Cell

14

George felt and heard the tremendous crash. His first thought was earthquake. He’d felt a few temblors in his three years in Los Angeles, but this didn’t seem to fit the bill. It was too localized. His mind raced through the other possibilities, arriving at the one option almost everyone considered these days: Was it a bomb? A terrorist act? All around him, people were leaping out of their seats and heading for the door.

Dust and smoke streamed through the shattered floor-to-ceiling windows. A trail of debris was strewn across the lobby, ending at the smoldering wreckage of an automobile at the base of what had been the ten-foot-high LED screen. Three staffers had surrounded the fuming hulk of the vehicle and were dousing it with fire extinguishers. Patients who had been waiting to be seen were either scrambling to get out the entry doors or were standing immobile, staring vacantly at the scene with shock. Luckily, it appeared that no one, either patient or employee, had been hurt in the crash.

George noticed Debbie Waters trying to get things organized, pointing here and there with a cell phone in her hand, as if it were a conductor’s baton. George scanned the room, coming to rest upon the wrecked vehicle. He froze, recognizing the car immediately, even in its mangled state. Its vintage and rarity left few conclusions for George to draw. His eyes moved past the large fragmented windshield to where a number of orderlies and doctors were extracting a mutilated body.

Rushing forward, George got a look, better than he really wanted. It was Sal. His body was a mess, with major head and torso damage. But George knew it was his friend, and the familiar T-shirt clinched it, even if Sal’s face was unrecognizable. As they pulled the body free, it was placed on a gurney and rushed down to one of the trauma rooms.

At that instant the Los Angeles Fire and Police Departments invaded the ER. A number of firemen in full gear came in through the missing windows. Senior hospital officials arrived as the remaining patients were escorted away from the debris.

George rushed down the main hallway, grabbed one of the portable X-ray machines, and pushed his way into the trauma room where they had taken Sal. By the time he got there the doctors had decided that the patient was beyond saving, mostly due to the massive head trauma.

“No ID. At the moment anyway,” the head of the trauma team said to the ER nurse holding a tablet in her hand, entering notes. “List him as a John Doe—”

“His name is Sal,” George interrupted. “Salvatore DeAngelis. He lives at 1762 South Bentley Avenue, apartment 1D.”

The group turned to him with surprised, quizzical looks.

“He is my neighbor.”

George walked off down the hall as Sal’s body was covered by a white sheet. Another iDoc patient was dead!

So, other than his Alzheimer’s symptoms,” the LAPD detective said to George, “were there indications of any other factors at play? Drugs, alcohol?” The detective was trying to be gentle, obviously picking up on the fact that George had an emotional attachment to the victim beyond being a neighbor.

“No. Nothing,” George replied. He was at a table in the ER staff lounge, his head in his hands, still trying to digest what had happened. The detective, seated across from George, was typing notes into his smartphone.

“Had he been drinking much lately?” he asked. “I mean, did he drink during the day as far as you know?”

“No. Sal didn’t drink alcohol, not even beer.”

“Were you aware he had been diagnosed with depression and was taking medication to treat it?” The detective asked.

“No — I mean, he hadn’t mentioned it. But I wouldn’t have expected him to, either. A lot of people, even someone as open as Sal was, don’t talk about psychological problems. He was a gentle, seemingly cheerful guy. I’ve never known him to have ever done anything reckless or illegal.”

“I understand.” The detective took some more notes.

George eyed the policeman’s phone, noticing a thin red bar across the top of the display face. Even though he was reading upside down, he was pretty sure the word in the bar was RECORDING.

“Are you taping this?” George asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” the detective replied. “It makes things easier later. People tend to forget details.” He glanced up.

“Don’t you have to ask my permission first?” George asked. He was surprised and, needing something to take his mind off the reality of Sal’s death, found himself irritated that he was being recorded without his knowledge.

“No. It doesn’t work that way,” the detective responded offhandedly. He returned to his line of questioning. “Were you aware that Mr. DeAngelis had an appointment here today?”

George ignored the question. “If you’re recording the conversation, why are you taking notes, too?”

The detective stopped typing and looked up. “I take notes of my initial thoughts of questions that may not be appropriate at the time. Or maybe my own reaction about something that was said. I know how to do my job, Dr. Wilson. As I assume you know how to do yours.”

“I’m sorry,” George said. “I’m upset.”

“It’s okay.”

“Anyway, I was not.”

The detective looked confused. “You were not what?”

“I was answering your question. You asked me if I was aware that Mr. DeAngelis had an appointment at the medical center today. I was not. I knew he had been coming here for tests recently, but he hadn’t shared the details about them, and I didn’t ask. We have HIPAA rules. A right to privacy. That extends beyond these walls.” George had done his fair share of violating HIPAA rules, especially after Kasey had passed away, but without knowing why, he wanted to rub this guy’s nose in it. “You probably shouldn’t have even told me he was taking medication for depression when you get right down to it. I’m not his personal physician. His current doctor is a…” George motioned to the detective’s cell phone. He trailed off, unsure of just what he meant to say.

“Is a what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

The detective stared at George in silence. “His family,” he finally said, moving on to another topic.

“Estranged at some level. I’d met his two sisters once. Actually I had been thinking about trying to contact them this week.”

“Why was that?”

“Because Sal’s Alzheimer’s was advancing. I was hoping to get them involved in his life.”

The detective nodded. “Okay.” He stood up. “I think I have the gist of it. Thanks for your help.”

“Sure. What is the ‘gist’ that you got, anyway?”

“That the man got confused and overwhelmed while driving his vehicle. Likely due to his Alzheimer’s. And a tragic accident resulted. We’re lucky no one else was injured. Or killed. Remember that crash out at the Santa Monica farmers’ market a few years back? A gentleman, in his mid-eighties, I think, plowed his car right through the market’s produce stands, killing nine people, including a three-year-old girl. Another fifty-some people were injured. By comparison, we got off easy here today.”

“Yeah. Easy,” George mumbled.

“Thanks again for your time.” George watched the officer turn off his phone and then leave.

George made his way back to the ER reading room and threw himself into a chair. Carlos was glad to see him, since a number of X-rays needed review. George thought keeping busy might be the best thing he could do to feel better. He delved into them but struggled to keep his mind focused. He had the paranoid feeling that death was mocking him. He knew such thoughts were irrational, but that didn’t make them any less disturbing.

“There’s one more,” Carlos said, bringing up an X-ray of an arm fracture on the monitor. “I think it’s a—”

“Excuse me,” George said, cutting off Carlos as he abruptly stood. “I need to step out a moment.”

Carlos looked at him surprised. “Yeah. Sure. Everything okay?”

George remained silent a moment. “Not really.” He turned and left the room.

“Will you be back soon so we can finish?” Carlos called, but the door had already closed, and George apparently hadn’t heard him.

15

Bradley Thorn’s office was on the top floor of the tallest building in Century City. It was both extravagant and massive. His ego demanded it, as did his sense of inferiority, instilled in him at a young age by a domineering, sadistic father. Bradley heard “the hospital must have switched babies” routine too many times to count. It was mean and abusive on his father’s part. But then his father’s personality had enabled him to rise to the top of the health care game. The father had been ruthless, developing a computerized method of paying doctors as little as possible and delaying the payment for as long as possible, which had amassed him a fortune and ultimately the leadership of Amalgamated Healthcare.

Bradley inherited control of the company just two short years earlier, after the senior Thorn suffered a massive stroke. It was a tragedy for the previously robust Robert Thorn. For his son, it had been a godsend.

Bradley was physically fit and in excellent health. He was confident women found him attractive, although he was never sure if that was enhanced by thoughts of his money or not.

At the moment, Thorn was meeting with Marvin Neumann, a celebrated hedge fund genius who was thinking of putting some $500 million into Amalgamated to take iDoc international. His money would also help with the acquisition of more hospitals. Thorn had told him that’s where the big profits were, especially since Amalgamated would be paying itself for hospital services.

Neumann in turn told Thorn he had some demands to go with his money. He wanted a seat on the board of either Amalgamated or iDoc. Which one, he hadn’t decided. Neumann also cited medicine’s tendency to overemphasize the good and ignore the bad in their testing results. He wanted to be absolutely certain that iDoc’s beta test had been as well received as Thorn had reported at the presentation.

“Absolutely!” Thorn protested. “If anything, we have been conservative in our appraisal. Please be assured that I’m not about to risk my reputation or the company’s for a short-term gain.”

“That’s comforting to hear,” Neumann said. What he didn’t say, though he was pretty sure of it, was that Thorn would likely risk everything to be regarded as a hero. The guy was both pretentious and insecure, and everyone knew the stories of him and his father. But family and personal failings aside, the hedge fund guru felt Thorn had stumbled upon something big, and he wanted a piece of it. He just needed to have a position to be able to watch the company’s progress and steer it away from trouble if need be. Health care in the United States was a notoriously politicized arena. That’s why he would eventually insist upon seats on both boards. But in these preliminary negotiations he would suggest that one would suffice. He’d demand both board seats when Thorn was about to lay hands on the cash. It was a ploy Neumann had used to great effect in the past.

“The beta test has been a fantastic success far exceeding our most optimistic predictions,” Thorn bragged. “As we said, the patients love it and it is going to truly solve the primary-care shortage worldwide. And lower costs. What more can you ask?” Thorn jabbed his finger at Neumann, “And iDoc is going to revolutionize addiction treatment. Whatever the addiction, iDoc will offer immediate, real-time feedback when a client-patient indulges—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Neumann interrupted. He didn’t need to hear a repeat of what had been said at the presentation.

“Well, I’ll get back to you about a board seat,” Thorn said. “It’ll have to be brought up with the current board.”

“Of course,” Neumann said, standing.

“Thanks for coming in.” Thorn stood as well and shook hands with Neumann, escorting him out of his office.

Neumann paused at the office door. “Say hello to your father for me. We used to play tennis on occasion on our Sun Valley trips. I hope he’s doing well.”

“I will. I will,” Thorn replied with a smile plastered on his face.

As Thorn waved his good-bye to Neumann he glimpsed Langley stretched out in a club chair in the anteroom, leafing through a magazine. Thorn shot a glance at his secretary.

She gave him a shrug, mouthing the words: “He just showed up.”

Irritated, Thorn beckoned Langley into his office. Thorn had a built-in distaste for creative types like Langley.

Thorn pointed to a chair and walked around behind his desk.

Once seated, Langley cleared his throat. “We’ve investigated this supposed glitch that I told you about yesterday. At first I thought it was a regression of the bug we’d seen during the first few weeks of the beta test. But it’s not. Nor is it actually a glitch in a literal sense, even though we can call it that. The application just made determinations from a different set of criteria and learning points than we would have suspected.”

Thorn was irritated. It seemed to him that Langley was deliberately trying to confuse him. “I’m not following you. What the hell do you mean by a ‘literal sense’?”

“The algorithm is weighting variables differently from how we thought it would. That’s the core of the problem, if it is a problem.”

Thorn threw up his hands, exasperated. “You know the key to running a large business like Amalgamated? You delegate. You hire good people and get out of their way. Now you want to drag me into the weeds? Have you considered the fact that if I am consumed with the details of your job, it might hinder my ability to act effectively for the company as a whole? My fund-raising is essential to securing future contracts for Amalgamated. Are you following me?”

“This is not a routine programming problem. And it is spreading.”

“What do you mean ‘spreading’?”

“Exactly what the word means. It started at Santa Monica University Hospital but now has appeared at Harbor University and even at the L.A. University Medical Center.”

“Shit!” Thorn exclaimed, running a hand nervously through his hair. “What kind of numbers are we talking about?”

“Not many yet. Besides the two cases at Santa Monica University Hospital, there have been two cases at Harbor University Hospital and two at L.A. University Medical Center.”

“Have these all occurred since we spoke yesterday?”

“Not the ones at Santa Monica, but the other four, yes.”

“And they all resulted in death?”

“Unfortunately, yes!”

“Are we going to see a surge in this problem or is this going to remain an isolated phenomenon?”

“I can’t say for certain; I can only guess.”

“Okay, guess!”

“I don’t think we will see a surge. But nor do I think the issue is going to go away. In fact I am sure it is not.”

“All right, you win. I need you to explain to me what is going on, but not in your usual tech-speak.”

Langley leaned forward. “These deaths are a direct outgrowth of the heuristic nature of the algorithm—”

Thorn put his hand up. “What do you mean by ‘heuristic’? You’ve bantered this term around without really explaining it to me.”

“As I said yesterday and have told you before, the application is capable of learning. We have all seen that iDoc learns. It progressively makes its own decisions, decisions that were not programmed into it per se, but that are based on past outcomes.”

“That means the iDoc algorithm is getting better because of its heuristic nature. Isn’t that what you are saying?”

“Exactly. It is learning and getting better faster than we predicted.”

“But still there have been these six deaths.”

“Correct. But remember the algorithm is not aware that it’s doing anything unwanted. In fact, it is doing what it thinks is best for everyone, the victims included.”

“So how many deaths do you think there will be?”

“As I said, there is not going to be an avalanche. Right now we are seeing an incidence of just over three hundredths of one percent. I don’t see it ever going over four hundredths. And as I said, the Independent Payment Advisory Board set up to control costs for Medicare and Medicaid is intrigued by what is happening and is looking more favorably on iDoc as a result.”

“How did they learn about this glitch?”

“As part of their due diligence in evaluating iDoc for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, we allowed them access to our servers. They became aware of the deaths at the same time as we did. They are intrigued.”

“So they don’t want us to stop the glitch.”

“Their only concern, and a big one, is that it remain undiscoverable, for obvious reasons. If the media were to get hold of the story, it would be an unmitigated disaster.”

Thorn nodded that he couldn’t agree more. “Okay! All this is highly classified; no one gets wind of it. Make a few inquiries; see what ripples resulted from it so far. You said there were a couple of cases at University Medical. Clayton’s over there, have him sniff around to make sure no one is suspicious. Tell him I asked for his services specifically. But do not give him the details, just the basics. Again, how many are in the loop as of now?”

“At Amalgamated? The same as before: three. Me, you, and my IT head, Bob Franklin. And Franklin’s a team player, so no worries there.”

“Okay. Besides Clayton, no one else here at Amalgamated should know about this. No one! What about at IPAB?”

“I don’t know for sure. Two, maybe three folks. They’re a secretive bunch and don’t share much because they are not politicos, but rather power brokers who have been appointed without having had to go through congressional confirmation hearings. Their task is to reduce the deficit by reducing Medicare and Medicaid spending. It’s all about power. And power is knowledge that no one else has.”

“Well said. At least there is no worry there. And I assume there should be no trouble at the medical examiner’s office.”

“Right! No problem there, considering the medical histories of the cases.”

“Good. Thank the Lord for small favors.”

Langley stood up. “All right! I’ll get in touch with Clayton and have him make sure there are no problems over at L.A. University. As the premier academic institution in the area, if there is no problem there, it should be smooth sailing elsewhere.”

“I agree. Later, come back here. I want a more complete explanation of what is happening. I presume you know, since the algorithm is your baby.”

“No problem. It will be my pleasure!”

16

George was still upset about Sal’s horrific death and was glad he didn’t have a noon radiology conference to sit through, as it had been canceled for the first day of the new academic year. Such conferences always required a certain amount of socializing, which at the moment George didn’t think himself capable of. Passing the time in the ER’s isolated radiology viewing room was much less demanding and considerably less stressful.

As he sat staring into the middle distance, he wondered what on earth could have gotten into Sal to make him act so bizarrely. Sal had been a pretty calm individual. Could it have been the Alzheimer’s?

While George stayed hidden in the viewing room, he let Carlos do the running around that went with the territory of being a radiology resident assigned to the ER. George was happy to remain secluded, because the ER was still as chaotic as he had ever seen it, with construction workers cleaning up the debris and seeing to the broken windows despite the usual onslaught of patients. Some of the ER’s exam rooms could still be used, but the ones close to ground zero were out of commission, so the ER had temporarily taken over a portion of the nearby outpatient clinic building. The trauma rooms had not been damaged, and were still in use. But it wasn’t easy. With all of the construction people around, it was difficult to get the major trauma patients out of the arriving ambulances and into the proper rooms. Nevertheless, to her credit, Debbie Waters was making it happen.

Some time later Carlos breezed into the room, saying, “There’s a bunch of images that have to be read.” He dropped into the chair next to George and booted up the monitor.

“How is the ER shaping up?” George asked.

“They got rid of the wrecked car already. Most of the debris, too. And they have covered the broken windows with plywood. The scuttlebutt in the media is that the driver of the vehicle was trying to commit suicide.”

George looked at Carlos, shocked.

“They’re just speculating,” Carlos said, catching George’s expression. “You know the tabloids. Gotta juice everything up.”

George shook his head.

“One of the ER residents told me that they suspected some of the driver’s abdominal wounds looked self-inflicted,” Carlos added as he entered the first patient’s hospital number into the computer. “They found a utility knife in the car with blood on it. Can you imagine? The guy must have been nuts.”

George shook his head again. He had trouble believing Sal would do such a thing. And how could they tell what was self-inflicted and what wasn’t, considering that Sal’s body had gone through the windshield before smashing into the LED screen? Suddenly George asked, “How do they know the blood didn’t get on the knife as a result of the crash, considering all the gore. The victim had exsanguinated. Blood was over everything.”

“No clue.” Carlos shrugged as he pulled up the first image.

George didn’t like the thought of Sal being remembered as a crazy weirdo on a suicide mission, possibly trying to take innocent people to their graves with him. George decided to check things out for himself once he finished up with Carlos.

An hour later George emerged from the peacefulness of the reading room. He was impressed that the ER was pretty much back to normal except for all the plywood and the large hole in what had been the wall-size LED screen. After asking around a little with the orderlies he learned that Sal’s body had been sent down to the hospital morgue. With all the questions he had, he decided to pay a visit. It was a place he had never before had the occasion or the inclination to visit.

George rode an elevator down to the sub-basement. The doors opened onto a desolate hallway. It was eerily quiet in contrast to the rest of the hospital. Lines on the concrete floor of various colors gave directions to different destinations: power plant, refuse, recycling, storage for this or that. George followed the black line leading to the morgue. After a couple of twists and turns he found the place. But no one was home. An empty desk sat in the anteroom, where George expected to find one of the attendants.

Opening an inner door, George wandered in to look for someone. It was a lonely place, looking more like a set for a horror movie than a modern medical center. The place smelled weird, too. And quiet. He promised himself he would view Sal’s body as quickly as possible, then get the hell out.

The surroundings also reminded him of Pia’s visit to the morgue back at Columbia Medical School when she was intent on investigating the death of her research mentor. That had been a very unpleasant experience that had almost gotten him kicked out of medical school.

Suddenly a diminutive man dressed in a long, soiled white coat stepped out of a refrigerated room. Both were startled at their near collision. The man took a step back and momentarily raised his arms as if to defend himself. Apparently he didn’t encounter too many live people.

“Can I help you?” The guy’s tone wasn’t all that friendly, either.

“I’m looking for a body. The deceased’s name is Salvatore DeAngelis.”

“You family?” The guy still sounded annoyed. George thought the diener would have been happy to see a living human being.

“No. I’m — we were friends. Neighbors, actually.”

“Then you can’t see him. We don’t allow ‘friend’ visits. Just family members and approved personnel with direct business—”

“I work at the medical center,” George said, pointing to his white coat and name tag. “I’m a radiology resident.”

The man was clearly not impressed. “I have strict orders. No unauthorized visitors view the deceased. HIPAA rules. You should know all this. With all the celebrities in town, we have to be very strict, especially since the debacles over Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. People take photos and sell them to the tabloids.” He looked down at George’s hands as if he might have a camera ready to start snapping away. “If I just let whoever in here to see any body they wanted—”

“I don’t want to see any body,” George interrupted. He couldn’t believe the guy. “Mr. DeAngelis was a close friend, and I’m a doctor on the staff.” George’s voice rose more than he intended. He took a deep breath and spoke in a more even tone. “The patient was involved in the auto accident in the ER upstairs this afternoon. I’m sure you heard about it. Well, I was there when he crashed. I helped identify him.”

“Of course I heard of the crash.” He waved as if shooing away a fly. “And that is another reason not to let you see the body. It might be a medical examiner’s case, being an accident and all.”

George threw his hands up in disgust. “Okay. Fine. I’m out of here.” It was a lost cause, and he didn’t want to hear the guy babble anymore. “Thanks anyway,” he added sarcastically.

George made his way back to the elevator and punched the call button. “What a jackass,” he silently voiced. When the elevator arrived he boarded, irritably pressing the first-floor button.

Just as the doors were about to close, he noticed the doors of the elevator across the way opening. He got a fleeting glance at the passenger stepping off.

Was that Clayton?

George hit the OPEN button on his car just in time. The doors retracted back, and George leaned out. It was Clayton! And he was hurrying in the direction of the morgue. What the hell was Clayton doing?

Making a snap decision, George stepped out of the elevator and hurried after the radiology chair. Maybe he was going someplace other than the morgue. But what else was in the sub-basement that might interest him? George had no idea.

George hustled down the hallway and rounded a corner, briefly catching sight of Clayton farther ahead and immediately disappearing as the corridor turned again. He was definitely moving fast, George thought. Was he carrying a package of sterile gloves? That’s what it had seemed like from the brief look George got before the elevator doors had closed.

George rounded the final corner in time to glimpse Clayton arrive at the morgue and enter.

George slowed down. His intuition was telling him to leave. But his curiosity propelled him forward.

He approached the morgue’s double entry doors and peered through one of the small windows. George noticed that the diener seemed much more accommodating with Clayton. George watched him nod as Clayton spoke to him and then lead the way into the morgue proper while Clayton followed, donning his gloves.

What the hell?

George debated what to do. His intuition was still telling him to get the hell out before Clayton reappeared. This time George listened.

17

George opened the door to his apartment and slumped in. He was exhausted. His afternoon at the ER had been extremely busy, with multiple major trauma cases pouring in, requiring all sorts of X-rays and CT scans. A few MRIs had been needed as well to diagnose strokes. It had been even more chaotic after three when Debbie Waters’s shift was over. Her replacement was not nearly as adept.

George found some leftover Chinese take-out in his refrigerator and popped it in the microwave. He scoffed it down while standing in the kitchen. To call it a meal would be kind.

Without turning on a light George threw himself onto the couch. With his hands behind his head he eyed the darkening ceiling. The sun had set, and he faced another long, lonely night. Tired as he was, he could not sleep, thinking about Amalgamated. There was no doubt in his mind that the combination of the federal health care reform empowering the insurance industry and Amalgamated introducing iDoc would turn medical care on its head. And what had Clayton been doing down in the morgue? George still thought it was odd.

George was roused from his musings by a knock on the door, a rare occurrence that was fast becoming rarer still with Sal gone.

It was Zee. A pair of sunglasses and a frown covered his still acne-prone face. The fact that there was no sun was apparently immaterial.

“What the hell happened, dude?”

“You mean in the ER?” George knew Zee was one of the few people in the complex who spoke to Sal.

“Yeah.” Zee walked in uninvited and collapsed on George’s couch. “Man, it is wicked dark in here.”

George turned on a lamp and sat down. He considered suggesting to Zee that he remove the sunglasses, but thought better of it.

“That crash was on my Twitter stream all day. Everyone thought he was a suicide bomber at first.” Zee looked around the room, taking in George’s sparse furnishings. “You need a decorator or something. This place is depressing.”

George frowned. He knew Zee was right, of course, but it bugged him being called out on it by someone whose own apartment was also nothing to write home about.

Zee shifted back to Sal. “He totally trashed Westwood on his way to the hospital. It’s like he OD’d on Grand Theft Auto or something.” He gazed up at George’s ceiling and sighed. “I liked Sal. He was always cool with me.” Then he squinted at George. “So… you were there, right? You saw it?”

“Yes. I watched them pull him out of the wreckage.”

“No shit.” Zee whistled. He was oddly impressed. “What did he look like? Cut to shit, I bet.”

“It wasn’t pretty,” George agreed. “He exited his vehicle through his windshield. No airbag. Didn’t use his seat belt. I really don’t know much beyond that.” George felt odd talking about it, as if doing so were disrespectful of Sal.

Zee sensed George’s reluctance to talk about the crash. “Sorry, dude. I know you were tight with him. Guess that’s why I stopped by.” Zee paused, looking like he wanted to say something else. After a minute he continued.

“A lot of people are now saying suicide.”

“I heard that, too,” said George. “But I don’t think so, Zee. I think he was having a health emergency and was just trying to get to the ER.”

Zee nodded. “Weird, though. I would have called an ambulance or gotten someone to drive me.”

“Who knows what he was thinking?” George shrugged.

“Does he have any family? Someone to notify?”

“Two sisters. I met them once back when I first moved in three years ago.”

“A suit on the five o’clock news was saying he had no known family.”

Now that George thought about it he was surprised the police hadn’t asked more questions about the sisters when he mentioned them. Zee suddenly launched himself off the couch.

“Gotta roll, dude. It’s a damn shame about Sal.” He headed out the door. “Catch you later, I got an online session scheduled. I’m up eight hundred for the week.”

“Later,” George said as he got up. “Thanks for stopping by.” George knew Zee was referring to his new career as an online gambler. It supposedly subsidized his living expenses. He had to be doing rather well, considering his rent was $1,500 a month and his unemployment insurance couldn’t have been much more.

George sat back down. Someone should make an effort to contact Sal’s sisters. George thought he would do it if he had their phone numbers. But he didn’t even know what state they lived in, or their names. Were they married? Did they use their maiden name? He had no idea.

Since Sal had listed George as the person to contact in case of emergency, he thought there was a good chance no one had spoken to them. Believing it was the least thing he could do for Sal, George went down to see the building superintendent.

George knocked on the super’s door. He could hear the television on inside. It sounded like a baseball game. He knocked again, this time on the narrow window next to the door. The blinds parted and a pair of red eyes peered out.

“Whadda ya want?” The tone wasn’t unfriendly; in fact it was the opposite, it was hopeful. But the man was clearly inebriated.

“I just… never mind. Sorry to bother you.” George waved him off and took a step back. From past experience George knew that when the guy was this far gone, he talked endless gibberish. George did not want to subject himself to that. He’d find another way.

The blinds snapped shut and George could hear the guy moving for the door.

“I’ll come back!” George shouted through the closed door. “I gotta run.” The door flew open before he could get any farther.

“Come on in, buddy,” the super said as he dusted the remnants of what looked like Doritos off his wrinkled T-shirt. “Got some brewskies in the fridge and the Dodgers are playing the Giants.”

“Tempting, thanks. But I’m on call,” George lied. “I have an issue with my sink, but it can wait.”

Those were the magic words to get the super to go back inside. He stumbled back a step. “Yeah, best if I take a look at that kinda thing in the daylight anyway.” Clearly, the last thing he wanted to do was handle a job. “But stop by anytime to shoot the shit, whatever…” The guy was weaving on his feet in an effort to keep his balance.

“Okay. I will, for sure. But not now. Thanks. Gotta run.”

