Putting down the microphone, Martin turned to face the Director. It irked him that there was so little sense of privacy in the hospital that Drake would think nothing of just walking right into his office.
"Dr. Philips, good to see you," said Drake, smiling. "How's the wife?"
Philips looked at him for a moment, not sure whether to laugh or be angry. Finally he said evenly, "I got divorced four years ago." He played it down the middle.
Drake swallowed, his smile faltering for a moment. He switched the subject to how pleased the Board of Directors of the hospital had been with the smooth functioning of the Department of Neuroradiology since Philips' appointment. Then there was a pause. Philips just watched. He knew why Drake was here and he wasn't going to make it any easier for him.
"Well," said the administrator, assuming a more serious tone. His small mouth pulled together. "I'm here to discuss this unfortunate Marino situation."
"What's that?" said Philips.
"The fact that the poor girl's body was irreverently handled and X-rayed without authorization of a postmortem examination."
"And the brain was removed," said Philips. "X-raying a body and removing a brain are not in the same category!"
"Yes, of course. Now, whether you were involved in actually taking the brain is immaterial at this point. The point is…"
"Wait a minute!" Philips sat up in his chair. "I want this perfectly clear. I X-rayed the body, that's true. I did not remove the brain."
"Dr. Philips. I'm not concerned who removed the brain. I'm concerned about the fact that the brain was removed. It's my responsibility at this point to protect the hospital and its staff from bad publicity and financial burden."
"Well I'm concerned about who removed the brain, especially if anybody thinks that it might have been me."
"Dr. Philips, there's no need to be alarmed. The hospital has already spoken to the mortuary. The family will not learn of this unfortunate episode. But I must remind you of your tenuous position in regard to this case and implore you to let the matter drop. It's as simple as that."
"Did Mannerheim put you up to this inquisition?" asked Philips, his composure beginning to wear thin;
"Dr. Philips, please understand my position," said Drake. "I'm on your side. I'm trying to put out a small fire before it flares up and causes damage. It's for everyone's benefit. I'm just asking you to be reasonable."
"Thank you," said Philips, standing up. "Thank you for stopping by. I appreciate your comments, and I'll give them deep thought." Philips hustled Drake out of his office, then closed his door.
As he replayed the conversation, he had trouble believing it had happened. Through the door he could hear Drake talking with Helen, so he knew he hadn't been dreaming. But more than anything to date, it made him determined to be free of the departmental rat race. More than ever he knew that his research had to succeed.
With an increased sense of motivation, Philips picked up the master list of skull films taken over the last ten years. Checking the unit numbers with the stack of films, he quickly determined the order in which they had been stored. He took the first envelope, crossed the name off the list, then pulled out the X rays. He took two matching lateral skull films, replacing the rest. After giving the computer the necessary information, he fed one of the films into the laser scanner. The other went up on his viewer. The old X-ray report was placed next to the print-out console.
Like most compulsive personalities, Martin was a listmaker. He had noted down Marino, Lucas, Collins, and McCarthy when the phone rang. It was Denise, saying that the first afternoon angiogram was all ready to go. Philips thought for a moment, then said that his presence was superfluous and suggested she go ahead with the study as long as she felt comfortable. As he had suspected, she was pleased with the vote of confidence.
Going back to his list, Philips crossed off Collins. After Marino he wrote, "morgue see Werner." Philips had a strong feeling that the diener knew what had happened to Lisa Marino's body. After McCarthy, Philips wrote, "neurosurgical lab."
That left Lucas. He was confident from his conversation with Travis that she was not at New York Medical Center, unless she had been admitted under an alias, but that hardly made sense, so he wrote, "night charge nurse Neuro 14 West" after her name.
Then he picked up the phone and called Admitting again. It took thirty-six rings for someone to answer. Once again the person Philips had to talk to was unavailable. Philips left his name and a request to be called back.
By that time the computer had finished its run. Philips read the report with excitement, comparing it to the old reading, and then checking the film itself. The computer not only picked up everything mentioned on the report, it even found some mild bone thickening and opacity in the frontal sinuses that had been missed on the original reading. Looking at the films, Philips had to agree with the computer. It was amazing.
He was repeating the procedure with the next film, when Helen stuck her head in the door saying in an apologetic voice that the "big boss" wanted to see him as soon as possible.
Dr. Harold Goldblatt's office was situated at the far end of the department, in a wing of the building that stuck out into the central courtyard like a small rectangular tumor. Everyone knew when they'd entered his domain because the floor was carpeted and the walls changed to paneled mahogany. It reminded Philips of one of those downtown law firms whose letterhead had as many names as a page in the phone directory.
He knocked on the heavy wood door. Goldblatt was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk. The room had windows on three sides and the desk faced the door. There was more than a casual resemblance to the Oval Office. Goldblatt revered the trappings of power, and after a lifetime of Machiavellian maneuvering, he had become an international figure in radiology. At one time he had been good at neuroradiology; now he was an institution, and his professional knowledge was dated and therefore limited. Although Martin was privately cynical about Goldblatt's understanding of such innovations as the CAT scanner, he still admired the man. He had been a major force in elevating radiology to its current prestigious status.
Goldblatt stood up, to shake Philips' hand and motioned him to a chair facing the desk. Goldblatt was a vigorous sixty-four years old. He still dressed the way he had when he'd graduated from Harvard in 1939. His suit was a boxy three-piece affair with baggy, cuffed trousers, hemmed about an inch above his ankles. He wore a thin bow tie, tied by hand and therefore crooked and asymmetrical. His hair was almost white and cut in a modified crew cut, which allowed a little bit of length over the ears. He peered at Martin over the tops of wire-rimmed Ben Franklins.
"Dr. Philips," began Goldblatt, sitting down. He put his elbows on his desk, clasping his hands together in a solid embrace. "Bringing up cadavers who are barely cold from the morgue to the department in the middle of the night is not my idea of normal practice."
Philips agreed that it sounded preposterous, and as an explanation, not an excuse, he told Goldblatt first about the X-ray reading program that he and William Michaels had developed, and then about the abnormal density the computer program had picked up on Lisa Marino's X ray. He told Goldblatt that he needed more films to characterize the abnormality. He said that he felt it imperative to follow up on the discovery because it could be used to launch the concept of a computer X-ray analyzer.
After Philips had spoken, Goldblatt smiled benignly, nodding, "Listening to you, Martin, makes me wonder if you know exactly what you are doing."
"I believe I do." Goldblatt's comment surprised Philips, and it was difficult not to take offense.
"I don't mean on the technical side of your endeavor. I mean with regard to the implication of your work. Frankly, I don't think the department can support a project whose goal is to alienate the patient even further than he is already from the physician. You're proposing a system whereby a machine replaces the radiologist."