“Worthless?” Heather questioned in an overly mocking tone. “I beg your pardon, but thousands of extremely happy investors would tell you how wrong you are. How in God’s name did you get in here, anyway?”
“You’re the second person who has asked me that question,” Brian said, imitating Heather’s sarcastic tone. “I merely walked in, which means that not only are you selling morally suspect crap, it seems that you are in dire need of some professional security advice. Luckily, I happen to be an expert in that realm, and I’d be happy to give you one of my cards if you are interested.”
“Get the hell out of here!” Heather snapped, pointing to the door to the elevator lobby. “And if you ever venture to come within a hundred yards of me again, I won’t restrain my pit bulls.”
Despite himself, Brian laughed while glancing briefly at the two supposed pit bulls. “I hope that’s a promise, not a warning. But I can tell when I’m not appreciated, so I’ll take your suggestion and leave. But, your threat notwithstanding, I have a sense that you are going to hear from me again very soon. You, your attitude, and your company continue to ruin my life. It’s just not right, and I’m going to do something about it.”
Without looking back, he walked to the door, deriving a bit of satisfaction from the shocked silence his little speech had engendered. Unfortunately, when he got there, he couldn’t open it and had to wait until one of the younger men in Heather’s entourage came over and used a magnetic card.
“Thank you,” Brian said with forced dignity as he strolled out into the elevator lobby.
Chapter 10
August 31
Brian awoke Monday morning way before he intended but instantly knew he would not be going back to sleep. It was the characteristic whine of a mosquito that had rudely awakened him. Sitting bolt upright in bed, he listened intently. The sun had yet to come up, but dawn’s twilight filled the room with more than enough light for him to see. A moment later he caught sight of the insect as it landed on his upper left arm just above his elbow. For a split second he watched as it prepared to bite. He noticed that it was the same species that had plagued them at their beach barbecue, an Asian tiger, with its characteristic white marks on its black body and legs.
With fear-fueled speed, Brian slapped the insect with enough force to make his arm sting. The blow reduced it to a smudge of blood, suggesting it had already feasted. After using a bedside tissue to wipe off the remains, he bounded out of bed to check the open window. Sure enough, one corner of the screen was not fully engaged in its track, providing an opening to the outside. Brian quickly pulled it in tightly and set the small spring lock in place. With his heart racing, he climbed back into bed on his side and pulled up the covers, marveling at the fact that the Asian tiger mosquito could haunt such a highly urbanized area.
When he’d gone to bed just before midnight, he’d been totally exhausted both mentally and physically. The five or so hours of sleep he’d gotten clearly weren’t adequate, yet the confrontation with the pesky mosquito started him thinking. It was depressingly clear to him that there was no guarantee that things were going to improve as he faced another difficult week ahead. Rolling over onto his back, he stared up at the blank bedroom ceiling to make sure no other mosquitoes had gotten in. Although he knew more sleep was out of the question, he didn’t get out of bed, preferring to wallow in self-pity and lament his life. He’d never realized how tenuous it had been. Friday had started out bad, when a call from Calvin Foster’s executive secretary came in informing him that the October wedding had been canceled until further notice, meaning that even that modest potential income was off the table.
Right after that bit of disappointing news, Juliette had a meltdown while Camila tried to make her eat some breakfast. As if that wasn’t bad enough, then Brian started getting a flurry of calls on both the business landline and his mobile phone as well as multiple emails from a company called Premier Collections, which was threatening both a lawsuit over the $189,375.86 MMH Inwood bill and a sharp decrease in his credit rating if he didn’t immediately set up a payment plan. The harassing communications had shocked him after having had a face-to-face meeting with Roger Dalton just the day before. When he’d tried calling him for an explanation of why it was happening so quickly, he’d had to leave a voice message.
Continuing to stare up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, Brian wondered how his bill was so astronomical, especially when he considered that MMH Inwood hadn’t really done anything besides just watch Emma go downhill. Except for handling the seizure in the ED, they hadn’t really treated her, and they certainly hadn’t cured her. In many ways, she was worse off when discharged than the day she walked into the Emergency Department. And then to truly add insult to injury, he had gotten three more non-hospital bills by email. The smallest invoice was from the ambulance company, Adultcare, who had had the nerve to charge nine hundred dollars to drive Emma about twenty blocks from MMH Inwood to the Hudson Valley Rehabilitation Hospital. At the time the MMH discharge people had arranged the transportation and if Brian had been given any warning about the cost, he would have driven Emma himself.
And then worse still were two other much larger bills from doctors. The biggest was from the neurologist who was not employed by MMH Inwood but had been asked to see Emma. The cost of his evaluation was $17,197.50. The second bill was for an out-of-hospital cardiologist in the amount of $13,975.13 after a nurse had possibly detected a few extra heartbeats when taking Emma’s pulse. In the end, Emma’s heart function was determined to be entirely normal, and all this meant was that his debt had reached a staggering $221,448.49.
The blaring of a horn accompanied by an angry shout out on West 217th Street briefly interrupted Brian’s thoughts, but a moment later he was back to his musing, specifically about how financially predatory and overly expensive the healthcare industry had become, particularly the hospitals. What he realized was that most people with good insurance, like he and Emma had had when employed by the NYPD, were ultimately complicit in allowing this ridiculous situation to happen. If hospital bills got paid, and of course they did, who cared or questioned how much the costs were, especially if trying to figure them out was practically impossible? Now he saw that such an attitude over time had contributed to allowing prices to climb exponentially, making it a recipe for disaster when someone lost their insurance or had bad insurance like the short-term policies Peerless offered. From his perspective it all amounted to a type of tolerated fraud, seeing as hospitals like MMH Inwood could create their own demand and then charge whatever they pleased. On top of that, less than ethical companies like Peerless could latch on and enjoy the ride while making a fortune.
As bad as Friday had been, Saturday was even more upsetting for Brian. It had started encouragingly enough when Aimée had called early and offered to come over and help with Juliette, whose behavior was getting worse. In many respects Juliette was as attached to her paternal grandmother as she was to her mother, and with Aimée present she’d eaten a decent breakfast for the first time in several days and for a while was her old self and content watching her cartoons. The reprieve gave Aimée and Brian a few moments to talk, which he used to share the disturbing news about Emma’s astounding hospital bill. Shocked at the amount, Aimée had suggested he contact a medical billing advocate.