The Conspiracy Club

30

He made it back to the hospital looking like a half-drowned dog. Used a rear exit, never guarded, that brought him past a utility area and up the stairs to the main lobby.

Past the marble donor wall. Names etched in beveled capitals. He was in no mood to think about charity.

As he headed for the elevators, he spotted Angela and Ted Dirgrove, white-coated, smiling, walking down the corridor, engaged in spirited discussion.

Walking close to one another. For a second their flanks brushed.

Angela spotted him, stopped. Waved gaily, said something to Dirgrove, and came Jeremy’s way.

She gave him a too-hard kiss on the cheek. Jeremy looked for Dirgrove, but the surgeon had disappeared around a corner.

Taking in his soaked clothes, she said, “Oh my God, what happened to you?”

“Didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.”

She touched his wet hair, linked her arm in his, withdrew quickly from his sodden sleeve. “You really are soaked through.” She touched the tip of his nose. “I’m a physician, so you need to listen to me. Though the research doesn’t show any link between getting drenched and getting sick, I feel obligated to warn you about this kind of thing.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Jeremy’s voice sounded stale, and Angela looked at him curiously.

“Everything okay?”

“Yup.”

“Do you have a dry change?”

“Once I get this off, I’ll be fine.” Jeremy peeled off the raincoat and held it at arm’s length. Water dripped on the floor of the lobby. Angela appraised him again.

“I suppose you’ll survive.”

She slipped her arm back in his, and they continued toward the lifts. As they rode up in an otherwise empty car, Jeremy said, “I paged you a couple of times.”

“I know,” she said. “I was in Pulmonology Conference, Dr. Van Heusen was lecturing, and he doesn’t brook interruption. I should’ve turned the darn thing off, luckily it was on vibrate.” She grinned. “You know us girls and vibration. When I got out, I called you, but you weren’t in your office. What’s up?”

“I just wondered if you had any free time.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “No, I don’t. I really don’t. It’s been a crazy day, Jer, and bound to get crazier. I’ve got over a dozen seriously sick patients, then walk-in clinic, and with this weather we’ll be sure to fill up with bronchitis and asthma and little kids barking with croup. Then it’s meetings, meetings, meetings, and after that I’m on call.”

“The schedule.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” she said. “Sometimes baking cookies doesn’t sound half-bad. Then again, maybe not. You’ve had my beef-and-bean casserole. That’s a good indication of my culinary skills.”

Jeremy knew a clever riposte was expected. He was too damn tired to meet the challenge, muttered, “Domestic life wouldn’t sustain you.”

She drew back and looked at him. “Is something wrong, honey?”

Honey.

“No,” he said, forcing a smile. “Sometimes baking cookies doesn’t sound half-bad.”

She laughed and rubbed his shoulder. The elevator stopped at Angela’s floor, and Jeremy got out with her.

“Soon as I have time, I’ll call you.”

“Great.”

As she turned to leave, he said, “So Ted Dirgrove’s a new friend?”

The ward was busy with foot traffic, wheelchairs guided by dead-eyed orderlies, doctors reading charts as they strolled, nurses darting between rooms. Angela stopped and swiveled quickly, stepped closer to Jeremy, drew him away from the bustle into a corner. Her dark eyes had narrowed.

“Something is bothering you.”

“Nothing- forget it; that was out of line.”

“Jeremy, I’m on Pulmonology service and Dirgrove’s a chest surgeon. We’ve got cases in common and, yes, I have developed an interest in what he does. Not for myself, I’d never want to be a cutter. But I do want to be the best physician I can, and as I told you, that means really grasping what my patients go through- their innards, the total experience. It’s not enough for me to dispense lung medication without having a feel for how a sick lung looks and reacts. Talking about a diseased heart is one thing. Watching it limp along, struggling to pump, is another.”

She stopped, waited.

Giving off heat. Her color was high. She usually ran on high gear, but this was more.

Jeremy said, “Makes sense.”

Angela took hold of his hands and kissed his lips. As they embraced, the stethoscope around her neck bit into his sternum. A few passersby stared. Most didn’t. Jeremy tried to break the clinch, but Angela held fast, not caring about the public display. Whispered in his ear: “You’re jealous. You have no reason to be, but it touches me. Turns me on- it’s lovely to be cared about. I’m going to find time, you bet on it. One way or the other, you bet on it.”

He didn’t hear from her that day, or the next, worked on the introduction to his book that had proved so daunting and made no more progress.

He searched the Clarion for follow-up on the most recently murdered woman, found nothing.

Why should there be? She didn’t even merit a name, no sense wasting ink.

At least, there’d been no more envelopes from ENT. No more postcards from Arthur, either. Maybe whatever had possessed the old man had passed.

When Angela finally called on the third day, her voice was hoarse, enfeebled, barely audible.

“I’m sick,” she said. “The flu, can you believe that? All through my rotation on pediatrics I didn’t catch any kiddie bugs. And those little guys were contagious. Then they put me on lung service, where the patients are on antibiotics and the rooms are as clean as you get around here, and I come down with this crud.”

“You poor thing. Where are you?”

“Home. Van Heusen banished me from his service. Made a big, snide joke about it- no Typhoid Marys consorting with the ill and infirm. Made me feel like a pariah. I should be grateful for the time off, but I can’t enjoy it. Too sick to read, and the few stations my dinky little TV picks up are all garbage.”

“When did it start?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you call me, then?”

“I was too wiped out even to talk, slept all day and woke up feeling even more exhausted. I’d love to see you now, but no way, I will not give you this- do not come over.”

“I’ll be over tonight.”

“No,” she said. “I mean it.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Really, Jeremy.” Then: “Okay.”