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  Every day he examined sick, tired, people, most of them ill-tempered and unappreciative. Many were waiting for him to make some kind of small mistake so they could sue his ass off. Of course, none of them wanted him to screw up too badly or they wouldn’t live to enjoy the lawsuit money they hoped would come rolling in.

  He finally pulled up the records for his 2:00 p.m. patient. The computer screen filled with her personal history, past treatments, meds, diagnoses—all emailed to him by the referring internist.

  Mort had been getting referral after referral from this particular doctor, who was getting ready to retire and apparently not investing much time doing what he was supposed to do—like heal. This new patient, Katherine Parker, had now been palmed off on Tallent and as the internist had demonstrated previously, he would have no further interest in her.

  The coffee was energizing him and as he studied the patient’s record, he realized she represented a good candidate for his practice. He turned back to the file again. Yes, she definitely was a good candidate for his outpatient Cath Lab.

  He stretched his arms over his head and allowed his attention to slip away from Kathryn Parker’s medical records. He hadn’t had enough sleep the previous night, which had nothing to do with putting in long hours taking care of patients. Rather, he’d spent the late afternoon and evening at his upscale health club, where he had taken a long swim, an even longer steam, and then kept his appointment for an extended massage with Vlad Folo.

  Before Tallent left the club, he’d given the Russian another of his special assignments: twenty-five thousand dollars up front, another twenty-five thousand upon completion.

  Thinking of Vlad, the cardiologist opened the desk’s top drawer, pulled out his cell and stared at the window, with its entire list of new messages.

  He felt his heart skip a beat, then another. Vlad had called three times. The last message sent chills climbing up Tallent’s back.

  Tallent cursed the day he’d met the man.

  * * *

  Tallent’s wife, Annie, had divorced him and moved in with a physical therapist she’d met at a Ridgewood Hospital Christmas party more than a year ago.

  That innocent meeting was the beginning of Tallent being taken to the cleaners with monthly high five figure alimony payments. He’d agreed to the sum, but it was like a knife ripping through his chest every month when he saw the automatic withdrawal from his bank account.

  He met Vlad one day when he’d escaped to the health club in an effort to shut down his brain and simmer down.

  The steam room, followed by a trio of single malt Scotchs, neither mellowed him nor dampened the anger generated by the betrayal of his wife, the bitter divorce, and the excessive alimony settlement.

  The private alcove, with soft music and pastel lotus blossom wallpaper, did nothing to soothe him. He remained a metal coil, compressed and ready to spring open. Vlad Folo, a new body specialist who was very tall, with muscles that popped from every part of his body, probed deeply into Tallent’s tight muscles. Soon Tallent was belching out his anger. Vlad’s strong fingers stopped in the midst of one of Tallent’s tirades about his wife.

  “That filthy whore.” His Russian accent was at its strongest.

  Tallent raised his head and gave Vlad a grim smile.

  “Yes! She’s a cheating, filthy whore!”

  Vlad turned Mort onto his back, started working on his arms, pushing at his tense muscles, probing deep into his chest.

  “Do you want me to take care of her?” Vlad’s eyes were black daggers.

  * * *

  Kat Parker was a little early for her appointment with Dr. Morton Tallent. She paced back and forth in the trendy waiting room rather than take a seat in one of the soft, pliable leather chairs that were scattered around the room.

  She stopped in front of a large oil painting of a girl sitting in a chair, staring out at the viewer. Kat liked the warm colors and questioning eyes that seemed to say, “What’s next?”

  It was exactly how Kat felt.

  Fourteen months ago her husband walked out, left her for a younger, skinnier rendition of what she once was. The men she’d dated since then were mostly from the tech company where she worked. They never seemed to hang around very long after she let it be known she was looking for something more than a fuck partner.

  That wasn’t enough for her. Period!

  She’d tried to get into all the upbeat happiness around her, but mostly she worked with younger people whose lifestyle interests weren’t anything like hers. Most of her friends—people she’d known for years as a couple—faded away. She was left at loose ends, flapping in the wind, not able to tie all the strings together.

  Kat went back to pacing the length of the waiting room, but she could see she was driving the receptionist crazy. She sat down, grabbed one of the out-of-date fashion magazines on a side table, and flipped through the pages. It was filled with emaciated models wearing clothes she wouldn’t be caught dead in, even if she could find one that fit.

  One photo featured a woman in an off-blue satiny dress, with a huge waist sash that ended in a massive bow set smack in front at belly button level.

  Kat laughed at a mental image of her own belly fighting with that bow, trying to tame it to stay in place. She knew her fat rolls would be pushing it every which way. The model in the picture was probably less than one-half of Kat’s fifty three. Little girl bows didn’t work for her. She slapped the pages closed and tossed the magazine back on the table—it missed and fell to the floor.

  “Ms. Parker, the doctor will see you now.”

  Kat’s heart pounded, her steps were uneven as she followed the receptionist, who could have just stepped out of the magazine she’d been leafing through. They walked down a long, plush-carpeted hallway, bypassing a half-dozen closed doors. Then the receptionist stopped and knocked lightly on a door marked with scrolled, gold letters: Morton Tallent, MD.