George headed back to his apartment but slowed down as he passed Sal’s door. Thinking, Just in case, George walked over and tried the knob. No luck. It was locked. George continued on to his own apartment, fretting. Once, when he’d lost his own keys, he had climbed the fence and jumped the lock on his sliding door. It would be pretty easy to do the same thing for Sal’s apartment. And it would give him something to do rather than sit and stew. It was the least he could do. It wasn’t like the man was going to care if he broke in.

George headed out of his apartment. He looked around to make sure he was alone. The coast was clear. He stepped past the anemic shrubs that ringed the outside of the fence and put his hands on top of the wooden structure. It was a little loose, like everything else around the complex, but it seemed sturdy enough to hold him. He hoisted himself up and swung his legs over. Unfortunately it was dark on the other side, and he landed on a potted plant, tipping it over on its side. In the process he lost his balance and fell, hitting the side of the fence hard, tilting it outward at an odd angle. He scrambled to his feet, shaken by the fall, perspiring in the heat of the night while trying to catch his breath.

Damn! Didn’t see that coming!

He peered over the now-leaning fence and scanned the courtyard area. There was still no sign of anyone about. He was fairly sure the noise had gone undetected. He looked down at the pot fragments and clumps of dirt that had spilled out of it. In the dark it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like Sal had been growing tomatoes in it. Not anymore. He pushed the fragments into the patio corner with his foot and then tried to pull the fence to its original position. No luck. And pulling it made a lot of noise. He’d try to deal with it later from the opposite side.

George tried the glass sliding door. It was locked, but it was an older model, so all he had to do was lift the sliding panel up to disengage the latch.

A moment later George was inside the apartment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He didn’t feel at all comfortable turning on the lights. He felt like a burglar. A thud from above made him freeze, then he realized it was just the tenants in the apartment upstairs moving around. He had a flashlight app on his phone. Until now he had only used it to read menus in dark restaurants, but now he flipped it on. It threw a strong but concentrated beam of pure white light through the phone’s camera flash feature.

He panned the light across the room, wondering where Sal would have kept his personal phone book. He moved into the kitchen, searching the counter below the wall-mounted landline. Nothing. He methodically worked his way through the kitchen, pulling out drawers and digging through them. They were filled with papers, but there was no particular order. Sal must have saved every piece of paper he ever received. George found an address book and was encouraged, only to see that it was brand-new, with no entries at all.

He returned to the living room, checking the coffee and end tables. No luck there, either. All that was left were the small bedroom and tiny bathroom. In the bedroom he found a number of magazines, old newspapers, and letters. He groaned but, having come this far, steeled himself to go through it all, hoping he might find a letter from one of the sisters. For one who was so meticulous about his car, Sal didn’t seem to mind that his apartment was a haphazard mess.

George carried all the material over to the bed. Holding the phone with the flashlight in his left hand, he began rapidly shuffling through it. Nothing. His eyes shifted to the nightstand. There was a television remote, the latest issue of Car World, a book about the Civil War, and… aha! A worn address book!

The sound of a dog barking outside startled George. He sat still and listened. He heard it again and relaxed, recognizing it as coming from out on the street, not from the courtyard. He reached for the address book, but stopped his hand in midair. He heard another, more disturbing noise. It sounded as if the door to the apartment was opening slowly. A chill ran down George’s spine.

With his heart pounding, George started to stand up when a blinding light hit him in the face. A second later another bright light hit him from outside the window.

“Freeze!” The command came from a disembodied male voice.

George froze, not from the command but from sheer terror. In the next instant the bedroom’s overhead light flipped on, flooding the room.

“Hold it right there!” ordered a uniformed LAPD policeman standing in the doorway, his firearm pointed at George, who had dropped the phone. “Hands in the air!”

With great effort, as if his muscles were refusing to function, George raised his hands. They were visibly trembling.

“I got him!” the policeman yelled to his partner in the courtyard. “Get your ass in here on the double!”

The officer in the bedroom advanced toward George. “Drop to the ground, facedown! Spread your arms and legs! Now!”

George obeyed and immediately felt a sharp pain in his back as the officer’s knee pressed into it. A moment later the second officer charged into the room. He grabbed George’s wrists, cuffed them behind his back, and quickly patted him down. “He’s clean!” The two officers roughly hauled George to his feet.

George stood by the police cruiser at the rear of his apartment complex. The uniformed officer who had apprehended George was looking down at his smartphone, taking notes while he interviewed George. He had George’s driver’s license along with his hospital ID tucked between the two of his fingers holding the phone.

“And how long did you say you lived here?” the policeman inquired.

“A bit more than three years,” George answered. His voice was tremulous from the adrenaline still coursing through his system and his cognition was not what it should have been, but otherwise he had recovered for the most part. He was now feeling indignant about how he was being treated.

A small group of bystanders, many in sleepwear, were watching the proceedings. George looked vainly for Zee but didn’t see him. Instead he recognized an older woman in pajamas among the group who lived up on the second floor.

“Mrs. Bernstein!” George called out to her. She frowned and looked away. George turned his attention back to the cop. “You don’t want to tape this, too?”

The policeman looked up. “Pardon me?”

“Just wondering why you’re not taping this. I was recently told by an officer that details can be forgotten if you’re not careful.” George angled his face down to try and read the cop’s phone. “At least I don’t think you’re taping this.”

The cop stared at him. George knew he was coming off as a smart-ass, which wasn’t his intention, but it was hard to stop. The whole episode felt surreal.

“Sorry. It’s just that one of your colleagues was interviewing me earlier today and he…” George trailed off, realizing that he was digging himself into a deeper hole.

“You were interviewed by another police officer earlier today?”

George backpedaled, getting nervous. “Yes. But not because I did anything wrong. It was right after Sal’s car crash, which I’m certain you have heard about. Sal’s the neighbor whose apartment you found me in.” George nodded down toward the IDs that the officer had between his fingers. “I’m a radiology resident at L.A. University Medical Center and your colleague was trying to put together a picture of what had happened.”

“What did happen?”

“Sal — Mr. DeAngelis — apparently got confused and crashed his car and killed himself. I guess. I mean, that’s what appears to have happened. He had Alzheimer’s and multiple problems. Anyway, I wanted to try to help by getting in touch with the two sisters whom I had met some time ago, to let them know what had happened. I was looking for their contacts.”

“So you broke into a neighbor’s apartment at night to get in touch with a dead man’s sisters?” The policeman smiled sarcastically.

George opened his mouth to respond, then stopped.

“Look, I just wanted to call Mr. DeAngelis’s siblings and let them know he died today. Is that a crime?” George said.

“The way you went about it is. You couldn’t have asked the building manager to let you in?”

“Ha! I tried enlisting the super’s help but… The man has a drinking problem, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

George and the officer looked across the way to where the second officer was interviewing the super. The man was still having trouble standing. He kept leaning against the building before pulling himself up straight and crossing his arms in front of him in an attempt to appear sober.

“And I leave for work early in the morning before he gets up,” George continued. “Look, I didn’t think it would be all that big a deal. I have the exact same apartment, and I’ve gotten into mine through the sliders a number of times when I forgot my keys. I thought I’d just go in, grab the phone numbers, make the call, and that would be it.”

“And you didn’t trust the proper authorities to make those calls?”

“Listen!” George said, his voice progressively rising. “The fact of the matter is that I don’t think anyone was told about the sisters. I had mentioned it earlier today to the detective who talked to me, but I had heard through a friend that during the evening news it was stated the victim had no family. And I was told earlier that I was listed as the patient’s contact person in case of emergency. Just me! Tonight I realized someone had to try to get a hold of the sisters. I was only trying to help.” By the time George finished, he was practically yelling.

The second police officer stopped talking with the super and looked over at George. The small crowd of neighbors and passersby went quiet, too.

“Sorry,” George said to the cop. “It’s been an emotional day.”

With a look of exasperation, the officer turned George around. Without saying anything further, he unlocked the handcuffs, setting George free.

Trudging back to his apartment, George realized that he had narrowly succeeded in talking his way out of being arrested. The super’s being so obviously drunk had helped. Still, George was furious with himself. What the hell had he been thinking? Back inside his apartment, he again threw himself onto his sofa, thinking that he had to get a grip.

18

It was a busy morning for George in the ER. The department was jammed with patients and the construction crew. The heat wave just made things worse. Patients suffering from heatstroke and heat exhaustion were streaming in, and there had also been an uptick in heart attacks and respiratory problems. The high temperatures also brought out the infamous L.A. road rage. A couple of fender-benders had resulted in a shoot-out and a knife fight. Victims of both were currently being treated in the trauma rooms. The result was that George and Carlos were overwhelmed with radiology studies. Of the six possible stroke cases, they had determined that five were in fact positive, requiring immediate medical intervention. The sixth case turned out to be an ophthalmic migraine masquerading as a stroke. There had also been two head traumas. On one, the CT scan showed a subdural hematoma, requiring immediate surgery. The only good news was that George was so busy, he didn’t have time to think about Sal’s death, Tarkington’s passing, or his own near arrest. He’d been holed up in the imaging room since seven thirty, working nonstop.

Just before eleven, Carlos returned from a quick coffee break to find George surveying a new batch of radiological studies.

The first was a chest film of a driver in a recent accident whose airbag did not deploy.

“What do you see?” George asked Carlos.

“A fracture of the clavicle… and several ribs.” Carlos pointed to the fractures in turn.

“Anything else?”

“There’s a small amount of fluid in the lungs.”

George was impressed. Carlos was picking up the nuances quickly. “Good. Let’s go on to the next case.”

“I saw Dr. Hanson out there in the ER,” Carlos said as he brought up the next image. It was a pelvis.

“Really! What was he up to?” George asked. As Clayton was head of the teaching program in radiology, the residents generally liked to know when he was around, since they knew they were being evaluated on a month-to-month basis. They would alert each other when he was lurking nearby, usually by tweet or text. But George was more sensitized than usual, since Clayton had showed up in the ER only the day before.

“It seemed like he came in to talk with Debbie Waters. He just ignored me and asked Debbie if he could have a private word with her, even though she was obviously busy.”

“Is he still out there?” George asked, unsure if he should be concerned or not. Under the circumstances, his talking in private with Debbie was a tad worrisome.

Carlos shrugged. “He was when I came in here.”

George stood up, cracked the door, and looked outside. Sure enough, Clayton was leaning against the main desk, folder in hand, having a prolonged tête-à-tête with Debbie. Now, that was particularly unusual behavior in the middle of the day, especially with the level of confusion swirling around them. Vaguely, George wondered if they might be resurrecting their own rumored relationship. But if that was the case, it was even more unusual that they would do so in plain sight. The one good thing was that he couldn’t imagine that they could be talking about him for so long.

At that instant both Clayton’s and Debbie’s heads swung around and seemed to stare in George’s direction. George pulled back, alarmed that they might be able to see him spying on them. He quickly let the door close and went back to where he had been sitting.

“This is a seventy-eight-year-old woman who fell in the shower,” Carlos said, beginning where he had left off, but then changed the subject. “Hey, what’s this about Clayton Hanson liking the ladies? Is it true? It’s been tweeted around us first-year residents, particularly to warn the women.”

George laughed. He noticed it was the first time Carlos left off the “Dr.” in referring to Clayton. He was already loosening up. “I think I’ll take the Fifth on that issue,” said George, directing their attention back to the film. “Let’s get back to work. What’s your take here?”

At that moment Clayton opened the door and stepped in. Although he had appeared relaxed at the ER’s central desk when George had looked out at him, now he seemed anxious and rushed, as if whatever he had been discussing with Debbie had gotten him fired up.

“Can I have a quick word, George?”

Carlos immediately stood up. “Excuse me. I need a bathroom break anyway.” He quickly left the room.

George felt his pulse quicken. He had no idea what was coming but feared that Clayton might have learned of his near arrest. The administration did not take kindly to residents having run-ins with the law.

But Clayton just lowered his voice and asked, “Did you have time to chat up Kelley?” He took Carlos’s seat and leaned forward.

“No,” George said, bewildered. Why was that even remotely important enough to come in and interrupt a reading session?

“A little slow on the draw, are we?” Clayton teased, with eyebrows raised.

“I have to wait for the right moment, and with the crash and all it probably won’t happen today either. I actually haven’t even seen her. A lot of the routine ER visits are being seen over in the clinic building with the construction going on.” George would have liked to tell Clayton to ease up on his efforts to perk up George’s nonexistent social life, but he didn’t have the courage.

“If you don’t jump on this, you’ll be losing out possibly, I’ve heard, to a couple of hot-ticket first-year orthopedic residents from Harvard.” Clayton laughed as he gave George a light jab to the shoulder. The laugh sounded false, like it was forced.

George didn’t answer, restraining himself from asking Clayton what he had been doing in the morgue.

“Have you at least followed up with Debbie Waters? The more I’ve thought about it, you would really have some fun with her.”

“Debbie’s not interested in me. My sense is that she’s after bigger game than a resident.”

“Not true! She’s just being professional. She doesn’t want any more hospital gossip. She got her fill of that when we dated a few years back. I was just talking with her, and she confessed that she’d been eyeing you for months. She’s been hoping you would show a little interest.”

George laughed. “Yesterday I tried to get her attention, but she pretty much just ignored me.”

“That is not true. She thinks you’re quite handsome.”

George rolled his eyes.

“Hey, give it a shot,” Clayton persisted. “As a personal favor to me. I mean, after I talked you up and everything.”

“Does she know about Kasey?”

“Of course. She has a lot of respect for you being serious with someone with problematic medical issues.”

“Is that it? She feels sorry for me?”

“Hell no. It’s respect, not sympathy. Jesus, lighten up. She’d like to be your friend.”

“Are you bullshitting me? If you are, I have to tell you that I’m a bit vulnerable right now.”

“Swear to God. I’ll go out there right this minute and bring her back here to the radiology reading room so she can tell you herself.”

George was horrified. “No! I’ll figure out my own way to talk with her.”

“Okay. All right. I’m going to count on it, so don’t be shy. It’s not healthy to be isolated like you are. Even considering the, you know, the tragedy and all. Like I said, it’s not like you have to marry Debbie, for Chrissake. Just get out. Pretend you’re normal.”

“I appreciate the concern, but my ego has taken a few hits lately.”

“I wish I was back in my twenties.” Clayton got to his feet and opened the door to the ER. “No grass would be growing under my feet. I can tell you that.”

Carlos, who had been waiting outside, strolled back in, passing Clayton with a nod and suck-up smile. Clayton ignored him.

“What was that all about?” Carlos inquired, nodding toward the door that was settling into its jamb.

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Let’s get these films read.”

Carlos revived the monitor. It had gone to sleep.

As the image of the X-ray came up, George found himself marveling over the absurdity of the head of the radiology resident program worrying about George’s social life. But be that as it may, he began to wonder how he might approach Debbie, having now essentially promised Clayton that he would.

“Do you remember this case?” Carlos asked.

“I think so. A seventy-eight-year-old woman who fell in the shower, injuring her right hip. So what do you see?”

“I see a fracture,” Carlos said.

“That’s a start,” George teased. “Give me a full description!”

A half hour later they were caught up. Done for the morning, Carlos was ready to grab lunch before the noon radiology conference. “I’m heading over to the cafeteria. Want to join me?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I’m not hungry,” George lied. He was hungry, but he had made a decision to speak to Debbie Waters. He felt some anxiety kicking in, but better now than never. Prepared as he was ever going to be, he stood up and wandered out into the ER proper.

It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the glare from the bright light in the ER with the L.A. midday sun streaming in through the windows, including the new ones that had just been installed. Debbie was at the main desk as usual. George could hear her snappy commands from where he was standing. He wandered over to the in-box and pretended to be leafing through the various cases. It was what he had instructed Carlos to do whenever there was some free time, in order to be familiar with the clinical status of the patients before looking at their films.

“Nothing to do?” Debbie demanded sharply. George panicked for a second, then realized she was lambasting a couple of LPNs. “Trauma Room Eight needs to be cleaned up,” Debbie barked.

“That’s not our job,” one of the LPNs objected.

Debbie was ready for them. “The fuck it isn’t. You’ll be out the door if you two don’t pull your weight. We’re swamped, in case you haven’t noticed.”

The LPN who initially objected opened her mouth again but then thought better of it and huffed off with her coworker. Debbie’s language, while crass, got the job done.

“Damn bitches,” Debbie cursed under her breath, but was loud enough for George to hear. He stole another glance in her direction. Her eyes strafed across his face before going back down to a bunch of ER charts in front of her. She glanced up a second later and recognized George. She even smiled.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a trace of solicitation in her voice.

“Uh. Maybe,” George said, screwing up his courage. “I was just speaking with Dr. Hanson…”

“Don’t tell me he went ahead and told you that I wanted to… Never mind. Now I’m embarrassed.” But she didn’t look it.

George cleared his throat. “There’s a… there’s no reason to be embarrassed. I’ve been admiring the way you’re able to run the department and keep order. Even with all of the unexpected…” George nodded toward the construction crew working on the LED display board.

She smiled at the compliment and leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He glanced around. Serendipitously he seemed to have her attention without anyone else noticing. That is, if he didn’t count a young boy of about ten sitting a few feet away. The boy was holding an ice pack over a knot on his forehead while his mother was texting someone. The kid smiled knowingly. He might be young, but he was picking up the signals. George winked, then turned back to Debbie.

“I was wondering… if maybe you would like to meet for a drink one night. I mean, I know you are busy and all—”

“How about tonight?” she interrupted. “I get off at four, and I could meet you at six.”

George paused with his mouth open, surprised. “Okay. Great!” Damn, that turned out to be a lot easier than he thought! “Six it is.”

She smiled. “How about the Whiskey Blue over at the W? It’s close enough to walk, but they have valet parking if you prefer.”

“Perfect,” George said. “See you this evening.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

George waved bye to her as he headed back to the reading room. He was feeling better than he had in months. He’d have to remember to thank Clayton for prodding him out of his doldrums.

19

George followed Carlos into the tiered conference room carrying the remains of a vending machine lunch.

“That shit’ll kill you,” Carlos said.

“That’s what I hear. You know where I can find a good doctor?” George joked. After his little chat with Debbie, George’s appetite had returned, but he realized he didn’t have enough time to wait in line at the cafeteria. He wondered if Kasey would approve of his going out with her. He guessed she certainly wouldn’t think Debbie was his type of girl. Nor did he. There was an in-your-face toughness about Debbie that conflicted with what George had found so appealing about Kasey’s warmth and generosity. But at least he wouldn’t have to wonder what to say. Debbie wasn’t one to allow lulls in the conversation.

George took a seat near the back of the conference room near Carlos, who introduced George to some of his fellow first-year friends. They plied George with questions about the daily meeting schedule, and George explained that generally there were three a day: seven A.M., noon, and four thirty P.M., and they should consider them mandatory. If they didn’t show up, they had better have a good excuse. He added that every other Thursday, the noon conference would be a didactic lecture in physics that was a particularly must-attend event.

As he finished talking, Claudine walked into the room and made her way over. Carlos noticed her and tapped George on the knee to get his attention.

“Hey, Claudine!” George grinned. “Take a seat. Have you met everybody?” George waved toward the bevy of first-year residents.

She didn’t smile back. “Did you hear about the two patients we saw on Monday?”

“What two?” George asked.

“Greg Tarkington and Claire Wong.”

“I know about Tarkington. I was in the ER when he was brought in DOA.”

“The same thing happened to Claire Wong this morning.”

George was shocked. “You mean she died?”

Claudine nodded her head solemnly. “She was brought in and declared dead on arrival.”

“I was in the ER all morning and didn’t hear anything about it.” George shook his head. Tarkington had been a shock. Tarkington and Wong was more than a shock. It seemed like a statistical improbability. What the hell was going on?

“It spooked me,” Claudine said. “We MRI’d both two days ago. It just feels so odd. I mean, I suspected that they were both terminal, but having them die within forty-eight hours…”

“Both had bad diseases,” George replied, as if such a comment could explain the two unexpected deaths.

“It makes me feel responsible somehow,” Claudine said, “even though I know that’s not rational. Still. They seemed so normal and healthy and probably would still be if we hadn’t done the studies. I’m afraid we opened up a can of worms.”

George, aware of the first-years watching and listening, said reassuringly, “You have to remember, the diseases in both cases were remarkably aggressive, Claudine. Their deaths are surprising, but not unexpected.”

“Okay. Just wanted to tell you.” Claudine nodded absently and walked off to find a seat.

George felt momentarily addled. First, about openly dismissing the oddness of the two deaths coming so close together. Second, because those deaths were temporally and most likely causally related to the MRIs they did. His reflex motivation was to make Claudine feel better, even though he should have let her feelings initiate a dialogue so that they could all share their feelings. The trouble was that this new bit of news struck directly into his own sensitivities, reawakening his paranoia that death was stalking him; that he was personally responsible, not the MRIs.

“That was weird,” Carlos whispered to George. “I can’t believe she really thinks that MRIs could have caused two deaths.”

“Well, both MRIs suggested cancer recurrence,” George said. “The patients had probably heard the results from their oncologists. With all that they had been through, that had to be devastating news.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Listen, I don’t want to talk about it anymore at the moment. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” George assured him.

George didn’t want to dwell on these thoughts. Instead he forced himself to think that at six P.M. he was going to be at the Whiskey Blue Bar like a normal person, chatting with a very confident and attractive woman.

At that moment Clayton descended the central aisle. As he walked, his eyes darted around the room. For a brief second his eyes locked on to George’s, and he shot him a thumbs-up.

George smiled and nodded out of courtesy but was confused as to what Clayton meant by it. The only thing he could think of was that somehow Clayton had already learned that he and Debbie were planning to meet over at the W Hotel bar that evening. My God! George thought. There are truly no secrets in the hospital.

20

George had a better time with Debbie at the Whiskey Blue than he had anticipated. He couldn’t believe three and a half hours had passed since they arrived. She was the perfect distraction, even if a bit rough around the edges. She had a smoker’s voice, but it fit like a glove with her colorful, sailor trash talk, and she had an opinion, a strong opinion, about almost everything. They met a number of her friends, including several of the bartenders, who greeted her by name. It was apparent she was a regular customer. It was all very social and L.A. A few B-list celebs came in, too, and Debbie even knew a couple of them. There was nonstop chatter about all sorts of superficial subjects and nothing about medicine or, most important, death.

Along with the lively conversation there were a lot of drinks, all on Debbie’s tab, which she insisted on under no uncertain terms, and she did the ordering. George wasn’t about to make an issue of it. The only problem was that George had such a good time, he didn’t keep track of how much liquor he was throwing back, and ended up quite drunk.

Debbie on the other hand just sipped and was quite sober. George hadn’t noticed. He was having a ball, and the only thing he had had to eat was some salted nuts and dried wasabi peas.

During the course of the evening, Debbie related that she had completed her nurse’s training at the University of Colorado, but had come to L.A. as soon as she had her degree and had worked at the University Medical Center ever since. “I started out in the ER, and I’m still there,” she said with obvious pride.

When George asked about her personal life, she was happy to fill him in. She told George she’d never been married, had dated a few of the staff doctors, including Clayton for a time, but she didn’t want to talk about them, adding that she preferred to date people outside of the medical profession. George agreed with her on that issue, but said he hoped to see her again.

Finally Debbie looked at her watch. It was after nine thirty. “This place is getting so damn crowded. And this girl has to get up in the morning.”

Even through the fog of booze, George realized she wanted to leave. “Time to go home?”

“Yes. Where do you live? Close by?”

George gulped. Damn, she was direct. “Uh… yeah. A few blocks…”

“Let’s go back to your place and decompress. All these people… I need a little quiet time.”

George felt a spark of panic. He knew he wasn’t ready to sleep with anyone, and he didn’t want her to see his crummy apartment. Groping for a reply, he said, “Well… my housekeeper canceled today and—”

“Oh, come on. I don’t care about that. And, besides, I don’t want you driving tonight. Is your car here?”

George had to think. “Left it with the valet.” He produced his parking ticket.

Debbie snatched it away. “I’ll get this thing validated and drive you home, then catch a cab from there.”

George realized that she had a point about driving, particularly when he stood up. He could tell he’d drunk way more than he should have. Her concern bumped his regard for her up a couple of notches. “Okay. Good idea. Thanks.”

The ride to George’s apartment wasn’t more than five minutes, and Debbie spent the time quizzing George about his friends outside of the hospital. The relative lack of which was embarrassing to admit, but he did. What he didn’t say was that the friends he had had been Kasey’s.

“A smart, handsome man like you should have loads of friends. I mean, I know about your fiancée, but it is time that you let the past be the past.”

George didn’t want to discuss Kasey, mainly because he himself was trying not to think about her. And then, before he knew what he was doing, he found himself talking about Pia Grazdani and his ridiculous infatuation with her in medical school. He couldn’t stop himself. In that vein, he even launched into what his Pia infatuation did to his relationship with Paula. It was as if all the alcohol had been a kind of truth serum.

To her credit, Debbie seemed both interested and sympathetic. “Don’t give yourself a lot of shit about that. Hell, I’ve experienced the same kind of self-destructive relationship myself.”

“Really?” George asked, but he still wished he had kept his mouth shut.

They arrived at his apartment, and George got out his cell phone with some difficulty. “I’ll call you a cab. Is there some company you prefer?”

“Hold off on the cab. I said I wanted to relax for a few minutes. Let’s go inside.” Before George could respond, she was out of the car, hand on her hip, waiting for George.

George launched into another face-saving apartment-apology campaign as they were about to cross the threshold of his front door. “I’ve been meaning to do something with the place, but a residency is so time-consuming—”

“Sweetie, I don’t mind a bit. Please quit worrying,” Debbie said, pausing to look around after entering. “You’re right. It’s a piece of shit. But whatever, I don’t care.” She spotted George’s iPod dock, fished her own phone out, and put on some music, cranking up the volume. George sat on the couch and watched as she took a joint from the bag.

“Wanna get high?” She didn’t wait for a response and immediately lit up. “I so need this. After all the crazy shit in the ER this week.” She took a hit from the joint and passed it to George. George hesitated. The last time he smoked weed was when he was an undergrad, but he didn’t want to risk putting her off. What the hell, he thought, and took a drag, inhaling deeply. He started coughing immediately.

“You okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Wrong pipe.”

A loud thumping boomed through George’s apartment wall. It was the wall common with Joe’s apartment. George realized who it was and burst out laughing. Joe the Actor was pissed at the noise! In light of all the times George had been disturbed by Joe’s wild orgies, it made George’s evening.

“Why are you laughing?” Debbie said, laughing, too. The weed was kicking in for both of them.

“Because,” George giggled, “he keeps me up all the freaking time with an endless stream of hookups.”

They continued laughing until Debbie said she wanted something to drink. Something alcoholic.

“I have some Jack Daniel’s. Will that work?”

“Absolutely.” Debbie reached over and turned up the volume on the iPod speakers while George went into his kitchen to retrieve the liquor and some glasses. “No ice! No ice!” Debbie called after him. “Straight and neat!”

George wasn’t really up for more booze but poured a couple of drinks anyway and brought them back to the living room.

Debbie was dancing to the music. George stopped and gawked. She caught him looking and smiled, putting her hand out for the drink.

Debbie sipped her bourbon. She was suddenly serious despite the pot and the alcohol. “Okay, so what’s the deal with this neighbor of yours who crashed into the ER?”

“He was just a friend.” George didn’t want to discuss Sal any more than he wanted to discuss Kasey.

