first complaint to the Muni administration. I'll listen if you want to talk, but please don't expect anything."

"Thank you for the warning, " Beaulieu said. "Even though I have a great fondness and respect for you, and even though, as you no doubt gathered, I haven't much support around this place, I was reluctant to share with you what I know, largely because of Frank. But then, when you said what you did at the meeting this morning-I mean about treating anyone, regardless of their ability to pay-well, I sort of took that as an invitation to talk." Zack sighed. "You thought correctly, " he said finally. "I fight it tooth and nail, but when I'm not looking, the part of me that can't stand seeing people get screwed always seems to sneak to the surface."

"Yes, I heard what you did for that old woodcutter the other night."

"You did?"

"Don't be so surprised. This hospital, this entire town, in fact, has a communication system that would make the Department of Defense green with envy. You had best accept that fact and adjust to it if you're going to survive here. Drop a pebble in the lake and everyone-but everyone-will feel the ripple. That's why stories, such as those that have been spread about me, are so damning. In no time at all, everyone has heard a version."

"Like that old game-telephone."

"Pardon?"

"It's a party game we used to play. Every one sits in a circle, and the first person whispers a secret to the one next to him. Then the secret goes all around the circle, and by the time it gets back to the one who started it, it has totally changed. It bothers me terribly to think that anyone would deliberately be doing anything to hurt you, especially making the sort of accusations the Judge says have been flying around."

"They are lies, you know, Zachary. Every last one of them."

Zack studied the Frenchman's face-the set of his jaw, the dark sadness engulfing his eyes. "I know, old friend, " he said at last. "I know they are."

"So…" Beaulieu tapped his fingertips together, deciding where to begin. "What did you think of my little prepared statement this morning?

" he asked finally. "Well, the truth is, I thought you handled yourself, and expressed yourself, very well."

Beaulieu smiled. "Diplomatically put, my boy. But please, continue, and remember, my feelings are quite beyond being hurt."

Zack shrugged. "Okay, if you really want to know the truth, I kept thinking that all that was missing from the whole scenario was a horse, a lance, a shaving-bowl helment, and Sancho Panza."

This time, the older surgeon laughed out loud "So, you think I am tilting at a windmill, is that it? Well, my young friend, let me give you a closer look at that windmill. Richard noulombe. Do you know him?"

"The pharmacist? Of course I know him. I called in a prescription him just yesterday."

"And did you know that he does not own his pharmacy anymore?"

"The sign says Coulombe Drug."

"I know what the sign says. I also know that Richard is now an employee, and not a proprietor. He sold his store nearly two years ago to a chain outfit named Eagle Pharmaceuticals and Surgical Supplies. I do not know how that particular deal, with that particular company, was brought about, but I can guess now that it was no accident. Richard did not want to sell, but he needed the money to pay an enormous debt-a hospital bill and a surgeon's bill, Zachary-run up by his wife, now his late wife, Yvette, during a series of cancer operations."