“I know the story,” said Joan.
“I’m not sure if he’s dating anyone in particular,” said Cassi. “But I could find out. Are you interested?”
“I wouldn’t mind asking him to dinner,” said Joan pensively. “But only if I could be sure he’d put out on the first date.”
It took a moment for Joan’s comment to penetrate before Cassi burst out laughing. “I think you sized him up pretty well,” she said.
“The macho medicine man,” said Joan. “What about Robert?” Joan lowered her voice as they got on the elevator. “Is he gay?”
“I suppose so,” said Cassi. “But we’ve never discussed it. He’s been such a good friend, it has never mattered. He used to rate my boy friends back in medical school, and I used to listen until I met my husband because Robert was always right. But he must have been jealous of Thomas because he never liked him.”
“Does he still feel that way?” asked Joan.
“I can’t say,” said Cassi. “That’s the only other subject that we never talk about.”
CHAPTER 2
* * *
“THE PATIENT IS READY for you in No. 3 cardiac cath room,” said one of the X-ray technicians. She didn’t come into the office but rather just stuck her head around the door. By the time Dr. Joseph Riggin turned to acknowledge the information, the girl was gone.
With a sigh, Joseph lifted his feet off his desk, tossed the journal he’d been reading onto the bookshelf, and took one last slug of coffee. From a hook behind the door he lifted his lead apron and put it on.
The radiology corridor at 10:30 A.M. reminded Joseph of a sale day at Bloomingdale’s. There were people everywhere waiting in chairs, waiting in lines, and waiting on gurneys. Their faces had a blank, expectant look. Joseph felt an unwelcome sense of boredom. He’d been doing radiology now for fourteen years and he was beginning to admit to himself that the excitement had gone out of it. Every day was like every other day. Nothing unique ever happened anymore. If it hadn’t been for the arrival of the CAT scanner a number of years ago, Joseph wondered if he’d have quit. As he pushed into No. 3, he tried to imagine what he could do if he left clinical radiology. Unfortunately he didn’t have any bright ideas.
The No. 3 cath room was the largest of the five rooms so equipped. It had the newest equipment as well as its own built-in viewer screens. As Joseph entered, he saw that someone else’s X rays had been left up. If he’d told his technicians once, he’d told them a thousand times that he wanted his room cleared of previous films before he did a study. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Joseph noticed there was no technician.
Joseph felt his blood pressure soar. It was a cardinal rule that no patients were ever to be left unattended. “Dammit,” snarled Joseph under his breath. The patient was lying on the X-ray table, covered by a thin white blanket. He looked about fifteen years old, with a broad face and close-cropped hair. His dark eyes were watching Joseph intently. Next to the table was an IV bottle, and the plastic tube snaked under the blanket.
“Hello,” said Joseph, forcing a smile despite his frustration. The patient did not stir. As Joseph took the chart, he noticed that the boy’s neck was thick and muscular. Another glance at the boy’s face suggested that this was no ordinary patient. His eyes were abnormally tilted and his tongue, which partially protruded from his lips, was enormous.
“Well, what do we have here?” said Joseph with a wave of uneasiness. He wished the boy would say something or at least look away. Joseph flipped open the chart and read the admitting note.
“Sam Stevens is a twenty-two-year-old muscular Caucasian male institutionalized since age four with undiagnosed mental retardation, who is admitted for definitive work-up and repair of his congenital cardiac abnormality thought to be a septal defect …”
The door to the cath room banged open, and Sally Marcheson breezed in carrying a stack of cassettes. “Hi, Dr. Riggin,” she called.