“Ironic, huh? That he died right next to you and you were friends with him.”

“We were more acquaintances than friends,” George hedged. “The guy was lonely. I felt sorry for him.” George felt guilty distancing himself from Sal.

Debbie kept prodding for details about Sal’s wild ride to the hospital, then began asking questions about what George thought about iDoc and Amalgamated Healthcare. She confided that Clayton advised her to put money into Amalgamated and wondered what George thought.

George’s mind was reeling from the alcohol and pot. With some difficulty he told Debbie that Clayton advised him to do the same, but it didn’t matter, because he didn’t have enough money to invest in anything. George then tried to change the subject, but Debbie was persistent. She kept bringing the conversation back to Sal’s story and what George thought about iDoc.

Suddenly all the alcohol and marijuana caught up to George. The giggles had been replaced by pervading sleepiness. Debbie hardly seemed to notice and switched to what George thought about iDoc’s helping Sal by taking the burden of insulin out of his hands.

George made a huge effort to marshal his thoughts and answer. He made it a point to sit up straight and take a deep breath: “iDoc undoubtedly helped the guy, not only with his diabetes but with all his medical problems. iDoc was someone whom Sal could talk to whenever he wanted, which was pretty damn often because of his Alzheimer’s. Prior to iDoc, Sal used to bombard me with medical questions every time he saw me. That stopped with iDoc.”

“Let me ask you this: Do you think iDoc added to Sal’s problems in any way?”

George thought about that one before answering. “As far as I’m concerned, iDoc was a big plus for Sal.” Despite his best intentions he couldn’t suppress a mighty yawn. “I’m sorry!” he added. And he was.

Debbie could see that George was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Still she continued. “Is there anything about the situation that bothers you?”

“Well, yes!” George said, trying desperately to think. “One is that Sal’s sisters haven’t been told of his death as far as I know, and two is all this talk that Sal crashed into the ER to commit suicide. He liked life, and his car, as silly as that might sound, too much to commit suicide.”

“I heard he had been taking medication for depression.”

George grimaced. “People get prescribed all kinds of things they don’t need. You know that. Anyway, I never saw him act depressed.”

“The advancing Alzheimer’s. Losing his faculties. That could have made him contemplate suicide. I heard he had self-inflicted wounds, apparently done while driving.”

“I heard about those wounds. It confused me enough to go down to the morgue to check them out for myself.”

Debbie looked surprised that he had made that effort. “I’ve never been down there.”

“Most people haven’t. I don’t advise it.”

“What did you find out?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t allowed to see the body, supposedly because of HIPAA rules. That seemed weird, because I am a resident. Strangely, though, I saw Clayton down there.”

“What was he doing?” She set her drink down and eyed him closely.

George didn’t respond, losing his battle trying to stay awake. In slow motion he sagged back and his head flopped to the side.

Debbie was not to be denied. She gave George’s shoulder a shake. He revived with some difficulty. His eyes were glassy.

“You didn’t answer,” Debbie said. “What was Clayton doing in the morgue?”

George licked his lips. His eyelids were fluttering in an attempt to keep them open. With effort, he forced himself to sit up straight. “I have no idea. I did find it rather strange at the time.”

“So you didn’t see Sal’s body?”

“No. But let me ask you a question: Do you know which ER doctor was in charge of Sal’s case?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I wanted…” He stopped and his eyes closed for a couple of seconds. “I wanted to ask why they thought some wounds were self-inflicted.”

“What’s your opinion about what iDoc will do for your career?”

“Huh?” George was having trouble organizing his thoughts about such an oddball question coming out of the blue. Debbie was staring at him expectantly.

“I guess I’m worried that I might end up working for a health insurance company. I worry—”

“But you think iDoc is perfect for people like Sal,” Debbie interrupted. “With all his medical problems and then with prostate cancer added to the list.”

“Sal didn’t have prostate cancer.”

“Yes, he did. It was stage-three, small cell.”

“I never heard that,” George said, reviving to a degree. He was surprised. Sal had never mentioned it when he’d told him about all his other health issues.

“It was only discovered recently,” Debbie said. “I can tell you from my perspective that iDoc is going to be a godsend. It’s going to keep a lot of people out of the ER who shouldn’t be there.”

George started to tell her that he was not going to be able to stay awake for another minute, but he didn’t have to. She checked the time and jumped up.

“Damn it all,” she blurted. “Do you know what time it is? And it’s a school night. This girl has to get home and into bed ASAP.”

George felt a wave of relief as she used her cell to call a taxi. After that, she got her stuff together while George watched.

“Thank you for the great evening,” she said. “You don’t have to get up. I can see myself out.”

He stood up anyway with the intention of at least walking her to the door, but had to lean on the arm of the couch for support.

“Stay where you are,” she ordered. “You need to get to bed right away yourself.”

“I agree.” He put his hand out for a shake. She smiled and gave it a pump along with an air kiss to the cheek. A moment later she was gone.

George stumbled into his bedroom. He decided he’d just lie down for a few minutes before taking off his clothes…

21

The next day George arrived at the medical center with a raging hangover. He couldn’t remember all the details of the previous evening, but he hoped he hadn’t made an ass of himself. Coffee was what he needed. He filled a fresh cup and sat down with Carlos to go over the films taken the previous night. There were a lot, but despite a big thumper of a headache, George was determined to be thorough and accurate.

Halfway through, they came across a film of a wrist that had been definitely misread as being normal. The patient had been released untreated despite there being a fracture of the navicular bone. George pointed it out to Carlos and explained that it was easy for doctors not trained in radiology to miss it. George passed the information on to the head of the ER so that the patient could be tracked down and asked to return to the hospital for a cast.

After finishing going over everything, including CT scans, Carlos left to find out what was “cooking” in the ER, while George sat with his head down on the desk and nursed his hangover. He downed a couple more ibuprofen tablets, happy to have had some quiet time.

Feeling reasonably together, he walked into the ER and approached the central desk, where Debbie as usual was ordering the staff around. Obviously there was no hangover holding her down. He tried to catch her eye, but it was difficult. Lots of things were going on with some major trauma on its way in by ambulance. The sirens already could be heard approaching.

George went around the back of the main desk, where he wasn’t more than five or six feet away from Debbie. He stood and waited. And waited. Just when he thought she might be intentionally ignoring him, she glanced over and nodded at him before going back to her work. She had been ignoring him. The nod wasn’t what he had expected. He didn’t know what to expect, but it was more than he got.

Oh, well, George thought. He tried to attribute the rebuff to her preoccupation running the ER. But nonetheless the snub nagged at him. Had he done or said anything that had upset her? He had certainly been drunk. He could easily imagine how he might have offended her considering the state he was in.

Suddenly, she jumped up and rushed past him. What the hell? Then he realized that she was responding to a call from the orderlies down in the major trauma rooms waiting to receive the incoming severely injured patients. He was about to walk off when he looked down at the papers Debbie had spread out on her desk. A familiar item pushed into one of the cubbyholes caught his eye. It was a broken smartphone in an electric-orange case. George could see that the phone’s display screen was riddled with cracks. It was Sal’s phone! The sight of it felt like a little beacon calling to him from his much-maligned friend. He picked it up and tried to turn it on: nothing. It needed to be charged or it was broken. Most likely it was both.

George glanced around. No one was paying him any attention. He made a sudden decision and pocketed the phone. It would probably end up in the trash anyway. With his prize tucked away in his pocket, he retreated back to the protective environment of the imaging room. He was reaching in his pocket for the phone when Carlos burst in.

“We got a slew of major trauma cases on their way in,” he shouted.

“Okay, ease up,” George said. “It’ll sort itself out. There’s nothing we can do to be more prepared than we already are. Did you alert the technicians?”

“Yes, and they have both portable machines outside the trauma rooms.”

“Perfect. We’re ready to rumble.”

“But there is a pregnant woman who just came in with severe abdominal distress — acute pain with vomiting and diarrhea. Waters told me to organize an ultrasound stat.”

“We’ll have to wait until after the major trauma is under control,” George said. “Which ER physician is handling the woman?”

“A newbie. Her name is Kelley.”

George nodded. At least he’d be able to say that he talked to the woman if Clayton asked, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to say about Debbie if Clayton asked, as George assumed he would. Friendly last night, Ice Queen today — that is, if he was reading her right.

Two minutes later the trauma cases came rolling in: nine victims from a four-car, one-motorcycle wreck on the I-405 Freeway. There was a flurry of activity to deal with them all, including one case of major thoracic trauma requiring tracheal intubation and a chest tube. The portable X-ray machines, all the X-ray rooms, and even the CT room were needed. Despite the commotion there were several occasions when Debbie could have spoken with George, but she didn’t. George couldn’t figure out if this was intentional or if she was just preoccupied.

Eventually, when the excitement died down, George and Carlos took the opportunity to catch their breath in the suddenly quiet imaging room. For a while it had been like a train station, with ER residents and surgeons being apprised of the radiological findings. Suddenly a shaft of light intruded on their peace.

“What the hell now!” George demanded, the light exacerbating his headache, which had not quite disappeared. He turned to look at the newcomer and saw the silhouette of a tall, slim woman in scrubs.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt. When you have a moment, I’d like to discuss a patient with you.”

George saw it was Kelley Babcock. “No! Wait,” he said, rising out of his chair. “I’m sorry. That sounded rude. We just finished a full slate of trauma imaging and… well, you know. Anyway, how can we help you?”

We have a patient six or seven months pregnant with severe abdominal distress,” Kelley said, leading George and Carlos down the ER hallway. George noticed that she had precise, handwritten notes clipped to the patient’s file, which she had downloaded and printed out. She had done her homework. In addition, she herself looked organized and meticulous with her hair in a ponytail. In contrast to all the other ER residents, some of whom seemed to revel in looking as if they had been through a war, with blood-soaked scrubs, Kelley kept hers clean and fresh, changing them whenever the need arose.

She was acting as the patient’s emergency room physician, although a more senior resident was supervising. She told George that there had already been a surgical consult, which had ruled out an acute abdomen that would have required emergency surgery. With that off the table, the working diagnosis was viral enteritis.

“The patient is currently being hydrated,” Kelley continued, all business. “Before she’s discharged, we think her pregnancy should be evaluated, since she had been lost to follow-up. She hasn’t been seen in the OB clinic since her initial visit four months ago.”

George glanced over the file as they walked. Kelley’s description of the case and what should be done seemed spot-on. George was impressed.

“An OB consult has been called,” Kelley continued, “but all the OB residents are tied up with deliveries. According to their recommendation, an ultrasound needs to be done in the interim, which is why I stopped by to see you.”

Suddenly George realized he was reading a familiar medical history. He glanced up at the patient’s name at the top of the file: Laney Chesney. He recognized it immediately. He had had a past association with the patient and the memory tugged at his heartstrings. She was a juvenile diabetic, just as Kasey had been. But Laney had had a tough life, suffering a traumatic childhood with a drug-addicted single mother. She had run away from home a number of times, ultimately living on the street. George suspected she had supported herself by prostitution and had developed chronic liver disease and a cardiomyopathy.

“I know this patient,” George said, holding up the file and coming to a halt. They were still a good distance from the patient’s room. Kelley and Carlos stopped alongside him. Flipping through the chart to the radiological studies, he continued, “As I remember, Laney is a particularly endearing girl with huge, sad eyes. She looks about twelve.”

“I think that is a fair description,” Kelley said. “How do you know her?”

“I did a number of interventional radiology studies to determine the status of her heart,” George said. “I remember the outlook wasn’t rosy, to say the least.”

“Your memory serves you well,” Kelley said. “I read over her entire case. Eight months previously she was put on the waiting list for a heart transplant, but because of her liver disease and poorly controlled diabetes, she has a low priority.”

“Jesus,” George said, glancing back at the echocardiology studies. He remembered feeling very sorry for her. “And on top of it all, she gets herself pregnant. Holy shit!”

“Seems that she’s made all the wrong choices,” Kelley said, “but it is hard to fault her, considering her social history.”

“I suppose there is no need to ask if she is married or has any kind of social support.”

“Not married,” Kelley responded. “She doesn’t even know who the father is. When she was initially seen for her pregnancy she was advised to abort because of her cardiac status, but she categorically refused.”

“Maybe it’s the only thing that has given meaning to her life,” George said.

Kelley nodded. “It’s a tragedy for sure. I hope we can help her. As I said earlier, she hasn’t been in to see anyone on follow-up for almost four months now. It took the severe abdominal complaints to get her in here.”

“That doesn’t sound like her. When I was involved, she was always careful about keeping her appointments, particularly because of her diabetes. Do you know why she hasn’t been back in?”

“No idea, but maybe the questions about aborting spooked her.”

“Didn’t you even ask?” George shot back. Losing a patient like Laney with progressive and demanding medical problems was anathema in an academic care center. The group started walking again.

“No. I haven’t asked,” Kelley replied. “Good question, though. I should have.”

George studied Kelley’s face. She didn’t seem thin-skinned or defensive, which she could have been, considering his tone. She had confidence: another good trait.

They arrived at Laney’s room. She had been moved to one of the back rooms as far away from the rest of the ER as possible, since she would have to wait a significant time before being seen by one of the OB residents. The hope was that she could get some much-needed rest. The ultrasound machine, along with a technician, Shirley Adams, was already on hand. An IV was running into Laney’s left arm.

“Laney, this is Dr. Wilson and Dr. Sanchez,” Kelley announced. “They will be helping Miss Adams do the ultrasound.”

Laney looked up at her visitors, her face brightening.

“We know—” George started.

“—each other already,” Laney finished.

George managed a smile. Laney was genuinely relieved to see a familiar face. She was a petite girl with Irish-pale, milky-white skin. The huge belly protruding from such a tiny frame made her appear further along in her pregnancy than six or seven months.

“Promise me that you won’t let them take my baby,” she said to George straight off. “Promise me!”

“I promise.” George was taken aback by her intensity. It was obvious she was terrified, much more scared than when he had done her echocardiogram. “The ultrasound will not hurt the baby, and it’s needed for his or her benefit.” He explained the procedure, making sure that Carlos heard, as this was his first ultrasound. George then asked why she hadn’t followed up with her medical appointments.

“Because I have my own doctor now. He sent me here to the emergency room because he couldn’t figure out exactly what was causing my stomach problems.”

“What’s the doctor’s name?”

“I’m not supposed to say.”

“Why is that?” George questioned gently.

“I don’t know actually.”

“I think you should tell us so we can get in touch.”

Laney looked from George to Carlos.

“It is important,” George persisted. He could not imagine why she didn’t want to say.

Laney cleared her throat. “It’s called iDoc. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but you are doctors, so I guess it is all right.”

George rocked back. iDoc? The freaking thing was everywhere. “You’re a part of the iDoc beta test?” he asked incredulously.

“I am.” She motioned to her shoulder bag on the bedside table. “It’s in there. My diabetes is not an issue anymore. And you know how out of whack that was.”

“I remember. But I’m amazed that you have iDoc.”

“I got it through Medicaid,” Laney explained. “I was told that I was lucky; that not many people on Medicaid got it, at least not yet. I like it a lot.”

“What exactly are you two talking about?” Kelley asked. “What is iDoc?”

George gave her a very quick description of the iDoc app.

“That’s impressive,” Kelley said. She sounded sincere but made a somewhat skeptical face to George, out of Laney’s line of vision. “Listen! I need to run. I have a full plate out there. Laney, you obviously know that you’re in good hands,” she said, motioning to George and the others. “I’ll be back to check up on you in a bit.” Kelley gave Laney’s arm a reassuring pat as she left.

“I’ll fill you in later,” George called after her. Then he turned back to Laney. “This won’t be hard for you or your baby.” He turned to Shirley and Carlos. “Let’s get this done!”

Carlos pulled George aside while the technician got the ultrasound machine up and running next to Laney’s bed. “What should I be doing here? I feel like the odd man out.”

“Once Shirley starts the study, I want you to handle the probe yourself so you’ll have a better feel for how the study is done. Actually doing it will help your interpretation immensely. Just be patient! I felt the same way you did back when I was starting out.”

22

Clayton strode into the ER looking for George. When he didn’t see him, he went directly into the radiology imaging room. There he cornered another radiology resident who happened to be using the ER imaging room even though he wasn’t officially assigned to the ER.

“You know where George Wilson is?”

“I think so. I believe he’s performing an ultrasound in the back. Can I help you—”

Clayton walked off without a reply, clearly preoccupied. He went back out to the main desk and got Debbie’s attention.

“Could I have a moment to talk with you in private, Miss Waters?” Clayton asked. Although there was a comparative lull, the ER was still busy. The main desk was a beehive of activity.

“Of course, Dr. Hanson,” she said, and told one of the other nurses to take over. Debbie led Clayton back into a windowless storeroom and closed the door.

“Well, how was it?” Clayton asked, abandoning any pretense of formality. “As bad as you expected?”

“Pretty much. He’s boring. He drinks too much and can’t handle his liquor. It was like going out with a frat boy. I’m done with those days, Clayton.”

“It couldn’t have been all bad.”

“Actually, he seems like a nice enough guy. How’s that?”

“Better. How much do I owe you for the drinks?”

“Nearly a hundred.”

“One hundred! Christ!” Clayton handed over the cash. “You must have drunk up a storm.”

“I didn’t. He did. And I had to do all the talking.”

“He’s still grieving,” Clayton said impatiently. “His fiancée just died, for God’s sake. As far as I know, this was the first time he’s gone out. Be a little more sympathetic! More important, what were you able to learn?”

Debbie frowned.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Clayton apologized. “I appreciate your making the effort. Just getting him out was a big positive. Thank you.”

“I did it for you. Just remember that.”

“I do, but what did you learn? What was his response to DeAngelis’s death? Is he taking it in stride or not?”

“The jury’s still out. One thing that I did learn was that he saw you going into the morgue. He was trying to get a look at the body, but he was turned away.”

“Shit! That’s inconvenient, him seeing me. I didn’t see him.”

“What were you down there for?” Debbie asked.

“It’s not important,” Clayton replied. “Administrative stuff.”

Debbie shrugged. “There is more. A couple of things are bothering George about his neighbor’s death. The first is that he’s worried that the dead guy’s sisters haven’t been notified.”

“I’ll make sure that happens.” Clayton hadn’t been aware that DeAngelis had relatives. “What else?”

“The other thing is the gossip about suicide from the ‘self-inflicted’ wounds.”

“Well, that’s not so good.”

“He also said something about wanting to know which of the ER residents was in charge of DeAngelis’s case.”

“Did he say why?”

“He said he wanted to inquire about the self-inflicted wounds.”

“Did you tell him which ER resident was involved?”

“No, and I don’t think he is going to remember about last night. He was three sheets to the wind. Why do you care what he thinks, anyway? I didn’t get the impression that he and his neighbor were really friends. They had nothing in common.”

“In terms of what you know, less is better, Deb, trust me. Did you guys talk about iDoc?”

“A little. I think everything is okay in that department. He said he thought iDoc was a big plus for DeAngelis.”

“Well, that’s good,” Clayton said. “Listen, I really appreciate your help in this. I want you to continue seeing George socially, to keep track of what he’s thinking and doing about DeAngelis’s death.”

Debbie’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t happy. “I thought that this was going to be a onetime mission.”

“I need to continue to monitor his mind-set. It’s not like I’m asking you to do anything onerous, and I’ll pay the tab.”

“You promised me we would get together! You and me!”

“We will. We will. What about this weekend? It’s the Fourth of July holiday. That might work.”

She looked at him askance, as if she didn’t trust him.

“Just let me look at my schedule, and I’ll get back to you. But… it is important that you keep tabs on George for me. I want to know if he is going to keep stirring the pot about his neighbor’s death.”

“All right!” she grumbled, though she wasn’t thrilled. At the same time she knew she would do just about anything to win Clayton back. She had been devastated when he had moved on from their short but intense affair.

23

The ultrasound test on Laney progressed smoothly. Carlos was a bit tentative at first but quickly gained confidence. On the monitor they could see the clear image of a baby boy. George made sure that Laney could see everything, too, since the child meant so much to her.

All of a sudden George and the technician saw something that made them both start. George immediately rotated the monitor so that it was out of Laney’s line of sight. Both Laney and Carlos sensed the change in atmosphere.

“Is there anything wrong?” Laney asked anxiously.

“No, everything is fine,” George mumbled as he motioned to Carlos to hand over the probe. Surprised but happy to oblige, Carlos gave it to him and stepped aside. George moved the probe’s tip to Laney’s left side while staring at the monitor to guide him. He pressed in firmly, moving the tip in small arcs, and kept it up for almost five minutes. “Okay,” George said finally, lifting the probe off Laney’s abdomen. “All done. We have what we need, Laney. Now, just try and relax! There will be a wait for the OB consult because of so many deliveries. They’re knee-deep in newborns up there,” he added, smiling weakly.

The metaphor fell flat. Laney was in no joking mood. She watched George closely as he handed the probe to the technician. “Take advantage of the quiet and get some sleep if you can,” George added. He knew the medication they had given her to alleviate her stomach pains would have a sedative effect.

Turning to Carlos, George said, “Help Shirley clean up, then meet me in the imaging room.” He gave Laney a quick smile and a reassuring squeeze of her arm, and then left.

George retreated to the imaging room to be alone for a few minutes. He was stunned at Laney’s bad luck. It seemed unfair that she had to endure such horrific medical problems.

A few minutes later Carlos joined him. “So what’s up? I saw your reaction. What did you see?”

“Grab a seat,” George said as he pulled up the study on the monitor. He zeroed in on the fetus’s head. At first Carlos couldn’t see the problem. “Look at how much the fetus’s head is distorted,” George said, using a pen as a pointer. “Look how it slants back right above the orbits. Do you know what that means?”

“Not really,” Carlos responded.

“It’s a condition called anencephaly, meaning essentially no brain and probably no spinal cord. There’s no hope. It’s tragic, especially with Laney’s reluctance to have an abortion, but this changes everything. Her life is too much at risk to give birth to a child who will either be stillborn or die within days of birth.”

Carlos nodded in understanding as he stared at the image on the monitor, digesting the terrible implications.

George got up and went to look for Kelley. He found her busy suturing up a laceration. At his insistence she stepped out into the hall, keeping her gloved hands clasped to her sterile gown as George explained the bad news.

Kelley was stunned and dismayed. “The poor woman. Can you go back and tell her?”

“Sorry, but I don’t think that would be appropriate. That’s the purview of the doctors taking care of her, meaning you or your resident. Actually, the diagnosis is not official until it is read by an attending. I’m sorry. Of course you could wait for the OB consult to tell her. It’s your call. You and your resident.”

“I have several more lacerations after this one.” It was clear she wanted help.

“Talk to your resident when you’re finished. I hope you understand; information like this is not for the radiologist to give to the patient.”

“Okay, I understand,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll let my resident know. My guess is that he’ll want to wait for the OB consult.”

“Whatever! But it’s important for the OB resident to know the results of the ultrasound before seeing Laney.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I could handle that part for you if you want.”

“That would be great. Thanks.” She tried to smile but her lips twitched.

“What I’ll do is get a radiology attending to review the case immediately so that it will be part of the record. That way, when the OB resident comes down, it will be available. But I’d still like to talk to whomever it is first.”

“Got it,” Kelley said, then added, “In some respects this could be a blessing in disguise. With the condition of Laney’s heart, I doubt if she would live through giving birth. Do you think the OB people will now be able to convince her to have an abortion?”

“We can hope.”

“God! What a tragedy. As a woman, I can really relate.”

“I can well imagine. I’ll get the final read on the ultrasound and we’ll go from there.”

“I appreciate your taking the time to come and tell me. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. My pleasure. By the way, I happen to think you are doing a bang-up job after being here only two and a half days.”

“Thank you again.”

“I mean it,” George said. “Now, get back to your suturing. We’ll talk later.”

George poked his head into the imaging room and got Carlos’s attention. “Everything hunky-dory?”

“No problems, boss,” Carlos reported cheerfully.

“I’m going to get an attending to sign off on the ultrasound. Text me if there are any problems.”

Carlos gave a thumbs-up.

Back in the ER proper, George saw Debbie carrying on as usual at the main desk. As he passed, he caught her eye, and to his surprise she actually smiled back. Maybe he hadn’t done anything to upset her last night, after all.

There were a number of radiology attendings who could sign off on Laney’s ultrasound, but Clayton, an authority on ob-gyn imaging, was probably the best. For George it represented a degree of irony, considering the man’s womanizing. He made a beeline for Clayton’s secretary. “I need to see Dr. Hanson.”

“He’s finishing a cardiac catheterization. I can tell him—”

“That’s okay. I’ll find him. Thanks!” George knew the cath room Clayton preferred. Just as George approached, he was snapping off his sterile gloves.

“George!” Clayton said. “What brings you to this neighborhood?”

“I was hoping you had a moment to look at an ultrasound on a gravid young woman in the ER. I’d like to get it into the record before she has an OB consult.”

“Sure. I have a moment right now.” He waved for George to follow. “How many months pregnant?”

“Around seven,” George said. He then gave an encapsulated version of Laney’s case, including what he thought the ultrasound showed.

“Geez,” Clayton commented. “Poor thing!”

They went into an empty reading room. George sat down at one of the terminals and began entering Laney’s hospital number.

“I ran into Debbie Waters earlier,” Clayton said. “She said she had a really good time, which I was pleased to hear.”

George was skeptical. “Did she actually tell you that?”

“Of course. She had a good time and looks forward to doing it again. You are in luck, as I happen to know she is in between boyfriends.”

George was frankly disbelieving. “She barely gave me a sideways glance this morning. I admit I had more to drink than I should have. I was worried that I had offended her.”

“She didn’t mention anything other than she had a good time.” Clayton pulled over a chair and sat down to watch as the video of Laney’s ultrasound began. He watched it several times, freezing the frame at key points. Finally he said, “Unfortunately I totally agree with your impression. Definitely anencephaly. For sure the fetus is doomed. I’ll sign off now.” As he did so he added, “They’ve got to get her to abort. No sense risking the mother’s life.” When he was finished he turned to George. “Done. Anything else?”

George shrugged. “That’s it. I appreciate your time. Thanks.”

“Glad to be of help.” Clayton smiled and stood up. “But don’t let Debbie Waters’s workday persona put you off. I’m telling you, she had a great time last night. And tell me the truth: Did you enjoy yourself or what?”

“I did. She is very personable outside of the ER.”

“There you go,” Clayton said. “You follow up on her. She has talents you wouldn’t believe.” Clayton clapped George on the back. “Always looking out for you, buddy.”

George beat a hasty retreat back to the ER. After what Clayton had told him about Debbie, George wanted to catch her before her lunch break. He was in luck. There was a relative calm in the ER activity.

“Hey there,” Debbie said, grinning as she saw him approach. “Where have you been this morning?”

“I’ve been here,” George said. “You didn’t see me?”

“No, but I’m not surprised. It’s been hectic. I wish this heat wave would let up.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and leaned toward George over the countertop. “How do you feel?”

“A little worse for wear,” George admitted. “Sorry I drank so much last night. I hope I didn’t say anything inappropriate.”

“You were a perfect gentleman. We have to do it again. You game?”

“Yes, but with a lot less booze.”

