The Touch Page 16

It would be like walking a tightrope.

  How good was his balance?

  JUNE

  21

  Alan

  “I knew it would come to this!” Ginny said from behind the morning paper.

  “Come to what?” Alan said.

  He was pouring himself a second cup of coffee at the counter.

  “As if things weren’t bad enough already—now this!”

  She pushed the paper across the breakfast table onto his place mat. It was the local weekly, the Monroe Express. She had it folded open to the editorial page. Alan’s gaze was immediately drawn to the headline in the upper left corner:

  THE SHAME OF SHAMANISM

  “Cute,” Alan said.

  “You won’t think so after you’ve read it.” Ginny’s voice had taken on the belligerent tone that had become too familiar during the past few weeks.

  Alan glanced down the column. It took up half the editorial page. He spotted his name. Uneasy now, he began reading.

  Most of the first half was a rehash of the notoriety that had surrounded him for the past few weeks; then it became more pointed. It spoke of the fund-raising drive for Monroe Community Hospital’s new expansion program, of how extra beds were desperately needed in the area, of how the hospital had to keep a dozen or so patients on cots in the hallways at all times because of the chronic need for new beds.

  The closing paragraphs chilled Alan:

  And so we wonder here at the Express what the Board of Trustees of Monroe Community Hospital will do. Will they wait until a single staff member’s unsavory notoriety undermines the institution’s credibility as a healthcare facility, thereby jeopardizing its certificate-of-need applications? Or will they take the reins of leadership in their teeth and confront Dr. Bulmer on this matter?

  Granted, Dr. Bulmer is not solely to blame for the brouhaha that surrounds him, but the fact remains that he has done nothing to stem the rising tide of speculation and hysteria. Under normal circumstances we would respect his right to decline comment on the wild stories about him. But when that silence acts only to feed the fire, a fire which threatens the expansion of a facility so vital to the healthcare of our community, then we must demand that he speak out and refute these sensational tales. And if he will not, then we see it as the duty of the Board of Trustees to reconsider his position on the staff of Monroe Community Hospital.

  “They’ve got to be kidding!” Alan said, a knot tightening in his stomach. “They’re identifying me with the hospital. That’s ridiculous! I could see it if I was a board member but I’m—”

  “You’re a doctor on the staff!” Ginny said. “If you look like a kook, then they look like kooks for keeping you on. Simple as that.”

  “Why can’t they just leave it alone?” Alan said, more to himself than to Ginny.

  “Why can’t you? That’s the question! Why can’t you give an interview or something and say it’s all a crock?”

  “I can’t do that.” He didn’t tell her that People Magazine had called three times last week for just that purpose and he’d turned them down flat. Or had it been this week? Time seemed so jumbled lately.

  “In God’s name, why not?”

  “Because I told you—it’s not a crock!”

  “I don’t want to hear that, Alan. I don’t want to hear that kind of talk from you.”

  Alan knew she had shut her mind to the possibility that it might be true.

  “All right, then: Let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

  “I’m not interested in hypo—”

  “Just hear me out. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that I can heal people.”

  “I don’t want to hear this, Alan!”

  “Ginny—!”

  “You need help, Alan!”

  “Just play along with me. What should I do? Deny it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Even if it’s true?”

  “Sure.”

  “And continue using it in secret?”

  “No!” She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “You couldn’t hide something like that! You’d just have to forget about any weird power and go back to regular medicine. Don’t you see how you’re becoming some kind of leper around here?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t! You’re walking around like you’re on drugs lately. But I do! So put a stop to this once and for all. Tell everybody it’s all bull. Please!”

  Was she right? He had hoped it would all die down, but it hadn’t. He realized now that as long as he used the Dat-tay-vao and cured the incurables, it would never die down. It would only get worse.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should put a stop to this once and for all.”

  Ginny smiled. The first genuine smile he had seen on her face in weeks. “Great! When?”

  “Soon. Real soon.”

  “Dr. Bulmer!”

  He heard Connie hurrying down the hall. She burst into his office and shoved a magazine under his nose.

  “Look!”

  It was the waiting-room copy of the latest issue of People. Connie had it opened to an article titled “The Miracles in Monroe.” There were photos and case histories of a number of his patients. At the end of the article was a grainy, long-range shot of him exiting the private door to his office building.

  The caption read: “The secretive Dr. Bulmer who has refused all comment.”

  “Wonderful!” he said, feeling sick. This capped it. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  Connie brought him the registered letter two days later.

  The return address was for Monroe Community Hospital. The letter said that he was “invited” before the Board of Trustees “to explain and clarify the rumors and sensational stories” concerning him that were coming to have “a deleterious effect on the hospital’s reputation.” They expected him on Friday—three days from now.

  Here it comes.

  All along some corner of his mind had realized that sooner or later he was going to run afoul of the medical establishment. Not so much the individual practitioners themselves, but the administrative types who lived off disease and trauma without ever treating or coming near a patient.

