With a new sense of purpose, Brian turned his attention back to the snotty driver. “Tell me. Could this impressive armored vehicle belong to the one and only Charles Kelley?”
A slight but detectable smile briefly turned up the corners of the driver’s lips as he turned to look condescendingly at him. “I’m not allowed to say exactly who it is I chauffeur.”
To Brian the driver’s response was the equivalent of admitting what Brian suspected, and the effect was immediate. As if propelled out of a cannon, he bolted for the hospital entrance, shocking the driver out of his staged indifference. “Hey!” the surprised driver shouted. “What the hell? Where are you going?”
Brian didn’t slow or respond. He was a man on a mission. Having visited Roger Dalton’s office so many times and even Kelley’s office once, he knew exactly where he was going. Because the hospital had instituted visiting restrictions due to the pandemic, he was confronted the moment he navigated the revolving door by a woman with a clipboard who asked if she could help him. Besides her clipboard, she was holding a number of face masks for those who needed them.
Without slowing since he was already wearing a mask, Brian just called over his shoulder that he had an appointment in administration with Mr. Charles Kelley. That was sufficient for the greeter, who merely nodded and waited for the next arrival.
Although his decision to confront Kelley had been spur of the moment, now that he was on his way, he became progressively determined to follow through with his plan. He knew he’d undoubtedly be considered a persona non grata, but he was committed to saying his piece. As he pushed through the door separating the vast, marbled hospital lobby and the carpeted admin area, he made a beeline for Kelley’s office after seeing that the conference room was clearly empty.
“Excuse me!” a receptionist-cum-secretary called out as Brian swept by, heading for the closed door. “Where do you think you are going? You can’t go in there!” She was the same individual who had unceremoniously escorted Brian out of Kelley’s office on his previous spur-of-the moment visit. Swiftly she picked up her phone and frantically punched in a series of numbers.
Reaching Kelley’s office door, he didn’t bother to knock. Instead, he tried the knob, which was unlocked, and burst in. Inside Kelley was clearly having a meeting with five of his underlings, including Roger Dalton, all seated on the oversized leather couch or occupying assorted side chairs. Kelley was standing behind his massive desk, apparently in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation. There was a flat-screen wall-mounted TV displaying Raising Collections on Accounts Receivable During the Covid-19 Crisis.
For a moment time stopped, allowing Brian to get a good look at Charles Kelley and to appreciate the skill of the painter who had done the man’s portrait hanging over the faux fireplace. True to life, Kelley was a handsome man with high cheekbones, sharply defined features, carefully coiffed sandy-colored hair, and an expensive business suit. Unlike the portrait, he was darkly tanned, and his hair was streaked with golden blond as if he’d just returned from a Caribbean vacation despite the pandemic. To Brian he looked like a model in a top-of-the-line menswear advertisement. The only thing that surprised him was Charles’s height, which Brian guesstimated to be somewhere in the six-foot-eight realm.
“Who the hell are you?” Charles demanded, having finally recovered from his momentary stunned silence at Brian’s precipitous arrival. His tone was condescending, as was the facial expression he quickly assumed, reminding Brian of Heather Williams.
“I’m an aggrieved customer and a long-term resident of this community,” Brian snapped as he strode toward Kelley, pointing his finger up at his face. “I need to talk to you about this hospital and its mission, and you need to hear me out.”
Roger Dalton struggled to his feet from where he’d been sitting in the deep couch and leaped forward to intercept Brian. “He’s Brian Murphy,” Roger called out, positioning himself between Brian and Charles Kelley. “His account is seriously in arrears and has been turned over to collections.”
Brian was briefly taken aback by the audacity of the rail-thin Roger Dalton. “Sit down, Roger!” he ordered, pointing back to where Roger had been. “You are not personally responsible for this travesty, unlike Mr. Kelley.”
“Yes, sit down, Roger,” Charles echoed. “Okay, Mr. Murphy. Exactly what do you think you can tell me that I don’t already know and know invariably far better than you?”
“Fat chance you know it better than I!” Brian sniped, approaching closer to the desk while continuing to jab his index finger up into Charles Kelley’s tanned face. “Do you have any conception whatsoever of what your profit-oriented leadership is doing to families like mine, struggling to get through this pandemic? My wife just died minutes ago from encephalitis after being discharged from this hospital while still ailing with EEE, all because I couldn’t pay an outlandish and incomprehensible bill.”
“I am sorry to hear about your wife’s passing,” Charles offered, casually crossing his arms. “But I can assure you that her discharge and her passing did not have anything whatsoever to do with your ability to pay. At MMH all patients are treated with the same attention to clinical detail and are given the finest care possible.”
“Bullshit,” Brian countered. He could tell stock language when he heard it and what Charles had just said certainly wasn’t at all what he and Emma had experienced. “Here are the facts: My wife needed to be under seizure watch because she was still suffering brain inflammation, yet she was discharged even though neither of us wanted that. If she had remained in the hospital, she wouldn’t have died. It’s as simple as that.”
At that moment two hospital security guards dressed in dark suits came flying into Charles Kelley’s office, clearly responding to the distress call by the secretary. Without waiting to assess the degree of danger Brian represented, they made the mistake of rushing at him.
Reacting by reflex and using his tested skills, Brian made quick work of both security guards, throwing them ignominiously to the floor and pulling their jackets up over their heads. As they struggled to free themselves, Charles’s demeanor changed dramatically as he sensed real danger from Brian. Uncrossing his arms, he grabbed his wheeled executive chair and stepped back from his desk. Brian, for his part, had now moved up to the desk and was leaning on it with both hands, glaring up into Charles’s alarmed face.
“Here’s what I think in a nutshell,” Brian said with vehemence. “I think you are running what amounts to fraud with your health insurance coconspirators by taking advantage of this country’s laissez-faire healthcare situation to maximize your profits. In the process, you and your collections people are bankrupting me and hundreds of others.”
Before Charles could even respond to this denunciation, the limo driver doubling as a personal bodyguard came flying into the office in a manner similar to the hospital security people. Making the same mistake as they, he came at Brian at a run. On this occasion, not only did Brian throw him to the floor, pull his jacket over his head, and rip it in the process, but he also disarmed him.
By now the first two security people had managed to disentangle themselves from their jackets and had gotten to their feet. Thinking of trying their luck with him a second time, they took a step forward but then hesitated upon seeing that Brian was holding the limo driver’s Glock pistol. But to their surprise and relief, Brian merely emptied the gun, tossing the shells into the corner of the room, where they clattered against the bare floor and hit up against the wall.
“I’m here to talk, not fight,” he warned, looking both security men directly in the eye to make certain they got the message and were willing to stand down. “I need to get off my chest what needs to be said about what this hospital is doing to this community.” With a particularly large clatter that made everyone in the room jump, he tossed the gun into a wastebasket beside the desk.