I'm not good with forms. Flunked forms, you know, in high school." She laughs nervously as Dr. Paulsson seriously scans the forms, both of them.
"Loud and clear," Benton says into the transmitter.
Her hand passes over his computer screen as she passes her hand in front of the pen, acknowledging that she hears him through the tiny receiver in her ear.
"Did you go to college?" Dr. Paulsson asks her.
''No, sir. 1 wanted to, but…"
"That's too bad," he replies, unsmiling, and he wears small rimless glasses and is a very attractive man. Some people might call him handsome. He is taller than Lucy but not much, maybe several inches taller, maybe around five-foot-ten or -eleven, and he is slender and looks strong based on what Benton is able to see. He is able to see only what the pen camera picks up from the breast pocket of Lucy's flight suit.
"Well, I don't need to go to college to fly a helicopter," Lucy says with uncertainty. She is doing an excellent job of acting insecure and intimidated and basically invalidated by life.
"My secretary mentioned you've been going through personal problems," Dr. Paulsson says, still looking over her forms.
"A little bit."
"Tell me what's been going on," he says.
"Uh, just the usual boyfriend stuff," she says nervously, sheepishly. "I was supposed to get married and it didn't work out. You know, with my schedule. I've been gone the last five months out of six if you added it up, I bet."
"So your boyfriend couldn't handle your absenteeism and bolted," Dr. Paulsson says, placing her paperwork on a countertop where there is a computer. Lucy is doing a fine job of turning her body to capture him on the video camera concealed as a pen.
"Good," Benton transmits, glancing at his closed, locked door. Henri went out for a walk, but he has locked his door because he isn't sure that she won't just walk in. She hasn't learned about boundaries because to her nothing is out of bounds.
"We broke up," Lucy replies. "I'm all right. But that and everything else… It's been stressful, but I'm fine."
"That's why you waited until the last minute to come in for a physical?" Dr. Paulsson asks, moving closer to her.
"I guess so."
"That's not very smart. You can't fly without your medical. There are flight surgeons all over the country, you should have taken care of it. What if I couldn't have seen you today? I had one emergency appointment this morning for the son of a friend of mine and the rest of the day off, but I made an exception for you. What if I'd said no? Your medical expires tomorrow, assuming the date you put down is correct."
"Yes, sir. I know it was stupid to wait. I can't tell you how much I appreciate…"
"I'm very pressed for time. So let's move along and get you out of here." He retrieves a blood pressure cuff from the counter and tells her to roll up her right sleeve, and he wraps the cuff around her upper arm and begins to pump. "You're very strong. Do you work out a lot?"
"I try to," she replies in a shaky voice as he brushes a hand against her breast, and Benton feels the violation as he watches it on his laptop more than a thousand miles away in Aspen, Colorado. No one looking at Benton would see a reaction, not even a spark in his eyes or a tightening of his lips. But he feels the violation as much as Lucy does.
"He's touching you," Benton transmits, for the taped tecord. "He's begun touching you now."
"Yes," Lucy seems to be answering Dr. Paulsson but she is answering Benton, and she moves her hand across the camera lens, verifying her affirmative response. "Yes, I work out a lot," she says.
46
"Nine-thirty over eighty," Dr. Paulsson says, touching her again as V_»/Velcro rips and he removes the cuff. "Is it usually that high?"
"No, not at all," Lucy says, acting shocked. "It is? I mean, you would know. But it's usually about one-ten over seventy. Almost too low, usually."
"You nervous?"
"I never have liked going to doctors," she says, and since she is sitting on the table and lower than he is, she leans back a little. She wants Benton to see Dr. Paulsson's face as he talks to her and tries to intimidate and manipulate her. "Maybe I'm a little nervous."
He places his hands on her neck, high under her jaw. His skin is warm and dry as he palpates the soft areas under her ears, and her hair is over her ears. He couldn't possibly see the hidden receiver. He tells her to swallow, feeling her lymph nodes and taking his time as she sits upright and continues to will herself into a state of anxiety, knowing he can feel her pulse beating hard in her neck.
"Swallow," he says again, feeling for her thyroid, checking to see if her trachea is midline, and it flits through her thoughts that she knows all about physical examinations. Whenever she had one as a child she asked her Aunt Kay questions and wasn't satisfied until she knew the reason for the examining doctor's every touch and remark.
He begins palpating her lymph nodes again, pressing in closer to her, and his breath is light on the top of her head.
"Getting nothing but the lab coat," Benton's voice sounds clearly in her left ear.
Nothing I can do about it, she thinks.
"Have you been feeling tired lately, feeling not so great?" Dr. Paulsson asks in his matter-of-fact, intimidating way.
"No. Well, I mean, I've been working so hard, traveling so much. Maybe just a little tired," she stumbles, pretending she is as frightened as she sounds while he presses up against her knees, and she feels him. He is hard against one knee then the other, and the camera can't capture what she feels, unfortunately.
"I need to go to the ladies' room," she says. "I'm sorry. I'll be quick."
He backs off and suddenly the room is there again. It is as if the cover has been removed from a hole in the earth and she is allowed to climb out. She slips down from the table and walks quickly to the doorway while he steps over to the computer and picks up her form, the one she filled in correctly. "There's a cup in a plastic bag on the sink," he says as she leaves the room.
lt\r '»
Yes, sir.
"Just leave it on top of the toilet when you're finished." But she doesn't use his toilet, merely flushes it and says "sorry" for Benton's benefit. That's all she says as she removes the receiver from her ear and tucks it into a pocket. She doesn't leave her urine in a cup on top of the toilet because she has no intention of leaving any part of her biological self. Although it is unlikely that her DNA is on a database, she never assumes that it isn't. Over the years, she has employed stringent measures to make sure her DNA and fingerprints aren't on any database in this country or abroad, but she is programmed to live with worst-case scenarios foremost in her mind, so she doesn't leave urine for this doctor, who soon enough will be quite motivated to go after P. W. Winston. Since entering his house, she has wiped off the surfaces she has touched, leaving no prints that might identify Lucy Farinelli, former FBI, former ATF.
She returns to the examination room, willing herself to anticipate the worst. Her pulse reacts accordingly.
"Your lymph nodes seem slightly enlarged," Dr. Paulsson says, and she knows he is lying. "When is the last time… Well, you said you don't like going to the doctor, so you probably haven't had a thorough physical in quite a while. Not bloodwork, either, I am to assume?"
"They're enlarged?" Lucy says, reacting with the expected panic.
"You've been feeling okay of late? No extreme fatigue? No fever? Nothing like that?" He steps close to her again and sticks the otoscope in her left ear, his face very close to her cheek.
"I haven't felt sick," she replies, and he moves the scope to her other ear and looks.
He sets down the otoscope and picks up the ophthalmoscope. He peers into her eyes, his face inches from hers, then he gets the stethoscope. Lucy lets herself be afraid even though she is more angry than afraid. In fact, she isn't afraid at all, she realizes as she sits on the edge of the examination table, and paper crinkles softly whenever her weight shifts even slightly.