Silent Treatment

'Loomis. Over here.'

Stallings, also holding his suit coat inhis hand, beckoned to him from the shadow of a century-old maple. His briefcasewas on the ground between his feet. The tension Kevin had picked up in the manat the Roundtable meeting was even more evident today. He glanced aboutnervously and constantly moistened his lips with his tongue.

'You sure you weren't followed?' he asked.

'I'm sure. Who are you worried about?'

'Any of them — Lancelot, Kay, Galahad,Merlin. Or someone they hired. Shit, Loomis, I don't know what to do. I justcan't believe this is happening.'

The man's apprehension was contagious.Without even knowing what was going on, Loomis felt his pulse begin to race.

'Hey, you've got to calm down,' he said.'You want to walk?'

'No. No, this is a good spot. Let's sitdown right here. Keep your back against the tree and a sharp eye out for anyonewho might be paying too much attention to us.'

Dark circles enveloped Stalling's eyes,and his pale skin was covered with a sheen of sweat. He had the look of ahunted animal.

'Lancelot came to see me a couple of daysago,' he began when they had settled on the grass at the base of the tree. 'Hisname's Pat Harper. Do you know him outside The Roundtable?'

'Northeast Life. I played golf with himonce.'. 'Well, he picked me up after work and took me for a ride up intoConnecticut. He drives a Rolls.'

'That fits. I really don't know anythingabout him, except that his cigars made me queasy and he's a much better golferthan I am. For that matter, I don't know anything about any of the knights.'

'Neither do I. The secrecy's on purpose.They really don't care if we find out who they are, but they want it to seemlike a big deal. They're really into this mystique thing.'

'You keep saying "they." Who doyou mean?'

'All of them, even Percivale, I think.They're on one side of the fence. You and I are on the other. For a while Ithought it was only me — that even though you joined after I did, you were oneof them. You always seemed so confident, so tuned into everything that wasgoing on. But listening to the way they grilled you about Desiree, I started tohave the feeling that you were an outsider, too. Then, hearing you last night,I felt almost certain of it.'

'All I can tell you,' Kevin said, 'is thatthe only contact I've had with The Roundtable or the knights has been at ourmeetings. I speak to my boss, of course. He's the one who picked me to succeedhim. But that's all. And we never talk about The Roundtable at work — only onhis boat.'

Stallings gazed out at the river and tooka deep, slow breath. It was as if he was getting set to dive from a cliff.

'Did your boss ever tell you they werekilling people?' he asked suddenly.

Kevin pushed back and stared at the man,half expecting to see a gotcha there, just kidding smile.

'Hey, easy does it, Jim,' Kevin said,forcing calm into his voice. 'I'm sure it's not what you think.'

Stallings laughed mirthlessly.

'It's exactly what I think. Lancelotstarted by telling me how pleased everyone was with the work I was doing — especially the legislation I drafted on the terminal-care project. He said thatbecause The Roundtable's business was so unorthodox — that was the word heused, unorthodox — that each new member had to go through a probationaryperiod. Now mine was over, and I was in a position to do my company and myselfa great deal of good.'

Stallings again glanced furtively about.Then he snapped open his briefcase, withdrew a computer printout, and passed itto Kevin. It was a list of 'qualifications' very similar to the ones Merlin hadpresented at the meeting — the factors that had led to Beth DeSenza's beingselected by microchip to lose her job. Only this list of criteria beganwith Currently Hospitalized.

'You know about the future-cost analyses,right?' Stallings asked.

'That's what Merlin was talking about — the estimate of what any illness will cost the industry over its entirecourse.'

'Exactly. Well, this program here has afuture-cost minimum of five hundred thousand dollars. Lancelot wants me to runit through our data banks each week and come up with two or three names. AIDS,cancer, chronic heart problems, mental illness, multiple trauma, blooddiseases, cystic fibrosis, even babies born under a certain weight.'

'There's certainly no shortage ofconditions that'll cost half a million over time.'

'Much more than that, actually. A million,even two. Things like bone marrow replacements and liver transplants. Atwenty-five-year-old mental patient who can't make it outside of a hospitalwill be in seven figures before he's thirty-five. And his life expectancy isn'tmuch different than normal.'

'What happens to the names you come upwith?'

Stallings bit at his lower lip.

'I am to hand-deliver them to each of theother knights — not including you, apparently, I guess you're still onprobation. Then I am to transfer into a Swiss bank account an amount equalingtwenty-five percent of the total that person's care would cost my company.Lancelot explained that the funds I transfer will come from payouts to a set ofnonexistent patients. He seemed very proud of the system, which he says istried and true, and foolproof. Those were his exact words: tried and true,and foolproof.'

'Then what happens to the patients?'

Sir Gawaine shrugged helplessly.

'They die,' he said.

'You mean they're murdered in thehospital?'

'Lancelot never used that word. My companywould achieve a net savings — that's just how he put it, "netsavings" — of around a million and a half to two million a month.'

'Oh, I just don't believe that. Surelythere must be some other explanation.'

'Go ahead and try to come up with one. Idid. How else is that kind of money going to be saved?'

'And all the rest of them are doing this,too?'

'As far as I know.'

'This is crazy. How can they do it? Howcould they keep getting away with it over and over again?'

Stallings dropped the printout back intohis briefcase, snapped it shut, and adjusted each of the combination wheels.

'I don't know. But I kept thinking aboutthat DellaRosa woman. I think whoever injected her with that stuff must be theone who. .'

His voice trailed away. He stared off at adistant freighter. Not far from where they were sitting, a teenage girl intight shorts and a tank top Rollerbladed past, hand-in-hand with a tall, ganglyboy. So normal.

'Did you ask Lancelot about DellaRosa?'

'I mentioned her. But he claimed that ifshe and Desiree were the same person, he surely would have known it. I askedwho handled matters in the hospital, and how they did it. All he said was, thatwasn't his department.'

'There's got to be something youmisunderstood.'

'Kevin, did they promise you an additionalbonus of one percent of everything your company saves through your work withThe Roundtable?'

'Yes.'

'Me, too. Well, Lancelot took specialpains to point out what one percent of a million five to two million a monthcomes to. He also pointed out things we all know — that the cost of caring forcritically ill and terminally ill patients has spiraled out of control, thatall our companies are being battered as never before, and that health carereforms, what with premium caps and all, is only making matters worse. He saidthat the money being saved by our efforts meant more jobs and better servicesthroughout the industry. At one point, he listed a bunch of conditions likeAIDS, metastic cancer, and muscular dystrophy. "Truthfully, now," hesaid, "to all intents and purposes, considering that doctors haveabsolutely no treatments available to cure any of these diseases, when thediagnosis is made, these people are as good as dead. Right?"

'And you want to know the worst part,Loomis? The worst part is that as he talked on, I found myself burying into thewhole thing! Dollars and cents, profit and loss, cost containment, forchrissake. I stopped thinking of the quality of these people's lives. I beganagreeing with everything he said. Diagnosis, prognosis. That was it. That wasall that mattered. I even started thinking about all the ways an additionalfifteen thousand dollars a month would change our lifestyle. Then, at the lastmoment, just before I signed on, I began remembering that he was talking about people.That's what I believe you were thinking about when you started questioningMerlin's program last night.'