He had ordered some tests in hopes of coming upon one of the rare, treatable causes of the condition, had passed on the address of the national society dealing with Meniere's, and had expressed his regret at not being able to do more. The man's disappointment was predictable and understandable, but it was nonetheless painful for Zack. It's not going to get you, Toby, Zack vowed as he watched his crestfallen patient shuffle from the office. The practice of medicine provided more than enough of the frustration and heartache that came from having no answers. In Toby Nelms's case, the answers were there. And somehow, someone was going to supply them. Just hang in there, kid. natever's going on, whatever they've done to you, it's not going to get you. Zack sent his office nurse home early, alerted the answering service that he would be on his beeper, and spread the boy's folder on his desk. Most of what he was rereading he knew by heart. After just a few minutes, he snatched up the phone and called Frank's office. There was no alternative but to share his suspicions with his brother and try to enlist his help in another confrontation with Pearl. Frank was gone for the day, and his secretary had no idea where he was or when he would be back. A call to Mainwaring's office gave him only the answering service, and the information he already had, that the surgeon was out of the state until the following Monday and was being covered by Greg Ormesby.
"Answers, " he canted, drumming a pen on the edge of his desk. "There have got to be answers… Where are you, Jason?… Who are you?…
What do you know?"
On an impulse, he checked his hospital directory and dialed the pathology department. Takashi Yoshimura answered on the first ring.
"Kash, " he said, "if you can do it, and if it wouldn't put you on the spot, I need a name…"
Ten minutes later, Zack was on the line with a Dr. Darryl Tarberry at Johns Hopkins. "Dr. Tarberry, " he said after explaining how he had come by the man's name, and after listening patiently to ebullient praise of Kash Yoshimura and his work, "I am calling for a recommendation, but not for Dr. Yoshimura. Fortunately, we already have him on our staff. The man I'm interested in is Dr. Jason Mainwaring. Kash said you might have worked with him when he was at Hopkins."
For a few seconds there was only silence. "Who did you say you were?"
Darryl Tarberry asked finally. From his recollection of the man, Yoshimura had guessed that Tarberry was in his mid-sixties by now. But from the harsh crackle in his voice, Zack wondered if he might be years older than that. "My name's Iverson. Zachary Iverson, " he repeated.
"I'm a neurosurgeon, and I'm on the credentials committee here."
Again there was a pause. "Mainwaring's applying for surgical privileges at your place?"
"That's right."
"Well, I'll be," Tarberry said. "Where did you say that hospital of yours was?"
"New Hampshire, sir. Listen, I don't want to put you on the spot, Dr.
Tarberry, but we would certainly appreciate any information you can give us."
"This call being recorded?"
Zack groaned. "No, I promise you it isn't."
"I'm not putting anything on paper, now."
"That's fine."
"Mainwaring and his lawyers had this place tied up in knots for I don't know how long. Damn lawyers. Ended up costing the hospital a small fortune to settle even though we were one hundred percent in the right as far as I'm concerned. One of my colleagues got ulcers from it. I swear he did. I don't want that happening to me. I'm too damn old for that kind of nonsense."
"You have my word."
"Your word… Iverson, huh. That Swedish?"
"English. It's English, " Zack said, staring upward for some sort of celestial help. "Well, Iverson, I don't know all the details."
"That's okay."
"And as far as I'm concerned, we never had this conversation."
"Promise."
"Well, " the man said, drawing out every letter of the word, "let me tell you first that Mainwaring may be the most ambitious sonofabitch God ever put in a mask and gown, but he is one fine surgeon. Maybe the best I've seen, and I've seen plenty."
"Go on, " Zack said… After fifteen minutes of prodding and cajoling, Zack felt he had extracted as much from Darryl Tarberry as he was likely to-at least over the phone. There was more to the story, he knew.
Probably much more. But even so, a huge piece had fallen into place in the puzzle of Toby Nelms. Zack was just finishing writing a synopsis of the interrogation when the door to his waiting room opened and closed.
"I'm here," he called out. "What a coincidence. So am I" Suzanne appeared at his office door, wearing a lab coat over an ivory blouse and ankle-length, madras skirt. "Got a minute? " she asked. "For you?
Years." He set the Tarberry notes in Toby Nelms's folder and pushed it to one side of the desk. "Trouble with Annie?
"
"No, no. Nothing like that. She's doing amazingly well. I think Sam Christian's going to do her hip tomorrow."
"Excellent. I'm so pissed off about what's happened to her. Every time I think about what Don Norman did, I want to hunt him down and flatten that pudgy little nose of his."
"Zack, I'm as upset as you are about Annie, but I don't see how you can lay all the blame on Don. He didn't do anything with malicious intent."
"That depends on your definition of malicious. He was sedating her so that she wouldn't object to being sent to a nursing home, so that Ultramed could continue to rake in profits from her care. If that's not malicious, I don't know what is."
"Hey, easy does it, okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"that's your opinion. But it happens not to be everyone's. Couldn't YOU just let up on this place a bit?"
"Huh?"
"Zack, Frank just left my office."
"So, that's where he's been. I've been trying to reach him."
"He's really upset with you."
"I know. Is that why he went to see you?"
"As a matter of fact, it is. He… he wanted me to talk to you-to ask you to let up on your criticism of this place."
"He could have come and asked me himself."
"He says he tried."
"He was drunk. He threatened me. That's not what I would call the Optimal approach… So, now he's chosen to involve you. I can't believe this place."
"Zachary, I didn't come up here to pick a fight. I just wanted to do what I could to smooth things over between you two. I owe Frank a lot. I thought you understood that from all I told you of what happened to me."
"Sorry, " Zack mumbled. "If I'm touchy, I guess it's that I just wish things were different between me and Frank."
"Well?"
"Suzanne, I can't help it if Frank thinks it's my fault that the Judge is pushing the board of trustees to buy back the hospital from Ultramed."
It was clearly the first she had heard of that development. "My God, Zack, you can't let him do that."
"First of all, " he said.
"I have no more control over that man than Frank or anybody else does.
And second, why not?"
"Well… well because, " she stammered. "If the board threw Ultramed out, Frank would be ruined."
"Nonsense. He knows his job. He could do it just as well for a community corporation as he could for an operation like Ultramed. Better, probably. Suzanne, listen to me. Something's wrong around here.
Something's terribly wrong."
"Dammit, Zachary, what is the matter with you? Don't you have regard for anyone but yourself? I come here to ask you to let up on a man who is partly responsible for saving my career, to say nothing of his being your brother, and all you can do is… is tear down his hospital."