The Barrens & Others Read online

  Had to hand it to the old jerk, though. He was really cleaning up on those doo-wop retreads, especially since he was forgoing the inconvenience of paying royalties to the original artists.

  "Too bad you inherited Dad's ethics instead of his personality. The only reason I come around is because I'm family. You've got no friends. Your wife dumped you, you've–"

  "Your marriage didn't last too long either, Miss Holier Than Thou."

  "True, but I'm the one who ended it, not Hal. You got dumped."

  "Elise didn't dump me! I dumped her!"

  And did a damn fine job of it, too. Left her without a pot to pee in. God, had he been glad to be rid of her! Three endless years of her nagging, "You're never home! I feel like a widow!" Blah-blah-blah. He'd taught her the folly of suing a lawyer for divorce.

  "So what have you got, Howie? You've got your big law practice and that's it!"

  "And that's plenty!" She pulled this shit on him every time they argued. Really liked to twist the knife. "I'm just thirty-two and already I'm a legend in this town! A fucking legend!"

  "And what are you doing after lunch, Mr. Legend? Going down to St. Vincent's to scrape up another client?"

  "Hey! My clients are shitbums. You think I don't know that? I know it. Damn, do I know it! But they've been injured and they've got a legal right to maximum recovery under the law! It's my duty–"

  "Save it for the jury or the newspapers, Howie," Lydia said. Her voice sounded tired, disgusted. She picked up her steno gear and headed for the door. "You and Dad – you make me ashamed."

  And then she was gone.

  Howard left the files on the desk and went into his private office. He ran a hand through his thick dark hair as he gazed out at Manhattan's midtown spires. What was wrong with Lydia? Didn't she understand? The malpractice field was a gold mine. There were million-dollar clients out there who hadn't the vaguest inkling what they were worth. And if he didn't find them, somebody else would!

  He'd come a long way. Started out in general practice, then sniffed the possibilities in liability law. Advertising on tv had brought him a horde of new clients, but all of them combined hadn't equaled the take from his first medical malpractice settlement. He had known then that malpractice was the only way to go.

  Especially when you had a method.

  It was simple, really. All it took was a few well-compensated contacts in the city's hospitals to let him know when a certain type of patient was being discharged. One of Howard's assistants – Howard used to go himself but he was above that now – would arrange to be there when the potential client left the hospital. He'd take him to lunch and subtly make his pitch.

  You couldn't be too subtle, though. The prospective client was usually a neurosurgical patient, preferably an indigent sleazo who had shown up in the hospital emergency room with his head bashed in from a mugging or a fight over a bottle or a fix, or who'd fallen down a stairway or stumbled in front of a car during a stupor. Didn't matter what the cause as long as he'd wound up in the ER in bad enough shape for the neurosurgeon on call to be dragged in to put his skull and its contents back in order again.

  "But you're not right since the surgery, are you?"

  That was the magic question. The answer was almost invariably negative. Of course, the prospect hadn't been "right" before the surgery, either, but that was hard to prove. Nigh on impossible to prove. And even if the potential said he felt pretty good, he usually could find some major complaint when pressed, especially after it was explained to him that a permanent post-surgical deficit could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of seven figures to him if things went his way.

  Yeah, they were druggies and winos and all-purpose sleazos and it was an ordeal to be in conference with one of them for more than just a few minutes, but they were Howard's ticket to the Good Life. They were the perfect malpractice clients. He loved to stick them in front of a jury. Their shambling gaits, vacant stares, and disordered thought patterns wrung the hearts of even the most objective jurors. And since they were transients with no steady jobs, friends, or acquaintances, the defense could never prove convincingly that they had been just as shambling, vacant, and disordered before the surgery.

  In most cases, the malpractice insurer took one look at the cient and reached for his checkbook: It was settlement time.

  Yeah, life was sweet when you knew the bushes with the best berries.

  *

  Lydia was still fuming when she reached the garage downstairs. She handed in her ticket and found herself waiting next to Dr. Johnson. He nodded to her.

  "Can't they find your car?" she said for lack of something better.

