Andrew Neiderman - Deficiency

"Okay."

She left him, but it wasn't until she was actually at the first patient's bedside, that she stopped thinking about all he had told her and all he wanted her to do.

Even though he was prepared to deal with it, it was encouraging to him that the phone did not ring all day. Aside from the undertaker, no one apparently had any interest in the old lady's well-being. Where were her contemporaries, her friends? Weren't there any relatives who by now would have found out Kristin was dead and would call to offer their condolences and their assistance? What about Kristin's friends? Didn't she have any? He couldn't remember anything he had said to her or she had said to him, so he didn't recall any mention of a girlfriend. If there were any, maybe they didn't like the old lady and didn't want to call her now, especially now. Death, he realized, quarantined the survivors. People ignored or procrastinated as long as they could so they could avoid the sorrow, but more than that, he thought, so they could ignore their own mortality. Every death was a severe reminder that yours was waiting, patiently or impatiently, and no one wanted to be reminded of that, least of all, himself. There was a ruthless determination to keep his body alive and well, perhaps more so than the others, as he had come to call them, for there was he, unique, a wonder, and there were they, the prey, the food source. He thought of the old lady upstairs, no longer involved in the daily struggle to exist. He went up to the bedroom and looked in on the corpse, still to him lying contentedly, comfortably in the bed.

"I guess you really have been a loner, Grandma," he said. "No gossips coming over for tea and cookies? No cousins, no sisters-in-law, no one?" Families intrigued him, however. Was it simply because he could recall no one in his own? Vaguely, he thought there were people related to him, but his memory problem had become severe lately. All of the images he had been able to draw up from the well of his past experiences came to him like underexposed film full of shadows, silhouettes, faces with no distinct characteristics, voices garbled like something recorded and played at speeds far too slowly. Even his dreams had become colorless streams of obscure, wispy shapes. All he had, he concluded, was the present, and of course, the future. Just like the body's nutritional wealth that he was unable to store, so were the events that made up his own history. It sort of made sense to him. Things passed through him. Nothing stayed. He felt loose, primed, and ready for anything, almost virginal.

Maybe not almost, he thought. I am virginal today. I can remember no lovemaking, and just like that, the momentary sense of emptiness, being lost and alone, floating in space, left him. It was replaced instantly with this youthful excitement, the wonder of something new that was about to happen. He was going to go out on his first hot date. Everything about sex and women was back to being mysterious and fresh.

On the other hand, the old lady looked stale. Her memories were squeezed and shoved into every available closet in that yellow brain now rotting away. No wonder she had been so bitter. If people had no memory, they would never feel they had lived too long, nothing would be tired and nothing would be anticipated, no result expected. Every day would be a birthday. Who needs a past? The hell with trying to remember, he told himself.

"I don't want to look at your family albums, read any of your correspondence, or even see your heirlooms. If I could, I'd put it all in the grave with you. It belongs with death," he told her.

Of course, she didn't move, didn't acknowledge anything.

He stepped back and closed the door, and then he went to his room and he changed into a pair of jeans, a black silk short-sleeve shirt that fit him snugly and clearly revealed his buff body, and scooped up his blue sports jacket. He checked his hair, the smoothness of his face and patted it down with some aftershave lotion.

Like some teenager who had been given permission to take the family car for the first night ever, he bounced gleefully down the stairs and hurried out and around to his vehicle. He got in, started the engine, taking pleasure in the sound of its power when he pressed down on the accelerator. Then he turned on the radio, found a station that played upbeat music and, again like some teenager, revved up the volume. The music poured out the open windows and trailed behind him as he shot down the driveway just a little too fast for the turn at the end. The tires squealed their complaint and he laughed.

I'm alive, he thought.

And I'm on the prowl.

Terri nearly turned to run back to the hospital entrance when the car door of the vehicle beside hers opened and a man stood up. The car had been parked beside hers a while. She had seen it as she had left the hospital after completing her rounds. None of the car lights were on. She had not expected to see anyone still in it. He was obviously sitting and waiting for someone or something and here she was.

He moved into the rim of illumination spread by the parking lot lights and her heart did stop and start with a pounding that made her feel her very bones vibrate. It was the blond-haired man, the man who had come to the office impersonating a BCI investigator.

"Dr. Barnard," he said.

She backed up a few steps and looked toward the hospital entrance. There was no one in sight. She could run for it, but there was too much parking lot to cross. He should be able to catch up to her and out here, alone, she would be relatively defenseless. A shout might bring some help, but too late.

He continued around the rear of her vehicle, walking toward her. He was dressed the way he had been the day she had seen him. He smiled.

"Remember me?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "What do you want?"

"I have just a few more questions," he said.

The question in her mind was should she confront him with what she knew or should she pretend not to know he wasn't a BCI investigator? If she did the latter, would he come at her? Would he come at her anyway?

Sometimes, being a doctor, especially a family physician who confronted not only the patient, but the parents of the patient or the children of the patient, required her to utilize psychological skills as much as medical. It was important to relieve anxiety, calm people down -- in short, have a good bedside manner. That was still a raging debate in medical school: How important was it to treat the patient as a person, treat the whole person, and not just the ailment? Mental turmoil could prevent healing or complicate it. Doing this required her to be a little bit of a liar at times or at minimum having a convincingly confident demeanor without crossing the line into what Hyman called medical arrogance.

"Oh," she said struggling to give off a sense of relaxation. "Detective Clark Kent. I'm sorry. I didn't recognize you in the poor lighting." He stared at her without softening his lips into a friendly smile.

"Yes, well, I'm sorry about that. I called your office and was told you were at the hospital. I didn't mean to startle you. I just thought it was more convenient if I met you out here and left you to your duties and responsibilities in there. I'm sure you had enough to capture your full attention and concentration with your patients' problems."

"No question about that," she said, holding her smile and moving slowly toward her car. "So? What brings you to see me so urgently? I really don't have any more information about Paige Thorndyke than anyone else, especially the police."

"I'm not here to talk about Paige. I wanted to ask you about Kristin Martin."

"Oh?"

She stood at her driver's side door. Her left hand was in her bag, fumbling for the key. When she found it, she held it.