  “Start canceling all my appointments for the rest of the week. And see if Mr. DeMarco is in his office next door. Tell him I have to speak to him right away.”

  A moment later she called him back. “Mr. DeMarco is in court and will not be back until this afternoon. He’ll call you then. And there’s a Mrs. Toad on the phone. She said she must speak to you immediately.”

  22

  Sylvia

  “I think you’ve got trouble.”

  “So what else is new?”

  Alan smiled at her from across the table—the same table as after meeting in the cemetery. It was a weak smile, but it seemed genuine. He looked more worn and haggard than the last time she’d seen him. She’d been shocked that the board would even think of calling Alan on the carpet and had rushed to lend him what ever support she could.

  “I just got word about this hearing of yours before the Board of Trustees.”

  “Bad news travels fast.”

  “Not as fast as you might think. I’m a big contributor to the building fund over there and I hear things sooner than most. So I made some calls and…” She didn’t want to say this, but he had to be told. He had to be ready.

  “And?”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  He shrugged.

  “Don’t take this lightly, Alan. The four board members I spoke to are really upset with that editorial in the Express and are taking its implications very seriously. They’re beginning to see you as a real threat to the hospital’s expansion bid.”

  “Who’d you speak to?”

  “My father-in-law, naturally. He sells the hospital all its insurance—an expanded hospital means expanded premiums for him. Two others made me promise not to mention their names to anyone, but I can tell you that one runs the bank where I keep my accounts an
d the other brokers some real estate for me now and then.”

  She waited for the light of recognition in Alan’s eyes and a conspiratorial smile that would reflect her own. Neither came.

  “I’m sorry…” he said with a baffled shake of his head. “I don’t…”

  How could he forget the board members? Was it possible to be on the staff of the hospital all these years and not know the names on the Board of Trustees?

  “Never mind,” she said quickly to cover his obvious embarrassment. “Their names aren’t important. It’s what they think that counts, and they think you’re a liability.”

  “You’re making my day,” he said with a wry twist of his mouth. “Who was the fourth?”

  “My uncle, naturally—your esteemed ex-partner.”

  “I’m sure he’ll give a stirring speech in my defense.”

  “Right—when water flows uphill. So you can see why I’m worried. That’s four out of ten. I don’t know the others but I doubt they feel any different.”

  Alan leaned back and mused in silence. She watched his troubled face, sharing his anguish.

  “You don’t deserve this,” she said. “You haven’t hurt anybody. You’ve—”

  “Maybe I should just resign from the staff,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her. “I hardly use the hospital nowadays anyway.”

  “I’m sure they’d love that. It would save them a lot of trouble if you made the decision for them.”

  He sighed. “I’ll tell you quite frankly, Sylvia: The thought of standing before that board scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to have to explain myself to them or anyone else.”

  “But if you don’t show, that will give them more ammunition against you.”

  “Well, I don’t want to make it easy for them,” Alan said, straightening in his seat. “And I don’t want to put another bullet in their gun. So that leaves me with showing up and toughing it out.”

  “I guess so.” But you’re going to get hurt, she thought with a tightening in her chest.

  “They’re not going to shut me off,” he said with sudden determination.

  He gave her a tight smile and she smiled back with her lips only. She knew he was putting on a show for her, but she saw through it. He was afraid.

  And he should be.

  23

  Alan

  Alan swerved in toward the curb when he saw Tony standing there, waving.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as Tony got in. “We were supposed to meet at the office.”

  “You can’t get into the goddamn parking lot,” he said, lighting a cigarette as soon as he settled himself in the seat. “It’s loaded with cripples.”

  “Handicapped,” Alan said.

  “You speak Newspeak, I’ll speak Oldspeak. What ever they are, they’ve taken over the whole fucking lot. I figured there’d be a mob scene if you showed up so I walked up a couple of blocks to head you off at the pass.”

  He dragged on his cigarette, rolled his window down two inches, and let the smoke flow through the opening.

  “I spoke to some of them, you know. Most of them are here because of that article in People. Like they’ve been to Lourdes and the Vatican and Bethlehem already, looking to be cured of something. But others know somebody who’s already seen you and been cured of something incurable.”

  They passed the office then. Alan was startled by the congestion of cars and vans and people that filled the lot and over-flowed onto the street and lined the curbs. He hadn’t been to the office in days. He hadn’t realized…

  Guilt filled him. He hadn’t used the Touch in days. He’d wasted hours of power.

  “And so now they’re all here—looking for you. It’s taken me a couple of days, Al, but I got to tell you, I’m a believer. You’ve got something.”

  Alan feigned a wounded expression. “You mean you doubted me?”

  “Shit, yes! You threw me some real curves there. I thought maybe you needed a checkup from the neck up, if you know what I mean.”

  Alan smiled. “So did I at first. But then I realized that if I was having delusions, an awful lot of formerly sick people were sharing them.”

