Jonathan Kellerman: The Conspiracy Club

A framed snapshot that had sat on his bedroom dresser. He and Jocelyn, walking along the harbor, eating shrimp from a takeout stand, a warm day, but windy, her head barely high enough to reach Jeremy’s shoulder. Her blond hair all over the place, masking half of Jeremy’s face.

He phoned Doresh, asked for the picture back, never received a reply.

He stripped naked, dropped into bed, figuring he’d be up half the night. Instead, he fell asleep readily but woke up in the early-morning hours, head pounding, muscles aching, brain clawed by images of voracious, cannibal bugs.

Stay out of my life, old man.

Arthur did.

Shortly after drinks at the Excelsior, as Jeremy tagged along during psych rounds, he heard the page operator drone his name. He straggled away from the mental health army, phoned in, picked up a page from Dr. Angela Rios.

Over the past few weeks, the beautiful young resident had tried to catch his eye during at least four chance walk-bys in hospital corridors. Angela had a fine, quick mind and a soft heart, and she was as pretty as they came. Exactly the type of woman Jeremy would go for, if he was interested in a woman.

Careful not to be hurtful, he’d smiled and walked on.

Now this.

He answered the page, and Angela said, “I’m glad you’re on service. I’ve got a problem patient- thirty-six-year-old woman with lupus in apparent remission but now her blood work’s looking scary, and we need a bone marrow aspiration.”

“Leukemia?”

“Hopefully not. But her counts are off in an ominous way, and I’d be derelict not to pursue it. The problem is, she has real difficulty with procedures- scared out of her wits. I offered to sedate her, but she says no, with the lupus receding she’s worried about taking any drugs and messing up her system. Could you help me? Hypnotize her, talk to her, whatever calms her down? I heard you do that.”

“Sure,” said Jeremy.

The first patient he’d “helped” with a procedure had been a twelve-year-old girl with a resected brain tumor- a malignant glioma- about to undergo a spinal tap. The Chief Psychiatrist had given Jeremy’s name to the neurosurgeon who’d put in the consult, and there was no turning back.

He showed up at the procedure room wondering, What am I supposed to do? Found the girl in restraints, kicking and screaming and foaming at the mouth. It had been six months since the tumor had been shelled out of her skull, and her hair had grown back as three inches of fuzz. Ink lines across her face and a yellowish tan said she’d been radiated recently.

Twelve years old and they were tying her up like a felon.

A frustrated second-year resident had just ordered a gag. He greeted Jeremy with a furrow-browed grunt.

Jeremy said, “Let’s hold off on that,” and took the girl’s hand. Felt the shock of pain as her nails cut into his palm and drew blood, looked into her panic-poisoned eyes, tried not to wince as she shrieked, “Nonononononononono!”

Sweat poured from his armpits, his bowels shuddered, and his equilibrium started to go.

He stood by the gurney, frozen, as the girl’s nails cut deeper. She howled, he swayed. His left foot began to slide out from under-

Blacking out-oh, shit!

The resident, staring at him. Everyone staring at him.

He braced himself. Breathed deeply and, he hoped, inconspicuously.

The girl stopped screaming.

His colon felt ready to explode and his back had gone clammy but he smiled down at her, called her “Honey” because he’d forgotten her name though they’d just been introduced, and on top of that he’d just read the damn chart.

She stared up at him.

Oh, Lord, trust.

The room fish-eyed and shimmered, and he felt his knees give way again. Drawing himself up, he began talking to the now-silent girl. Smiling and talking, intoning, droning, uttering Godknewwhatjibberish.

The girl commenced screaming again.

The resident said, “Shit, let’s just do it.”

“Hold on,” ordered Jeremy. The violence in his voice silenced the room.

The girl, too.

He concentrated. Suppressed the shakes that threatened to betray him.

Talked her through it.

Within moments, the girl’s eyes had shut and she was breathing slowly and able to nod when Jeremy asked if she was ready. The resident, now looking off-balance himself, did his thing with merciful skill, extracted the lumbar puncture needle, filled a vial full of golden spinal fluid, and left the procedure room shaking his head.

The girl cried, and that was okay, that was good, she had every right, poor thing, poor poor thing, just a child.

Jeremy stayed with her, endured her whimpers, stuck with her until she was ready to smile and he got her to do so. His full-body sweat was foul-smelling, but no one seemed to notice.

Later, out in the hall, one of the nurses cornered him, and said, “That was amazing, Dr. Carrier.”

Angela’s lupus patient was no screamer. A wan, pretty woman named Marian Boehmer, she expressed her terror by going rigid and silent. Dead eyes. Lips folded inward. In the wrong setting, some nincompoop shrink might’ve slapped her with a catatonia label.

Angela moved away from her and gave Jeremy room to work. Angela’s silky hair was tied back and rubber-banded, her makeup had been eaten up by stress, and her skin bore a library pallor. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in a very long time.

Here she is at her worst, thought Jeremy. The way she looks on a bad morning. And still, pretty good.

The bone marrow aspiration kit lay unwrapped on a bedside tray. Chrome and glass and dagger points, that horrible grinding thing used to puncture the sternum so that blood-forming cells could be sucked out. In order to gain leverage, the doctor loomed from above and leaned in hard, put some muscle into it. Patients willing to talk about the procedure said it felt like being stabbed to death.

Marian Boehmer’s cheeks were clear of the wolf-mask rash that signaled her immune system had gone awry. If you got past the fear, she really did look okay. Fair-skinned and fair-haired, a bit underweight, nice features. Wedding band and a diamond chip on her ring finger. Where was the husband? Did that mean something, his not being here?

Everything means something. At the moment, so what? This woman was going to have her breastbone punctured.

Jeremy introduced himself. Smiled and talked and smiled and talked and held her hand and felt the familiar pangs of his own anxiety- the tight chest, the empathy sweat, the twinges of vertigo.

No danger of embarrassing himself- the horror of the first time had been his hazing.

By now he expected the fear. Welcomed it.

When he helped, he suffered. The key was to hide it.

The key to life was hiding it.

He stroked the woman’s hand, chanced a gentle swipe of her brow and, when she didn’t recoil, told her how well she was doing as he lapsed into the singsong seduction of hypnosis.

Not a formal induction, nothing that theatrically vulgar. Just a subtle, gradual reach for the parasympathetic reaction that combined relaxation and concentration and slowed down mind and body.

Transport yourself to a good place, Ms. Boehmer- may I call you, Marian, thank you, Marian, that’s good, Marian, excellent, Marian.

What a great job, Marian- and here’s Dr. Rios and yes, yes, just hold on, good great- terrific, Marian and… there you go, you did a great job, it’s over and you did great.

During the procedure, Marian Boehmer had wet herself, and he pretended not to notice as the nurse wiped her thighs.

When he took hold of her hand again, she said, “Oh, look at me. I’m such a baby.”