  “Come in!” took them through the door. “Dr. Tallent, this is Ms. Katherine Parker. Ms. Parker, Dr. Tallent.”

  The tall, dark-haired, fiftyish man walked around the desk and took her hand—held onto it for a moment. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kathryn.”

  “Please call me Kat.”

  “Have a seat ... Kat.” He pointed to two side-by-side, cordovan leather chairs that faced a double-wide, polished wood desk that appeared to hold nothing more than a gleam.

  “So, Kat, that must be interesting work—Director of Human Resources for Golden Eye Tech.”

  “It’s challenging to pull together a hodge-podge of different personnel services in a new tech company.” She shifted in the seat, trying to get comfortable. “But it’s an interesting job. What I’m mostly occupied with these days is trying to find housing for new employees moving in from other parts of the country. It’s as if everyone is descending on San Francisco.”

  He nodded. “I’ve had a chance to review your medical records, Kat. It looks like your internist has already put you through an extensive panel of tests: Blood work, ECG, echocardiography, stress tests. Everything was relatively normal.”

  “I know. But I’m sick and tired of having this neck pain. It’s been going on forever, yet every test I take turns out negative.”

  “Your internist has counseled you on lifestyle changes, I assume.” He took her hand again and gently squeezed it. “Losing twenty pounds could change some of the minor blood abnormalities you have. Exercise, maybe some therapy or yoga. They could make all the difference.”

  Kat burst out into tears. “Please, please, stop! I’ve heard it all before. I know I’m fat, need to lose weight.” She grabbed at the tissue he handed her and daubed her eyes and cheeks. “You think I don’t know all of that?”

  “Well, let’s see: We could go ahead and line you up for our Cath Lab and see if there’s anything at all that’s causing your symptoms.”

  Love for this man washed over her whole body. It was like the weight of the world had been lifted from her should
ers.

  Someone was finally going to help her. Maybe she could really have a life again.

  Chapter 5

  Lolly was even more jumpy since her get-together with Gina and her fiancé. She and Gina had gone through nurses’ training at the same time and afterwards worked together at Jacoby Hospital in the Bronx. Lolly knew how her Italian friend felt about protecting her patients. She had seen Gina defy doctors who treated a patient poorly—she could be fearless, even reckless.

  Lolly was one of the nurses on duty in the ER when Gina was admitted, half dead after her husband beat her up and repeatedly jammed a beer bottle into her vagina. Gina was bleeding out when the EMTs brought her to the hospital. The ER staff thought they’d lost her before they could even get her up to surgery. It was a miracle she survived.

  Poor Gina! She’d been to the wars and back.

  Lolly also liked Harry. Aside from being cute, with a curly mop of hair and kind, blue eyes, she’d heard he was a darn good nurse. She was surprised to see him again in the hospital cafeteria because he usually took out-of-town assignments as a travel nurse. Maybe he was working at Ridgewood because he and Gina were planning to get married soon. The two of them looked very happy together.

  She wished the bookkeeper for Tallent, Brichett, & Cantor hadn’t confided in her about her suspicions. If what Maria Benke said was true, Mort Tallent was scamming his patients and the government for procedures that may never have been performed.

  Lolly really liked this job, had fallen in love with the spaciousness of the penthouse offices where they had their own small surgical unit, along with a four-bed CCU. It was like being in your own medical world without all the hospital bullshit—mainly administrative interference. It had promised to be an interesting place to work until Maria had confided in her.

  And that wasn’t all of it.

  Maria was afraid Tallent was putting people’s lives in danger, solely to make money. She said she’d found evidence that many patients hadn’t needed the surgeries they’d undergone.

  That went beyond scamming—it would make Tallent a dangerous man. And if what the bookkeeper said was true, it would make Lolly a part of his medical malpractice.

  Lolly didn’t buy it. How would a bookkeeper know what a patient needed for treatment? But no matter how hard Lolly tried, she couldn’t stop visualizing one of the possible side effects of the procedure—blood clots on the loose, lodging in a patient’s lungs or brain. No one should have to risk that if they didn’t have to.

  That kind of practice didn’t align with Lolly’s career nursing goals and she didn’t know what to do with the kind of information Maria gave her.

  * * *

  Lolly realized that she should have never agreed to go out to dinner with Maria in the first place. Maybe she wouldn’t have heard about any of it.

  But, there it was: after a few glasses of wine, the bookkeeper started talking about the bundles of money Tallent was raking in from Cardiac Catheterization. “These days, that’s just about all he does.”

  “Couldn’t that be an in-house agreement between him and the other docs?” Lolly said. “A lot of docs specialize in different aspects of a treatment.”

  “Maybe,” Maria said. “But I heard him and Dr. Cantor getting into it one evening when they thought the office was empty. And it wasn’t just a conversation—they were shouting at each other.”

  “About what?”

  “What else?” Maria said. “Money! Cantor didn’t like the way Tallent was raking in the money, or how he was running his practice. Thought he was being unethical by overcharging Medicare.”

  “Seems to me there’s plenty of cash to be made in cardiology without doing any of the things you’re talking about.”