“Now, what can I do for you, or are you just saying hello?”

“There is something specific. I think it would be a good idea for the OB consult on Laney Chesney to come see me first. The fetus has anencephaly.”

“Ouch,” Debbie said in dismay as she wrote down the request on a sticky pad. She glanced around to see if anyone was watching them. No one was, so she added: “I really did enjoy our evening together. You were gracious to all my friends, which I appreciated. I do hope we can do it again soon.”

“Me, too,” George said, though in reality he wasn’t entirely sure he was up for a repeat.

He headed back to the imaging room, where Carlos was going over a new batch of films to review. As there were no surprises, at least according to Carlos, George suggested they put them off until after the radiology conference.

24

George walked back into the emergency room. He wanted to find Kelley and check Laney’s condition. The ER was really busy, not quite as bad as it had been early that morning, but with the heat wave still going strong it was busier than usual for the time of day. Kelley and all the other ER doctors were just trying to keep their heads above water. It took George a few minutes to locate her and ask if the OB consult had seen Laney. He had expected to have been paged if the consult had shown up, but it hadn’t happened.

“They are still busy upstairs, so not yet, but the resident slotted to do the consult called about fifteen minutes ago and said that she would be down within the hour. They’re wrapping up a couple of final deliveries.”

“Did you tell Laney… about the ultrasound result?” George asked.

“My senior resident did. I just couldn’t handle it. But he did a good job, and it was a good learning experience for me. She took it better than I feared.”

“I hope you don’t feel that I copped out.”

“Not at all. I understand. Actually at one point I thought about going into radiology to avoid such situations. We’re doctors, but we’re human, too. But in the end, the drama of ER medicine was too much to pass up. I felt that after all those years of schooling I wasn’t about to shortchange myself.” She stopped and glanced up at George. He had stiffened up on that last comment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

George put up his hands. “Don’t apologize. I’m not offended.” But in truth he was, a little. He took a step away but then turned back, remembering something else. “One more thing. Do you know offhand which of the ER residents was in charge of DeAngelis’s case?”

“I don’t know, but I can find out.”

“Please do. I want to ask about the self-inflicted wounds.”

“I’ll find out the name for you.”

“Thanks. Hope you guys catch up before the evening commute.”

Kelley nodded before heading back into the fray.

George returned to the imaging room and went over the latest films with Carlos. About forty minutes later Kelley walked in with a tall, African American woman. George got to his feet as Kelley introduced her as Dr. Christine Williams, one of the senior OB residents.

George said he wanted to make sure she knew the results of the ultrasound before she saw the patient and offered to go over it with her if she wanted.

“Actually I already saw the ultrasound report,” Christine said. “How did you get it in the record so quickly?”

“I put a rush on it so that it would be there for you. We knew how important it was going to be in determining how the case should be handled. I assume you will be trying to convince her to abort?”

“I can already give you some feedback on the patient,” Kelley offered. “After my senior resident gave Laney the results of the ultrasound, Laney said she would still not abort, no matter what.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Well, let me examine the patient and talk to her,” Christine finally said. “With her cardiac status and the fact that the fetus is not viable, it would be tragic to let her try to deliver.”

George felt terrible about the case. Once again a study he was involved with had changed someone’s life, and not necessarily for the better, although in this case the imaging might save the patient’s life. And to think that he believed radiology was going to be a shield from such things.

“Thanks for offering to go over the ultrasound with me,” Christine said. “But it’s not necessary. Instead I’d like to see the patient.”

“If it is all right with you, I’d like to come,” George said. “Laney and I go back a ways. Maybe I can offer her a bit of support. She doesn’t have any friends that I know of.”

“Be my guest,” Christine said graciously.

They made their way down the long hallway. As they walked, Kelley caught George’s eye and gave him a thumbs-up sign in recognition that he was doing something a bit more than the usual radiologist might.

The door to Laney’s room was closed. “We’ve let her sleep,” Kelley explained. “She was exhausted.” Kelley knocked on the door gently so as not to frighten the young woman. When she didn’t hear any response, she knocked harder and called out Laney’s name. Still there was no sound from within. A shadow of concern crossed Kelley’s face. She opened the door and all three doctors stepped into the windowless room. The lights had been dimmed.

Laney appeared to be asleep. Kelley called out to her again as she approached the side of the bed. George and Christine went to the opposite side. Kelley gave Laney’s arm a gentle shake. “Laney?” There was no response. She tried again. “Laney? Are you all right?” Still no response.

Concern ratcheted up in the room.

“Laney?” George yelled as he reached to check her pulse. He couldn’t find one. “There’s no pulse!”

Kelley quickly opened each of Laney’s eyes between her thumb and index finger and shined in a penlight. The pupils were dilated and nonreactive. “She’s not breathing!” Kelley cried.

“My God,” George blurted as he yanked the pillow from beneath Laney’s head. He leaped up onto the bed to begin CPR, noticing Laney was loosely holding her phone in her right hand. Christine grabbed an ambu bag from the top of an oxygen cylinder while Kelley used the intercom to call a code.

Within two minutes an entire resuscitative team headed by a senior resident swept into the room and went to work on the patient. Having gotten wind of what was going on, even Carlos appeared just as it was announced that Laney had flatlined, meaning there was no cardiac activity whatsoever. A moment later someone called out that Laney’s temperature had fallen below ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Regardless of the negative signs, they feverishly continued their attempt to resuscitate her.

With nothing to do, George turned on Laney’s phone. He pressed the iDoc app icon just as he had with Kasey’s. He saw that, as with Kasey’s, the iDoc app had been shut down and wiped clean more than an hour previously. Knowing what he did, he guessed it meant that Laney had not had a heartbeat for all that time.

“I think she’s been dead an hour,” George announced. He held up the phone. “According to iDoc, anyway.”

“An hour!” The leader of the resuscitation team motioned to the man doing the chest compressions to stop. “Now we know why we haven’t been able to get any cardiac activity. An hour? Christ! This patient is long dead! That’s it. Let’s pack it up, guys! Even if we managed to get a heartbeat, the brain would be gone.”

The team began gathering up their gear. George, Kelley, Carlos, and Christine appeared transfixed by the situation.

On his way out of the room, the head of the resuscitation team approached George, who he knew was a senior resident. “Dead an hour? That doesn’t look good for our ER. How long was the patient left alone?”

“Almost two hours,” Kelley said, answering for George. “I’m the junior resident assigned to the patient.”

“What is this, your third day?” the team leader questioned. He let out a long, slow whistle. “They’ll have fun with this one at the morbidity and mortality conference. Let’s hope the media doesn’t find out about it. But I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. It is July!” He snickered as he herded his team out the door.

It was a devastating parting shot to the first-year resident. Everybody in the room knew what he meant by “July.”

For a moment George couldn’t speak. Laney’s death had brought back the horror he had felt waking up next to Kasey’s corpse. She, too, had been dead long enough to be cold. Again the question came back: Why was death stalking him? Or was it rather that he was somehow the culprit, bringing death to everyone around him, starting with his own mother?

“Oh, my God!” Kelley said, forcing back tears. “What a disaster. I feel so bad. I should have checked on her.”

One of the ER nurses put her arm around Kelley’s shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault. Don’t listen to that resident. Nurses and orderlies should have checked on her, too. If it was anybody’s fault, it was everybody’s.”

“What that resident said was completely uncalled-for and mean,” Carlos said, waiting for George as the most senior resident to speak.

“If it was anybody’s fault, it was ours,” Christine said. “OB shouldn’t have made her wait. Sometimes the system just doesn’t work. We should probably have one resident in charge of ER consults rather than just relying on who happens to be free.”

George remained silent, staring at Laney’s lifeless face. He wandered out of the room, ignoring the others. He couldn’t shake the sense that something was wrong in his world. Very wrong.

25

Carlos brought up a chest X-ray on the monitor and gave the pertinent history of the patient to George, sitting next to him. Carlos was still chafing at George for not standing up for Kelley. Like everybody else, Carlos knew that Laney’s death was a system error, meaning there were a number of people who could be faulted. The senior medical resident’s picking on a first-year resident amounted to bullying.

“What’s your take on this film?” Carlos asked, his voice reflecting his disappointment at George’s reaction to the incident. “Do you think there’s a secondary finding?” The X-ray had been taken to evaluate probable rib fractures, but Carlos had spotted a possible secondary finding. He wasn’t sure whether or not there was hilar lymphadenopathy, or swollen lymph nodes, at the portion of the lung that carried all the blood vessels to and from the lung as well as the bronchial tubes. Carlos knew that lymphadenopathy was a finding common with a number of infectious diseases but could also signify lung cancer. Although detecting it obviously carried a great significance, it wasn’t a black-and-white call.

George was staring blankly at the monitor and didn’t respond.

“Are you okay?” Carlos asked. His disgruntlement was changing to concern.

George broke from his trance. “Sorry. I’m a little preoccupied, I guess.” He stood up. “Excuse me. We’ll finish up with this current batch of films later.”

George left the imaging room, aware that Carlos was most likely mystified by his behavior and wondering when George was going to snap out of his reaction to Laney Chesney’s death. He imagined that Carlos would have believed that George, as a fourth-year resident, should be inured to such incidents.

George was on a mission. He knew he was supposed to be at the radiology conference at four, which didn’t leave much time, but he decided he needed to talk to Kelley Babcock. As bad as he felt about Laney, he was sure she felt worse. He found her sitting alone in the doctors’ lounge, hunched over a cup of coffee.

“Kelley?”

She looked up. George could see her eyes were red.

“You mind?” He nodded to the empty chair next to her.

“I don’t own it.”

Not the most welcoming of invitations to join someone, but he took it anyway.

“Dr. Warren Knox,” Kelley said unbidden.

“Pardon?”

“You asked me who the ER resident in charge of the DeAngelis case was. It was Dr. Knox. But he has the day off.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to him the next time he’s on duty. But that’s not why I’m here.” He cleared his throat and began. “I recently had two people on whom I’d done MRIs pass away.” He paused, thinking of the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. “I take it personally when a patient dies, too. Maybe I should have learned better how to compartmentalize, put it in a box — I mean, it’s not like I don’t put it in a box. I do. But I only pretend the box is shut tight, and things leak out.”

Kelley looked up at him, curious.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry. I was upset and… I should have stood up for you with that medical resident. He was definitely out of line when—”

“Thanks. But it’s not just me or my guilt I’m upset about. I mean, I should have gone back to check on her, I accept that lapse. But it is also something else. It’s just… the unfairness of who gets dealt a bad hand. Why have I been so lucky? She was so young.” Kelley stirred her coffee absently. “When my father died I thought my life was over. I was home alone with him….” She paused. “I was just a dumb thirteen-year-old teenager, and there I was with my father having a heart attack right in front of me. She shook her head at the memory. “I wanted so badly to be able to help.” She looked up at George. “It’s probably why I went into medicine, and emergency medicine in particular. But now that I’m here, my great fear is about somebody coming in that ER door needing and expecting Superwoman and getting a very ordinary, scared little girl from Kansas who can make mistakes.”

George watched Kelley as she went back to stirring her coffee. He thought she was possibly more beautiful on the inside than on the outside. Now, that was something.

“I don’t know what you think about my opinion,” George said. “But I am one hundred percent sure you are going to be a super ER doctor. I mean it.”

“Thank you. That’s a real compliment coming from someone in his fourth year.”

“Despite what that medical resident said, don’t beat yourself up about Laney Chesney. Like the nurse said, we all have to take some blame. Hell, even me. I told her to get some sleep, and I’m the one who wanted the OB consult to come see me before going to her. That was an added delay.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

George sat quietly a moment, then looked up. “You’re right. But I’m beginning to think it wouldn’t have mattered even if she had been checked on by you or anyone else.”

Kelley looked at him, puzzled.

George looked around to make sure no one was listening in. Suddenly, in response to her honesty, he had the urge to be totally open with her. “I know this is going to sound a bit off the wall, but people are dropping like flies around me. I mean, I’m seriously beginning to think I’m the Grim Reaper.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re all very sick to begin with, don’t get me wrong. But they’re still dying before they should be.”

“I’m not following you.”

George counted on his fingers, “Kasey Lynch, Greg Tarkington, Claire Wong, Sal DeAngelis, and now Laney Chesney. Five people. My fiancée, my next-door neighbor, and three patients. My fiancée was three months ago, then the other four in the past three days.” He absentmindedly took Sal’s cell phone from his jacket pocket and set it on the table.

“Fiancée?” Kelley appeared dumbfounded. “Your fiancée died?”

“Unfortunately, yes. But I don’t mean to drop that on you.” He looked her in the eye. “As bad as that was, and believe me it was bad, it’s like these deaths are accelerating.” He paused, worried that he was coming off as a crazy. “I feel as if death has been following me around, and I should be doing something about it.”

“What can you possibly do?”

He shrugged. “It’s just a feeling I have.” He suddenly felt embarrassed, wondering what could have made him open up with someone he hardly knew but would like to get to know. “Sorry. Forget I said all that. The point I’m trying to make is that I might have had more to do with Laney’s death than anyone.”

Kelley looked at George skeptically. “Are you being serious?”

“I don’t know, to tell the truth. Anyway, don’t be too hard on yourself about Laney. I don’t think it was your fault in the slightest.”

Kelley looked at the smashed-up phone that he was twirling absently on the table. “Cracked your screen, I see. Did the same with mine, but not nearly that bad.”

George looked down. “No, this isn’t mine.” Earlier, with the help of a charging wire, he’d managed to get the screen to come on.

“I see it has the iDoc app.”

“Yeah, it does. Well, it did, anyway.”

“You seemed to know a lot about iDoc when we talked earlier.”

“I’ve been learning quite a bit. A crash course, you could say. For better or worse it’s going to play a big part of medical care in the near future. Medicine as we know it is going to change dramatically.”

“Really?” Kelley said. She straightened up in her chair. “I’d love to hear more about it.”

George gave her a five-minute summary of what he knew about iDoc. She seemed intrigued. Her eyes never left his face.

Just then the door to the lounge opened and a nurse stuck her head in. “Doctor Babcock, your presence is required in the emergency room.”

26

Clayton took the time to head back to the ER yet again, hoping he wasn’t calling too much attention to himself. Once more he was on a mission for Amalgamated, at the behest of Langley and secondarily Thorn. First it had been to try to locate the drug reservoir that had been implanted in Sal DeAngelis, which was a bust. Then it had been to gauge the general reaction to DeAngelis’s spectacular death, particularly from his neighbor who, by chance, happened to be Dr. George Wilson, which was ongoing. Now it was another death of an iDoc beta-test user, someone who was a Medicaid beneficiary, by the name of Laney Chesney. Clayton had recognized the name immediately, and unfortunately George Wilson was involved again.

The news of any problem with iDoc had bothered Clayton considerably. He had all his assets, including his entire IRA, tied up in the company. Inadvertent deaths with iDoc were the last thing he wanted to hear about. “Have you alerted the FDA about this problem?” Clayton had asked Thorn. Either yes or no had potentially bad implications, but Thorn had failed to answer.

Clayton reached the ER, which was as busy as he’d ever seen it. Holiday eve traffic had resulted in the expected mayhem. Six ambulances were lined up at the receiving dock, several still unloading their patients. Clayton made a beeline for the reading room, hoping to see George about the Chesney girl. He hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to say, but there was no George anyway.

Checking his watch, Clayton understood why and lambasted himself for not remembering the Thursday compulsory physics lecture for all the residents. So much for confronting George. Instead he went to the main desk to see Debbie. He knew she was officially off at three, but she was so conscientious, she was always around for another hour at least. Sure enough he found her sitting at the desk with the charge nurse on duty for the three-to-eleven shift. They were still going over the patients whose cases were pending.

Clayton interrupted the conversation and took Debbie aside. She was surprised and wary to see him. Clayton didn’t waste words: “I heard a young pregnant woman passed away here in the ER. I’m sorry, I know that’s tough on you and everybody else.”

“Bad news travels fast,” Debbie said, eyeing Clayton suspiciously.

“How did it happen?”

“Cardiac,” Debbie said. “The patient had a long history of progressive cardiomyopathy.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. But it’s my own damn fault. I dropped the ball. I should have been sending people down there to continuously monitor her when I realized that the OB resident couldn’t show up for several hours. But a lot of folks around here should have checked in with her without having to be told by me or by anybody. It’s standard freaking procedure, for God’s sake.”

Debbie paused and looked up at Clayton. “What’s this sudden sympathy? It’s not like you to come down here in the middle of the day, worried about my mental status.”

“Well, there is an ulterior motive. My understanding is that unfortunately George Wilson was again involved. I’m worried about his response, because the patient, like DeAngelis, was part of the iDoc beta test.”

“What the hell are you worried about? I don’t understand. Do you think he’s dangerous in some way?”

“Let’s just say that we don’t want any adverse publicity at this stage of the iDoc testing. He’s a smart guy. We need to know what he’s thinking in case some intervention is called for.”

“So you want me to sound him out about both Laney Chesney and Sal DeAngelis? Make sure he won’t make any waves? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“Always right on the money,” Clayton said. “Sharp as a tack! I knew I could count on you.”

“Wait a second. One condition. You and me. We start going out again.”

“Absolutely. I would want that even if you weren’t helping me with George Wilson,” Clayton lied. “You know that. I like you. It’s just that my ex-wife was giving me such problems, I had to back off for a bit. It’s better now. I know I mentioned this weekend. How about dinner at Spago Saturday night? Does that work for you?”

Debbie beamed. “Actually, it sounds wonderful. Okay, I’ll do it.”

Clayton gave her a wink and a light swat on the butt with his file folder as he walked off. He was pleased, even if he’d had to agree to a Saturday-night dinner. Well, maybe he could get out of it. He checked his watch. He headed over to the hospital’s parking garage. The valet raced off to retrieve his red Ferrari, which they always parked near the checkout desk. An hour earlier he had gotten a call that asked him to come to an emergency meeting with Thorn and Langley over in Century City. He loved moving among the business elites. If he had to get his shoes muddy once in a while for the privilege, so be it. The mud made him indispensable.

Clayton, Thorn, and Langley were gathered around a small table in Thorn’s expansive corner office. The massive windows in the room looked south and west, offering a stunning view of Santa Monica Bay and the Pacific Ocean, not that Thorn noticed it anymore.

Their discussion was about what they were now officially calling “the glitch.” Langley brought the others up to date on all the latest aspects, including specific details on the position taken by CMS and the Independent Payment Advisory Board. While Langley spoke he kept puffing on an e-cigarette, which irritated the hell out of Thorn. He was convinced that whatever Langley was blowing around the room was going to get trapped there and he’d be smelling it later. When things were not going smoothly, which they clearly weren’t, Thorn was less tolerant of people’s foibles.

“As I have said, my major fear is word getting out,” the tech genius was saying. “The media—”

“Will blow it all out of proportion,” Thorn finished. “We are all on the same page in this regard. No disagreement whatsoever.”

“Then why not disable it?” Clayton asked. “Is that still a possibility?”

“We tried once when it first appeared,” Langley said, “before CMS was in the picture. But getting rid of it is not as easy as it sounds. The basic program learns almost too quickly. To totally get rid of it would require rewriting huge sections of the code, a time-consuming endeavor, to say the very least.”

“What’s the current situation in the trenches?” Thorn asked impatiently, looking at Clayton. By “trenches” he meant the people dealing directly with patients: doctors and nurses and the like.

“As far as I can tell there is no suspicion at the facilities where the events originated,” Clayton said. “Santa Monica and Harbor, no problem whatsoever. It has also been okay at the L.A. University Medical Center, except for some mild concern about a resident radiologist under my supervision, as I have informed Langley.”

Langley nodded.

“But other than that, nothing,” Clayton continued. “Also, I’m happy to report no problems coming from the medical examiner’s office, either, which I have been monitoring. There’s not been a blip on the the radar screen. No one has requested an autopsy on a deceased iDoc beta participant. The beauty of it is that everyone expects these people to die, given their medical histories. Of course it helps that the medical examiner’s resources are stretched as thin as they are, so their forensic examiners are encouraged to sign off on terminal cases with few questions asked.”

“Back up a minute. Who is this radiologist?” Thorn asked.

“His name is George Wilson,” Clayton said. “It’s an unfortunate convergence of events. He was engaged to one victim, friend to another, and did radiological studies on three others, one of whom he had a bit of a bond with. She died this morning. At this point he’s only aware that three of the five are iDoc users, including the one today. But still, even three… I mean, what are the odds?”

“Odds aren’t worth shit when it comes to reality,” Thorn retorted. “We can’t make even one mistake. Our whole game plan could be undermined.” He paused and looked directly at the others to be sure they were taking this in. “And our careers.” He turned to Langley. “These clustered episodes show that the algorithm will have to be tweaked. If iDoc identifies a termination case in the future, before it takes action, have it spit out the name and case number. Then have it look at the proximity of other terminations and factor in the relationships of the health care professionals who are involved. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr — you can use those sites and others to find the connections. Once we have them, we’ll develop protocols for the number of connections and how frequent they are to be acceptable within a set period of time. Are you following me?”

“Yes, I am.” Langley smiled. “I know exactly what you’re looking for and I will have my team deliver.”

Clayton felt a little dizzy after Thorn’s impassioned monologue. He didn’t understand a word.

“Good,” Thorn said, clapping his hands together. “Now, moving on to the situation at hand… what do we do, if anything, about this resident radiologist?”

“Well,” Clayton said, “I don’t think we should do anything yet. But I have arranged to keep him on a short leash and monitor him closely. I’ve engaged an attractive and effective fifth column, if you will, who has already informed me that although he is impressed with iDoc, he’s not buying the generally accepted theory that his neighbor was suicidal, which in his mind is iDoc case number two. I’m afraid he might be compelled to look into the case a bit more. What we don’t want to do is anything that arouses his suspicions that iDoc has anything to do with the deaths. Unfortunately something did happen that made him more suspicious, and that’s that he saw me down in the morgue when I went and tried to retrieve that reservoir for Mr. Langley.” Clayton leveled an accusatory gaze on the techie.

“We were hoping for a material confirmation of what actually happened,” Langley said in his defense. “Obtaining the reservoir would have been helpful to ascertain that the insulin was the determining factor in the death.”

“I can’t believe that! You already knew,” Clayton shot back. He was angry that his going down to the morgue had put him and the program at potential risk at a time when he hadn’t been made fully aware of the situation and its seriousness.

“Enough!” Thorn interrupted. “We’re all on the same page. I want to know more about this George Wilson fellow.”

“Actually, you’ve met him,” Clayton said.

“How? Where, for Christ’s sake?”

“At the investor presentation at the Century Plaza Hotel. He’s a friend of Paula Stonebrenner’s. I saw her introduce you to him.”

Thorn was shocked. “Seriously? Jesus, it’s a small world sometimes. Okay, continue.”

Clayton gave them some background on George, including his having been involved to a degree in exposing a conspiracy at Columbia Medical School while he was a student there. On hearing this, Thorn’s face darkened. Clayton also described George as one of his best residents, conscientious to a fault, a hard worker and bright.

“How are you going to monitor him?” Thorn asked.

“As I’ve said, I’ve arranged for a friend to keep George under surveillance over the next few days, which I feel are critical. If he calms down, then we’re good. If he doesn’t, I’ll let you know. I imagine you can best handle it at that point.”

Thorn nodded, deciding if push came to shove to turn the situation over to his security department as a code-red emergency. The security department’s entire hierarchy was composed of former mercenaries. He was confident they could handle doing whatever was necessary.

“You know, it’s a good thing this is happening,” Langley said, interrupting.

Thorn and Clayton looked at him, puzzled.

“We didn’t plan on this ‘glitch,’ but all the same that is what a beta test is for, to identify and resolve this kind of unexpected phenomenon. It’s a lot better than finding out about it after we go national. In a way, this situation in and of itself is a mini beta test.”

“I wish I could feel as optimistic as you,” Thorn said. “I don’t like threats that could possibly derail our program.”

“Well, I like looking on the bright side,” Langley said. “We might learn some really important lessons from this radiology resident, depending on how his involvement unfolds. And with Clayton keeping tabs on him, we can intervene if need be, which lowers the risk to an acceptable level. I think this situation is a blessing in disguise. It has created a nice controlled environment to get some potentially helpful data about security for iDoc in the future.”

27

George had been moping since he’d gotten home. Compared to Kasey’s, Sal’s, Tarkington’s, Wong’s, and now Laney’s, George’s life was a walk in the park, since he was still alive. But he was unable to shake a sense of complicity in all their deaths. Talking with Kelley earlier made him feel better by getting it out in the open, but not for long.

He was sitting on his couch in the dark, mindlessly TV channel surfing, when his doorbell rang. He ignored it, hoping whoever it was would go away. But it rang again. Then again. Reluctantly George got up and opened the door, thinking it could only be either Zee or his drunk-ass building superintendent. It was neither. He stood dumbstruck staring at Debbie Waters.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she said. “If you’re entertaining, though, I can come back another time.”

George found his voice. “No! No! Let me get a light.”

Debbie came in and looked for a place to sit as George turned on a floor lamp and turned off the TV. She had to make a conscious effort not to comment on the state of George’s apartment.

“I was driving by and thought of you,” she said, deciding the best place to sit was in a vinyl club chair. She wanted to avoid the couch so as not to give mixed signals. “I hope you don’t mind my stopping by, but I needed to talk with someone. I’m still weirded out about the Chesney girl dying during my watch.”

“I can understand,” George said. “Her death bothered everyone. She was a sweet girl who hadn’t had a lot of chances in life. Before you came I was just sitting in here in the dark, trying to make sense of her passing.”

“How exactly does it bother you?” Debbie asked. She wanted to get this mission for Clayton over with as fast as possible. “It certainly wasn’t your fault.”

George started to reply, then paused. It was a bit of an odd question, since the answer was so intuitive. “I don’t think it was anyone’s fault, Debbie, if that’s what you’re worried about. I think it was more of a confluence of errors and oversights. What bothers me is the fact that she was dealt such a bad hand throughout her short life. I don’t know if you are aware of the details, but suffice it to say she had multiple major health issues, some of which I helped to define. Add in her train wreck of a childhood, and it’s just tragic, at all levels.”

“That’s it?” Debbie asked.

George regarded her closely. He suddenly had the sense that she was interrogating him rather than having a real discussion. He was glad he hadn’t shared his thoughts about his own sense of responsibility. He sensed he should hold his cards close to his chest. His subconscious picked up something a bit off about Debbie. And until he could identify what that something was, he’d play it safe.

“So you’re okay?” Debbie asked, studying his face. “I thought maybe this episode on top of DeAngelis and then of course your fiancée… I don’t know… I was worried about you.”

“How do you know about my fiancée?” George asked.

“Clayton filled me in,” Debbie said without blinking an eye. “That’s why I’m worried about you.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” And he did. Other than Kasey, he hadn’t had a woman in Los Angeles express much concern about his well-being. As a consequence, his guard dropped a little. Maybe he had misjudged her.

“You look troubled,” she said. “What are you thinking about?”

“Well, I did — do — have this crazy idea about death stalking me. I know that sounds paranoid. I mean, these patients all had serious illnesses, particularly considering what you told me about Sal.”

“Pardon?” She looked confused.

“The prostate cancer.”

