Michael Crichton - A Case of Need

“What did you say?”

“I said no.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to see her. She was like the plague, she infected you. I didn’t want her around. So I asked her to please leave, but she didn’t. She sat down and lit a cigarette and said she knew it was all over with us, but she needed somebody to talk to. Well, I’d heard that one before, and I wasn’t having any. But she wouldn’t leave. She sat there on the couch and wouldn’t leave. She said I was the only person she could talk to.

“So finally I just gave up. I sat down and said, ‘O.K., talk.’ And I kept telling myself that I was a fool and that I’d regret it, just the way I regretted the last time. There are some people you just can’t be around.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Her. That was all she ever talked about. Herself, her parents, her brother—”

“Was she close to her brother?”

“In a way. But he’s kind of straight arrow, like Foggy. Fired for the medical bit. So Karen never told him a lot of things. Like the drugs and stuff. She just never mentioned it to him.”

“Go on.”

“So I sat there and listened to her talk. She talked about school for a while, and then about some mystical thing she was starting where you meditated twice a day for half an hour. It was supposed to be like washing out your mind, or dipping a cloth in ink, or something. She had just started it but she thought it was great.”

“How did she act during this time?”

“Nervous,” Zenner said. “She smoked a pack just while she sat there, and she kept fiddling with her hands. She had a Concord Academy ring. She kept pulling it off, and putting it on, and twisting it. The whole damned time.”

“Did she say why she had come down from Smith for the weekend?”

“I asked her,” Zenner said. “And she told me.”

“Told you what?”

“That she was going to have an abortion.”

I sat back and lit a cigarette. “What was your reaction?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t believe her.” He glanced quickly at me, then sipped the beer. “I didn’t believe anything about her anymore. That was the trouble. I was just turned off, I wasn’t paying attention. I couldn’t let myself, because she still…had an effect on me.”

“Was she aware of that?”

“She was aware of everything,” he said. “She didn’t miss anything. She was like a cat; she worked by her instincts and they were always right. She could walk into a room and just look around, and she immediately knew everything about everyone. She had this sense for emotions.”

“Did you talk to her about the abortion?”

“No. Because I didn’t believe her. I just let it drop. Only she came back to it, about an hour later. She said she was scared, that she wanted to be with me. She kept saying she was scared.”

“Did you believe that?”

“I didn’t know what to believe. No. No, I didn’t believe her.” He finished his beer in a gulp and put the mug down. “But look,” he said, “what the hell was I supposed to do? She was nuts, that girl. Everybody knew it and it was true. She had this thing with her parents and with everybody else, and it pushed her over the brink. She was crazy.”

“How long did you talk with her?”

“About an hour and a half. Then I said I had to eat lunch and study and that she’d better go. So she left.”

“You don’t know where she was going?”

“No. I asked her, and she just laughed. She said she never knew where she was going.”

IT WAS LATE IN THE DAY when I left Zenner, but I called Peter Randall’s office anyway. He wasn’t there. I said it was urgent so his nurse suggested I try his lab. He often worked late in his lab on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

I didn’t call. I went right over.

Peter Randall was the only member of the Randall family I had ever met before. I’d run into him once or twice at medical parties. It was impossible to miss him—first, because he was so physically outstanding, and second because he liked parties and attended every one he heard about.

He was a titanic fat man, jowled and jovial, with a hearty laugh and a flushed face. He smoked continuously, drank exorbitantly, talked amusingly, and was in general the treasure of every hostess. Peter could make a party. He could revive one instantly. Betty Gayle, whose husband was chief of medicine at the Lincoln, had once said, “Isn’t he a marvelous social animal?” She was always saying things like that, but for once she was right. Peter Randall was a social animal—gregarious, extroverted, relaxed, good-humored. His wit and his manner gave him a remarkable kind of freedom.

For instance, Peter could successfully tell the most foul and revolting dirty joke, and you would laugh. Inside, you would be thinking, “That’s a pretty dirty joke,” but you would be laughing, spite yourself, and all the wives would be laughing, too. He could also flirt with your wife, spill his drink, insult the hostess, complain, or do anything else. You never minded, never frowned.

I wondered what he would have to say about Karen.

HIS LAB WAS ON THE FIFTH FLOOR of the biochem wing of the medical school. I walked down the corridor, smelling the smell of laboratories—a combination of acetone, Bunsen burners, pipette soap, and reagents. A clean, sharp smell. His office was small. A girl behind the desk was typing a letter, wearing a white lab coat. She was strikingly attractive, but I suppose I should have expected that.

“Yes? May I help you?” She had a slight accent.

“I’m looking for Dr. Randall.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I called earlier, but he may not have gotten my message.”

She looked at me and sized me up for a clinician. There was that slightly supercilious look in her eyes that all researchers get when they are around clinicians. Clinicians don’t use their minds, you see. They fool with dirty, unscientific things like patients. A researcher, on the other hand, inhabits a world of pure, satisfying intellectualism.

“Come with me,” she said. She got up and walked down the hall. She wore wooden shoes without heels—that explained her accent. Following behind her, I watched her bottom and wished she was not wearing a lab coat.

“He’s about to start a new incubation run,” she said over her shoulder. “He’ll be very busy.”

“I can wait.”

We entered the lab. It was bare, at a corner of the wing, looking down over the parking lot. So late in the day, most of the cars were gone.

Randall was bent over a white rat. As the girl came in, he said, “Ah, Brigit. You’re just in time.” Then he saw me. “Well now, what have we here?”

“My name is Berry,” I said. “I—”

“Of course, of course. I remember you well.” He dropped the rat and shook hands with me. The rat scampered across the table but stopped at the edge, looking down at the floor and sniffing.

“John, isn’t it?” Randall said. “Yes, we’ve met several times.” He picked up the rat again and chuckled. “In fact, my brother just called me about you. You’ve got him quite ruffled—a snot-nosed snoop, I believe his words were.”

He seemed to find this very amusing. He laughed again and said, “It’s what you get for pestering his dearly beloved. Apparently you upset her.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be,” Peter said cheerfully. He turned to Brigit and said, “Call the others, will you? We have to get this thing going.”

Brigit wrinkled her nose, and Peter winked at her. When she was gone, he said, “Adorable creature, Brigit. She keeps me in shape.”

“In shape?”

“Indeed,” he said, patting his stomach. “One of the great pitfalls to modern, easy living is weak eye muscles. Television’s to blame; we sit there and don’t exercise our eyes. The result is flabby eyes, a terrible tragedy. But Brigit prevents all that. Preventive medicine of the finest sort.” He sighed happily. “But what can I do for you? I can’t imagine why you’d want to see me. Brigit, yes, but not me.”