Hunter paused, while Temple considered that the foregoing wasn’t a bad description of the Hunter modus operandi either.
“We all fall into their hands sooner or later,” he went on, spreading his. “The medical establishment is a perfect environment for exploring our most irrational fears of death—and sometimes of life.”
“Don’t some people hate their doctors?”
“Only if they’ve been mistreated—misdiagnosed or overmedicated or ignored when a genuine problem was present. Otherwise, they’re ready to canonize them.”
“And you? Do you admire doctors also? Is that why you tried to ally yourself with them?”
“No doubt the ever-efficient Lorna has mentioned my medical ‘record.’ ” He paused again, as if to consider a revelation. He spoke more quickly, without the ever-present smile. “My... mother became seriously ill when I was only in my teens. I matriculated in medicine because of it. I became fascinated by the milieu. My pretending to be a doctor was simply a youthful enthusiasm—and proved to be the perfect education for my current career.”
“Why were you compelled to masquerade as a doctor? Why do others do it?”
“I can’t speak for others, Temple.” Analysis rumpled Hunter’s smooth face. “And I don’t characterize my exploits as ‘compelled.’ It was a... hobby of mine. I functioned quite well as a doctor, as well as my peers did. What tripped me up was the constant record-keeping this society is addicted to, not any mistake on my part.”
“What specialties did you practice? Family physician? Pediatrician?”
“No, no! Nothing so pedestrian. Once I was an oncologist. I was a surgeon another time.”
“But people’s lives were at stake! And you knew you were a fraud.”
“I knew I had no medical degree. And how many real M.D.s are frauds? Medicine wouldn’t be any fun if people’s lives weren’t at stake. We wouldn’t worship Dr. Welby and Dr. Christian and Drs. Kildare and Casey without something vital in the balance—our lives.”
“You wouldn’t have enjoyed the masquerade if that same vital something wasn’t at question?”
Hunter’s dove-gray eyes narrowed. “You make me sound quite bloodthirsty, Temple. I was younger then.” His glance softened as his tone sharpened. “Young men like risk. They race cars, they chase other men’s wives, they practice medicine without a license. It is much the same thing. We all thrive on excitement.”
Temple couldn’t miss the throbbing challenge in his voice. This man intended to devour life. To him, living dangerously included pursuing his spur-of-the-moment attractions. And she could be the current one.
“Do you miss it?” she asked quickly.
“The charade, you mean?”
“Yes. The thrill of the deception, the intricate creation of the believable persona and a paper trail to back it up. The innocent stupidity of everyone around you. The feeling of being so secret and so special.”
Hunter set down his fork, forsaking his fillet of sole. “How well you put it.” His gaze grew even more intense. “I’d almost think you had an appetite for that sort of game. You know the rewards well.”
“PR is a game, too, sometimes,” Temple said, attacking her scallops. “You try to find out what people don’t want to tell you, then turn around and try to keep other people from finding out what they most want to know.”
“Is that why you’re playing gumshoe?”
“I’m not.”
“Nonsense. I must say I much prefer you to that overgrown police detective.”
“Lieutenant Molina seems highly competent.”
“I wonder if that’s what it will take to unravel the murder of a complex man like Chester.”
“You’re a complex man,” Temple objected. He smiled again, as if she had just conceded a point in a chess match. “You must be to have done what you did, then make a writing career of it. Chester Royal, from what I’ve learned, was the antithesis of complexity. He had very simple needs: to feel powerful, to make others, particularly women, feel his power. I don’t think I’d have liked him if I’d known him.”
“A mutual distaste, I’d think.” Hunter laughed. “Yes, Chester had a rabid dislike of women. He always felt they were trying to take things from him—his stature both physical and figurative; his sense of superiority; his money. Must have been embittered by all those wives—and divorces.”
“But I understand that his fear of women goes back to his medical days. And he was a gynecologist!”
“Most male gynecologists then were Roman Catholic, did you know that? It makes sense, a very baby-directed religion by virtue of its proscriptions against both birth control and abortion. Chester was not RC, and I understand he was not averse to performing the clandestine abortion now and again, before it was legal in any sense.”
“Surely only doctors compassionate to women would do abortions in those days.”
Hunter smiled sadly. “Do you know what abortions by medical doctors were like then—often sans anesthetic? No time for recovery rooms and other niceties. I suspect Chester did them for money, period, and to thumb his nose at the system... and to rip fetuses untimely from wombs. He and his many wives never had children, you know.”
“You really think he was that kind of monster?”
“Many of us are that kind of monster, Temple. I never hurt anybody during my bogus medical career. I have an IQ of one hundred seventy-eight, did you know? I can’t say as much for many of the genuine doctors I practiced alongside. I’ve always meant to do a medical exposé, but Chester channeled me into fiction. I think he feared that if I did a controversial book, it would draw attention to his less than glorious past.”
“Or maybe he didn’t want you running down his ex profession.”
“True. Chester was old-fashioned in more than wanting to keep women in their place; he wanted control. He wanted all his authors as off balance as cats on a hot tin roof. Everyone around him was a possible enemy: the woman who would henpeck him, the man who would outperform him in any arena. He loved to put his authors through hell, playing on their insecurities. He wanted me to rewrite Broken Bones five times.”
“Why put up with it?”
Hunter shrugged. “I knew his type from my medical masquerade days. I simply hired a ghost writer to diddle with the ms. over and over until Chester decided he had put me through enough.”
“So you were never taken advantage of editorially, or fiscally?”
“I’m no Mavis Davis, no.” Hunter grinned to observe Temple’s surprise. “I knew Chester’s game; I didn’t let it get to me. And he’d made the mistake of breaking me out early, there was no way he was going to nickel and dime my agent to death at that late date.”
“You seemed to have used him, rather than vice versa.”
“Exactly. I had good training for it in the hospitals. And after.”
“You’re referring to—Joliet, was it?”
“The games played there make those of editorial ego very small potatoes indeed. Speaking of which, are you really going to eat all that? It’s the size of a wooden shoe.’ ” Temple forked into the tuber in question. “You bet. I’ve been on a strange diet lately—tuna fish—and it’s time to make up for it.”
Temple spent the rest of the evening inquiring politely about Hunter’s novels. Most offered unlikely scenarios about heroic physicians foiling near-future plots dealing with corporate clones, sinister truth serums and genetically engineered plagues created by global conspiracies.
Temple could see why spinning such farfetched tales would satisfy Hunter’s con-man instincts. He could play the doctor every day in his novels, and be the hero as well. She could also see why patients trusted him and women would find him attractive, even if they suspected his sincerity. If you’re going to be sold a bill of goods, the salesman had better be smooth.
“What will happen to your books now that Chester Royal’s dead?” Temple polished off the last of her potato just before the waiter cleared the table.