“Oh. I forgot I had mentioned it.”

“How did you know?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Really?” George asked, his guard back up.

“Oh, I remember now. His accident was so freaky. When the crash happened, his phone rocketed out of the car and literally landed in my lap.”

George felt a twinge of guilt for having essentially swiped the phone from her desk. Of course he thought it was going to be thrown in the trash.

“Even though it looked worse for wear, I hooked it up to one of the handhelds that Amalgamated gave us for their iDoc clients. It can retrieve their medical histories and recent vital signs data to help us make an initial diagnosis. His phone was jammed from the impact of the accident, but I was able to get some of the latest data downloaded into the reader before it completely crashed. And that included the results of a recent prostate biopsy. It was the last entry in his medical history.”

“That’s fascinating,” George said with obvious interest. “Do you think he knew? Is that information still in the hospital computer?”

“It never got that far,” Debbie said. “And he probably didn’t know about the diagnosis.” George’s sudden eagerness scared her a little. She was certain that getting him riled up was not what Clayton had in mind. He just asked her to gauge George’s state of mind about the deaths, hoping he had put them behind him, and here she was aggravating the situation. “It was obvious pretty quickly that the guy was dead, so there was no need for further medical history. I just read it off the handheld. I never uploaded it.”

“Interesting,” George commented as all the disparate facts swirled around in his brain. If Sal didn’t know about the prostate diagnosis, then there was an interesting parallel with Kasey. Suddenly he blurted out: “I wonder if Greg Tarkington and Claire Wong were iDoc users? If they were, that would be an odd coincidence.”

“Who are Greg Tarkington and Claire Wong?” Debbie’s warning bell was dinging. Clayton was not going to be happy.

“They are two patients I did MRIs on who have also recently shown up as DOAs in your ER.” George moved to the edge of the couch. “I have a favor to ask. Would you see if you can find out if they were part of the iDoc beta test?”

Debbie was about to beg off, but George didn’t give her a chance. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m just thinking out loud, but there is something else.” He could see her stiffen up, but he went on anyway. “There is the issue about an implanted reservoir. My fiancée had one to control her diabetes. Sal had one, too — or at least he thought he had one. He showed me a scar on his abdomen. Laney? I don’t know if she had one, but it stands to reason that she did since she had diabetes, too. I suppose I should have noticed when the ultrasound was done, but I was distracted by showing Carlos the ropes. I can find out about Sal to be one hundred percent certain, since I know the name of his former primary-care doctor. Sal had me call him a couple of times. I’ll see if he has a record of it. Sal had said that he had put it in. Sal and Laney must have had one because, like Kasey, iDoc was controlling their diabetes. The only way for that to happen was for them to have implanted reservoirs.”

“What are you talking about?” Debbie demanded. She was becoming progressively alarmed. “Implanted reservoirs?” He had completely lost her, and his sudden enthusiasm was scary. She had a feeling that she had somehow made things worse for Clayton.

George stared at Debbie. “What about it?” he asked. “Can you get this kind of information about Tarkington and Wong for me from the ER records?”

“Absolutely not!” Debbie stated categorically. “None of these people were my patients. I’m the charge nurse. One thing that the hospital admin has driven home to us is the sanctity of individual health records. My accessing patient records would be a clear violation of HIPAA, which I remind you is taken very seriously at the medical center. You know that. Anytime someone tries to access a medical record who is not directly involved in the patient’s care on an ongoing basis, a red flag goes up in the medical records department.”

“You’re right,” George said. He had been severely reprimanded after he had accessed Kasey’s records without authorization, even though he was engaged to her. At the time he’d been surprised at how quickly he’d been caught.

“Listen,” Debbie said, trying to do some damage control. “This thought you have that death is stalking you is ridiculous. I’m sorry, but it is crazy. As your friend I must tell you that you have to just let it go. You have been a victim of coincidence. Believe me, if you persist, you’re risking getting yourself in trouble.” She thought about saying it was a certainty but didn’t dare, thinking he’d smell a rat.

“Thanks for your advice,” George said, but his mind was churning. He had another idea. Suddenly he thought Paula might be able to answer his questions. Amalgamated had to have a master list of iDoc beta-test participants. Then he thought of something else: “I remember the names of Tarkington’s and Wong’s oncologists. I wonder if I call them, if they might be willing to tell me if the two patients were with iDoc. It wouldn’t be divulging their medical histories per se.”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. Listen! I’m going to say it again. You have to let this drop. You are letting your imagination run away with itself, and you are going to get yourself in deep shit if you’re not careful.” Debbie stood up. Suddenly she wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Clayton was not going to like it. She didn’t know exactly why she felt that way, but she did. “I gotta run,” she said as she headed for the door.

George was snapped out of his reverie. He appreciated Debbie’s unexpected visit, as it had focused his thinking. “Are you sure you have to go? I really appreciate your dropping by. I can get out the Jack Daniel’s again.”

“No. Thanks. I really have to go. I feel better having spoken with you. Thanks, George.”

“Sure. Anytime. Should we call a taxi?”

“No, I drove.”

“Then I’ll walk you out to your car.”

“It’s not necessary. I’m a big girl!”

“I insist,” George said. “I really do appreciate your coming by.”

He walked her out to her car in front of his apartment building. He gave it one last shot to get her to stay or even go out to a local bar, but she was intent on leaving. He waved as she pulled out into the traffic.

He headed back into his apartment complex, perplexed by her hot-and-cold behavior. The light was on in Sal’s apartment. Good. It must be the sisters. He debated whether or not to say hello and extend his sympathies, but he wasn’t sure they would even remember him.

He got to his front door and changed his mind. He decided he should make the effort to say hello and find out if there were any plans for a service. As he approached the apartment he could see into Sal’s living area. There weren’t two older women inside, but two men. Thirtyish, in dark suits and ties! They seemed pretty damn busy, too, whatever they were doing.

George glanced at the super’s door, thinking about inquiring exactly who was in Sal’s apartment. But imagining that the man was drunk as usual, he decided to just see what he could learn on his own. He went out to the rear of the building to check out Sal’s parking place. In it he saw a large, late-model black SUV with dark tinted windows. He doubted it was another tenant’s. More confused than ever, he returned to Sal’s patio fence.

George hunched down to avoid being seen from inside Sal’s apartment. At the same time he glanced around the complex hoping no one was watching him. He didn’t want to risk another run-in with the police, which must have been precipitated by someone seeing him climbing over Sal’s fence.

Through the sliding glass door he could see all of the living area and the kitchen. The men in the suits were seemingly searching the apartment, as he had done. One was actually vacuuming Sal’s faux oriental carpet with a handheld DustBuster. Weird! George wondered what, if anything, he should do.

For lack of an alternative plan, he decided to check in with the super, drunk or not. With some reservation, he rang the bell. When the super opened the door, George saw that, as expected, the man was plastered. Having come as far as he had, George plowed ahead. “I thought you might want to know that there are two men in DeAngelis’s unit searching the place.”

“I know. I gave them a key.”

“Who are they?”

“Police. Or something or other,” the super replied, scratching his head. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a week. He was holding on to the door frame for support and still wobbling.

“They don’t look like police.”

“They had badges. And a paper that was some kind of warrant.”

“What are they looking for?”

“No idea.”

George was confused. “You didn’t ask?”

The super, whose name was Clarence, had to think that one over. “I might have. Can’t remember.”

George realized this was hopeless and turned to leave. “Okay, thanks.”

“Sal’s sisters are in town,” Clarence yelled, as if he just remembered it. “There’s a memorial service they got planned for tomorrow. Hang on.” He reached to a table just inside his door and grabbed a piece of paper. He held it as far away from himself as he could while attempting to read it. “Carter’s Funeral Home. Two o’clock. If you want to go. Said they wanted to bury him as quick as can be and skedaddle out of town.”

“Thanks, Clarence.” George walked off. He was amazed that the service was scheduled to take place on the Fourth of July, not that he imagined too many people would want to show up.

George headed back to his apartment, still curious as to who exactly was searching Sal’s. If they were government agents of some sort, as Clarence thought, he’d have to guess they were FBI. But why in thunder would the FBI be searching Sal’s apartment?

28

With a nervous smile Debbie Waters rang Clayton’s doorbell and surveyed the home and surrounding manicured grounds, noticing an extra car in the driveway. This was the life she wanted. She was in her mid-thirties now and the clock was ticking. She knew she had a smoking-hot body, at least according to some male friends. But how long was that going to last? What she didn’t want to do was end up living an ordinary, middle-class life. Every day in L.A. she saw both extremes: the haves and the have-nots. She deserved to be a have, and Clayton was her ticket.

His home was near the top of a winding road in Bel Air. It was too big for the lot it sat on, but wasn’t anywhere near as large as some of his neighbors’. Still, his place was impressive. Especially to an ER charge nurse earning $89,000 a year. A nice salary, yes, but not for this zip code.

Clayton glanced at a security monitor in his kitchen while on the way to his front door. It was Debbie ringing the bell. He wasn’t surprised, as she’d called ahead. He had told her not to come over to the house because he had guests, but she insisted. In actuality, he had only one guest and he was not about to let her meet Debbie. Knowing Debbie as he did, that would be a disaster.

Clayton had parted with half of his net worth in his divorce and was stretched to the bone trying to pay the mortgage, taxes, and upkeep on his house. The idea that he even had a mortgage at his age was frightening. He needed those Amalgamated stock options to come through for him, so inconveniences like this were… well, he had to put up with them.

He had no qualms about using Debbie as a spy, but having her show up at his house uninvited was not acceptable. He knew he was considered a catch in some circles, and those circles included Debbie Waters. But the feelings were not mutual. She was certainly attractive physically, but among the social coterie he preferred, her mouth and manners of a truck driver didn’t mesh. Yet he needed her to think otherwise, at least long enough to get her to continue to help with George Wilson.

He opened the front door and for a moment the former lovers regarded each other across the threshold.

Clayton broke the silence. “This isn’t good,” he hissed.

“If that’s the way you want to be, you’re on your own,” Debbie said. She turned and headed for her car. “I have some new information about George Wilson I thought you’d want to hear, but fine,” she called over her shoulder.

“Jesus!” Clayton groaned, recognizing that Debbie was manipulating him. He should just let her leave. The last thing he wanted was for her to be there with the young, would-be actress waiting in his library, but he needed to hear what she had to say. He darted after her. She was already in the car, closing her door, when he caught up with her. He grabbed the handle.

“Okay, what did you learn?”

“No. You were just rude to me. If you want to know, you’ll have to come to my place.” She started the car engine and put it in gear. “Let go of my door!”

“Wait! Damn it!”

She didn’t, and he had to jog along beside her to keep up as she descended his driveway. He still had a hold of her car door.

“Okay! Okay! I’ll come over to your place. Just give me some time to get rid of my guest. I’ll tell him I have to run back to the hospital.” Damn, he hated her for doing this to him. “I’ll be over in an hour.”

“Him? Right,” she scoffed, not buying that it was a man visiting with Clayton. She loved that she had interrupted his evening and was making him come running to her. “Okay, one hour! Or I don’t tell you what I learned.”

Clayton stood at the base of his driveway and watched her drive off. He promised himself he would make her pay when this was over. Maybe he could get her transferred to their newly acquired affiliated hospital down in Long Beach. That would teach her.

29

George was feeling a lot better. Debbie’s surprise visit had pulled him out of his depression. After a quick shower and a bit of food in his belly, his mind started to kick back into gear. What he had realized was that, immediately prior to their deaths, all of the patients in what he now referred to as his “coincidental cohort” had had a history of serious medical problems compounded by the discovery of a new, life-threatening medical issue.

What he was most interested in knowing was whether or not Tarkington and Wong were part of the iDoc beta test. He knew Debbie was right that it was against HIPAA rules to try to access anyone’s health records. But there was Paula Stonebrenner and maybe she could help. With her high-level connections at Amalgamated there was a good chance she could find out if they had been part of the iDoc test or not. One way or the other it would be good for her to know that there was a slight but real chance that something might not be completely copacetic with the iDoc algorithm. Especially when it came to people with serious illnesses. Either that or someone might be intentionally causing trouble. He remembered reading an article in the previous six months or so that Internet hackers could access medical devices that depended on wireless technology. Certainly iDoc fit into that category in a big way. Someone might be interfering with iDoc either merely for the challenge or in a deliberate effort to sabotage Amalgamated for some perceived slight (a lot of people had reasons to hate insurance companies) or for financial gain.

George wondered about the best way to approach Paula. She could easily take offense, but he wanted to try anyway. He decided to text her.

Sitting on his couch now with the lights on and the TV off, he sent her a short “Hello.” He didn’t have long to wait. She responded in minutes. Soon they were bantering back and forth about how impressed he had been with iDoc from the presentation and what a good job she had done. George could tell she was pleased with the compliments. Next they switched to the idea of possibly getting together. Once he felt she was relaxed, he returned the conversation back to iDoc.

Hey, I was just wondering. Were there any glitches with iDoc during the beta test?

No. Why do you ask?

I remember an article about hackers hacking into wireless medical devices.

Absolutely nothing like that with us. Flawless.

George realized he needed to up the ante.

Something has come to my attention at the medical center.

He got a period of silence after that. Finally:

What’s that?

We should talk.

Okay. Call me.

I’d rather talk in person. You up for that?

When?

How about now?

Not possible. It’s late. But you can call me if you want.

George sighed. Okay, he’d call. He would have much preferred talking with her directly to gauge her reactions, but he’d take what he could get. She picked up on the first ring.

“Okay, what’s up?”

George cleared his throat. He sensed she was already on the defensive. “I imagine this might be a sensitive subject, but I can’t ignore what I’m seeing.”

“This is about iDoc?”

“Yes… well, no! It’s more than that. I know of three iDoc users that have died. They all had significant medical issues but they all died abruptly and prematurely, immediately after a diagnosis of yet another serious medical issue or a worsening of their original illness.” He didn’t want to say that all of these deceased had a personal connection. He didn’t want this to appear personal.

“I have also done MRIs on two other patients who died abruptly. I’m wondering if they were part of the iDoc beta test as well.” George paused, waiting for a response. Paula was silent. “Did you hear—”

“Yes. I heard you.” Her tone was all business. “You don’t know if the MRI patients were a part of the beta test?”

“No. I don’t. That’s partly why I’m calling. I was hoping that you could tell me. If you have a pen handy, their names are Greg Tarkington and Claire—”

Paula interrupted. “I wouldn’t be able to tell you whether they were part of the test or not. Do you remember our conversation regarding the level of security for iDoc? It is taken very seriously. As part of our preliminary approval, we certified that we would respect HIPAA. Even if I were in a position to find out, which I couldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

Paula’s comments were interrupted by a sudden chorus of “YES! YES! YES!” coming through the wall from Joe’s apartment. His neighbor had apparently come home early. George dashed into his bedroom and closed the door.

“What was that noise?” Paula asked. Apparently it had been loud enough for her to hear.

“A neighbor. Probably a TV.”

“Your walls must be paper-thin.”

“It’s not the best construction,” George admitted. He winced. Now she had a hint of how decrepit his apartment was. Since sounds could still be heard from Joe’s apartment he went into his bathroom and closed the door. He sat on the lowered toilet seat. At least it was quiet.

“I didn’t hear your last response,” he said. “Could you repeat?”

“I said I couldn’t tell you what you asked even if I could find out.”

“Just so you know, this isn’t about me wanting iDoc to fail.”

“I hope not, George. At the same I time I could understand if you are a little pissed that I took your suggestion and ran with it without at least letting you know. I was specifically told not to for security reasons. iDoc is a huge investment. But please don’t make a fool of yourself over this. Wild public accusations about iDoc will reflect badly on you. I promise you, if there are any problems with iDoc, I will let you know. So far there have been no problems. None!”

He knew she was going say that. “My motivation has nothing to do with spite.”

“I hope not. I am more certain than ever that iDoc is the future of medicine in the digitalized world. Doctors had their chance to continue to lead medicine, but they didn’t take it.”

“I can see iDoc’s potential, believe me. It truly is amazing. But I can’t ignore what I believe is a very real glitch or something.”

“And how would iDoc be responsible for these premature deaths?”

“You tell me.”

Paula sighed, purposefully wanting George to hear her reaction. “The beta test is huge, George. Twenty thousand client-patients. There are bound to be some inexplicable medical events and deaths. I am sure that all deaths of beta-test participants are being looked at very carefully. And I’ll bet that iDoc has probably prevented many deaths, as it would have saved your mother. People with serious illnesses are the ones whom iDoc will actually help the most.”

“Why do you believe that?”

“It’s simple. iDoc is able to titrate lifesaving medication according to real-time physiological values rather than trying to treat symptoms, which is the old ‘sick’ care medical paradigm. iDoc is the perfect primary-care doctor since it is based on an algorithm that is capable of learning and will be continuously upgraded as new medical information is incorporated.”

“I’m concerned it can’t handle what’s on its plate now.”

“You know what a Luddite doctor is, George? I run across them all the time. MDs who have been dragging their feet in the acceptance of digitalized medicine, even something as intuitive as electronic records. Come on! This is a no-brainer!”

“You have a point. A strong one. But that isn’t my issue. I’m concerned about iDoc not operating as you intended. Listen, I appreciate everything you’ve said. I just hope you can allay my concerns.”

“Okay. I’ll look into it. Promise.”

“Can we still get together?”

She laughed. “Of course we can still get together. It was my idea, remember?”

“I think I can explain better in person. Believe me, I am not motivated in the slightest by spite, or pique for that matter.”

“Okay,” she laughed.

“Well, I’m free for the holiday weekend. For the first time in three years!”

“Unfortunately, since I didn’t hear from you about Saturday I have made other plans. I’m scheduled to go to Hawaii in the morning. I’ll be back Monday night. Let’s talk then.”

“Okay. Sounds good,” George replied, hiding his disappointment. “Have fun! Bye.”

“Bye.” She hung up.

George went back out to his living room and sat on his threadbare couch listening through the wall to the sex session still going on. The difference in lifestyle between him and Paula sunk in heavily. The idea of going to Hawaii for the weekend was beyond his comprehension. It reminded him of what his grandmother had told him more than once:

We live and die by our choices in life. They make us who we are.

30

Debbie enjoyed tormenting Clayton. Why he was so worried about George anyway was beyond her. But since he was, and since he had come to her for help, she was going to use it to her advantage.

Once Clayton showed up at her place, Debbie made him pay. For forcing her to spend time with George, for one. And for entertaining someone other than herself, for another. She knew it was a woman and took great delight in having made Clayton rush away from whatever they had been up to. Whoever the broad was, she had to be steaming mad, even though Clayton had probably used the excuse he had to go back to the hospital.

Eventually, after making him grovel sufficiently, Debbie got around to telling Clayton about George’s progressive interest in the five sudden deaths, at least three of whom were iDoc test subjects.

“He actually asked me to look in the ER records to tell him whether the other two patients were part of your iDoc study.”

“And what did you say?” Clayton demanded. Finally he had gotten her talking.

“I told him no. I’m not going to risk a HIPAA violation. Listen, Clayton, the fact that he even thought he could ask me such a thing is your fault. You have me asking him out. You know he’s not my type. He lives in a fucking shithole.”

Oh, the irony, Clayton thought. If only he could tell her exactly what caliber of man she deserved. Self-awareness was not Debbie’s strong suit. Whatever did he see in her before? Well, he knew the answer to that. Now he had to keep reminding himself that this was work. Just think of the stock options, he kept telling himself.

“George is also interested in knowing if Salvatore DeAngelis had a reservoir inserted by iDoc. He thinks he did, but he wants to be certain.”

An alarm bell went off in Clayton’s brain. He could feel his face redden.

“What is he talking about?” Debbie questioned. “What is a reservoir? How does it relate to your iDoc?”

“It’s something technical. But I’m interested he talked about it. Just tell me everything that he said.”

Debbie gave him the whole story as she remembered it. Clayton listened closely, asking questions and making her repeat things to make sure she was remembering them correctly. When he was satisfied he’d gotten everything he could from her, he stood up, ready to leave.

Debbie was horrified. “Where are you going? Don’t leave now!” She jumped up, grabbing his favorite single-malt scotch, which she kept on a sideboard.

“I have to go. Sorry. It’s not even an option to stay.” He didn’t want to leave any doubt in her mind that he was leaving. Five more minutes in her faux-everything living room was more than he could bear, even though he could remember a few wild scenes in the past when the decor wasn’t an issue.

“Why do you care what George thinks?” She was pouting now.

Clayton brushed her off. “He’s under my charge. It’s part of my job.”

“What is it about these deaths? What are they to you?”

Clayton paused. “It all relates to George Wilson’s state of mind. That’s all I can really say about it at this point.”

She looked hurt.

Clayton knew he might very well need her help again, so he swallowed his pride and buttered her up. “Thank you for your efforts. Really! You’ve been a tremendous help, but now I have to run. Sorry! I’d love nothing more than to stay and have a drink and then… have a little fun. And we will do that soon. I promise. In fact, Saturday at Spago Beverly Hills. It will be a great evening. But for now I want you to continue to monitor George closely. Just for the next few days. And you let me know right away if he decides to act on his concerns. Okay?”

Debbie was not happy with having to go on seeing George, and even less so about the possibility of Clayton putting her off. “Despite what you might think,” she said, “I have some plans myself in the near future. I’m not just sitting around waiting for you to call.”

He put his arm around her waist. “This is important.” He bent down and kissed her. God, he resented Thorn for putting him through this.

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “And you better not cancel on me for Saturday night!”

“Not a chance. I promise. I’m looking forward to it.” Clayton gave her a wink as he opened the door. “No worries. It’ll be a wonderful evening.” Once outside, he literally ran to his car. He had brought his Lexus SUV since he didn’t like to leave his Ferrari parked on city streets. Starting the car, he hoped to hell his date was still waiting for him. As he accelerated away from the curb, he wondered when he should tell Thorn the bad news about George’s interest in iDoc reservoirs.

31

George was off from work for the Fourth of July for the first time since coming to Los Angeles, but he had no desire to spend it at the beach. Instead, he wanted to use the day digging into Kasey’s, Sal’s, and Laney’s deaths. The first thing he planned to do was get in touch with Sal’s primary-care physician, Dr. Roland Schwarz. George had had the opportunity to talk with him briefly six months previously on Sal’s behalf. Sal had been confused about the doctor’s orders, and George stepped in to clear them up. He remembered that Schwarz, although somewhat curt, had been cooperative and reasonably knowledgeable.

George dialed Schwarz’s office number with the intention of leaving a message. He was caught off guard when Schwarz himself answered the phone.

“This is Dr. Schwarz, how may I help you?” Schwarz bellowed brusquely.

“Hello, Dr. Schwarz,” George stammered, not prepared to talk to the man himself. “This is Dr. George Wilson calling. I’m at L.A. University Medical Center. We spoke on the phone a few months back regarding a patient by the name of Salvatore DeAngelis. I’m calling now with a few additional questions.”

“I’m seeing patients today,” Schwarz snapped. “If you academic types want to talk, you can come by the office.” With that he hung up.

George was so amazed that the man was seeing patients on the Fourth of July that he hardly even registered the guy’s rudeness. If the man wanted him to come to his office, George would oblige.

Dr. Schwarz’s practice was in Westwood Village, on a quaint, tree-lined street normally populated with throngs of UCLA students. But as it was a summer holiday, the streets were quiet; anyone who wasn’t on break was down at the beach for the day. It was, after all, Southern California.

The medical center where George worked was within walking distance from Schwarz’s office, so George was able to use the hospital garage for his car and make his usual breakfast run. He finished his bagel walking down Braxton Avenue, looking for the doctor’s building. He found Schwarz’s name on a faded shingle bolted onto an old Mission-style ediface.

George stepped inside and surveyed the room, noting that there wasn’t a receptionist, a secretary, or even a nurse present, just a half dozen patients waiting to be seen. They all looked up, evaluating George as he walked in. He gave them a quick grin and took an empty seat, not wanting to risk looking as if he were going to cut the line. Once he settled into a seat everyone relaxed.

George waited while several people who had arrived before him were seen. Schwarz would poke his head out of the adjacent room and call a name off a clipboard, then usher in the patient. Glimpsing the interior, George could see that the entire office consisted of just two rooms: the waiting room and a combination exam room/office. George understood that his name wasn’t on the clipboard and that if he didn’t get up and nab Schwarz he’d be sitting there until closing time.

The next time Schwarz popped his head out George made his move. The man whose name had been called stood up at the same time, creating a moment of confusion. George apologized, saying that he was a doctor and was only there to have a quick word with Schwarz.

Schwarz watched the exchange over the top of a pair of bifocals. George turned to him expectantly but was unceremoniously told to take a seat. Chastened, George did as told while watching Schwarz usher his patient inside.

George scanned the room. Everyone was staring at him as if he were an intruder bent on making their wait longer. Finally, Schwarz reappeared.

“Doctor?” Schwarz called to George.

George jumped up and hustled into the exam room. What immediately caught his attention was the computer monitor on Schwarz’s desk. It was one of those massive old-school cathode ray tubes that took up the entire desktop. George hadn’t seen one in years. By appearances, Schwarz was as old-school as it got. He had a full gray beard with a balding pate and a set of bifocals that dangled by a string around his neck. To his credit, he wore a clean, crisp white coat and a well-knotted if out-of-style tie. One thing he had going for him, at least, was that he projected an aura of knowledge and trust. But he wasn’t friendly. He was cantankerous and curt toward George, just as he had been on the phone. He didn’t invite George to sit down. Instead he said, “I don’t have a lot of time, so get to the point.”

“I appreciate your seeing me,” George began, “and I’m amazed that you’re seeing patients on the Fourth of July.”

“I have no choice but to see patients on holidays. I’m being squeezed by insurance companies and their reimbursement rules. Just to make ends meet, I practically have to work twenty-four-seven.”

“I can imagine how difficult it is.”

“No, you academic doctors have no idea,” Schwarz replied, shaking his head. “What type of doctor are you anyway? A specialist?”

“Yes,” George admitted, almost as if apologizing. He felt reluctant to say he was just a resident.

“I assumed as much. Why are you here, then? Be quick! I need to get back to seeing patients.”

“It’s regarding Mr. Sal DeAngelis.”

Schwarz ambled over to an old-fashioned file cabinet and fingered through a batch of folders, locating the one with Sal’s name on it. He opened the file and looked up at George. “Okay. What?”

“First, did you notice any suicidal ideation in the patient?”

“For Chrissake,” Schwarz complained with a grimace. “Are you a psychiatrist?”

“No. I’m a radiologist.”

“I have no idea if DeAngelis had suicidal ideation.” He glanced through Sal’s chart. “I never wrote that, but the man was a pain in the ass.” Schwarz ticked off Sal’s indiscretions. “He couldn’t remember anything I told him, he never took his medicines as ordered, and he was always losing track of his blood sugar. What else do you want to know?”

“Did you treat him at all for depression? Was he taking any antidepressants?”

“Not diagnosed nor prescribed by me.”

George nodded. That must have been iDoc. “How about prostate cancer?”

