Terminal (17 page)

Returning to the nurses’ station, Janet threw herself into her work. After five minutes she began to calm down. After ten minutes even her pulse had returned to normal. When Marjorie appeared a few minutes later, Janet was calm enough to inquire about Helen Cabot’s coded medication.

“I’ve been going over each of the patients’ treatments,” Janet said. “I want to familiarize myself with their medications so I’ll be prepared for whomever I’m assigned to for the day. I saw reference to MB300C and MB303C. What are they, and where would I find them?”

Marjorie straightened up from bending over the desk. She grasped a key strung around her neck on a silver-colored chain and pulled it out in front of her. “MB medicine you get from me,” she said. “We keep it in a refrigerated lockup right here in the nursing station.” She pulled open a cabinet to expose a small refrigerator. “It’s up to the head nurse on each shift to dispense it. We control the MBs somewhat like narcotics only a bit stricter.”

“Well that explains why I couldn’t find it in the pharmacy,” Janet said, forcing a smile. All at once she realized that getting samples of the medicine was going to be a hundred times more difficult than she’d envisioned. In fact, she wondered if it was possible at all.

T
OM
W
IDDICOMB
was trying to calm down. He’d never felt so wired in his life. Usually his mother was able to calm him down, but now she wouldn’t even talk to him.

He’d made it a point to arrive extra early that morning. He’d kept an eye on that new nurse, Janet Reardon, from the moment she’d arrived. He’d trailed her carefully, watching her every move. After tracking her for an hour, he’d decided his concerns had been unjustified. She’d acted like any other nurse so Tom had felt relieved.

But then she’d ended up in Gloria’s room again! Tom could not believe it. Just when he’d let his guard down, she’d reappeared. That the same woman would thwart his attempt to relieve Gloria’s suffering not once but twice went past coincidence. “Two days in a row!” Tom had hissed in the solitude of his housekeeping closet. “She’s gotta be a spy!”

His only consolation was that this time he’d walked in on her rather than vice versa. Actually, it was even better than that. He’d almost walked in on her. He didn’t know whether she’d seen him or not, although she probably had.

From then on he’d followed her again. With her every step he became more and more convinced she was there to get him. She was not acting like a regular nurse, no way. Not with the sneaking around she was doing. The worst was when she’d sneaked into his housekeeping closet and started opening cabinets. He could hear her from the hall. He knew what she had been looking for, and he’d been sick with worry that she’d find his stuff. As soon as she’d left, he’d stepped inside. Climbing up on the counter, he’d blindly reached up on top of the wall cabinet at the very far end in the corner to feel for his succinylcholine and syringes. Thankfully they were there and hadn’t been disturbed.

After climbing down from the cabinet, Tom struggled to calm himself. He kept telling himself he was safe since the succinylcholine was still there. At least he was safe for the moment. But there was no doubt that he would have to deal with Janet Reardon, just as he’d had to deal with Sheila Arnold. He couldn’t let her stop his crusade. If he did, he might risk losing Alice.

“Don’t worry, Mother,” Tom said aloud. “Everything will be all right.”

But Alice wouldn’t listen. She was scared.

After fifteen minutes, Tom felt calm enough to face the world. Taking a fortifying breath, he pulled open the door and stepped into the hall. His housekeeping cart was to his right pushed against the wall. He grabbed it and started pushing.

He kept his eyes directed at the floor as he headed toward the elevators. As he passed the nurses’ station he heard Marjorie yell to him about cleaning a room.

“I’ve been called to administration,” Tom said without looking up. Every so often if there’d been an accident, like spilled coffee, he’d be called up there to clean it up. Regular cleaning of the administration floor was handled by the night crew.

“Well, get back here on the double,” Marjorie yelled.

Tom swore under his breath.

When he got to the administration floor, Tom pushed his cleaning cart directly into the main secretarial area. It was always busy there, no one ever looking at him twice. He parked his cart directly in front of the wall chart of the floor plan of the Forbes residence in southeast Miami.

