Michael Palmer - Flashback

Her voice instantly stirred up images of their sensual, uncomplicated, unselfish evenings together-evenings in sharp contrast to those he had been enduring with Lisette. Annette was the perfect low-stress woman for high-stress times, and Frank made a mental note to have her work late again as soon as possible. "Yes, Annette, " he said, "go ahead."

"Mr. Iverson, Dr. Jack Pearl is here to see you. He knows he doesn't have an appointment, but he says it's quite important."

Pearl. Frank could think of nothing the distasteful little fairy could have to say that he would ever possibly want to hear. "Annette, ask Dr.

Pearl if whatever it is can wait until later on this — oh, never mind.

Have him just come on in," Pea ri, looking, as usual, as if he hadn't shaved in two days, entered Frank's office with a sheaf of papers in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, and immediately caught his foot on the doorjamb and stumbled, sloshing most of his coffee onto the Persian rug. "Oh shit… oh fuck, " he mumbled, dropping to his knees and dabbing at the spill with a handleerchief that was far from virginal. Frank was about to insist that he simply get up and leave the mess to housekeeping. Instead, he threw Pearl a towel from the bathroom and watched with some amusement as the physician crawled about the floor, alternately swearing to himself and clucking like some obscene, gigantic chicken. "Enough, Jack, enough, " Frank said finally. "Take a seat. I'll have Annette get you a replacement for your coffee-unless you want to wring that towel out into your cup." He laughed heartily.

"Sorry, Jack, I was just kidding, just kidding. Seriously, do you want some more?"

"N-No, Frank. No, thank you."

"Okay, then. So, what is this matter of such earthshaking importance?"

Pearl shifted uncomfortably. "Go ahead, " Frank said. "I'm not going to bite you."

"There'sum.."

Pearl coughed and cleared his throat. "There've been a couple of things that have come up… problems… with Serenyl." Frank's eyes grew narrow and hard. "What the fuck are you talking about, Jack? " The anesthesiologist began to tremble. "Well, " he managed, "what I meant was, not problems, exactly… um, a… more like potential problems. I really needed to talk to you, Frank. You haven't been around."

"Business, Jack, I had business. For Chrissake, get to the point."

"I had a visitor in my office Monday morning, Frank"-his words began to come a bit more easily-"a doctor who is on the verge of figuring out that Mainwaring and I aren't using the anesthe ics my operative notes say we are."

"That's impossible, " Frank said, his mind already churning through the implications of discovery at this final stage of the game. Awkward, certainly, he concluded, perhaps even expensive if some sort of payoff was needed. But not catastrophic. The testing was complete. The whole project had been designed to make Jason Mainwaring comfortable enough with Serenyl to buy it, and in that sense, the project was already a total success. "I warned you this might happen, " Pearl was saying. "I warned both of you."

"What are you talking about, Jack?"

"The recovery time. I told you and Mainwaring someone might pick up on it, but you wouldn't listen to me. And now, someone has." His word, initially stuttered and uncertain, began spilling out like a slot machine payoff. "And that's not all, either. There's this kid we operated on last January for a hernia, and… and he's been having these nightmares, and-"

"Okay, okay, " Frank said, holding his hands up, "enough of this bullshit. I want you to slow down, calm down, go back, and start at the beginning. Got that?… Good. Now, first of all, Jack, exactly who are we talking about?"

"Well, Frank, it… it's your brother. Your brother Zachary."

Zack again! For Frank, the minutes that followed were the purest torture. He listened impassively, struggling to maintain his concentration and composure in the face of the grotesque little man and the fireball of hatred that was tearing at his gut. He studied the notes Pearl had brought-Zack's review of the gallbladder cases and the hospital record of Toby Nelms. Then he insisted Pearl go through the entire story again, step by step. Midway through that recounting, he excused himself for a few minutes, citing the need to get some papers signed and in the mail to Boston. Then he strolled placidly through his outer office and down the hall to an empty men's room, where he threw up. Twenty minutes later, he had picked up the cimetidine and some more Maalox at the pharmacy and stood confronting himself in another men's room mirror. As a quaterback, he had learned that plays seldom went exactly as the coaches had diagrammed them in the playbook. A lineman stumbles, and everybody's timing is thrown off, a halfback is thinking about a fight he has had with his girlfriend, and misses a crucial block. The quarterback worth his salt always kept his head, always expected the unexpected. And it was in this area, Frank reminded himself — the instinctive, reflex ability to react and to adjust-that Frankie Iverson had been the very best. This time, as in so many sticky situations on so many playing fields, his edge would lie in keeping a cool head. He had picked through Pearl's story a piece at a time, and realized that things weren't yet nearly as bleak as he had initially perceived. When he returned to his office he was scrubbed, combed, and outwardly calm. Annette Dolan, dressed in a short-sleeved pink sweater with a band of fine beadwork flowing over her breasts, looked even more alluring than usual. Much work to do. Keep tonight open if you can.

Frank scribbled the words on a scrap of paper, signed the note with a smiley face, and set it by her elbow as he passed. She glanced at it and, almost imperceptibly, smiled and nodded. Now there, Frank thought, as he opened the door to his office, was an understanding woman. The office was empty. "Annette, did Dr. Pearl leave? " he asked over his shoulder. "No. Just you, " she said. At that moment, the toilet in his private bathroom flushed. The notion of Jack Pearl sitting on his john was enough to start the acid percolating again in Frank's gut. He would have to get housekeeping to scrub the whole place down before he so much as stepped foot in there again. Pearl emerged from the room wiping his nose with one hand and tugging at his still-open fly with the other.

"Hope you didn't mind my using your head, Frank, " he said. "This whole business has really messed up my insides, and I've got the shits something awful."

Frank smiled plastically and vowed that after the sale of Serenyl was completed, sending Jack Pearl as far from Sterling as possible would rank in priority only slightly below dealing with Zachary. "Okay, Jack,

" he said, "tell me what it is, exactly, that you want."

Pearl cleared his throat. "Well, the more I've thought about the properties of the drug I built Serenyl from-the more I realize that it's possible your brother might be right about that kid."

"That's ridiculous."

"Why?"

"Jack, you and Mainwaring have done five hundred cases. Five hundred!

Have you encountered even one problem?"

"No, but-"

"But what, Jack?"

"If the kid's problem is due to the drug, then it's some sort of delayed reaction. A flashback-that's what your brother called it. If he's right, maybe some others are having them, but they just haven't connected the episodes with the anesthe ic. If I knew for sure that was going on, I could fix it, Frank. I know every molecule in that drug. I could do it."

"Jack, please, " Frank said. "The whole thing is absolute nonsense. The kid is haviniz niizhtmares from something he saw on TV-probably on that goddarn@]Z'va show. They're always showing babies being delivered and people being operated on and shit like that, for Chrissake. It's a wonder more kids haven't gotten screwed up."