Alan folded his hands as if in prayer and bowed his head. "Amen, brother."
Tony laughed. "That's the attitude!"
"How are things at the office?" Alan said as he rose and led him to the door. "Quieted down any since word got out about suspension of my hospital privileges?"
"Just the opposite. The crowd's bigger than ever. I mean, some of them have been there for weeks now, waiting for a chance to see you, and you haven't even shown. You'd think they'd give up by now."
"They're the type who can't give up," Alan said. "They've been everywhere else and tried everyone else. They haven't got anyplace else to go."
Alan stood at the door, looking down the driveway without seeing Tony drive off.
They haven't got anyplace else to go. God, what an awful feeling that must be. And then to wait and wait and have the miracle you've been praying for never show up.
He went to his charts on the Hour of Power. After making some quick calculations, he grabbed the phone and called his receptionist.
"Connie? Can you get down to the office right away? Great! We're going to work!"
___27.___
Charles
Another "informal chat" with the senator.
Charles stifled a yawn. He had taken Julie out to Montauk for the long weekend—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the beach. The purely American holiday held a special significance for him, allowing him to celebrate his own personal independence from England. The sunburn he'd developed on the beach—and he deserved it for leaving his shirt off most of yesterday—had kept him awake half the night.
"By the way," the senator said as Charles got up to leave, "I heard a strange story over the weekend. Seems that sometime last month a woman in Monroe with a lifelong history of a clubbed left foot was accosted by a man who chased her, knocked her down, and straightened out her foot right there on the side of the road."
Charles rolled his eyes. The man never tired of the subject! He didn't want to waste more time here. He was to meet Sylvia shortly when she dropped Jeffy off for a few days of testing. He was looking forward to seeing her. "An apocryphal tale if I ever heard one. Which one of the saints was it? Anthony? Bartholomew?"
The senator smiled. "No. Actually, the description she gave matches Dr. Alan Buhner quite closely."
Bulmer again! The senator seemed to be developing an obsession with the man. Between Sylvia and the senator, every conversation seemed to turn to Alan Bulmer lately. Charles had met him only once, but he was getting bloody sick of hearing about him.
"Just let me guess," Charles said before Senator McCready could go on. "Her supposedly deformed foot is now bloody perfect. Right?"
The senator nodded. "Right. Only 'supposed' isn't quite accurate. I understand the woman's deformity has been common knowledge for many years. There's no evidence of it now."
Charles smirked at the senator's gullibility. "Got any before-and-after X rays?"
"None that can be found. Apparently the woman suffered from an unfortunate combination of poverty and ignorance— she never sought help for it."
"How convenient," Charles said with a laugh.
"Would X rays convince you?"
"Not likely. Especially not old ones. They could be of someone else's foot."
It was the senator's turn to laugh, and there seemed to be genuine good humor in the sound.
"That's what I like about you, Charles! You accept nothing at face value. You trust no one! I take great comfort in knowing that if you believe in something, it's certainly safe for me to do the same."
"I've told you before, Senator—I don't believe in things. I either know something or I don't. Belief is a euphemism for ignorance combined with sloppy thinking."
"You've got to believe in something sometime."
"You are free to believe that if you wish, Senator. I bloody well don't."
Deliver us all from men who "believe," Charles thought as he walked out into the hall.
Marnie, his secretary, held up a yellow slip of paper as he walked into his office.
"Mrs. Nash is at the front desk."
Charles' spirits lifted. Sylvia had been so bloody preoccupied lately, she seemed to have no time left for him. He knew she was worried about Jeffy, but there seemed to be more to it than that.
Well, she was here now and that offered an opportunity to revive the relationship. Perhaps it wasn't going to be a Blue Monday after all.
___28.___
Alan
It threatened to become a mob scene at first. The people in the parking lot recognized him immediately and surrounded his car, pressing so tightly against it that he couldn't get the door open. Finally, after he had leaned on the horn for a full minute, they backed off enough to let him out.
And then it was a sea of hands and faces pressing close, touching him, grabbing his hands and placing them on their heads, or upon the heads of the sick ones they had brought with them. Alan fought the panic that surged through him— he could barely breathe in the crush.
This bunch was noticeably different from previous crowds. These were the diehards, the most determined of the pilgrims, the ones who had stayed on despite news of the suspension of Alan's hospital privileges and rumors that he either had lost his power or had been proven a fake after all. As a group they were scruffier, dirtier than any others Alan could remember. All the women seemed to have ratty hair, all the men seemed to have a two-day growth of beard. They appeared much worse for the wear, much poorer for their illnesses. But most striking was the look of utter desperation in their eyes.
Alan shouted for them to let him through, but no one seemed to hear. They kept reaching, touching, calling his name…
He managed to crawl up on the roof of his car, where he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. Eventually they quieted down enough to hear him.
"You've got to back away and let me into the office," he told them. "I'll see you one at a time inside and do what I can for you. Those I don't see today, I'll see tomorrow, and so on. But all of you will be seen eventually. Don't fight, don't push and shove. I know you've all been waiting here a long time. Just be patient a little longer and I'll see you all. I promise."
They parted and let him through. Connie was already inside, having sneaked by while the crowd's attention was on him. She opened the door and quickly locked it behind him.
"I don't like this," she told him. "There's something ugly about this group."
"They've been waiting a long time. You'd be disheveled and short-fused too if you'd been living in a parking lot for two weeks."
She smiled uncertainly. "I guess so. Still…"
"If they make you nervous, here's what we'll do. We'll let them in two at a time. While I'm seeing one, you can be filling out a file on the next. That way we'll keep a good flow going."
Because I'm only going to have an hour or so to do what these people came for.
It began on a sour note, with a surge of pushing and shoving and scuffling to get in when Alan first opened the door. He had to shout and threaten to see no one unless there was order. They quieted. A middle-aged man and a mother with her child were admitted. Both man and child were limping.
Five minutes or so later, Connie brought the mother and child back to the examining room. As Alan stepped into the room, the mother—dressed in a stained housecoat, with dark blue socks piled around her ankles—tugged at the child's hair and it came off. A wig. She was completely bald. Alan noted her pallor and sunken cheeks. She looked to be no more than ten.
"Chemotherapy?''