  He shrugged. "Seems that way. Goes with the rest of the day, I guess." He looked tired, haggard, defeated. He smiled suddenly, obviously forcing it. "How'd I do up there?"

  Lydia sensed his desperate need for some hope, some encouragement.

  "You did very well, I thought. Especially at the end." She couldn't bring herself to tell him that his final remarks were shredded on the floor of the conference room.

  "Do you think I have a snowball's chance in hell of coming out of this with the shirt on my back?"

  Lydia couldn't help it. She had to say something to ease this poor man's mind. She put her hand on his arm.

  "I see lots of these cases. I'm sure they'll settle within your coverage limits."

  He turned to her. "Settle? I'm not going to settle anything!"

  His intensity surprised her. "Why not?"

  "Because if I agree to settle, it's as much as an admission that I've done something wrong! And I haven't!"

  "But you never know what a jury will do, Dr. Johnson."

  "So I've been told, over and over and over by the insurance company. 'Settle – settle – settle!' They're scared to death of juries. Better to pay off the bloodsucking lawyer and his client than risk the decision of a jury. Sure! Fine for them! They're only thinking about the bottom line. But I did everything right in this case! I released his subdural hematoma and tied off the leaking artery inside his skull. That man would have died without me! And now he's suing me!"

  "I'm sorry," Lydia said.

  It sounded lame to her but it was all she could say. She felt somehow partly responsible for Dr. Johnson's misery. After all, Howie was her brother.

  "Maybe I should have done what a lot of my fellow neurosurgeons do: Refuse to take emergency room calls. That way you don't leave yourself open to the shyster sharks prowling around for a quick fortune. Maybe I should have gone into general practice with my brother back in our home town. A foggy little place on the coast..."

  He rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Looks pretty hopeless, doesn't it. If I go to court, I could lose everything I've worked for during my entire career, and jeopardize my family's whole way of life. If I settle, I'm admitting I'm wrong when I know I'm right." His jaw tightened. "It's that damned greedy bastard lawyer."

  Although Lydia knew the doctor was right, the words still stung. Howard might be a lot of things, but he was still her brother.

  "Things have got to change," Dr. Johnson said. "This kind of abuse is getting way out of hand. There's got to be a change inthe laws to control these...these Hell's Angels in three-piece suits!"

  "Don't hold your breath waiting for tort reform," Lydia said. "Ninety-nine percent of state legislators are lawyers, and they're all members of law firms that do a thriving business on liability claims. You don't really think they're going to take some of the bread and butter off their own tables, do you? Talk about conflict of interest!"

  Dr. Johnson's expression became bleaker. "Then there's no hope of relief from the Howard Weinsteins of the world, is there? No way to give him a lesson in empathy, in knowing what kind of pain he causes in other people."

  Dr. Johnson's car pulled up then, a maroon Jaguar XJ.

  "I don't know how to teach him that lesson," he said. "My brother might, but I certainly don't." He sighed heavily. "I honestly don't know what I'm going to do."
<
br />   "Keep fighting," Lydia told him as she watched him walk around the car and tip the attendant.

  He looked at her over the hood of the Jaguar. There was a distant, resigned look in his eyes that made her afraid for him.

  "Easy for you to say," he said, then got in and drove off.

  Lydia stood there in the garage and watched him go, knowing in some intangible way that she would never see Dr. Walter Johnson again.

  *

  "He's dead! God, Howie, he's dead!"

  Howard looked up at Lydia's pale, strained features as she leaned over his desk. He thought, Oh, no! It's Dad! It'll be in the papers! Everyone will know!

  "Who?" he managed to say.

  "Dr. Johnson! The guy you deposed last week in the malpractice case! He killed himself!"

  Relief flooded through him. "He killed himself? Did he think that would let him off the hook? The jerk! We'll just take his estate to court!"

  "Howard! He was depressed over this suit. You drove him over the edge!"

  "I did nothing of the sort! What did he do? Shoot himself?"

  Lydia's face got whiter. "No. He...he chopped his hand off. He bled to death."

  Howard's mind suddenly went into high gear.