  Maria kept downing more and more wine. The more she drank, the looser her tongue got. “Dr. Tallent really changed after his wife divorced him. He became bitter and angry. Since then, he’s been really hard to work with.”

  “In what way?” Lolly asked.

  “He’s started accusing me of being too nosy, asking too many questions.” Maria had been pretty emotional at that point. “You can’t help but be nosy when you’re a bookkeeper. It’s part of my job to ask the hard questions.”

  “I think you’re worrying too much, Maria.”

  “It got even worse when his wife was murdered.”

  “Murdered? Are you kidding me? I thought you said they got divorced.”

  “This was afterward. Some creep tied her up, did horrible things to her—I can’t even describe it, other than she was slit open from neck on down to her ... privates.” Maria tossed down the rest of her wine. “It was gruesome.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “About a year ago.”

  “How did Tallent take it?” Lolly asked.

  “Well, it was no picnic. The police came around and questioned everyone, but especially Dr. Tallent. I guess they thought he might have killed her—they’d gone through a pretty bitter divorce.” Maria pushed a fork around the plate; she hadn’t eaten one strand of her linguini. “After the hullabaloo died down, nothing changed. He was just as nasty, maybe a little bit worse.”

  Maria had pulled the napkin from her lap and slammed it down on her plate. “I know he’s going to kill me.”

  “What?” Lolly quickly looked around the restaurant to see if anyone had reacted to Maria’s outburst. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s my fault. I just couldn’t leave it alone. When I questioned him again about his practice, he warned me to stay out of his business—or else.”

  Maria’s face turned snow white. “I said, ‘Or else what?’” Her hands started shaking.

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked how my mother was doing.”

  * * *

  Robert Cantor had the first scheduled cath. The admitting nurse, Dara, was with the patient in the pre-op holding room. A second patient was scheduled to follow.

  Lolly looked at her watch. Dara had probably already given the patient pre-op meds for anxiety while Lolly was checking the viewing monitors with the X-Ray tech. Lolly gave the sterile field and all of the equipment a final once-over.

  Preparing for surgery always gave Lolly the chills. In a short time they would have a human being on the table, ready to endure an invasive journey through their circulatory system. The set-up looked fairly benign, but a lot could happen, depending on what they found when that catheter traveled through the coronary arteries.

  Lolly tried to calm herself, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Maria and what she’d told her. Why hadn’t she come to work today?

  * * *

  Maria Benke looked at the street through the slats of the living room venetian blinds. She sensed that someone was watching her, but she couldn’t see anyone outside. She’d been afraid to go to work after her last conversation with Dr. Tallent and had stayed home all day.

  “Maria!” Her mother’s voice traveled down the hallway.

  “Yes, Mom. I’m coming. Just a minute.” She kept the lights out and looked outside one more time.

  Nothing.

  Maria stood at her mother’s bedroom doorway. “You said my name perfectly. Did you hear that? I think we’ll be throwing one heck of party for your seventy-fifth birthday.”

  “Ish better.”

  “Let me help you up; you can keep me company while I make us dinner.”

  Her mother shook her head. “Ooo ired.”

  “Okay. I’ll make a tray for the both of us and we’ll watch TV right here. How does that sound?”

  Her mother smiled back at her. After six months, she still had a long road ahead of her to recovery from her stroke, but she was a spunky woman. If anyone could do it, she could.

  Maria went into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of red wine, and began preparing dinner.

  Chapter 6

  Vinnie and Helen sat around the dining room table at Gina and Harry’s apartment. An almost empty bowl of chicken Caesar salad, a ba
sket of garlic bread, and a bottle of red wine sat in the middle of the table.

  Gina looked across at her brother and smiled at his beaming face. He kept looking at her best friend, Helen, with an I-love-you expression—he could barely take his eyes off her. He turned to Gina and dropped a bomb.

  “Helen and I have decided to get married.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in.

  “Wahoo!” Gina and Harry yelled in unison. They jumped up and rushed around the table to give Vinnie and Helen hugs and kisses.

  “When did you decide?” Harry said. “Not that it’s a big surprise.”

  “Right before we left the apartment.” Vinnie laughed and speared another piece of bread from the basket and stuffed it into his mouth.

  “Helen, you’re not saying a word,” Gina said. “That’s usually not a problem for you. Maybe I should be grateful.”

  “I’m too stunned to speak.” Helen really did sound sawed. “He even did the get-down-on-your-knee thing.”

  “My brother?”

  “Oh, go on with you, you little devil,” Helen said. “No wonder you and your brother are always tussling.”

  After a long discussion about how maybe the four of them could get married at the same time, they dug back into the food. Gina was ravenous. When she finally came up for air, she said, “What do the two of you think of Morton Tallent.”

  “I’ve taken care of his patients,” Vinnie said, “but I haven’t had much to do with him other than the usual ‘Good morning, doctor’ stuff.”

  “Well, I don’t like the guy,” Helen said. “He’s a phony. He’ll talk to his patient’s all sweetness and light, and then walk out of the room and give the nurses a bad time.”

  “What kind of bad time?” Harry said.

  “You know, you’re-just-a-nurse-and-you-don’t-know-shit kind of thing.”