Schwarz glanced at Sal’s chart. “Well, it seems that he did have prostate cancer. Here’s a positive biopsy report that was recently sent to me, but I didn’t order it and I never saw him for it.” Schwarz held up the paper. “The damn thing was just sent to me from your medical center, since I am the GP of record. The fact of the matter is that I hadn’t seen the patient for the last couple of months since he became part of the iDoc beta test. The last time I saw him was to put in a reservoir for iDoc. Amalgamated Healthcare paid me a whopping forty bucks.”

“So Mr. DeAngelis definitely had an implanted reservoir.”

“As I said, I put it in myself. It was mostly for his diabetes, as I recall.”

George nodded. “How long was the reservoir supposed to last?”

“In Mr. DeAngelis’s case, at a minimum two years.” Schwarz stared down at Sal’s file. “God! I hate health insurance companies. They never want to pay, and make you jump through hoops to get reimbursed. I’ve put in a bunch of those reservoirs for Amalgamated. They gave me a short course on how to do the procedure — they want them all in at the same spot on the lower left abdomen off to the side in the belly fat — but once I did the implant, like with DeAngelis, I lost the patients. As I said, once DeAngelis had the reservoir, I never saw him again. The good news was that he also didn’t call me anymore. That was a relief, to tell you the goddamn truth. I put in hours talking on the phone to my patients and do you know how much I get paid for my time? Nothing! I hate talking on the phone. Amalgamated is a bitch of a company. They actually offered me a job, but I told them where to stick it. Goddamn leeches.”

“How deep did you embed DeAngelis’s reservoir?” George asked cautiously. “Was it just under the skin or deeper?”

The man was getting agitated. “Are you taking care of DeAngelis now? You aren’t from Amalgamated, are you?” he said accusingly.

“No way,” George exclaimed. “I’m at L.A. University Medical Center.”

Schwarz eyed him, eyes narrowing. “Why all these questions?”

“I’m interested in the case.”

“Interested?” Schwarz asked, raising his voice. “‘Interested’ does not denote a doctor-patient relationship. Are you treating him or not?”

“I’m actually a resident radiologist at the medical center and—”

“Are you family?” Schwarz said, his voice rising.

“No, I’m an acquaintance. We were neighbors. As I said, I’m a radiologist and—”

Schwarz’s face went dark. He slammed Sal’s folder shut. “You deceived me in order to obtain confidential patient information. That’s a violation of HIPAA!”

“The man is dead!” George said. “I’m trying—”

“That doesn’t make things any better, young man! Your chief of radiology is going to hear about this! Now you have to leave!” He pointed toward the door.

George knew he’d hit a brick wall and raised his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m out of here. Thank you for your time.”

He exited through the waiting room, avoiding the open stares and stunned expressions of the seated patients. It was apparent they had overheard the exchange.

32

George headed for the back entrance to the emergency department, stopping into the laundry to pick up a white coat. He was fretting over Schwarz’s threat to call the chief of radiology. With George’s previous HIPAA violation involving Kasey’s records, he knew that such a call could cause serious trouble. The possibility of getting Schwarz riled up had never even occurred to him. He tried to put the thought out of his mind but couldn’t. Instead he tried to think of ways to lessen the impact if the chief approached him, but nothing promising came to mind. Luckily he had other things to think about, and reasoned that nothing was going to happen until after the Fourth of July weekend no matter what. He was determined to reassure himself that Kasey’s, Sal’s, and Laney’s deaths — as well as Tarkington’s and Wong’s — were coincidences and not the result of some sort of conspiracy or wireless hacking.

George heard the uproar in the ER even before he entered the public reception area. As he expected, the place was packed. With the heat wave still gripping the city, he anticipated it would be busy, especially with holiday traffic and injuries associated with celebrating the Fourth, such as burns and eye injuries from fireworks.

He spotted Debbie Waters and made a beeline for her. She was again holding court at the front desk, but this time she caught sight of him immediately.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she said in her commander-in-chief persona. “You’re not on call, are you? You should be at the goddamn beach.”

“Maybe later,” George said. “Got some errands to get out of the way.”

“Like what?” Debbie demanded. “I hope to hell you aren’t still agonizing over the deaths you were upset about.”

“Well, they are still on my mind. But the reason I’m here is to talk with Warren Knox. Is he in today?”

“He is, but he is acting senior resident. Why do you want to see him? The man is very, very busy.”

“I won’t need much of his time. I just have a couple of questions about the DeAngelis case.”

“What kind of questions?”

George leaned over the counter so he could not be overheard. There were a lot of people about and he did not want anyone listening in. “I want to ask him about those so-called self-inflicted wounds. I have a theory about them, which doesn’t have anything to do with suicidal ideation, that is if the wounds are where I suspect they might be.”

Debbie frowned. “You’ve got to get off this bandwagon, I’m telling you!”

“I can’t. I’m convinced that DeAngelis was not suicidal.” George looked around the area. “So where can I find Knox?”

“Trauma Room Eight.” Her response was flat. She went back to barking out orders to several orderlies who had arrived with gurneys, acting as if they didn’t know what to do.

“Okay, thanks,” George replied. She didn’t look at him, much less acknowledge his thank-you. George shrugged. It was as if she were irritated.

George made his way down to Trauma Room 8, where he found an ER team just finishing preparations to send a bicyclist up to the OR. He had been hit by a bus and sustained massive trauma.

It wasn’t hard to figure out who Knox was because he was in charge. Like most of the residents, the man was dressed in blood-spattered scrubs. He looked weary and in sore need of a shave, as if he had been up all night. George waited to speak with him while he finished up with the ER paperwork.

When George explained why he wanted to talk, Knox waved for George to follow him. He said he had to hustle to the next case but that George could tag along. He led George toward Trauma Room 6, where a homeless man who had been hit by a train was going to lose both legs just below the knee. The patient needed to be stabilized before he, too, would be sent up to surgery.

“It’s about Sal DeAngelis,” George said. “You remember him, right?”

“I’ll be remembering him for a long time. What’s your question?”

“I heard about the self-inflicted wounds. Were they on the wrists like most suicides or what? And why did you feel they were self-inflicted, since the man had lacerations all over his body?”

“They were on the abdomen. Lower left.” Knox indicated the area on his own body as he spoke. “They were surgical in appearance and not at all like the other lacerations on his body from the trauma he sustained. We also found a utility knife in the vehicle with blood on the blade. That helped ID the source of the cuts. There’s no doubt the man was trying to injure himself. And it’s obvious that he succeeded.” Knox paused at the door to Trauma Room 6. “I need to get in here,” he said. “If you have any more questions, maybe we can talk later.” He then pushed open the door and disappeared into the room.

George stood for a moment in the corridor, thinking about what Sal had been doing. According to Knox there was apparently not much doubt that he had been cutting himself with a utility knife. Maybe Sal was after the reservoir. The surgical-style cuts were in the lower abdomen, where Schwarz had reportedly embedded the reservoir. Maybe in his panic Sal had decided that the reservoir was the source of his troubles, and he wanted to take it out. The thought didn’t make George feel any better. In fact it made him feel worse. Sal might have been right.

George made his way over to the emergency radiology viewing room, ducking into its peacefulness, glad to leave the chaos of the ER behind.

Carlos was working there and was surprised but glad to see George. “What the hell are you doing in here? I figured you’d be kicking back on a beach in Santa Monica right about now, which is where I’d be.”

“I wish. Maybe later.”

“Well, since you’re here, would you mind looking at some films with me? I’m not sure about a few of them. It will save me from having to take them over to radiology to find someone to check them out.”

George was glad to look at them. It would help take his mind off Kasey, Sal, and Laney.

When he and Carlos were done, George went to a free monitor and pulled up the radiological studies on Tarkington and Wong, which he had the right to do, since he had done their MRIs. What George wanted was abdominal flat plates, if they were available. They were, for both patients. And both gave full evidence of what he was looking for. Tarkington and Wong had embedded reservoirs, just as Sal, Kasey, and Chesney did. The presence of reservoirs suggested that they were part of the iDoc beta test, but were not proof. George wanted to be certain.

George glanced over his shoulder at the other people working in the room to make sure they were not paying him any attention. When he was sure no one was watching, he used his resident password to try to access both patients’ histories. Each time he tried, the computer refused him access, stating that his request violated hospital rules and that his attempts had been reported to the center’s records department. George winced. He knew this was not going to look good, especially if Schwarz followed up on his threat.

Changing tactics, George looked up Tarkington’s and Wong’s MRIs and wrote down the contact numbers of their referring oncologists. He put in a call to both, leaving his cell number. He knew that in doing so he might cause future waves for himself, but he was at a loss for what other avenue to take. If they were part of the iDoc beta test, it would further advance his theory that iDoc was either malfunctioning or being hacked. If they weren’t, then it would confirm that his paranoia was getting out of hand.

While mulling this over he decided to try the medical examiner’s office. He phoned, and after identifying himself as a doctor, was transferred to one of the forensic investigators on call.

“I was hoping for some general information on some recent deaths,” George said. “Actually, one was a few months ago, but the others are very recent. Do you think you would be able to help me?”

“That depends,” the investigator said. “Who am I speaking with?”

“I’m Dr. George Wilson, a resident in radiology at the L.A. University Medical Center,” George said. “I’ve noticed that on a number of recent terminal cases, the patients had implanted drug reservoirs. Has your office had any experience with such devices? If you have, can you tell me if they are removed in the course of an autopsy?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that, Doctor,” the forensic investigator replied. “But if you want to give me their last names, I can see if there is anything in the records.”

George was pleasantly surprised to be making headway. He imagined it was because it was a holiday, and he didn’t have to go through the ME’s public relations office. “The family names were Lynch, DeAngelis, Tarkington, Wong, and Chesney,” George said.

There was a silence on the line. All George could hear was the clicking of a computer keyboard. Finally, the investigator’s voice came back on the line.

“None of those patients needed to be autopsied.”

George was surprised. “Why is that?”

“They had terminal illnesses that were confirmed by their doctors, so the forensic autopsy was waived. It means the cause and manner of death were known for their death certificates. Pretty cut-and-dried stuff for what we’re used to.”

“Okay. Thank you.” George hung up, discouraged. Then another idea hit him. He was going to pay another visit to the morgue.

George rode the elevator down to the lower basement. He was alone in the car again and, indulging in a bit of morbid humor, he guessed that not too many people needed to visit the dead on the Fourth of July.

As he neared the morgue he was struck by the disagreeable odor emanating from the place. It seemed worse than on his previous visit. It made him wonder how someone could work there day in and day out.

On this occasion, the diener was at his desk, but it was a different man. George introduced himself and said, “I’m here to talk about drug reservoirs embedded in patients. Are they routinely removed?”

The diener’s face was a complete blank. He had no idea what George was talking about.

George probed the man on the subject of drug reservoirs from various angles, but it was apparent that the morgue as a general rule took no notice of them. In fact, George learned that the dieners were instructed not to remove or handle any medical devices whatsoever, particularly on those cases slated for the medical examiner’s office. “We don’t remove anything,” the diener said. “And that includes endotracheal tubes, IVs, nasogastric tubes, embedded catheters.”

George cut the man off. It was obvious he was getting nowhere fast. George thanked the diener and beat it out of there. So much for that idea.

George returned to the emergency radiology viewing room and took one of the chairs off to the side. As he was mulling over his options his cell phone rang, jarring him from his thoughts.

“Hello.”

“This is Dr. White. Is this Dr. George Wilson?”

“Yes,” George replied, straightening up in his chair. This call just might mean progress. “Thank you for returning my call. I’m a resident radiologist at L.A. University Medical Center, and I have a question about a former patient of yours. Greg Tarkington.”

“You’re a resident in radiology?” Dr. White asked. His voice reflected a mixture of disbelief and irritation. “I’m a busy man and this is a holiday. Why—?”

“I performed the last MRI on Mr. Tarkington.”

The oncologist seemed to calm down a degree. “Okay. What’s your question?”

“Was Mr. Tarkington taking part in the iDoc beta test? I’m helping Amalgamated with their testing. I’ve agreed to submit a couple of standardized forms whenever a beta-test subject dies. I thought I remembered Mr. Tarkington saying that he was, but I can’t locate any documentation. I thought you might be able to help me.” George lowered his voice in the hope of conveying an us-versus-them bond. “It’s easier to talk doctor to doctor than to try calling Amalgamated, especially on a holiday.” George held his breath. It was a fairly weak explanation for the call, but he hoped it might just get him the information he wanted.

“Tarkington was part of the study,” Dr. White said without hesitation, his attitude changing for the better. “And you can tell Amalgamated that iDoc made his life much easier and mine too by fielding many of his questions. I wish more of my patients had it.”

“Did you know that he had a drug-releasing implant?”

“Of course, although it wasn’t for any of the drugs I prescribed. The implant was for his diabetes. He mentioned more than once that it handled his blood sugar levels better than he had been able to. It was one less issue for him to deal with in a very trying time.”

“Thanks for your time. I appreciate your calling back.”

“Glad to be of help. Keep up the good work!”

George ended the call and wondered if Dr. White, while advocating iDoc for his patients, had any idea of the extent to which medicine was about to change. But be that as it may, George was appreciative of the man’s cooperativeness. George now knew for sure that Tarkington, like Kasey, Sal, and Laney, had been part of the iDoc beta test: four known iDoc users with drug implants…

George’s phone rang again almost immediately. It was a call back from Wong’s oncologist, a Dr. Susan Jefferson! George was surprised and pleased that both doctors had gotten back to him so quickly, especially on a holiday. He was also impressed, guessing that both doctors were conscientious about their professional responsibilities in a very emotionally demanding specialty.

George gave him the same story he’d given Dr. White. Dr. Jefferson was equally forthcoming, and confirmed that Wong was part of the iDoc beta test as well. So now George had confirmation that all five deaths in his cohort used iDoc and had implanted drug reservoirs.

George’s suspicions ratcheted upward. While he was still inclined to believe that a glitch was responsible, or that a malicious hacker was involved, a new possibility occurred to him: What if iDoc was intentionally serving as a “death panel”? It would certainly help Amalgamated’s bottom line, either as a company policy, which was an extreme thought, or more likely as the work of a rogue programmer sitting on a lot of Amalgamated stock options. But almost as soon as the idea occurred to George, he dismissed it out of hand. He couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing during the beta test. If someone were thinking of such an awful thing, he’d certainly wait for iDoc to go national before unleashing it.

As George was thinking in this vein, he remembered a few high-profile cases recently in which doctors or nurses had taken it upon themselves to relieve patients of what they thought were to be their final months of painful treatment. Maybe these health care professionals were motivated by nothing other than compassion. On the other side of the coin were those bean-counter professionals who thought about resource allocation, which meant freeing up beds for patients who would be returning to society to lead productive lives rather than having them occupied by people who were terminal. George remembered a case in which a Brazilian doctor had been responsible for the deaths of over three hundred patients.

All these thoughts gave George an unpleasant shiver. It was a scary side to the concept of digitalized medicine and an awful distortion of the idea of the smartphone becoming an ersatz physician. iDoc was undoubtedly going to prove itself a fantastic idea and the wave of the future, and to have it hijacked for whatever reason would be a colossal tragedy. This realization brought George back to the importance of the embedded reservoir in the execution of any kind of death panel. As Sal had apparently sensed, if iDoc was killing people, it had to be done with the help of the reservoir. George felt he needed to focus on that.

Suddenly an idea struck him. It was a crazy idea, but possibly a good one. He remembered that Sal’s funeral service was set for that afternoon. If he could only remember where.

George pulled out his cell and Googled local funeral homes. He only got to the Cs before hitting upon Carter’s Funeral Home. As soon as he saw the name, he remembered it was the one Clarence had mentioned. While he may not have been able to examine Sal’s body in the morgue, he just might be able to do so at the funeral home. Or at least talk to the embalmer. He didn’t know how they might react, but it would be worth a try. Worst case, he would get a chance to pay his respects to Sal.

With sudden resolve, George leaped out of his seat and bolted for the exit, startling two ER residents.

He dashed out into the ER proper, pulling off his white coat as he ran. His first stop was an empty exam room, where he grabbed a pair of surgical gloves just in case. Then he headed for the parking garage.

“George! Hey! Over here!”

George pulled himself to a halt. To his astonishment, Debbie was waving him back.

“I meant to ask you earlier,” she said, “are you up for Whiskey Blue again tonight? I’m thinking of heading over. I’m going to need a break after today. It’s a circus here.”

“I don’t know,” he said, a little out of breath. Her constant switch from hot to cold bewildered him. The last thing he wanted to do was go back to the bar. At the same time he didn’t want to burn any bridges. “I’ll text you when I get home.”

“Where the hell are you going in such a hurry?”

“Believe it or not, I’m heading off to a local funeral home.”

“A funeral home? What on earth for?”

“Sal DeAngelis’s service is today.” He leaned close to Debbie and whispered, “To be honest, since I can’t imagine many people are going to show up, I’m hoping I’ll have the opportunity to inspect the body. I have a new theory about his self-inflicted abdominal wounds. I think there is a good chance that he was trying to remove his drug reservoir. What I’d like to do is find out if he had been successful.”

Debbie eyed him as if she thought he was going off the deep end. “You’re crazy! You have to stop this shit!”

“I know, it sounds ridiculous, but I’m committed. Let me put it this way: I’m beginning to think that ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ when it comes to Amalgamated Healthcare.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Debbie said irritably.

“Amalgamated Healthcare, or at least somebody in the company, might not be as ethical as the Amalgamated front office wants us to believe.”

“Isn’t it a little cliché to blame the health insurance company?” She glanced down, seeing what he had in his hands. “What are you doing with surgical gloves?”

“Just in case.” He waved them at her as he headed for the main entrance.

“In case of what?” she called after him.

“I’ll text you later about tonight,” he said, ignoring the question. A moment later he was in the connector, half power-walking, half jogging on the way to the garage.

33

Clayton was lounging by his pool, enjoying lunch at a table under a yellow-and-white-striped umbrella. He was in the company of a bikini-clad young woman who was twenty-five years of age, while a mister system puffed out sprays of cool vapor to combat the heat. He’d had her over the night before, and although she left in a huff while he was off on his command visit to Debbie Waters’s apartment, Clayton had managed to patch things up that morning.

Just then Clayton’s cell phone rang. He leaned over and stared at its display. He wasn’t on call and couldn’t imagine who would be phoning. It was Debbie. He frowned, debating whether to answer.

“Excuse me,” Clayton said, deciding he had little choice but to talk with her. “I need to take this.” He moved away from the table to talk privately. “What?” he demanded, a little harsher than he had planned.

“Is that any way to say hello? Especially to someone who’s going out of her way to help you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just in the middle of something.”

“I hope you’re having a wonderful time,” Debbie said sarcastically. “I’m slogging it out here in the ER.”

“Did you have something to tell me? If so, out with it. I told you I was busy.”

“I can only imagine. But you better be nice to me or I won’t share the important information I just learned, smart-ass.”

“I am being nice. I answered, didn’t I?”

“Are we still on for Spago on Saturday night?”

“Of course we are! I’m looking forward to it.” Clayton rolled his eyes.

“I just had a word with your favorite resident. Seems he is on a fucking crusade.”

Clayton winced. “You’d better explain.”

“He is still focused on those deaths because, as he said, ‘something is rotten in Denmark,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“It’s a quote from Shakespeare, which is pretty damn famous.”

“Careful, buddy. You’re on thin ice with me.”

Ignoring the comment he said, “Do you have any idea what he was referring to?”

“Amalgamated Healthcare, most definitely. He’s bent out of shape about something called a reservoir. He left the hospital with a package of surgical gloves, going to DeAngelis’s funeral.”

“Shit,” Clayton mumbled. He could feel his stomach start to suds up. This George problem was going from bad to worse. “Okay, Debbie, thanks,” Clayton said as amiably as possible. “I appreciate the info, but I gotta run now. Talk soon, and see you Saturday night.”

Clayton hung up without waiting for Debbie to say good-bye and speed-dialed Thorn. The executive’s voice mail picked up, and Clayton could only leave a message asking Thorn to call him back ASAP. It was important.

Clayton went back to the pool, smiling at his young lady friend, and tried to refocus his attention on her. But he couldn’t. There was way too much at stake to relax. Something had to be done, and done quickly.

34

George had the suspicion that Carter’s Funeral Home had been something else in its former life. Incongruously it had a steep gabled roof with windows climbing up to the apex. Maybe it had been a restaurant, he guessed, inappropriate as that was. He surveyed the U-shaped parking lot. There were only a half dozen cars, mostly toward the rear. If employee vehicles were subtracted, then that didn’t leave much in the way of mourners. From George’s perspective that was auspicious. He was counting on few, if any, visitors coming to view Sal’s body.

George went inside. As he had hoped, the place seemed empty, without a soul in evidence. Low-level, mournful organ music from hidden speakers pervaded the place. On a pedestal was a guest book. He looked at the open page. There was only one scheduled service, and that was for Salvatore DeAngelis at 2:00 P.M. He checked his watch. He would have to hurry.

The front room on the right was a reception area with overstuffed upholstered seating. On the left was a room with various caskets on display. George walked down a central corridor, which ran parallel to the long axis of the building. He came to a room with open double doors. On a pedestal in front of a makeshift altar was a closed casket. A dozen or so folding chairs had been set up. No one was in the room. He checked his watch again, unsure what to do: fourteen minutes until the service was scheduled to begin. He couldn’t tell whether or not he was looking at Sal’s casket, but, considering that the man had rocketed through a windshield and impaled himself on an LED display, a closed-casket service sounded like an appropriate idea.

Wanting to get a better lay of the land, he continued down the main hallway. Through a partially opened door on the left he spotted two women with their backs to him talking in subdued tones with a man in a dark suit and a forlorn expression. Sal’s sisters? he wondered. From the style of their clothes and hats, they looked like stereotypical old maids. A quick glance at the name on the door confirmed that it was the office of the funeral director, Myron Carter.

“May I help you?” a man whispered in George’s ear. George nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around, confronting the chest of a hulking man in a conservative suit similar to the funeral director’s.

“Hopefully you can,” George replied in a hushed tone. “I’m here to pay my respects to Salvatore DeAngelis.”

“Back this way.” The giant gestured back down the hall in the direction George had just come.

The man silently accompanied George back to the room with the closed casket and after a bow thankfully disappeared. Unfortunately there were now two people in the room. One was an African American woman, probably in her sixties, wearing a purple dress, the other a short Caucasian man about the same age. They were not sitting together. The woman had a snippet of a veil covering the top of her face, so it was hard to make out her features, but George didn’t think he had ever met her. He knew he had never seen the man.

George decided to take a seat and figure out his best course of action. It would also give him a few moments to bow his head and say good-bye to Sal — and ask for his forgiveness for what he was about to do if he had the courage to follow through, which he doubted, what with mourners in the room.

He was convinced that if something had gone wrong with Sal’s embedded reservoir, the evidence would soon be buried with him. But if George could get hold of the reservoir, he might be able to match the dosages still in it with the approximate date Schwarz had inserted the device.

As if answering his prayers, the two other people in the room suddenly stood up and walked out. George was alone with Sal’s corpse. Checking his watch, he saw there were now only six minutes till two o’clock. If he was going to do anything, this was the time. Besides the canned music in the background, the only sound was the ticking of a grandfather’s clock out in the hallway.

With sudden resolve, George stood up. His pulse was hammering. He felt as if he were about to rob a bank. It was now or never. After looking around to make sure he was still alone in the room, he tried to lift the lid of the casket. It cracked open with ease. He was relieved it wasn’t secured.

After one more glance back toward the hallway, George raised the lid all the way and looked down.

Sal was dressed in a dark blue suit. There had been some attempt to put his face back together, but the result was grotesque. Again asking for Sal’s forgiveness for disturbing him, George donned his gloves before unbuttoning Sal’s jacket and opening his dress shirt to expose his marble-white lower abdomen. George paused for a moment to catch his breath when he caught sight of the wound where the large embalming trocar had been inserted to suck out the blood and intestinal contents and infuse embalming fluid. People assumed doctors were immune to such sights, but they were wrong.

Swallowing hard, George switched his attention to Sal’s left lower abdomen. In addition to a number of abrasions, there were a few shallow, surgical-like cuts in the skin and a deep one that could very well have been made with a utility knife. George inserted a gloved index finger in the deep one and felt around inside the stiff, lifeless tissue. Nothing! There was no reservoir! George felt again to be sure.

Either Sal had succeeded in getting the reservoir out or someone else had. Maybe that was the reason Clayton had been down in the morgue the day George had seen him? Or perhaps more likely, could it have been the reservoir that the suits had been searching for in Sal’s apartment the night before.

After putting Sal’s clothes back in a semblance to the way they had been, George was starting to close the coffin when there was a piercing scream. In a panic he dropped the lid and spun to the voice. The scream had come from one of the women he’d seen in the funeral director’s office. She was standing in the doorway with a hand clasped to her mouth in horror. The horror quickly turned to outrage.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing!” she demanded.

The other sister and the funeral director appeared right behind her.

“He opened the casket!” the first sister yelled, pointing a bony gloved finger in George’s direction.

“This is a closed-casket ceremony, sir!” the funeral director bellowed.

“I… I know,” George stammered. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see if—”

“Look at his gloves!”

A gasp escaped the second sister. “Pervert!”

“No! I’m sorry! It’s not…” It’s not what? He didn’t know where to begin. Then the hulking giant appeared behind the three.

In a panic, George scanned his options. The double doors through which he’d entered were blocked by the four outraged but stunned people, but there was a second door that thankfully wasn’t locked. George bolted for it and found himself in a second, empty viewing room. Through that room he returned to the main corridor, only deeper into the funeral home and farther from the front entrance.

Running the length of the hallway and passing the funeral director’s office, he burst through one of the doors labeled STAFF ONLY. He skidded to a stop. He was in a tiled embalming room, which contained several metal worktables, one of which was occupied by another marble-colored naked corpse being worked on by a startled man in a large apron. The man was holding an embalming trocar, and in the corner a suction machine was loudly chugging away. George looked about wildly for an exit. He spotted one and bolted for it.

Outside, George could hear yelling as he sprinted around the building toward his car.

A moment later George was in his car, getting the engine going as the elderly women and funeral director piled out the front door, yelling for him to stop. George eyed them in his rearview mirror as he quickly backed up. He was just about to pull away into traffic when a massive hand slapped the driver’s-side window. It was the hulk. Where the hell did he come from? The man leaned down and stuck his angry, red face up against the window, screaming at George to get out of the car.

George stepped on the gas, swerving his Jeep into an opening in the lane of traffic. In the rearview mirror he caught a glimpse of the hulk shaking his fist at him.

After a few blocks George slowed down, blending into the holiday traffic. That was close! As his breathing returned to normal, he started to think about the reservoir. He was more convinced than ever it was the key.

With sudden resolve, George pulled out his phone and located the nearest Los Angeles police station. It was the West L.A. Community Police Station on Butler Avenue. George turned at the next corner and headed in that direction.

As George wiped the sweat from his brow, a couple of police cruisers with their sirens blaring sped by him, luckily heading in the opposite direction. He wondered if they were on their way to Carter’s Funeral Home. What if surveillance cameras had caught his face or, worse, recorded George’s violation of the corpse. Was what he had done considered a crime? He didn’t know. What he did know was that regardless of whether it was a crime or not, if his actions became public knowledge, it wasn’t going to make him any friends at the medical center, especially with the conservative hierarchy of the radiology department.

