Wednesday the Rabbi got wet

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Except for Dr. Cohen's certainty that Lanigan was his friend and wanted to help him, he could not understand why he had abjured him not to confront Aptaker about the mistake in the prescription.

"Let me check into it first. Doctor." Lanigan had said. "I don't understand. What is there to check?"

"Well, a mistake was made, there's no question about that. It could be a matter of straight out negligence, or it could be something else—"

"Such as?"

"I don't know, that's what I want to find out."

"What's wrong with my going there and finding out for myself?" Dr. Cohen asked.

"Well, in a sense the police department is a party to this, because we have official custody of the pills. For that matter, we even delivered them. I'm not sure, for instance,

that I should have shown them to you. I mean, if we're involved, then it's part of the official file on the case. If Kestler should bring a malpractice suit, a smart lawyer could make something of your being my doctor and my showing you evidence without the knowledge and not in the presence of the other party and his attorney, he could suggest, for instance, that we connived to switch them. Believe me. I’ve had plenty of cases go sour over something like that. I'd like to make some inquiries."

"How long would it take?" Dan asked.

"Oh, I don't know— a day or two," the chief replied.

"Well, I guess I could wait a couple of days, but I don't want it to drag along. It could hurt my practice."

"I understand. I'll get on it right away."

Cohen's first impulse on discovering the truth had been to call Dr. Muntz and the rest of his colleagues and tell them. On reflection, however, he decided against it. For one thing, he still resented the way they had reacted to the news of his difficulties, and for another, he did not want to suggest that he himself had had any doubts of the correctness of his treatment, he planned to tell them, of course, but only incidentally when the matter came up again in casual conversation.

But here it was Tuesday afternoon, and the occasion had not as yet arisen. It may have been his imagination, but he thought he detected a certain coolness toward him on the part of his associates. Yesterday they had gone to lunch without him, he had been closeted with a patient, but one of his colleagues could have called on the interoffice phone and asked if they should wait for him.

And for the rest of the afternoon, it had seemed that they had avoided him. To be sure, they had all had full schedules, but there were always a few minutes between one appointment and the next, even on the busiest days, when they would drop into one another's office for a cigarette and a little arm-stretching relaxation. Not once had one of the doctors so much as waved to him during the entire afternoon. Dan had expected that Al Muntz would at least have asked him about the retreat, after all, he had got involved with it on his urging. It would have given him an opportunity to tell of his experience of the weekend as a preface to what had happened subsequently in Chief Lanigan's office. But Muntz did not refer to it.

Tuesdays, both Kantrovitz and Muntz conducted clinics at the hospital, but they usually managed to get back to their offices before the noon hour. Today, however, neither returned by the time Cohen was ready to leave for lunch, and when he looked in on DiFrancesca, he was told, "Why don't you run along, Dan, the wife is picking me up, we're going to look at a new rug."

Was it all coincidence? Or was he being oversensitive, maybe even slightly paranoid? He phoned Lanigan in the hope that he might have news for him. But Lanigan was not in his office.

"Will you have him call me when he gets in?" "Right."

All afternoon he waited for the call, and when it did not come by closing time, he decided to do something on his own. Surely there could be nothing wrong in just seeing Marcus Aptaker, in just talking to him, he would not mention Kestler's prescription, he could just stop by for— for some cigars, they could talk about— about anything, the way they usually did when he stopped by and Aptaker happened to be free, then if Aptaker should happen to mention Kestler...