  When he’d called Tony for help, he’d told him the truth about the Dat-tay-vao. He had felt it necessary to lay everything out for the man who would be advising him at the hearing. He’d told him about the incident in the emergency room, about how his new power dovetailed with the life history of the derelict Tony had researched.

  Tony had been skeptical, but not overtly so. Alan was glad that he seemed to be convinced now.

  “No lie, Al: It’s still pretty hard for me to swallow, even after talking to the pilgrims on your doorstep. But the one thing we can’t do is tell the Board Bastards that you really have this power.”

  At the mention of the board, Alan’s palms became slippery on the wheel and his stomach went into spasm. In fifteen minutes or so he’d be seated before the trustees like some juvenile miscreant. He hated the idea. It angered him, but it frightened him even more.

  “Why not bring it out in the open once and for all?” Alan asked. “Get it over with.”

  “No!” Tony fumbled his cigarette, dropped it on the floor, and hastily retrieved it. “Christ, don’t even consider it! That’ll open up a can of worms I don’t even want to think about dealing with!”

  “But sooner or later—”

  “Al, old buddy, trust me with this. I’ve looked over the medical staff bylaws and there’s nothing in there that threatens you. You don’t even have to show up today—and I’ve advised you not to, but you choose to ignore that advice. So be it. But the fact remains: They can’t touch you. Let them play their little head games on you all they want. Just sit back and relax. If you haven’t been convicted of a felony or found guilty of moral turpitude or gross negligence of your duties as an attending physician in the department of medicine, they can’t lay a finger on you. They’re just blowin’ smoke, baby. Let ‘em blow.”

  “If you say so, Tony. I just—”

  “Just nothing, Al. You don’t take nothin’ from these money-lenders, real estate shills, and used car salesmen. You just sit mum and look clean and neat while I do the dirty work.”

  Alan could see that Tony was working up a head of steam in preparation for the meeting. He let him roll.

  “If those turkeys think they can hang you because of a little yellow journalism, they got another think comin’! Let ’em try. Just let ’em try!”

  Alan felt his fear and uneasiness slip away in the wash of Tony’s belligerent confidence.

  “Now, gentlemen,” Tony was saying, “I’m sure you’re all aware of how embarrassing this is to Dr. Bulmer, to be called before the Board of Trustees like some errant schoolboy before the principal because of some graffiti written about him on the schoolyard wall.”

  Alan sat in wonder and watched Tony pacing back and forth before the board members. He was eloquent, respectful, and deferential, yet never obsequious. He made it seem as though Alan had granted them an audience out of the goodness of his heart.

  There they sat, the twelve of them—ten trustees plus Alan and Tony—seated around the oblong table in this small rectangular meeting room on the hospital’s first floor. A coffee urn was set up in the corner, its red light beckoning; maritime paintings by local artists depicting the North Shore broke the muted beige of the walls.

  The occupants had sifted into two groups: Alan and Tony down at their end, the members of the board—two physicians and eight local businessmen who devoted their spare time to “community service”—clustered around theirs. He knew both physicians well—Lou, of course, was his former partner, and old Bud Reardon had practically run the surgery department single-handedly in the hospital’s early days. Bud was showing his years, lately. Alan had noticed him limping as he came in.

  Alan didn’t know the others as individuals. He didn’t do business with them, didn’t get involved in hospital politics, and although he belonged to the same club as mos
t of them, he didn’t spend enough time there to have more than a nodding acquaintance with them.

  While none of them actually stared, they all looked at him and glanced away as if he were a stranger, as if they were trying to put some mental distance between themselves and this doctor they might have to discipline. But they didn’t frighten him now. Tony was right. He’d broken no laws, either civil or criminal, had done nothing that would put him outside the bylaws. They couldn’t touch him. He was safe.

  “What I would like to know, Mr. DeMarco,” the car dealer said, interrupting Tony, “is why Dr. Bulmer thinks he needs a lawyer here today? This isn’t a trial, you know.”

  “Precisely. I am aware of that, and so is Dr. Bulmer. And I am heartened to hear that you are aware of that, sir. In fact, I had to talk Dr. Bulmer into allowing me to speak for him today. He didn’t want me here, but I insisted on coming to make sure that none of you tries to turn this little informal gathering into a trial.”

  The white-haired Dr. Reardon cleared his throat. “All we want is to discuss the rather peculiar publicity Dr. Bulmer’s gotten lately and ask him how it started, why it keeps on going, and how come he’s done nothing to discourage it.”

  “Dr. Bulmer is under no obligation to respond. The ‘peculiar publicity’ you mention is nothing of a criminal nature. He can’t be expected to hold a press conference every time some—”

  “I would prefer to hear Dr. Bulmer’s reply from Dr. Bulmer himself,” the banker said. The other board members nodded and murmured in agreement. Tony turned to Alan.

  He said, “It’s up to you.”

  Alan felt his heart pick up its tempo as he let his eyes scan the faces of the board members. “What would you like to know?”

  Lou spoke up immediately. His words were clipped, his tone frankly irritated.