The physicians of possible interest to the Ultramed system were listed by specialty and subspecialty, along with a detailed but straightforward summary of their education and work experience. However, item four was hardly a typical employment bulletin board.
Included with many of the names was a paragraph summarizing the professional and/or personal difficulties that had made that physician available. Drugs, alcohol, sexual entanglements, financial improprieties, professional misconduct of one sort or anther-compiling the roster was the full-time job of an obsessively diligent investigator in the home office. Primary among her responsibilities was the weeding out of those physicians for whom there was little or no hope of rehabilitation. Those remaining on the list, many of them excellent practitioners, were of particular interest to the corporation. More often than not, they proved to be devoted employees, grateful for a second chance, totally loyal to the company and its policies, and willing to work for any salary that was reasonable. Steve Baumgarten in the emergency ward had been recruited through Ultr'ma's unique bulletin board. So had Suzanne Cole, a real prize, who almost from the start had generated an income many times greater than her salary. But for Frank, it was the one-two parlay of Jack Pearl and Jason Mainwaring that had made Mother worth her megabytes in gold. For a time when Frank's back was to the wall, when he was becoming so desperate about the $250, 000 that he was actually considering approaching the Judge for help, Jack Pearl's name appeared in item four. The description of Pearl's problem, which Frank eventually had memorized, read, Holds patent on what he has claimed is revolutionary new general anesthe ic. Texas license suspended pending investigation of alleged illegal clinical testing of the substance and falsification of information on experimental drug application. Physician with same name resigned 1984 from Wilkes Community Hospital, Akron, Ohio, because of alleged sexual involvement with a ten-year-old boy. Further information currently being sought.
Mildly intrigued, Frank had made a note to do some checking on the man, but had not put much energy into the project until, not a month later, Ultr'ma served up a brief item on a professor of surgery from Baltimore.
Jason Mainwaring had been found to be an officer and partner in a Georgia pharmaceutical house, and subsequently had resigned his position due to charges of conflict of interest and illegal use of an unapproved drug. It had taken trips to Maryland, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio, an additional twenty thousand dollars in Ultramed-Davis funds to gather information and secure the cooperation of a certain politician in Akron, and finally, a series of the most delicate negotiations with both physicians. But in the end, Frank had forged the key to his future. And now, within the next two weeks, the rest was about to become history.
For several minutes Frank scanned the electronic roster of physicians.
He was amazed, as always, at how so many who held the ultimate ticket to success and prestige could have made such pathetic shamble@s of their lives. A pediatrician from Hartford about to complete four months in an alcohol rehabilitation center, a gynecologist from D. C. who had resigned his hospital appointment amid a cloud of accusations that his "aminations were too prolonged and included house calls, an oral surgeon facing revocation of his license for writing too many narcotic prescriptions for himself, Frank jotted down several names, along with a memo to himself to make some preliminary calls. Ultramed and its parent corporation had the clout to make any physician's background difficulties disappear to all but the most intensive investigation.
However, its administrators had been well warned against using that service indiscriminately. Frank had just terminated with Mother when, with a discreet knock, Jason Mainwaring entered the office. He was dressed in a light cotton suit, monogrammed shirt, and white topsiders, and looked very much like the plantation owner he planned to become as soon as his pharmaceutical company had successfully produced and marketed Jack Pearl's Serenyl. "Drink? " Mainwaring asked, setting his briefcase down and then striding directly to the small wet bar in Frank's bookcase. "Sure, " Frank said, quietly resenting the way the man, as always, stepped into a room and took charge. "Bourbon's fine."
The surgeon gestured at the huge aerial photo of the Ultrameddavis complex. "Nice little operation y'all have here, Frank, " he said. "I think I'm actually going to miss it some. But home is where the heart is, right?"
"Of course, " Frank countered. "Although I knew you had been up here too long when I heard a little Yankee accent creep into that drawl of yours the other day."
Mainwaring snorted a laugh as he scanned Frank's collection of cassettes. "Mantovani, Mantovani, Mantovani, " he said disdainfully, tossing them aside one at a time. "You know, the closest thing you have here to Beethoven is Mantovani."
"I like Mantovani, " Frank said. "I know."
Mainwaring thought for a moment and then snapped opein his briefcase, removed two cassettes, and flipped them onto Frank's desk. "I know I'm prob'ly tossin' pearls to a razorback, " he said, "but here are some examples of real music for you. It's what I listen to in the O. R. Call em a good-bye present. This one's Beethoven's Third. It's called the Eroica. And this one's by an English composer named Vaughan Williams.
It's a fantasia on "Greensleeves. Listen to these two pieces, and I suspect even you will appreciate the difference between real music and the Burger Mng brand you've been listening to."
"Sure thing, Jase, " Frank said, dropping the tapes into his desk drawer. "I'll start my reeducation first thing in the morning."
"I won't hold my breath." Mainwaring settled in on the sofa Frank and Annette Dolan had so recently vacated, and motioned Frank to take the easy chair opposite him. "I hate doin' business with anyone across a desk, " he explained. Unless it's yours, right? Frank thought. He hesitated, and then did as the man asked. There was no sense in making an issue of it at this stage of the game. "So, Jason, " he said. "I assume you're still satisfied."
Mainwaring took a file from his briefcase and opened it. "With this kind of money involved, " he said, "I won't be satisfied until our little anesthe ic is in every operating room of every hospital in the world.
But I am certainly pleased with the"-he consulted the file' four hundred ninety-six cases Jack and I have completed. I must say, Frank, you've done all right. You promised me five hundred cases in two years, and you delivered."
"Like I told you when we first met, Jason, I know this town."
The key to the whole project had been the rapid takeover by Mainwaring of Guy Beaulieu's practice. And only Frank, and to some extent, Mainwaring, knew how skillfully Frank had engineered that feat. Details, that's what it all came down to. Attention to touches like the letter to Maureen Banas threatening his own position should she ever disclose to anyone, including him, what was being done to her. The sort of details he had neglected to attend to three years before., Pity about ol'
Beaulieu," Mainwaring said blandly. Frank could not tell if the man was being facetious or not. Again, he opted to avoid an altercation. In the morning, Mainwaring would be gone. And in a week or so he would be back to officially tender his resignation and to offer proof of a million dollars in Frank's Cayman Islands account and half a million in Pearl's, in exchange for the patent Frank now shared with Pearl and all future rights to Serenyl. And that, Frank knew, was what it was all about. He would, at last, have squared away the $250, 000 shortfall in the Ultramed-Davis books, and there would be a nifty little bundle left over to build on. "Well, " he said dispassionately, "at least the old guy didn't suffer. When my number comes up, I want to go the same way…