35

Clayton pulled up to the gate blocking Thorn’s driveway. Envy crept over him every time he visited his sister and Thorn at their home. Clayton needed his own security gate to keep the likes of Debbie Waters from coming to his front door uninvited. Besides, he deserved to have a security gate. In L.A. it was a must-have status symbol.

The doctor pressed the intercom button and announced himself to a member of Thorn’s staff. The gate glided back, and Clayton drove up the tree-lined drive. Thorn had finally returned Clayton’s call, but when Clayton started to talk about George Wilson, Thorn had cut him off, telling him that he would prefer to speak in person rather than over Clayton’s cell phone. Clayton agreed to drive the short distance from Bel Air to Beverly Hills.

Thorn’s massive house was a Spanish Mediterranean revival, a style currently the vogue in Southern California.

Clayton was escorted to the pool, where Thorn was waiting with drinks. As soon as the staff withdrew, Clayton laid it on the line: “I’m afraid Dr. George Wilson is threatening to become a big problem.”

“That’s not good. Have you spoken with him directly?”

“No, but it came from a good source. She says he is convinced something serious is wrong with iDoc and supposedly is on a mission to prove it.”

“That’s worse than not good. That’s fucking terrible.” Thorn pulled himself out of his chair and began to pace.

Clayton watched him. He could tell Thorn was mulling over options. Clayton waited.

Suddenly Thorn sat back down. “Any idea what this resident plans to do?”

“He’s not letting sleeping dogs lie, that’s for sure. He is not buying the suicide story. Unfortunately he’s become fixated on the implanted drug reservoir, and if I had to guess, I think he either suspects now that Amalgamated Healthcare via iDoc is culpable in DeAngelis’s death, or he will shortly. My source said he was off to DeAngelis’s funeral service with a pair of surgical gloves.”

“But you are sure he is not going to find anything?”

“Positive. The reservoir was not in DeAngelis’s body. I checked myself, at Langley’s request.”

“At least we have that going for us,” Thorn said. He nodded thoughtfully. “All right,” he added, obviously upset at Clayton’s news. “I was hoping that it wasn’t going to come to this, but it is time to hand the situation over to the professionals.”

“What do you mean by ‘professionals’?”

“In-house professionals. I’ll turn the situation over to Amalgamated’s security department. I’ve been paying Thorton Gauthier and his people a king’s ransom for their experience and expertise. Here’s the opportunity for them to earn it.”

Thorn had hired “Butch” Gauthier two years previously when he took over the company from his father. The nickname Butch came from Gauthier’s hairstyle, a buzzed flattop that was close-cropped along the sides. Thorn had heard about Gauthier through a golfing buddy who bragged about the ex — special ops, ex-mercenary turned corporate protector and how he got the job done no matter what. Thorn loved that Gauthier ran Amalgamated’s security like a paramilitary group. It was the kind of raw-power, show-of-force mentality that made Thorn sleep better, knowing that just about any eventuality could be handled.

“What do you think Butch might do?” Clayton was growing concerned. He knew Gauthier’s reputation. Clayton began to worry about what he had unleashed upon poor George Wilson. Then he remembered his stock options. Good radiology residents weren’t hard to find. It was all a matter of priorities.

“That is totally up to Wilson,” Thorn replied cryptically. “At this stage I think it best if none of us knows what might happen. I am confident everything will turn out just fine. The important thing is that George Wilson will not be allowed to destroy Amalgamated’s plans for the future.”

Well, Clayton thought, at least he has his priorities in order.

Fifteen minutes later Clayton was back in his car, heading home, hoping that he would now be able to concentrate on his original plans for the holiday. He tried to put George Wilson out of his mind, but it wasn’t easy. The problem was, he liked George and thought of him as one of the best residents he’d ever had.

“It’s a shame,” Clayton whispered as he turned into his driveway.

36

The trip to the Valley had been uneventful. One never knew what to expect on the 405, regardless of the hour. A person could just as easily get stuck in a huge traffic jam at five in the morning as at five in the afternoon. But not today. Traffic flowed unimpeded. He guessed the heat wave had sent everyone to the beach.

George exited the 405 at Sherman Way and drove east a couple of miles. The signs on the one-story businesses strung along the seemingly endless boulevard changed progressively from English to Spanish. He missed the tow yard on his first pass and had to double back. Now he was there.

George had first inquired about Sal’s car and asked where it had been taken. He was told one of two junkyards in Van Nuys. The first one, Rust-a-Car Yard, denied having received a red 1957 Oldsmobile. The people were not all that friendly, but George decided that he had to take them at their word and called United Salvage Yard. They confirmed that they had the vehicle.

The yard was surrounded by a boarded-over fence with coiled razor wire running along the top to discourage thieves. Basically it looked like any junkyard-cum-tow-yard. There was a small parking lot in front of a trailer that housed the front office. Two other vehicles were in the lot; one was a taxicab that was just pulling out.

George walked up to the trailer and pulled on the door. It was locked. He looked through the narrow glass window and saw a man inside behind a counter talking with customers. George was about to knock when he noticed the bell and a security camera pointed down at him. George rang. A moment later the door buzzed open, and George stepped inside.

The reception room was small and sparsely furnished. The counter was fronted by a thick glass wall of the type George was accustomed to seeing in banks and twenty-four-hour convenience stores. The man behind it was packing a sidearm and arguing with a young couple standing on George’s side of the glass. They were dressed in casual beach attire and sporting lots of tattoos. They appeared to have been drinking.

“This is bullshit!” the guy yelled.

“It’s a freaking scam!” the girl chimed in.

“We have a contract with the city,” the attendant said with a bored voice. “These are the standard rates.” The attendant looked like a Harley-Davidson biker, overweight with a graying ponytail and a ragged five-o’clock shadow.

“It’s not just the rates. Where I was parked wasn’t marked as a tow zone!”

“This is. Out! Of! Freaking! Control!” the girl huffed as she furiously typed a text message on her cell phone. “We’re gonna be so late to the party,” she added. She punched her companion in the arm in frustration. “Your boy better be at the door to get our asses in, I’m telling you right now.”

“Ow! Relax a minute, okay!” he said, rubbing his pumped-up arm.

The guy behind the counter was unfazed. He’d been called names before. He slid a piece of paper through the slot at the bottom of the glass. “These are the published rates. If you got a beef with the street sign postings you can take it up with the city. They have a petition process.”

“But I still have to pay it first?”

“Correct. It’s two hundred twenty-two dollars for the tow, because the vehicle is an SUV. There’s a fifty-dollar-per-day storage fee — which would be for just one day — that fee is subject to a ten percent tax. And there’s a one-hundred-fifteen-dollar release fee. It adds up to three hundred ninety-two dollars. We take cash, debit cards, credit cards, certified checks, traveler’s checks, and money orders.”

“What a scam!” the guy said as he pulled out his wallet and produced a credit card. He glanced over at George. “Get ready to be raped, my man.”

The man behind the counter fished the card out of the window slot and slid it through his processor. His eyes flicked over to George, probably wondering if he was going to have a repeat performance when it was his turn.

George offered him a tight smile. Whatever hopes he had of getting access to Sal’s car had diminished in the last two minutes, watching the attendant handle the couple. For one, George probably didn’t have near enough cash on him.

The tow guy grabbed a walkie-talkie. “Joey. We got someone coming back for the black Escalade you just brought in.” He pointed to the guy, then a door in the corner. “Sir, through here, please. Miss, you can wait out front. The gates will open when the vehicle pulls out.”

She spun on her heels, heading out. “Asshole.”

The attendant looked up at George. “How can I help you, sir?”

He escorted George across the yard to the back corner of the lot. Two large German shepherds growled at George as they passed.

“Fucking shame,” the attendant said when they reached Sal’s car. “It was a nice ride. I knew when I first saw it that the operator didn’t live through the crash.”

“Unfortunately no airbags in the classics,” George replied, agreeably. He wanted the tow guy to feel like they were buddies.

George had gone for broke back in the office. He had opened his wallet in front of the attendant and took out all the cash in it—$317.00—and slapped it next to the window slot. He told the attendant this was everything he had and it was all for him—if he would let him take a look inside the totaled car of his dead friend. He described the vehicle, saying that the police station said it had been brought here. He even went so far as to tell the tow guy he was looking for a microchip. He thought that if the attendant believed he was looking for something of street value, like some kind of jewelry, then he might want to take a look for himself instead of accepting George’s cash. But the guy had looked at the cash and simply said, “Sure.”

The Oldsmobile looked as dead as Sal. Its front end was folded up on itself to less than a third of its previous length. The convertible top was down, which was how Sal had it ninety percent of the time. The engine block was pushed back into the front seat. George groaned. This was going to be harder than he envisioned. He approached the vehicle, looking for a place to start as the attendant’s walkie-talkie crackled to life. “Danno? You got someone at the front gate.”

“Copy that. I’m on my way.” Danno turned to George. “I gotta go back to the office.” He motioned to the car. “Knock yourself out, but be careful. And no walking around the lot. You stay right here.”

“Okay. Got it,” George said, offering a thumbs-up.

“You hurt yourself, I’m gonna throw you over the fence and pretend I never saw you. Understand?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Good. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, so hurry up. You finish before that, come knock on the back door to the office.”

“What about the dogs?”

“Like I said, stay in the middle of this open lane. Do not veer off.”

“Got it again,” George said.

Danno nodded and rushed off. George turned back to the Oldsmobile. He peered down into the wrecked convertible. The entire interior was littered with broken glass. The engine block took up most of what was the passenger’s front seat. There was a little more room on the driver’s side. George pulled out his cell phone, turned on its flashlight, and focused the beam under the engine and under the front seats for a quick look. Broken glass was piled up under there, too. He realized this was going to be a near impossible task — a microchip would be just slightly larger than a postage stamp and a couple of millimeters thick at best. That’s if the reservoir microchip was in the vehicle at all. George took a deep breath. It was better to quit thinking and just get on with it. He bent over the driver’s door and started sorting through the shards of glass with a broken windshield wiper blade.

A half hour had passed and George hadn’t found a thing. He was covered in dirt, grease, and soaked in sweat. Frustration was giving way to anger. This little field trip had seemed like it was going to be a lot easier in the abstract. At least the attendant hadn’t come back yet. He debated stopping.

George was in the vehicle’s backseat now, lying on his stomach, shining light up under the front seat. At this point he was picking up each piece of glass and after examining it, throwing it out of the car. A sweep of the flashlight revealed that there were a lot more pieces left to go. He shifted his weight to get a better reach under the seat—

“Hey, buddy? Time’s up.” Danno had returned.

“Okay!” George replied cheerfully, without getting up. “Almost done.” Now that he was being forced to quit, he didn’t want to. He kept at it, moving faster, but stopped throwing the discarded pieces of debris out of the car. He was now merely pushing them aside. In the rush, he was cutting his fingers on the fragments.

The attendant shuffled around the dusty ground with his feet, waiting. He was obviously ready for George to leave pronto. “Now means now! Don’t make me go get one of the dogs.”

“Okay,” floated up from under the seat. George sorted faster, becoming frantic. All this for nothing!

Danno’s patience was at an end. “I’m about to reach over and grab you by the belt and haul you out of there.”

“I’m coming.” But he wasn’t.

“Okay… On three. One…”

George kept sifting, sweat burning his eyes.

“Two…”

“Okay!”

“Three!”

George felt a hand grab his belt. His arms flailed as he was propelled backward out of the car and began staggering around, trying to regain his balance, when Danno let go of his belt. The man might have been overweight, but he was powerful.

“I gave you way more time than we agreed to. It’s time to go.”

“Damn it!” George screamed at the guy. “I know what I came for is in there! You have to let me keep looking!”

“I don’t have to do anything. You want to keep looking? Come back in a couple of months when the LAPD releases the vehicle. You pay the tow and storage fees, and she’s yours. We’ll even tow it to your house. Although that’ll be extra.”

“Just five more minutes,” George pleaded.

“No!” The tow guy trained a hard gaze on George, then glanced down as the sunlight had caught a reflection on the front of George’s dirty shirt. In addition to a few glass fragments, there was a thin, flat, gold-colored rectangular object. Danno plucked it off of George’s shirt.

“Is that what you were looking for?”

George had his mouth open to argue some more but stopped and looked down at what the guy was holding in his hand. It was a microchip.

“I’ll be damned,” George murmured.

George sat in his car in the corner of the salvage yard’s parking lot with the engine on and the air conditioner cranked up. He was overheated, but he was also elated. This just might be the Rosetta Stone to break the code. He had a magnifying glass app on his phone open that operated through its camera lens, which was focused on the small gold object in his hand. He could see a series of haphazard linear gouges on the surface, probably from the utility knife that had been found at the crash site. Apparently Sal had actually managed to cut the damn thing out himself! The poor guy must have intuited what was happening. That was George’s current theory. And it made more sense than anything else he could think of. Way more sense than suicide.

George gave up trying to examine the chip with the magnifying app on his phone. He needed something more powerful to try to view the individual chambers that held the medication. To do that, he needed to go back to the medical center. He couldn’t believe that he had actually gotten his hands on the damn thing!

Rap, rap, rap! George’s head shot up and spun around to the noise. The attendant was knocking on the window with a short billy club.

“You can’t stay here in the lot,” he yelled through the glass, giving an unmistakable signal that George was seriously trying his patience. “Move it.”

George waved okay and put the car in gear.

George scanned the rows of individual reservoirs on the chip. Each was the size of a pinprick, and there were thousands of them. George had researched the way the chip worked. Each individual reservoir had been assigned its own radio frequency, which, when received, signaled a thin layer of gold nanoparticles encapsulating a drug dosage to dissolve. The freed medication was then transported across the biological membranes, where it entered the bloodstream and spread throughout the entire body.

George was back at the medical center in the pathology lab, where he had commandeered a dissecting microscope to study the microchip. With the powerful magnification he could see that its myriad small containers were in fact empty! All of them. There was no way that could be considered normal for a two-month-old reservoir that had been intended to last at least two years. The chip also noted the type of drug it held: Humalog. George recognized the name as a brand of fast-acting insulin.

For George, it was now a question of whether or not the reservoir emptied pre-mortem or postmortem. Pre-mortem, meaning that the dosages were dumped en masse while Sal was alive. The implication of that was murder, whether by hacking or deliberate intent on behalf of the application’s designers. Postmortem meant that after Sal had died and the reservoir had gone through the trauma of being gouged out of Sal’s body, it had somehow released its contents. Then there was always the issue of it sitting for a few days under the broiling L.A. heat wave sun in a wrecked car. Maybe that, too, could have done it.

Of all the possibilities, George thought pre-mortem was the most realistic option, but he needed more proof, and he had an idea of how to get it. It was possible that Sal’s broken smartphone combined with the microchip might be all he needed, provided he could get someone to help him. The first person that came to mind was Zee.

George switched off the light of the dissecting microscope and left the pathology lab after thanking the technician who had helped him. He was pleased with what he had accomplished, but recognized something important: He needed to be careful. Lots of people, including Clayton and possibly the men searching Sal’s apartment and surely Amalgamated, would be wanting Sal’s microchip. It was, if he was right, a smoking gun.

George drove home, his mind going a mile a minute. He knew that he had stumbled onto something serious. The first person he should call was Paula. She had to know that her “baby” had been hijacked. He just hoped that she wouldn’t blame the messenger, because he knew she would be both horrified and devastated. He wondered if he should call her while she was still in Hawaii, and then wondered why he was wondering. Of course he should call her as soon as he was certain. This wasn’t something that could wait. People were literally dying.

37

Ablack SUV and a black van, both with dark tinted windows, pulled up and parked behind George’s apartment complex. A bank of electronic listening equipment lined the interior of the van. Four men dressed in SoCal Edison uniforms alighted from the vehicles, leaving two men in suits behind in the SUV and two technicians in coveralls sitting in the back of the van.

The four men in uniform strapped on an array of impressive electrical tool belts. One went to a nearby pole and climbed up to tap the phone line. The other three went to the building’s electrical panel and opened it, as if they were reading the meter. They then split up: two men went through the complex and the other man walked around the side of the building.

All three quickly closed in on George’s apartment, one in back and two in the front. There was no conversation or hesitation. They were professionals. It was all planned. Nothing was left to chance.

The two inside the complex rang George’s doorbell. There was no answer, which they fully expected. Earlier, having checked his cell phone with GPS, they knew that George was in the San Fernando Valley. Yet they wanted to be sure his apartment was empty. One of the men quickly and effortlessly picked George’s cheap lock.

Without so much as one word, the taller of the two disappeared inside the apartment while the other stood guard just inside the entrance. He peered out of a window. The pool area of the complex was empty. No one was about; it being the Fourth of July, most people with a car were at either the beach or a barbecue.

The other man in George’s apartment worked quickly, hiding several small listening devices and cameras, linking them up wirelessly with a battery-powered amplifier hidden by his colleague on the back side of the apartment behind a downspout. The amplifier would catch the wireless signals from the devices inside the apartment and then relay them to the recording equipment in the van. All told, the whole operation took less than seven minutes.

Once safely back inside the vehicles, the four technicians waited to be picked up by a third vehicle. The car appeared moments later, stopping just long enough for the four men to scurry aboard. The men in coveralls were left behind in the van and the two suits were settled into the SUV, removing their sidearms and generally making themselves more comfortable. They knew it would most likely be a long night. But they were accustomed to it. Their jobs required long hours of boredom punctuated by sudden violence.

The man sitting behind the wheel dialed a number on his mobile phone and left a simple message: “We’re good.”

38

George turned into the street behind his apartment. He was exhausted and had a near accident while driving back from the valley. It seemed like rush hour even though it was a holiday. Pulling into his slot, he didn’t notice the black SUV at the curb in the street. Or the black van that was parked half a block farther down the road. Such vehicles were more common than palm trees in the neighborhood, especially black SUVs.

George parked and grabbed his gear, carefully making sure the tiny drug reservoir was safely in his pocket, and raced to his apartment. He put everything except the microchip on the dining room table, and then located Sal’s broken smartphone as well as Kasey’s. With these in his other pocket, he ran outside and up the stairs to pound on Zee’s door.

“Jesus! Hang on. I’m coming!” Zee yelled. A second later he yanked the door open and took in George’s expression and appearance. “What the fuck, dude?” he said. “We have a fire in the building or what?”

“I need your help. Right now.”

“Slow down, dude. I’m here,” Zee said, trying to calm his clearly distraught neighbor.

George took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, realizing that he had to get himself under control. He knew that what he was asking Zee to do was going to take a long time, if he could do it at all. And that was assuming Zee was even willing. That was another big if, given that what George wanted Zee to do was very much against the law.

“I need you to do a job,” George said, trying to maintain an even tone. “I’ll pay you. A lot. I have almost ten thousand dollars in cash and credit.”

“Whoa, dude! Cool it! You gotta start at the beginning.”

“It’s just… I know you haven’t been working and money is an issue—”

“Money is an issue for me even when I am working. But let’s hear what you got.”

“I need you to do a little hacking for me.”

Zee’s antennae went up. “No hack job is little. Some are easy, some aren’t. But none are little. Not to the hackee. Just explain exactly what it is you’d like me to do. And relax. You want a beer?”

George took a seat on the couch and said, “Yeah. A beer would be great.”

Zee got the beers and George launched into giving Zee enough background on Amalgamated and iDoc to intrigue him. Luckily Zee found the idea of smartphones taking the place of primary-care doctors mind-blowing. He wanted to sign up for iDoc himself, explaining if he got the clap, he could get treatment without having to explain everything to a real person, case closed. “You know,” Zee continued, “sometimes going to the doctor can be a little embarrassing. But you know something? I know a way for this iDoc to be even better.”

“Zee, I’d like to keep this conversation on point,” George interrupted.

“No! Hear me out,” Zee responded. “When you go to the pharmacy to fill a prescription, you shouldn’t have to deal with the pharmacist! That can be as bad as talking to the doctor. You know what I’m saying? All you should have to do is flash your phone or press your fingerprints onto a touch pad, and, bingo, you get your prescription immediately.”

“That’s a great idea, Zee, but we’re getting off track.”

“Sorry. Continue!” Zee said, holding his beer up to George in a mock toast.

“The iDoc concept is fantastic and it is the future of medicine. But I think there is a problem. Either by design or by accident it’s gone beyond its mandate. I think it’s been acting as a kind of death panel.”

Zee just stared at George with a blank expression. Finally, he said, “Explain!”

George did. He told Zee that Kasey, whom Zee had known somewhat from time spent around the complex, had been a part of the iDoc beta-test group, as well as Sal. He then told Zee about Laney Chesney, Greg Tarkington, and Claire Wong, also members of the iDoc study who had serious illnesses on top of diabetes. “All five relied upon iDoc to medicate them in a truly futuristic fashion, functioning like a real pancreas, using an implanted reservoir of insulin and constant, real-time monitoring of their sugar levels in the bloodstream.”

“I get it,” Zee replied. “What’s the rub?”

“I have reason to believe that iDoc killed all five by dumping the contents of their reservoirs into their systems all at once.”

Zee looked askance at George. “If you are saying that the reservoir fucked up, I’m with you. Shit happens. But if you think it was intentional, I think you are crazy. I know a lot of those guys—”

“Proof!” George said, interrupting and getting the reservoir he found in Sal’s car out of his pocket and setting it on the table. “Proof that the phenomenon I just described is real. Whether it is intentional or a glitch is why I’m talking to you. And to be honest, I’m thinking intentional.”

Zee carefully picked up the reservoir and examined it.

“It can’t be fully appreciated without magnification,” George offered. “The surface of the reservoir contains thousands of tiny encapsulated doses of insulin. Each is individually programmed to be released upon reception of a particular radio frequency.”

“I understand the concept. But why have you jumped to the conclusion that iDoc is killing patients?”

“The reservoir you’re holding was implanted under Sal’s skin about two months ago. It was supposed to last two or three years, depending upon Sal’s blood sugar levels. That reservoir in your hand is completely empty. I believe iDoc sent a message to do a massive, total dump.”

Zee set the chip down on his coffee table, revolted by the thought of where it had been and what it might have done. “How do you know that the reservoir dumped all its insulin just before Sal’s death? Maybe it happened after it was removed from the corpse.”

“Good question. And I don’t know for sure,” George admitted. “That’s one of the reasons I need your help.”

“And why do you think it was intentional?”

“In all five cases, the insulin dump occurred soon after a serious likely terminal diagnosis had been entered into their electronic medical records. That’s a very odd coincidence.”

Zee sat silent, staring at the reservoir on his coffee table. “Exactly what do you want me to do?”

George let out a sigh of relief with the sense Zee was softening up. “Several things.” He pulled out a smartphone. “This was Kasey’s.” He turned it on and showed Zee the iDoc icon, then demonstrated how it didn’t open. “I think Amalgamated wipes it clean after the patient dies, which makes a lot of sense. It guards the confidentiality of the patient’s medical history.”

George then produced the second phone and handed it over to Zee. “This was Sal’s. It followed his body out through the windshield of the Oldsmobile when he crashed. It was obviously damaged. But it apparently functioned for a short time because an ER nurse was able to extract some medical information from it before it died, and I got it to turn on briefly.”

Zee examined Sal’s phone, turning it over in his hands. “Poor guy.”

“Now, it’s only an idea, but I think that perhaps in this case the app wasn’t wiped clean. I want you to see if you can get anything out of the phone. Maybe a dump command or something like that.”

Zee nodded, staring at the phone’s shattered display face. “I might be able to do a kind of forensic autopsy. There should be some data still in its storage unit, if not in its processor.” He looked up at George. “You’re willing to pay me ten thousand dollars to do this?” Zee asked incredulously.

“I’d want a little more than that for ten thousand.”

“Figured. What?” Zee frowned.

“I want you to hack into Amalgamated’s central iDoc servers. If we can get Sal’s whole record we can compare it to whatever you find on his phone. If it’s intentional, like I suspect, I want to be able to prove it. Only then can we be one hundred percent certain of what is going on and if it’s outside hackers or commands from inside Amalgamated that are responsible for the deaths.”

“You’re asking for a lot—”

“If I’m right, they killed my fiancée. You knew her. If I’m right, they killed Sal. You knew him. I’m aware of five deaths. How many others will die before they should when iDoc goes national and then international?”

“I don’t know, man,” Zee mumbled. He looked at the two phones. “This is serious shit, hacking into health records. It’s on par with hacking into the Pentagon, for Chrissake.”

“It is serious,” George agreed. “So is killing people.”

Zee nodded. George had him on that point.

“Amalgamated must have contingency plans to handle anyone with questions or suspicions. I want to be open with you. Doing this might put you and me in physical jeopardy, knowing what kind of money is involved. Billions are at stake, if not trillions. And that’s no exaggeration.”

From the grave look on Zee’s face, George recognized he wasn’t helping his case, bringing up the downside. Still, he felt he had to be honest. “Listen, Zee,” George continued, trying to tone down the urgency in his voice. “I have to play this out whether you help me or not, but I need proof of what is going on in order to go to the media, which is my idea of what I will do if my worst fears are realized. And the only proof I can imagine getting is what I’m hoping you can provide me.”

Zee softened a bit. “Are you serious about the ten grand?”

“I am. And if I’m right, I’m betting there will be a lot of job offers for the guy who helped expose it all.”

Zee nodded, a little embarrassed. “It’s just that I’ve had some recent online poker losses and, well, I have rent and bills and all.”

“Help me and the money is yours.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Zee said. “But with a couple of conditions. I use your computer when I try and access Amalgamated’s servers. And I only use your modem. When the shit hits, I prefer it hit there.”

“No problem,” George agreed immediately. “When can you start?”

“Give me an hour. I need to shower and grab a bite to eat to be fresh for this. It ain’t going to be easy. I imagine they have created some serious firewall shit.”

George felt a huge relief wash over him. “Okay, great! How can I help?”

“By paying me. Knowing that I can pay my past due rent will let me give you my undivided attention.”

“Consider it done.”

39

True to his word, Zee appeared at George’s front door an hour later, freshly showered and wearing a pair of baggy sweats. He was holding a coffeepot filled with fresh brew. In his other hand, he was balancing a carton of Red Bull and a carton of Marlboro cigarettes on top of a fishing tackle box filled with tools, computer CDs, and other paraphernalia. In response to George’s comment that he had a lot of stuff, Zee said he was loaded for bear.

George eyed the cigarettes. “I’d rather you don’t smoke.”

“Sorry, dude, but ciggies are a must if I’m gonna have any luck. It’s the cigs or nothing.”

“Okay, fine,” George relented, recognizing that there were people who couldn’t concentrate unless they had their smoking ritual, which was sometimes more important than the nicotine. He pointed toward his dining room table, where he had his laptop set up and ready to go next to Sal’s smartphone. He’d put Kasey’s back in the box in the closet.

“Where’s your modem?” Zee said, scanning the room.

George pointed it out next to his TV. Zee went about inspecting it.

“It works well,” George said. “The cable people said it was a good one.”

“It’s a piece of shit, but it’ll do.”

George realized that everyone who ever commented on his apartment either referred to it or what was in it as “shit.” When all this was over, he’d have to address the issue. Assuming he was still around when it was over. He was painfully aware that what he was doing could very well impact his career.