There were ten apartments on each floor, and each had a little slot for a name. Tom quickly found Janet Reardon’s name in the slot marked 207. Even more handy was a key box attached to the wall just below the chart. Inside were multiple sets of keys, all carefully labeled. The box was supposed to be locked, but the key to open it was always in the lock. Since the box was obscured by his cart, Tom calmly helped himself to a set for apartment 207.

To justify his presence Tom emptied a few wastebaskets before pushing his cart back to the elevators.

As he waited for an elevator to arrive he felt a wave of relief. Even Alice was willing to talk to him now. She told him how proud of him she was now that he would be able to take care of things. She told him that she’d been worried about this new nurse, Janet Reardon.

“I told you that you didn’t have to worry,” Tom said. “Nobody will ever bother us.”

S
TERLING
R
OMBAUER
had always liked the adage that his schoolteacher mother had espoused:
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Figuring there were only a limited number of hotels in Boston that Tanaka Yamaguchi would find acceptable, Sterling had decided to try calling some of the hotel employee contacts he’d cultivated over the years. His efforts had been rewarded with immediate success. Sterling smiled when he learned that not only did he and Tanaka share the same profession, they shared the same taste in hotels.

This was a felicitous turn of events. Thanks to his frequent stays at Boston’s Ritz Carlton, Sterling’s contacts in the hotel were simply sterling. A few discreet inquiries revealed some helpful information. First, Tanaka had hired the same livery company Sterling himself used, which wasn’t surprising since it was by far the best. Second, he was scheduled to remain in the hotel at least another night. Finally, he’d made a lunch reservation in the Ritz Café for two people.

Sterling went right to work. A call to the maître d’ in the café, a rattier crowded, intimate environment, produced a promise that Mr. Yamaguchi’s party would be seated at the far banquette. The neighboring corner table, literally inches away, would be reserved for Mr. Sterling Rombauer. A call to the owner of the livery company resulted in a promise of the name of Mr. Yamaguchi’s driver as well as a transcript of his stops.

“This Jap is well connected,” the owner of the livery company said when Sterling phoned him. “We picked him up from general aviation. He came in on a private jet, and it wasn’t one of those dinky ones either.”

A call to the airport confirmed the presence of the Sushita Gulfstream III and gave Sterling its call number. Phoning his contact at the FAA in Washington and providing the call numbers, Sterling obtained a promise to keep him informed of the jet’s movements.

With so much accomplished without even leaving his hotel room and a bit of time to spare before the luncheon rendezvous, Sterling walked across Newbury Street to Burberry’s to treat himself to several new shirts.

W
ITH HIS
legs crossed and stretched out in front of him, Sean sat in one of the molded plastic chairs in the hospital cafeteria. His left elbow was resting on the table, cradling his chin; his right arm dangled over the back of the chair. Mood-wise, he was in approximately the same state of mind as he’d been the night before when Janet had come through his living-room slider. The morning had been an aggravating rerun of the previous day, confirming his belief that the Forbes was a bizarre and largely unfriendly place to work. Hiroshi was still trailing him like a bad detective. Practically every time Sean turned around when he was up on the sixth floor using some equipment not available on the fifth, he’d see the Japanese fellow. And the moment Sean looked at him, Hiroshi would quickly look away as if Sean were a moron and wouldn’t know that Hiroshi had been watching him.

Sean checked his watch. The agreement had been that he’d meet Janet at twelve-thirty. It was already twelve-thirty-five, and although a steady stream of hospital personnel continued to pour by, Janet had yet to appear. Sean began to fantasize about going down to the parking lot, getting into his Isuzu, and hitting the road. But then Janet came through the door, and just seeing her lightened his mood.

Although Janet was still pale by Florida standards, her few days in Miami had already given a distinctively rosy cast to her skin. Sean thought she’d never looked better. As he admiringly watched her sensuous movements as she weaved through the tables, he hoped that he’d be able to talk her out of whatever it was that was keeping her in her own apartment and out of his.

She took the seat across from him, barely saying hello. Under her arm she clutched an unfolded Miami newspaper. He could tell she was nervous, the way she continually scanned the room like some wary, vulnerable bird.

“Janet, we’re not in some spy movie,” Sean said. “Calm down!”

