The First Patient

CHAPTER 15

She's a Fendship F- 45. A hundred forty-six feet fore to aft, thirty-foot beam. Steel hull…"

If Gabe felt like Alice in Wonderland before his lunch with LeMar Stoddard, his tour of Aphrodite sent him spiraling well beyond the rabbit hole. The yacht was embarrassingly luxurious, with Oriental carpets, leather furnishings, crystal light fixtures, and three full baths with deep Jacuzzis. The other two staterooms merely had elegant shower stalls.

It was odd being escorted on a private tour around the spectacular boat by Drew's father when Drew himself was just a few miles away. In fact, before LeMar's driver came to pick him up, Gabe had taken a cab to the White House and met in the residence with the man's son and daughter-in-law, as well as Magnus Lattimore.

The news that Gabe had decided to stay the course charted by Jim Ferendelli-at least for the time being-was accepted by the trio with quiet gratitude and what seemed like forthright determination to do whatever Gabe asked of them.

In exchange for the reprieve, Drew would have to agree to work with Dr. Kyle Blackthorn for as long as the forensic psychologist needed to formulate a diagnosis and treatment plan. And finally, they would all have to understand that another episode involving the president, just one, would likely result in Gabe's pulling the plug and calling in Vice President Tom Cooper for a crash course in the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

"Where was this beauty made?" Gabe asked, grateful that he had actually thought of a question.

"Holland. The Dutch and the Italians are the very best at this sort of thing. I've only had Aphrodite for six or seven months, but she puts any other boat I've ever owned to shame."

"What's her range?" Gabe asked next, reconnecting with some of his Naval Academy roots.

Stoddard, wearing a dress shirt, no tie, charcoal slacks, and a navy blue blazer, looked pleased.

"Transatlantic. Maybe even to the end of the Mediterranean traveling fourteen or fifteen knots. Not the swiftest lady on the seas, but certainly one of the sleekest and most relaxing. I won't mind an extra half a day crossing the Atlantic. Maybe someday you'd like to join me on the trip."

"First things first. Let's get your son reelected."

"Well put."

Gabe marveled at the utter comfort and relative lack of pretension with which the president's father enjoyed and presented his wealth. Of course, Gabe reminded himself, when you had everything, and billions in the bank in case you discovered something you didn't, it had to be fairly easy to act as if it were all no big deal. Still, he also reminded himself as they settled in across from one another at a glass-topped table on the lower deck, this was a man who had founded and supported a number of charities devoted primarily to cancer research and reducing infant mortality. And he was also the man who had supplied Gabe with emotional and financial support, and an attorney, at a time when his own father had all but turned his back. Whoever had looked at wealth without class or style and had coined the term nouveau riche clearly did not have LeMar Stoddard in mind.

The table was set with crystal and fine china. There was a small silver pillbox to the left of LeMar's place. He noticed Gabe glancing at it and answered the unasked question by dropping three tablets onto his tongue and washing them down with a long draft of lemon water.

"See what you have to look forward to? Two blood pressure pills and one to stop my stomach from making acid. And that's just the noon box. My doctor's going to get my blood pressure down to a hundred and twenty or kill me in the process."

"Sounds like you have a good doc. I shoot for numbers like that in my patients, too. And they complain just as much. Is your pressure responding?"

"Don't ask." Stoddard ended the exchange by motioning to the young white-coated waiter that they were ready to be served. "I hope you like salmon."

"We don't get a lot of good seafood in Wyoming," Gabe replied. "The aroma clashes with that of the cattle being driven down the center of Main Street."

Stoddard grinned.

"It's good to see you after so long, Gabe," he said. "I always liked your sense of humor."

"Laughing at oneself is said to be an advanced form of wit, and it's especially easy when the one happens to be me."

"Stow that talk. I was there, remember? You have certainly overcome the tragedy and the odds and made something of yourself."

"Thank you, sir. Rumor has it that your son is well on his way to making something of himself, too."

Stoddard's face crinkled in an arresting way when he smiled, but Gabe also noticed that the tycoon's remarkably intelligent eyes remained leveled at him, as if taking in every nuance of his expressions.

Stay sharp, he cautioned himself. In all likelihood, this was not a man who relished immersion in idle chitchat-at least not for very long. Gabe guessed that, when it came to lunch with Stoddard, whether at his club or his suite at the Watergate or his lodge or here aboard Aphrodite, the courses on the menu were seldom served without an agenda.

"So," Stoddard said as Waldorf salads were placed before them, "I understand that you were a special guest at the dinner honoring the President of Botswana last night."

Gabe wondered briefly how often the president's father was invited to such affairs. He guessed that despite being the most powerful leader in the world, Drew was and always would be intimidated by the man. It seemed quite possible that omitting him from guest lists was one way of dealing with that dynamic. Gabe also decided that if Stoddard knew about the black-tie affair, he also knew that both his son and his son's physician were conspicuous by their absences.

Even for a man with considerably less acumen than his host, the implications of such a concurrence would be obvious. Gabe gripped the sides of his chair as if it were a flotation device. Five minutes into lunch, with Aphrodite tied fast to the pier, and they were already on choppy seas.

"I… um… at the last minute I wasn't able to attend," he tried.

