"Does continuing to live here depend on getting that promotion at your hospital?"
"If I want to stay in some area of academic medicine, it probably does."
"And your chances are good?"
"Fifty-fifty," he said.
"Well, I hope you get it. But if you don't, then maybe it's because something better is in store for you. Yes?"
"Maybe-" They walked onto the footbridge over the small swan-coat lagoon; and leaned on the concrete railing.
Below them, the lights of the city reflected off the still water.
"Have you ever wanted something so badly you were willing to risk hurting someone to get it?" Eric asked suddenly.
"Hardly. My problem's been never wanting anything badly enough to risk hurting myself to get it.
Are you talking about the promotion?"
"It's a hell of a jump right out of residency. Really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"And you have to hurt someone to get it?"
"Not exactly, but… it's a long story."
"Eric, I hope you don't take this wrong, but I believe life is a whole string of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Some of them happen for us, some of them don't. The worst thing that will happen if you don't get the promotion is that something else will happen for you."
"I guess."
"Don't you see that you've already accomplished something that has eluded most people-including me? You've found the thing you want to do with your life. You've sacrificed and studied and worked like hell, and you've made yourself a doctor. Wherever you go for as long as you live, there are people who are going to need what you can do. There are lives you will help change for the better. The promotion is just a thing.
The skills you've mastered are much bigger than that."
"Maybe so," he said.
"No maybe's. You cared enough about it to grind through college and medical school and residency.
Two weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to say these things, because until then I hadn't ever experienced that kind of caring and commitment.
But now I know what it means to be willing to pay a price for something that's important to you."
"You mean finding your brother."
"Yes! I feel totally committed to that, and I'd be willing to endure just about any amount of pain to see thing through. But if it came to hurting someone else in order to accomplish what I want… well, I think I'd just find another way."
"I appreciate your saying those things to me. I really do." He thought of the caduceus pin. "Tell me," he asked, "do you sense that the man I pronounced dead was Scott?"
Laura tossed a pebble into the dark water.
"Do you?" she asked.
Once again, the scene at the man's bedside that February morning crystallized in Eric's mind. There was no question that he had been distracted by the work he was doing on Russell Cowley, and quite aware that Cowley was a trustee of the hospital. Had his desire for the associate director's position influenced his decision making? There was so much going on that morning. If he'd had just the derelict to think about, would he have given up as quickly?
"I don't know," he answered. "I just don't know."
"Well, then," she said, "if you don't know for certain, I guess we can still hope."
She moved closer to him and put her arm around his waist.
"Are you working tomorrow?" she asked.
"Actually, no. I was scheduled to, but this afternoon Reed Marshall, the other chief resident, called and asked if I would switch days with him. Some sort of appointment the day after tomorrow that he couldn't get out of."
"Now, good. In that case, how about letting me take you out for breakfast tomorrow? Afterward, you can take me to the Gates of Heaven to meet your friend Donald."
"Sounds divine," he said.
She laughed and turned to him. Before he even realized what was happening, they were kissing softly at first, then with hunger.
"It's been so long for me," she whispered, her fingertips tracing the lines of his face. "So damn long." Eric slipped his hands beneath her sweater and explored the silky hodow at the base of her back. The taste of her… the smoothness of her skin… the subtle scent of her hair … one moment each sensation was distinct, isolated in his senses; the next there was only the woman. He felt giddy, intoxicated.
"Don't stop," he begged as she lowered her head to his chest.
She pulled herself tightly against him.
"Please hold me, Eric," she said. "For now, just hold me."
For nearly half an hour they stood there, holding each other as the reflected moon glittered off the water below. Then, without a word, she took his arm and they headed off toward downtown and the Carlisle.
"Eric, tell me something," she said as they approached the hotel.
"The man you worked on, the one with the tattoo-what did he die of?"
Eric felt himself tighten.
"I don't know," he said. "Exposure, maybe, in the end. He was found in the snow. The initial event?
Maybe a coronary, maybe just too much alcohol. He had a bottle of cheap wine in his coat."
"Was there alcohol in his blood?"
"I… I don't know. There wasn't time to get a measurement. To all intents, he was gone before he ever reached the hospital."
"There was nothing that could have saved him," she said. it was a statement to herself, not a question.
"No," Eric said, too weakly. "There wasn't."
He could see tears beginning to shimmer in her eyes.
She reached up and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for everything. Call me when you get up."
Before he could respond, she had turned and hurried inside. Eric followed with his eyes until the elevator doors closed behind her.
Then he turned away, feeling drained and empty, yet at the same time as full and excited about life as he could ever remember being.
Eric wandered home through the deserted downtown streets, then past the gold-domed Statehouse and onto Beacon Hill. His thoughts were a collage of images of Laura Enders, Donald Devine, Thaddeus Bushnell, and Thomas Jordan. In the morning he and Laura would confront Devine with their suspicion that he was involved in diverting bodies to medical schools, and that he was using the signature of an alcoholic old man to authenticate his perfidy. Whatever it took, they would break him down.
They would find the body of the man named Thomas Jordan, and they would learn for certain whether or not he was Scott Enders.
It was well after eleven when he entered the building through the alley.
He took the back stairs to his apartment and went straight to his bedroom. His clinic coat, with the caduceus pin on the lapel, hung over the door. Laura was right, absolutely right, he thought. His years of obsession with work, and now the promotion that he felt would validate that commitment, had blanketed his perspective like a fog.
Suddenly, the mist was burning away.
He undid the pin.
Wherever you go for as long as you live, there are people who are going to need what you can do.
It was such a simple truth. But over the years of his immersion in White Memorial he had lost sight of it completely.
He studied the pin for a few moments. Then he took it to the small balcony off his living room and hurled it out into the night.
When he stepped back inside the apartment, his phone was ringing. He hurried to the bedroom.
"Hi," he said, assuming the caller to be Laura.
"Dr. Najarian," the distorted, electrolarynx voice said, "we're glad you made it home. We've been trying to reach you."
"Who is this?" Eric demanded, sinking down on the edge of his bed.
"Who I am-who we are-will be disclosed to you when it is Appropriate to do so."
The robotic voice was as chilling as before.
"What do you want?"
"You have been wearing our symbol. In three days the search committee will select you as the new associate director of White Memorial emergency services. But first, tomorrow morning we will have work for you to do."