“But I feel like I am,” Janet said. “I’ve been sneaking
around, going behind people’s backs, trying not to arouse suspicion. But I feel like everyone knows what I’m doing.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “What an amateur I have for an accomplice,” he joked. Then, more seriously, he added, “I don’t know whether this is going to work if you’re stressed out now, Janet. This is only the beginning. You haven’t even done anything yet compared to what’s coming. But, to tell you the truth, I’m jealous. At least you’re doing something. I, on the other hand, have spent a good part of the morning in the bowels of the earth injecting mice with the Forbes protein plus Freund’s adjuvant. There’s been no intrigue and certainly no excitement. This place is still driving me nuts.”

“What about your crystals?” Janet asked.

“I’m deliberately slowing down on that,” Sean said. “I was doing too well. I won’t let them know how far I’ve gotten. That way, when I need some time for some investigative work, I’ll take it and still be able to have results to show as a cover. So how’d you do?”

“Not great,” Janet admitted. “But I made a start. I copied one chart.”

“Just one?” Sean questioned with obvious disappointment. “You’re this nervous about one chart?”

“Don’t give me a hard time,” Janet warned. “This isn’t easy for me.”

“And I’d never say I told you so,” Sean quipped. “Never. Not me. That’s not my style.”

“Oh, shut up,” Janet said as she handed the newspaper to Sean under the table. “I’m doing the best I can.”

Sean lifted the newspaper and placed it on top of the table. He spread it out and opened it, exposing the copied pages which he immediately removed. He pushed the newspaper aside.

“Sean!” Janet gasped, as she furtively scanned the crowded room. “Can’t you be a little more subtle?”

“I’m tired of being subtle,” he said. He started going through the chart.

“Even for my benefit?” Janet asked. “There might be some
people from my floor here. They might have seen me give these copies to you.”

“You give people too much credit,” Sean said distractedly. “People aren’t as observant as you might think.” Then, referring to the copies Janet had brought, he said, “Louis Martin’s chart is nothing but referral material from the Memorial. This history and physical is mine. That lazy ass on neurology just copied my workup.”

“How can you tell?” Janet asked.

“The wording,” Sean said. “Listen to this: the patient ‘suffered through’ a prostatectomy three months ago. I use expressions like ‘suffered through’ just to see who reads my workups and who doesn’t. It’s a little game I play with myself. No one else uses that kind of phraseology in a medical workup. You’re supposed to just give facts, not judgments.”

“Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so I guess you should be flattered,” Janet said.

“The only thing of interest here is in the orders,” Sean said. “He’s being given two coded drugs: MB300M and MB305M.”

“That code is comparable to the one I saw in Helen Cabot’s computer file,” Janet said. She handed him the paper on which she’d written the treatment information she’d gotten from the computer.

Sean glanced at the dosage and the administration rate.

“What do you think it is?” Janet asked.

“No idea,” Sean said. “Did you get any of it?”

“Not yet,” Janet admitted. “But I finally located the supply. It’s kept in a special locker, and the shift supervisor has the only key.”

“This is interesting,” Sean said, still studying the chart. “From the date and time of the order they started treatment as soon as he got here.”

“Same with Helen Cabot.” Janet said. She told him what Marjorie had explained to her, namely that they started the humoral aspect of the treatment immediately whereas the cellular aspect didn’t begin until after the biopsy and T-cell harvesting.

“Starting treatment so soon seems odd,” Sean said. “Unless these drugs are merely lymphokines or some other general immunologic stimulant. It can’t be some new drug, like a new type of chemo agent.”

“Why not?” Janet asked.

“Because the FDA would have had to approve it,” Sean said. “It has to be a drug that’s already been approved. How come you only got Louis Martin’s chart? What about Helen Cabot’s?”

“I was lucky to get Martin’s,” Janet said. “Cabot is getting pheresed as we speak, and the other young woman, Kathleen Sharenburg, is being biopsied. Martin was a ‘to follow’ for his biopsy so his chart was available.”

“So these people are on the second floor right now?” Sean asked. “Right above us?”

“I believe so,” Janet said.

“Maybe I’ll skip lunch and take a walk up there,” Sean said. “With all the usual commotion in most diagnostic and treatment areas, the charts are usually just kicking around. I could probably get a look at them.”