Mary Jane led Murphy to the center of the high-ceilinged recreation area, where couches and beanbag chairs were gathered into islands of intimacy and tables displayed the clutter of constant activities. The atmosphere was quiet and soft, the staff well-evident and patient. Even the old people seemed happy. They certainly looked clean and well cared for.
"Right now we're only equipped to handle a hundred inpatients and selected outpatients," she said. "But Dr. Raymond is expanding outpatient services and research. Our ultimate goal, of course, is to one day make any Alzheimer's unit obsolete."
Toward the center, two or three people sat around picnic-type tables, beyond which gleamed a tidy, state-of-the-art kitchen. At its edge, a pencil-thin old guy in brown cardigan and lime green golf pants carefully plucked an apple from an open shelf.
"Mr. Veniman there is using our cafeteria-style dining area," Mary Jane announced like a narrator in a theme park. "As you can see, all our refrigerators and cabinets are either open or glass-fronted. Often, if a client sees food, he'll remember that he's hungry. Isn't that right, Mr. Veniman?"
Startled by the sound of his name, the old guy looked up and smiled. Nodded vaguely and then went back to studying the food he held. Ms. Arlington barely took a breath before plunging on.
"You see, as Alzheimer's progresses, the connection of certain needs to certain tasks becomes lost. A patient may recognize hunger and not remember what to do about it. If he can't see the food, often he forgets the need. We try to keep everything necessary as open and immediate as possible. We break tasks down into easily manageable functions, with reminders to help."
They did a lot of reminding here. Every wall bore big corkboards with announcements in huge letters.
IT IS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29:
SQUARE DANCING TONIGHT, PARDNER!
THE WEATHER OUTSIDE IS:
CLOUDY AND COLD,
TEMPERATURE 30 DEGREES.
TWO DAYS UNTIL
BERT BRINKERHOFF'S BIRTHDAY.
There were smiley faces and frowny faces everywhere, bright paintings, yarn sculptures, photos of the neighborhood. Kind of like the dark antithesis of a preschool room.
"This is one of my favorite advances in Alzheimer's care," Ms. Arlington continued as they approached the patient rooms, her hand sweeping out in a gesture familiar to anyone who watched game shows. "Our memory cases. We put them at each patient's room to help him easily identify it. To cement his own identity."
Murphy had to admit that he was impressed by the brightly lit Plexiglas cases. Built into the wall by each room, they displayed mementos from the patient's life. Old photos, uniforms, bric-a-brac, children's artwork. The guy who'd gotten the apple headed toward one now, hand out a little as if reaching for it, his eyes on a big wedding picture from the forties and the set of crescent wrenches that lay in the light. Passing by, he stroked the Plexiglas, as if his connection were frail enough to need physical contact to maintain it.
It was like ancestor worship, Murphy thought, itching with discomfort. Little shrines built to forgotten memories and worshiped every time a person walked by. A mental mezuzah tacked to the door to reestablish reality.
Murphy had spent most of his life deliberately severing that kind of connection. He wondered, when he saw the old guy smile at the sight of himself in younger clothes, what he'd have left for a shrine of his own. Whether he'd be able to recognize himself from just two Pulitzers.
Screw that, he decided with an almost superstitious shake of the head. The important thing here was that the place looked... legit, damn it. Upscale, well run, well planned, well intentioned. Murphy had investigated more than one nursing home in his career. He'd spent an unforgettable week from hell in one place outside Detroit that offered cockroaches in the soup and mice in the mattresses. Whatever he would end up saying about Alex Raymond, it wouldn't be that he extracted profit from patient misery. The patients here were not miserable. The equipment was first rate, from diagnostic tools like CT and PET scanners to rehab equipment. All space-age stuff, all for these frail, smiling people and the frail people who would follow them.
Not at all what he'd expected from this trip. Not, truthfully, what he'd wanted. He'd started this story as a relief from boredom. But the more he learned, the more he suspected there was a worm hidden somewhere in this perfect apple. He just couldn't find it, damn it, and that made him have to work harder.
Which he didn't want to do, either.
"Everybody seems pretty mobile here," he said, deliberately walking on. "What happens to them when they aren't?"
"Unit five," Mary Jane answered gaily, somehow clacking along on carpeted flooring. "It's a full nursing wing for any of our clients who are ill or have progressed on to the third stage, which is the final physical decline of the illness. Care here is never discontinued because of physical problems. Right now we're lucky, though. We have very few patients needing advanced care."
"Lucky?"
Mary Jane's smile could have been used to teach condescension to acting students. "Nobody likes to see suffering, Mr. Murphy. By the time our clients have reached stage three, they've lost most of what has made them the people they are. It's not easy for anybody. Especially Dr. Raymond. He suffers every time he has to graduate a client. We seem to be preventing that better, don't you see?"
He didn't, but then, he didn't work here day in and day out.
"It's expensive, though, isn't it?"
Her smile brightened, as if she could stun him into forgetting he'd asked such an impolite question. "We have the very latest in care here, Mr. Murphy, the most advanced research. And Dr. Raymond does his very best to offset every cost he can. Fund-raisers, research grants, that kind of thing." She took a quick look around, then leaned closer, in confidence mode. "He'd probably be angry with me if I told you, but a good example is Mr. Leary. Dr. Raymond is picking up much of the cost of his care himself. That should definitely tell you something right there."
Murphy would like to think so. Of course, Murphy naturally hoped it was because Raymond wanted something in return. "Is that why he went bankrupt before?" he asked.
For a second, old Mary Jane's features froze entirely. Murphy spent a moment wishing he had a cigarette. It would have been a good time to light it to give her a chance to recover, him time to assess. Besides, it would get the smell of Giorgio out of his nose.
"Excuse me for being rude," Mary Jane said with the kind of controlled vehemence that betrayed real outrage. Personal outrage, the first Murphy had seen from the plastic woman. "But I don't find that line of questioning pertinent. Or productive. I imagine you'd have to get those answers from Dr. Raymond."
* * *
"You bet we went bankrupt," the golden boy answered twenty minutes later. "What, specifically, did you want to know about what Pete and I are so fond of calling 'our youthful excesses'?"