Zee plugged in his coffeepot and stowed his Red Bull in the refrigerator, then settled down at the table and opened his toolbox. The time for small talk was over. He went to work on Sal’s smartphone first, removing it from its orange case and opening its back. He put on a pair of binocular loupes and closely examined its inner contents.

George watched him for a while but became bored. He went to his refrigerator and scanned its contents. “Care for something to eat?” he called out to Zee.

Zee didn’t even respond, which was a good thing, because there wasn’t much of anything to offer. George took what was there and made a sloppy sandwich, eating it while standing over the sink. He again thought about calling Paula in Hawaii but decided to wait until he had some more proof that her beloved iDoc was in trouble. He imagined she was going to resist belief in a big way. He wondered what effect it might have on their friendship. Probably not good.

40

There was a prearranged knock on the back of the van. Steven, the shorter of the two technicians, reached out and unlocked the door. Andor Nagy, a handsome, powerfully built man, climbed in. He wasn’t wearing his suit jacket and his tie was loosened.

“What’s up?” Andor said with a slight Hungarian accent. He took a seat on a small bench along the side of the van.

Steven, manning the visual leads, pointed out Zee sitting hunched over a dismantled smartphone. “Your guess is as good as mine. We have what we believe to be a neighbor working on a smartphone, which we guess belongs to the mark.”

“Any idea why?”

“None whatsoever. The neighbor came in more than an hour ago, but there has been almost no conversation.”

“Where’s Wilson?”

Steven pointed to another, darker screen showing the inside of George’s bedroom. George could barely be seen lounging on his bed, watching TV with the sound turned way down.

Andor called up to Lee, who was manning the headphones a little farther forward in the van, to confirm that the two men in George’s apartment had been silent.

“That’s right. No chatter,” Lee replied.

“What’s he looking at online?” The laptop on the dining room table was angled so the screen wasn’t visible to any of their cameras.

“Nothing. So far,” Steven said. “He’s just been messing with the cell phone.”

Andor shrugged. “We’ll just have to be patient, then. Has Wilson made any phone calls or sent any texts?”

“Nope.”

“Let me know if and when anything changes,” Andor said, rising to leave.

“You will be the first to know,” Steven assured him.

41

George was rousted from a deep sleep when Zee rudely shook his shoulder. George had fallen asleep in his clothes while watching television. The TV was still on.

Zee was in a dither. “I’m done, and I’m out of here.” He looked like a madman. His eyes were red and his face drawn and pale. The combination of the night’s activities plus all the coffee, cigarettes, and Red Bull had given him a visible tremor in his hands, and his voice was raspy.

“What do you mean you’re out of here?” George asked.

“It means I’m out of here!” Zee disappeared out into the living room.

George leaped off the bed and ran after him while trying to get into his shoes.

Zee was throwing his tools and junk into the tackle box while muttering to himself, “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m dropping off the grid until this blows over.”

“Until what blows over?” George said, bewildered.

“Everything,” Zee replied cryptically.

“What did you find out?”

“Too much.” Zee snapped his toolbox shut. “Way too much.”

George couldn’t believe what was happening. “What exactly do you mean by ‘dropping off the grid’?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like. I’m heading for the hills until things blow over. I have some friends up north near San Fran. They got a cabin someplace in the High Sierras. That sounds about perfect at the moment.”

George couldn’t believe that Zee was leaving. “Why the rush? What did you find?”

“If you really want to know, you better get your ass up to my apartment while I get a few things together.”

George wondered if he was dreaming. “You’re planning on leaving right away? Now?”

“As soon as I can get my shit together.” Zee moved to the door, then stopped. “The money you promised?”

“I have to go to the bank for that kind of money. I was planning to do so at nine o’clock Monday morning. If you can just wait—”

“How much do you have on you?”

George shrugged. “A couple hundred bucks.” He’d stopped at an ATM after leaving the salvage yard, having been cleaned out by the tow guy.

“I’ll take it. I’ll get the rest later.”

George handed over the money. “What about what I was paying you for?”

“Upstairs.” With that Zee was out the door.

Mystified, George followed Zee up into his apartment. Zee ducked into his bedroom. George tagged along.

“Wait a second,” George said, thinking he could reason with Zee. “Take a deep breath and calm down. What did you learn?”

Zee started throwing clothes into a couple of duffel bags. “You were right,” he admitted. “Something weird is going on with iDoc. I was able to hack into Amalgamated’s servers. I checked the records for all of them: Kasey, Sal, Tarkington, Wong, and Chesney. At first everything looked normal. In fact, I was about to give up. Then I noticed something odd. An artifact is the best way to describe it. It was hardly noticeable, but there all the same. So, in each of the five patient records I backtracked and discovered this artifact that appears exactly seventeen minutes before the physiological data went nuts, signifying the beginning of the death event. Seventeen minutes on the dot for all five patient records. Pretty suspicious.

“I tried to figure out exactly what this artifact was — its reason for being, you know what I mean?” Zee didn’t pause for an answer. “And while I was working through the possibilities, it hit me! Bam! I realized what it reminded me of: Stuxnet.”

George shook his head. He had no idea what Zee was talking about.

Zee explained. “Remember when the U.S. and Israel ‘supposedly’ hacked into the Iranian computers that were running their nuclear centrifuges?”

“No. Can’t say I do,” George said.

“Well, the hack left an artifact behind. That’s how it was discovered. The hackers wanted to show the Iranians one manufactured set of data while hiding the real data showing what was really happening. It’s called a man-in-the-middle attack. The artifacts I found in the iDoc records are very similar, meaning someone hacked into the iDoc servers and did an overwrite of whatever was on those five records prior to the hack.”

“I’m lost.”

“The way I see it,” Zee said while continuing to throw things haphazardly into his bags, “is that someone was trying to cover the tracks of either the application’s dumping of its reservoirs or a hacker initiating the dump. Now that I think about it, it must have been a quick fix, because they intercepted each record at the exact same time prior to the patient’s death. They should have varied that to hide it better, but when you’re in a rush… Anyway — app dump or hacker dump — the records have been overwritten.” Zee stopped packing and counted off the reasons on his fingers. “To hide the dump signal, to hide wherever the dump signal originated from, and to hide the subsequent physiological-signs data that showed the patients’ reactions to the dump up to and including their deaths. The reason I’m confident of this is that Sal’s cell phone definitely received an ‘all-dump’ message. I was able to retrieve his unaltered data records, so I’m absolutely sure in that particular case. Again, whether it originated as a function of the iDoc algorithm or as an outside hack, I do not know.”

“You said they tried to hide it, but do you have any idea where the overwrite came from? Could you trace it to its source?”

Zee zipped up his bags. “It wasn’t easy, but that’s what I was doing just an hour ago. I found traces of a couple of high-anonymity proxy servers — they’re called that because they try to hide their IP addresses, which a regular old proxy server does, too, but these things even try to hide the fact that they are proxy servers to begin with. They’re very stealthy. Anyway, there are some tricks I know of to unmask them and get a read on who they’re fronting for.”

“And who is that?”

“That’s why I’m out of here. That’s what’s most disturbing of all.” He headed into his bathroom, emptying the contents of his medicine cabinet into a plastic garbage bag.

“One of the server banks they’re fronting for is close by. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s somewhere up in the Hollywood Hills. Weird location, huh?”

“That’s making you run?”

“No, there’s another location involved, either contributing to the overwrite or just monitoring it, someplace in Maryland.”

George was surprised, knowing that Amalgamated was still not well represented on the East Coast.

“That one is not part of Amalgamated,” Zee said, as if reading George’s mind.

“How do you know?” George asked.

“Because I know it is… the federal government.”

George sank down to sit on the edge of Zee’s bed, shocked. This made absolutely no sense to him. “What?”

“As best I could determine, it’s an agency that I couldn’t even find a reference to on the Internet. It’s called URI, Universal Resource Initiative.”

“If you can’t find a reference to it, how do you know it’s the federal government?”

“I got in their system, dude! Stay with me here.” Zee’s nerves were completely fried, which obviously contributed to his outburst. He paused and tried to calm himself. “Sorry. URI is tied in with another agency called the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Now, that one does have references. A lot of them. It’s well-known, and it’s fairly new. It was set up by the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — supposedly to advise on ways for cost control of Medicare and Medicaid. ‘To bring spending back to target levels’ is how I think they word their mission.”

Zee moved into his kitchen, loading groceries and dry goods into more garbage bags. George followed. “I stumbled into a hornets’ nest! And one thing I am absolutely sure of is that they are mighty pissed that I hacked into their setup. That, my friend, is why I am heading for the woods. Because they are going to be coming here. To this apartment — actually to your apartment, now that I think about it. And I intend to be as far away as possible. I advise you to do the same. You do not want to be here when they arrive. It’s you and your computer that they’ll be coming after at first. But there’s no doubt that they’ll trace it to me, with my history of hacking. It won’t take them long to put it all together and realize that you don’t know jack shit about hacking into computer systems. Even if you don’t tell them about me, it won’t take long. And that’s not going to happen: you will talk. They’ll do things to you to make you talk. Believe me.”

“This sounds extreme, Zee,” George protested. He tried to speak slowly in contrast to Zee’s rapid pressure of speech.

“Hell it is!” Zee shot back. “Do you remember the case of Aaron Swartz last year? The Reddit dude? He was hacking into MIT, and that was just to get academic journal articles free of charge to give to students. Look at what happened to him.”

“What happened to him?” George had never heard of the man.

“He’s dead! They claim he hanged himself. They were going to throw the book at him and what he did was child’s play in relation to what we just did. Think about it. They can’t let you walk around knowing what you know.”

Zee collected his duffel and garbage bags and started for the door.

“I just can’t believe you’re actually running.”

“That’s the only option. Run! And don’t look back!”

“I can’t leave. I have a residency position…” George trailed off, wondering just what his options were.

“You can’t treat patients from jail. Or from a grave.”

“You’re overreacting, Zee! Look, you’re all hyped up on caffeine and nicotine and—”

“What I’m hyped up on is survival! On breathing! Yes, call me crazy, but I’d like to be able to continue doing that!”

George followed Zee out of the apartment and down the stairs, trying to get him to give the situation more thought. But Zee was convinced he had given the situation all the thought it deserved.

In the carport Zee slung his bags into the trunk of his old Toyota and went around to climb into the driver’s seat. He rolled down the window.

“Listen, George, grab some clothes and come with me. This is serious. Let it play out from far away. Get word out from where they can’t find you. Then come back.”

“No.” George shook his head. “No way. I’ll handle it from here.”

“It’s your life,” Zee said. He shrugged. “All I can do is warn you.”

George leaned down to the open window. “Listen, Zee. I’m sorry for getting you involved.”

Zee shook his head. “You didn’t force me to do anything. A hacker should always be prepared to take off. It’s part of the gig.”

“Thanks, Zee. I’m going to get this handled. Check in with me somehow, you’ll see. But the thing is, all I have proof of is that iDoc apparently sent out a dump command to Sal’s reservoir.”

“The proof of that is on your dining room table. And it’s pretty clear to me that the others got the same message.”

“But who did it?” George demanded. “Who initiated the command? I don’t have a bad guy! I need a bad guy, don’t you understand? You can’t leave me until you give me some more information!”

“I’m out of here while I can go. I did what I could.”

“But I don’t have the proof I need to go to the media!” George yelled in frustration. Considering the past ballyhoo about “death panels” when it was merely suggested by the government that it might be prudent to include talking with seniors about end-of-life treatment alternatives in the Affordable Care Act, he was sure that an exposé of the iDoc killings would ignite a firestorm.

Zee fired up his Toyota, its engine noisy in the stillness of the early morning.

“Do you have any ideas about what I could do to try to find the origin of the dump commands?” George pleaded.

Zee jammed his aged transmission into gear with a grinding noise. “I don’t think much more can be learned from hacking. Probably the only chance you would have is if you can get someone on the inside who has broad computer access at Amalgamated.” Zee held up his closed fist for George to bump. “Good luck, man.”

George stared at the closed fist a moment, then tapped it with his own. “Same to you.”

Zee pulled out, hitting a dip in the pavement at the entrance to the street, igniting a cascade of sparks from his loose tailpipe.

George watched the dilapidated car until it reached the corner and disappeared out of sight. He realized that Zee was probably right about the limited options. George immediately zeroed in on Paula. She had to have extensive computer access at Amalgamated. The only problem was whether he could convince her to help him.

George turned and headed back to his apartment. He didn’t notice the black SUV as it pulled away from the curb and followed Zee.

42

There he is,” Michael Donnelly said, pointing to Zee’s car making its way up the entrance to the northbound 405 Freeway. Michael was riding shotgun.

“I see it,” Andor said. He backed off to put more room between the Cadillac Escalade and Zee’s car so that Zee wouldn’t suspect he was being followed. Then they, too, headed up the entrance ramp and accelerated onto the highway. Both men relaxed to a degree. Despite the early hour there was considerable traffic on the road to use as cover.

When they had first started out on the relatively empty city streets, it had been more difficult. Andor had to stay way back to avoid giving himself away. Whenever Zee’s Toyota disappeared from view, Andor was forced to race ahead until Zee’s vehicle was back in sight. Andor was experienced. He was careful to keep at least one car in between so as not to be too obvious.

Zee’s earlier panic was mirrored by the occupants of the SUV. When things started happening in Wilson’s apartment after a long, quiet night, they were caught off guard by the explosive activity. Overnight the home office had done a lot of research and they discovered that Zee Beauregard was a savvy computer programmer who had once been prosecuted for hacking. If Zee was helping George, he would probably need to be watched as well.

The technicians had listened to what conversation there had been that morning and assumed that something specific had ignited Zee’s panic. The problem was that they could not figure out what it was, since conversation in George’s apartment had been limited. When they told Andor and Michael, they had also been at a loss as to what to make of it. Andor and Michael had originally been tasked to follow George Wilson and handle him if need be, depending on developments, but now there was the issue of the neighbor who they assumed also needed to be watched.

While Andor and Michael had been hopefully waiting for more information from the technicians to understand what was going on, Andor had called Butch Gauthier, who was not excited about being awakened so early on a Saturday. His temper cooled as the reasons for the call unfolded. When he heard about Zee Beauregard’s involvement, he told Andor that his instincts were entirely correct and to keep Zee under surveillance as well as George.

Andor had hung up with a twinge of relief, but the relief had been short-lived when Zee had come out and thrown his bags into his car. When Andor had called Butch again, the chief of security told him to follow Zee and that he would have another team sent to cover George Wilson in the interim.

Suddenly Zee’s car shot ahead, zooming up a line of semi rigs, catching Andor by surprise.

“What the hell!” Andor griped. He sped up as Zee’s car disappeared in front of the line of large trucks. When Andor passed them there was no sign of Zee. “Shit!” Andor said. “Where the hell is he?”

Michael twisted in his seat, looking back the way they had come. He was as confused as Andor. “He just vanished. I don’t get it.”

The road straightened out but there was still no sign of Zee. They sped up and passed another line of trucks. Still no Zee.

Suddenly Michael twisted around again and looked back. “Holy shit! How the fuck did he get behind us?”

“The bastard must have dropped back on the other side of that line of trucks we passed.”

The next minute Zee was riding alongside them, obviously trying to peer in through the tinted windows.

“I think he’s on to us,” Michael said, stating the obvious.

Zee’s Toyota sprung ahead, defying its age. Andor and Michael looked at each other.

“We don’t have any choice,” Andor said.

“I agree,” Michael said. “I’ll call Butch just to be sure.”

Andor sped up, intending to keep the Toyota in sight while Michael hit speed-dial on his phone.

43

George decided to call Paula. He knew that there was a three-hour time difference between Los Angeles and Hawaii and had actually made himself wait for a time before calling. But the wait had been excruciating, and he couldn’t hold off any longer. From the moment Zee had left, he’d thought about his course of action, and his conclusion was that Zee was correct. He had to call her. There simply was no other alternative, especially since he would probably become the focus of a criminal investigation due to the hacking that Zee had carried out.

He dialed Paula’s mobile phone. As he waited for the call to go through he wondered how long it might take the authorities to come knocking at his door. With what he knew about government bureaucracy he sincerely doubted that Zee’s panic was justified, at least not for a few weeks, at a minimum. By then George fully intended to have some verifiable answers about iDoc or at least an explanation of why the hacking had to be done. His knowledge of five deaths made George wonder how many deaths there had been in total out of the twenty thousand people in the iDoc beta test. There had to be more. Maybe a lot more.

As George listened to Paula’s phone ring, his thoughts strayed. He had wanted to talk with Paula about his suspicions from day one, certainly not for “sour grapes,” as she had intimated, but because he cared about her hard work being distorted by some unethical person or persons.

There still was no answer on the fourth ring. George progressively became convinced that he would have to be content to deal with voice mail and began to wonder if he should leave a message or just call back later or maybe text. After all, five A.M. Hawaii time is pretty damn early, especially for someone on vacation. He wondered if she was alone or sleeping with some guy. Then he wondered why such a thought even occurred to him.

Then to his shock the phone was answered.

“Hey, George! Good morning!” Paula said. Her voice didn’t sound sleepy or gravelly. In fact, she sounded a bit out of breath.

“I’m sorry for calling so early and waking you up. I realize that it’s only five o’clock in Hawaii.”

“It’s all right. No problem. I wasn’t asleep. I was on the exercise bike getting in a little workout before breakfast. And I’m not in Hawaii. I’m home in Santa Monica. I changed my mind about the trip.”

“You’re here! That’s great!”

“What’s up? I’m surprised to hear from you this early.”

“We need to meet ASAP! I’m afraid I’ve discovered something rather momentous. You’ll want to hear this.”

“Then tell me now.” Her voice had become wary.

“I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. Someone’s having iDoc do something you didn’t ever intend. I’ll come to your house. I’d just as soon get out of my apartment anyway. I may be in trouble for some illegal computer hacking.”

“What computers did you hack, George?” Suddenly she was dead serious.

“None. I’m not capable of it. It was someone I hired.”

“And what did you learn?”

“In person,” George said.

There was silence for a moment. “I would prefer to meet someplace public.”

“Wherever you want.”

“There’s a place called Caffe Luxxe on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.”

“I’ll find it. What time? Sooner the better.”

“Ten.”

“I’ll be there.”

44

George took a quick shower. After sleeping in his clothes, getting clean felt particularly good. He dressed rapidly. With more than enough time before he had to leave to make it to the Santa Monica coffee shop well before ten, there was something he wanted to do. He took down the cardboard box that contained Kasey’s personal effects.

After smoothing out his bedspread, he spent a few minutes carefully taking Kasey’s items out of the box and arranging them on the bed. It was his way of communicating with her, wondering what life would have been like dealing with her illness — the one that neither of them knew she had. How would they have coped? Would the illness and treatment have drawn them closer? Would she have wanted to go through with the marriage? Many questions popped into his head. But few answers. There was one thing for sure. He felt a deep, abiding anger. With what he knew now, there was a chance that someone had denied him the chance to say good-bye to her, to tell her how special she was, and how she had changed his life for the better.

The sudden crash of his front door splintering made George’s heart leap in his chest. In a second he was on his feet, aware of a commotion in his living room. A second later George was confronted by a horde of people in ski masks charging into his bedroom, most in black uniforms but others in brown, all carrying weapons, serious weapons. And all the guns were pointed directly at him.

There were shouts: “Hands in the air! Now down on the floor! Now! Now! Down! Spread your arms! Spread those legs!”

Dazed and terrified, George did as he was ordered. More uniformed people swarmed in. He could feel bodies on top of him, pressing him to the floor. He was roughly searched by a dozen strong hands. Then his arms were yanked back painfully and his wrists snapped into handcuffs. It was like what had happened in Sal’s apartment, only worse, much worse. In the next instant he was hauled to his feet, wincing at the pain in his shoulders.

Then the shouts from the various personnel that had swarmed him went completely quiet, like the sudden calm after a summer storm.

George warily looked at the faces of the people surrounding him. Some had removed their black balaclavas but not all. Their affiliations were emblazoned on their bulletproof vests: FBI, Secret Service, and LAPD SWAT. The guns had been lowered, but not put away.

Then a man in a black suit walked into George’s bedroom. Members of the combined task force silently gave way as he entered. The man’s expression was neutral and calm. He held out a badge for George to read.

“I’m FBI Special Agent Carl Saunders,” he said. “You’re under arrest for fifteen counts of computer and wire fraud.” He held an official document close to George’s nose. “This is a warrant for your arrest.” He then quickly changed documents, bringing one out from behind the other. “And this is a warrant to search your apartment.” He glanced at a subordinate, saying: “Read him his Miranda rights.”

When George was led out of his bedroom, he saw several CSI people packing up his computer and the disassembled mobile phone from the dining room table.

At first George was tempted to blurt out what he had discovered. But, having been read his Miranda rights, he decided that it might be best to just say nothing. None of these people were friendly and they treated him as if he were a dangerous, hardened criminal. He remained silent as he was frog-marched out of his apartment.

A number of his fellow tenants had gathered outside, having been roused by the law-enforcement invasion that had arrived in a fleet of vehicles, including an armored personnel carrier. No one spoke as George was forced into a paddy wagon.

Special Agent Saunders got in with him and they sped off.

George rode in silence, staring out the vehicle’s tiny window as it sliced through L.A. traffic with its siren going. He looked over and studied his captor’s profile. “You people don’t waste a lot of time.”

“You’re in deep shit, my friend,” Agent Saunders replied, glancing at him. “You’re looking at twenty-five to thirty years in prison as well as a multimillion-dollar fine. Do you have anything you want to say about the charges?”

“I watched enough police procedurals to know it’s probably best to wait until I’ve talked with a lawyer.”

Agent Saunders looked at him with a mocking expression. “TV shows? You’re something of a smart-ass for a doctor.”

“How did you know I was a doctor?”

“We know a lot about you. We’ve even been in contact with your superiors at the medical center. It appears they intend to press charges on you in addition to the federal government’s charges. You’re in deep shit, my friend. On top of everything else, the hospital wants to prosecute you for HIPAA violations. As you might imagine, you are officially on administrative leave from your residency.”

Oh, my God! George thought. What had he done to himself? Overnight he had become a total pariah and was on his way to jail. He glumly looked back out the window, wondering what would happen if he was wrong and his suspicions about iDoc somehow proved to be only circumstantial.

45

It had been a terrible day for George. Maybe the worst of his life, outside of the day Kasey had died. He was taken into custody and processed. Zee’s concern about some sort of government involvement in a possible death panel conspiracy terrified him, now that he was in the hands of the authorities. As the day progressed he felt the urge to blurt out what he believed he had learned, and to explain why he was involved in hacking Amalgamated. But he held himself in check, afraid that if he talked he might get himself in even worse trouble, if such a thing was possible. He had the very real fear that his life as he knew it was over, having heard that he already had essentially been fired since that is what “administrative leave” meant. On top of that was the knowledge that if he was convicted as a felon, as the FBI agent confidently predicted, he would never be able to get a DEA license to prescribe controlled substances, making the practice of medicine, most any kind of medicine, difficult if not impossible.

Throughout the whole process, which had taken the entire day, George felt that he was already being treated like a dangerous criminal. Everyone he came into contact with was either curt or rude, or both. The entire booking process was humiliating: the mug shot, handing over all his belongings, being fingerprinted, enduring a full body search, a warrant search for possible pending charges, a health screening, including blood tests for sexually transmitted diseases. The whole rigmarole made him think that he was perceived as guilty until proven innocent rather than the other way around.

At last, at nine P.M., George was ushered into a small fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell that smelled of urine and disinfectant, where he was finally allowed to call an attorney. An old-fashioned punch dial phone hung on the cell’s wall. George picked up the receiver and wondered whom he would call. The trouble was, he didn’t know any criminal attorneys. Hell, he didn’t know any attorneys. And this was a holiday weekend! The thought went through his head that he very well might be held in this black hole of Calcutta for the rest of the weekend!

With mounting horror, George hung up the phone and eyed his three cellmates. One was passed out on the floor in a pool of vomit. Another was obviously an addict, his fingers heavily stained with the black tar of heroin. The third was a massive biker with tattoos running down each arm and a mass of ink climbing up his chest. He was watching George with a bored look.

George gave him a tentative smile and quickly turned away.

“Hey!”

George felt a flash of panic. He was pretty sure the biker was talking to him. Having no real choice, George turned to the man. They stared at each other for a good ten seconds. George wasn’t sure if he was expected to talk or what. Finally, the biker reached over and hiked up one of his orange shirt sleeves.

George slowly shook his head in confusion. “I don’t—”

The biker reached down and tapped his finger on a tattoo on the inside of his massive, hairy forearm.

George took a tentative step toward the man. He had no idea what the guy had in mind: Was he showing off the quality of his ‘inkmanship’? Or luring George closer to grab him? George carefully leaned closer for a better look, ready to raise holy hell if necessary. But it wasn’t. He realized that the guy was pointing to a phone number tattooed on his arm.

“He’s a lawyer, and he’s good.”

How’s your bank account?”

George had the holding cell’s reeking phone away from his face to avoid whatever germs were on it. He hoped to take away nothing more than horrendous memories from this hellhole. The lawyer’s name on the other end of the line was Mario Bonifacio, and after he had quizzed George about the particulars of the case and how George had gotten his number, he had gotten right to the point: He asked George about his financial resources.

“It’s… I don’t really have a whole lot of money.”

“Credit cards?”

“Yes. Visa.”

“The credit line?”

“Pretty high, I think. About ten grand.”

“Okay. I’ll take a credit card. My fee will be twelve hundred dollars. That’s for my work today and tomorrow. I can’t get you out of there tonight, so you’ll have to cool it until morning. And smile, you’re getting a discount on my fee because you’re a referral from a trusted client.”

George glanced at the biker, whose name also turned out to be George. He could overhear the conversation since George was holding the phone receiver away from his ear. The biker grinned upon hearing of the discount and gave George a thumbs-up sign.

“Will that be a problem?” Bonifacio inquired.

“No. That seems fair.”

“It is fair. Now bail, that will be the big hit. A bondsman will want ten percent of the amount set by the judge. That is their fee, which you will not get back. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose you know any bail bondsmen?”

“I don’t.”

“No problem, I’ll take care of it. One thing I have to warn you about up front: Your charges are serious felonies, so they will come at you with a big number. But I know the filing deputy and can maybe get it reduced. You have no priors, so that’s a plus.”

“When will my arraignment take place?”

“In the morning. I’ll be making calls to the jail after we hang up. You’re going to need to pay me and the bail bondsman prior to the hearing. I assume you have a Visa card with you?”

“They have it with my personal effects.”

“That’s fine. No problem. Okay. Try and relax. I’ll speak to you in the morning.” Bonifacio ended the call abruptly, leaving George with a dial tone.

George hung up the phone and thanked the biker for the referral.

The biker nodded back and turned his attention to his fingernails.

George scanned the room for a place to sit. It hit him that he was stuck here for the whole night! Abandoned, how would he manage? He located the cleanest-looking spot he could find on the floor at the front of the cell and eased down into it. He closed his eyes and shuddered. He was square in the center of society’s garbage can. He had officially reached a new low in life, wondering what additional disaster the morning would bring.