  "Wait a minute. Wait. A. Minute! This is great! Great! It shows tremendous guilt over his negligence! He cut off the appendage that damaged his patient! No, wait! Wait! The act of suicide, especially in such a bizarre manner, points to a deranged mind. This means I can bring the hospital executive committee into the suit for allowing an obviously impaired physician to remain on the staff of their hospital. Maybe include the hospital's entire department of surgery, too! Oh, this is big! Big! Thank you, Lydia! You've just made my day! My year!"

  She stood there with her mouth hanging open, looking stupid. "I don't believe you."

  "What? What don't you believe? What?" What the hell was wrong with her, anyway?

  "Isn't there a limit, Howard? Isn't there a place where you see a line and say to yourself, 'I can't cross over here. I'll cause too much pain on the other side.'"

  He smiled at her. "Of course there is, Sis. And as soon as I find it, I'll let you know."

  She didn't smile at the joke. Her face was hard, her eyes icy. "I think Dr. Johnson asked a good question last week. Do you have feelings, Howie? Do you ever feel anything for anybody but yourself?"

  "Get off the soapbox, Sis."

  "Gladly," she said. "Off the soapbox and out of your slimy presence." She turned toward the door, then back again. "Oh, by the way, I think you should know about Dr. Johnson's hand. You know, the one he cut off? They can't find it."

  Howard fluttered his hands in the air. "Oooh! I'm scared! Maybe it will come crawling after me in my sleep tonight!"

  She spun and slammed out the door. Howard immediately got on the intercom to his receptionist. "Chrissie? Get hold of Brian Jassie down at the coroner's office."

  Missing hand? That sounded awful weird. He wanted the straight dope on it. And Brian Jassie could get it for him.

  *

  Brian had all the details by 4:00 p.m.

  "This is what we got so far," he told Howard over the phone. "It's a strange one, I tell you."

  "Just tell me what happened, Brian."

  "Okay. Here's how they think it went down. About ten o'clock last night, at his Fifth Avenue office, this Dr. Johnson ties a tight tourniquet just above his right wrist with neat little pads to put extra pressure over the main arteries, and whacks off his hand. Records show he was a southpaw. There's evidence that he used local anesthesia. Well, he must have, right? I mean, sawing through your own wrist–"

  "Brian!"

  "Okay, okay. After the hand is off, there seems to be an interval of about half an hour during which we have no idea what he does, maybe some ritual or something, then he sits down, lowers his stump into a bucket, and loosens the tourniquet. Exsanguinates in a couple of minutes. Very neat, very considerate. No mess for anybody to clean up."

  A real nut case, Howard thought. "Why do you say he was involved in some ritual?"

  "Just a guess. There were candles all around the room and the histology department says the hand was off for around thirty minutes before he died."

  "Then you have the hand."

  "Uh, no, we don't."

  Howard felt a little knot form in his stomach. "You're kidding."

  "'Fraid not. The forensic team looked everywhere in the office and around the building. No hand."

  So Lydia hadn't been pulling his chain. The hand really was missing. Well, that would only reinforce his contention that Dr. Johnson was mentally unbalanced and shouldn't have been allowed to practice. Yes, he would definitely bring the hospital executive committee into the suit.

  Still, he wondered about that missing hand. He sat there smoothing his mustache and wondering where it could be.

  *

  The package arrived the next day.

  Chrissie brought it to his desk unopened. It had come by Federal Express and was marked "Personal And Confidential." Howard had her stand by as he opened it, figuring it would have to be shoved into somebody's file – most of the "Personal And Confidential" mail he received was anything but.

  Chrissie began to scream when the hand fell out onto his desk. She kept on screaming all the way down the hall to the reception area. Howard stared at the hand. It lay palm up on his desk blotter, a deathly, bled-out white except at the ragged, beefy red wrist stump. The skin was moist, glistening in the fluorescent glare. He could see the creases that ran along the palm and across the finger joints, could even see fingerprint whorls. A faintly sour smell rose from it.