"But you were there for a while."

The assault on what had transpired in the White House was close at hand. Gabe knew it was time for a preemptive strike.

"Sir-"

"LeMar."

"LeMar, you know that I would never violate the trust any of my patients place in me. My belief in patient/physician confidentiality is second only to my belief in my horse."

"I'm worried about my son. That's all."

"I understand."

"Gabe, even though Drew has had asthma for a number of years and has mentioned migraine headaches to me in the past, I couldn't help feeling that there was more to the story than what the public was being fed. I didn't accumulate all of this"-he gestured to Aphrodite-"without a built-in bullshit detector, and when I saw a tape of that press conference last night, every light on my detector panel lit up."

"I don't know what to say," Gabe replied, unwilling to lend even the slightest credence to Stoddard's belief that there was something medically wrong with his son beyond what the public was being told. "There's nothing I can or would tell you other than what you already know."

To Gabe's utter surprise, the billionaire forged ahead.

"Gabe, is there something the matter with Drew?" he asked. "I mean seriously the matter."

Gabe hesitated, then pushed back from the table.

"LeMar, don't force me to leave," he said. "And please, don't play the card of all that you did for me way back when. I've already told you, many times, how grateful I am for that."

"Easy, easy," Stoddard said, hands raised. "I'm a very worried parent. That's all. My son starts getting migraine headaches he never had before; then all of a sudden his personal physician vanishes, along with the man's daughter. Do you blame me for being concerned?"

"No, sir-LeMar. I don't blame you a bit." He chose his next words carefully. "If Drew ever tells me there's something about his health he wants me to share with you, I'll contact you in a heartbeat. But until that happens, you'll just have to get used to some frustration."

Stoddard sighed and motioned to the waiter that he had no further interest in his salmon. Anxious for the inquisition to end, Gabe did the same. For the next ten minutes, through coffee and a chocolate soufflé that Gabe suspected was close to perfect, the conversation lightened considerably-an amusing tale out of school about the president's childhood, some questions about Gabe's medical practice and Lariat, and an anecdote about Magnus Lattimore containing a veiled suggestion of the man's sexual preference for men, a possibility that Gabe had wondered about in passing but didn't particularly care about one way or the other.

"So," Stoddard said, with no more transition than that, "have you had much contact with Thomas Cooper the Third?"

"Very little, actually."

"He insists on using 'the Third' whenever possible-doesn't want to be just another Tom Cooper. You don't have a physician/patient relationship with him, do you?"

"Not unless he comes to see me for medical help, and so far that hasn't happened. He has his own doctor-a Navy man."

Gabe felt uncomfortable speaking about anyone else to Stoddard, but it was quite clear that the president's father, like most of those people he had met since arriving in D.C., traded in gossip, speculation, and information the way folks in Tyler traded in horses. It wasn't necessarily anything sinister or immoral; it was just the nature of the Washington beast. Gossip, speculation, and information-the coin of the realm.

Gabe knew that even the most casual, offhand remark, such as the one he had just made about Tom Cooper not having come to him as a patient, could have useful implications to the right person. Once again, Gabe cautioned himself to be careful. He was no better equipped to be playing in this game than he would have been in Olympic ice dancing. He flexed his neck and became aware of the all too familiar discomfort of tightly knotted muscles.

"I know you're being very careful with what you share with me," Stoddard was saying, "possibly with anyone. But I want you to know that if you hear or encounter anything about the vice president, anything at all, you will be doing a great service to your friend and my son by reporting it to me."

"I don't understand," Gabe replied. "I thought the vice president and Drew were linked emotionally and politically."

"Nonsense," Stoddard shot. "Simply put, and contrary to the pap his PR men have fed to the public, Thomas Cooper the Third is no friend of Drew's. He would like nothing more than to set his butt down behind that desk in the Oval Office, and it kills him every day that he's going to have to wait another four years to get there, if in fact he gets there at all."

Gabe was shocked at the virulence of Stoddard's attack.

"Well, nothing I've heard supports that view," was the best he could manage.

"During the primaries four years ago, Cooper started every manner of rumor about Drew. When confronted, of course, he denied everything, and my son actually believed him. But I know better. I warned Drew against choosing him for a running mate, but he wouldn't listen. Tom Cooper is a Brutus, and as things stand, he's just waiting until after the election to begin to assert himself and to take credit for Drew's achievements."

Gabe shook his head in dismay. One of the many things credited to the president was adding a public importance and credibility to the office of second in command that hadn't existed in prior administrations. The explanation in the press, of course, was that Drew was grooming Cooper for eight more years of Democratic control of the office. Was there something behind LeMar's vitriolic attack on the man? Gabe wondered now. Did LeMar have suspicion or information that something might be wrong-that his son's presidency might be in trouble? Was that what was behind the invitation to lunch? Did he know more than he was letting on about Drew's illness?

"Well," Gabe said, "I'll be certain to keep my eyes and ears open."

Without warning, the billionaire's countenance softened dramatically. He reached across the elegant table and took Gabe's hand in both of his, suddenly looking vulnerable and very much like a man in his seventies.

"Gabe, please," he said, his earnestness unquestionable. "Please don't let anything happen to my boy."