  This had to be a joke, Lydia's way of trying to shake him up. Well, it wasn't going to work. This thing had to be a fake. He'd seen those amazingly lifelike platters of sushi and bowls of sukiyaki in the windows of Japanese restaurants. What was it they called the stuff? Mihon. That was it. This was the same thing: expertly sculpted and colored plastic. A gruesome piece of anatomical mihon.

  Howard touched it with his index finger and felt a faint pins-and-needles sensation run up his arm and all over his skin. It lasted about the time between eye blinks and then it was gone. But by then he had realized from the texture of the skin and the give of the flesh underneath that this wasn't mihon. This was the real thing!

  He leapt out of his chair and stood there trembling, repeatedly wiping his finger on his suit coat as he shouted to Chrissie to call the police.

  *

  Howard was late getting out of the office that day. The endless questions from the detectives and the forensic people had put him far behind schedule. Then to top everything off, his last call of the day had been from Brian at the coroner's office. According to Brian, the forensic experts downtown said that the hand had definitely belonged to the late great Dr. Walter Johnson.

  So now he was shook up, grossed out, and just plain tired. Irritable, too. He had snapped at the Rican garage attendant – Jose or Gomez or whatever the hell his name was – to move his ass and get the car up front pronto.

  His red Porche 914 squealed down the ramp and screeched to a halt in front of him. As he passed the attendant and handed him a fifty-cent tip – half the usual – he could almost feel the man's animosity toward him.

  No, wait...it was more than almost. It was as if he were actually experiencing the car jockey's anger and envy. It wormed into his system and for a moment Howard too was angry and envious. But at whom? Himself?

  And just as suddenly as it came it was gone. He was once again just tired, irritable, and anxious to get himself out to the Island and home where he could have himself a stiff drink and relax.

  Traffic wasn't bad. That was one advantage of leaving late. He cruised the LIE to Glen Cove Road, then headed north. He stopped at the MacDonald's drive-thru just this side of the sign that declared the southern limit of "The Incorporated Village of Monroe." He ordered up a Big Mac and fries. As he handed his money to the pimple-faced redheaded girl in the window, a wave
of euphoria rolled over him. He felt slightly giddy. He looked up at the girl in her blue uniform and noticed her fixed grin and glazed eyes.

  She's stoned! he thought. And damned if I don't feel stoned, too!

  He took his bagged order from her and gunned away. The feeling faded almost immediately. But not his puzzlement. First the lot attendant and now the kid at Mickey-D's. What was going on here?

  He pulled into his spot in the Soundview Condominiums lot and entered his townhouse. It was a three-storied job with a good view of Monroe Harbor. He'd done some legal work on the land sale and so had been able to get in on a pre-construction purchase. The price: one hundred and sixty-nine large. They were going for twice that now.

  Yeah, if you knew the right people and had the wherewithal to take advantage of situations when they presented themselves, your net worth could only go one way: Up.

  Howard pulled a Bud from the fridge and opened up the styrofoam Big Mac container. As he ate, he stared out over the still waters of the Long Island Sound at the lights along the Connecticut shore on the far side. Much as he tried not to, he couldn't help thinking about that severed hand in the mail today. Which led his thoughts around to Dr. Johnson. What was it he hadsaid about empathy last week?

  I don't think you feel anything for anyone, Mr. Weinstein. You need a real lesson in empathy.

  Something like that. And then a week later he had sat down in his office and cut off his hand, and then had somehow got it into a Federal Express overnight envelope and sent it to Howard. Personal And Confidential. And then he had let himself die.

  ...a lesson in empathy...

  Then the hand had arrived and Howard had touched it, felt that tingle, and now he seemed to be able to sense what others were feeling.

  ...empathy...

  Yeah, right. And any moment now, he'd hear Rod Serling's voice fill the room.

  He finished the beer and went for another.

  But let's not be too quick to laugh everything off, he told himself as he nibbled on some fries. Law school had taught him how to organize his thoughts and present cogent arguments. So far, there was a good case for his being the victim of some sort of curse. That would have been laughable yesterday, but this morning there had been a real live – no, strike that, make that dead – a dead human hand lying on his desk. A hand that had once belonged to a defendant in a very juicy malpractice case. A man who had said that Howard Weinstein needed a lesson in how other people felt.