The Touch

At the Party

Sylvia was standing at her bedroom window on the second floor when Charles Axford strolled into the room. His tuxedo jacket was open and his hands were thrust into his pants pockets. She liked the way clothes fitted on his solid, just-under-six-foot frame; he looked his forty-four years, with his rugged face, his salt-and-pepper hair thinning a bit on top, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but she liked the look.

"Where've you been?" Sylvia asked him.

"Down the hall discussing the national debt with Jeffy," he said blandly.

Sylvia smiled and shook her head. Charles was testing the limits of bad taste again. She framed a nasty remark about his daughter, Julie, but didn't have the heart to say it. Besides, it would only spur Charles to elaborate on his opening comment. And where Jeffy was concerned, he was on very thin ice.

"What did he say?" she asked with equal blandness.

"Not much. He's getting a bit of kip, actually." He sat on her bed and leaned back on his elbows. "Anybody special coming tonight?"

"The usual crowd, plus a special treat: Congressman Switzer and Andrew Cunningham of the MTA."

Charles' eyebrows lifted. "Together? In the same bloody house?"

She nodded, her smile mirroring his. "Only they don't know it yet." She was definitely looking forward to seeing what happened when those two enemies ran into each other tonight.

"Oh, this is going to be jolly!" he said with a laugh as he got up from the bed and kissed her on the lips. "That's why I love you, Sylvia."

Sylvia said nothing. She knew he didn't really love her. He was simply responding to her sense of mischief.

She had met Charles Axford, M.D., at the McCready Foundation when she had taken Jeffy there for a comprehensive evaluation. Charles had been and still was chief of neurological research at the Foundation. Although he had taken no particular interest in Jeffy, he had taken a very definite interest in her. They had had an on-again, off-again relationship for three years now.

Sylvia wasn't sure what attracted her to Charles—or "Chuckie" as she liked to call him when she wanted to get under his skin. It certainly wasn't love. And it certainly wasn't because he was irresistibly handsome.

Simply put: He fascinated her.

She had never met anyone like him. Charles Axford could find something to dislike or distrust in anyone. Anyone! That along with the fact that he did not give a damn about what anyone thought of him resulted in one of the most sarcastic, cynical, verbally offensive human beings on earth. His acid wit coupled with his British accent made him a devastating gadfly. No treasured belief, no sacred cow, no religious, moral, or political dogma was safe from him. Charles believed in nothing, cared for nothing except his work, and was not above putting even that down if the mood struck him. In a rare, self-revelatory moment after too much to drink one night, he had told Sylvia that a man with no illusions can never become disillusioned.

Perhaps that was the key, she thought as she disengaged herself from his embrace. Perhaps that was why at the slightest provocation he gored anyone who came within range. No one was safe. Not Jeffy, not even her. He was like a rare jungle frog she had seen on a television special—harmless-looking enough until it spit venom in your eyes. Sylvia found that the sense of imminent danger when he was around added a little zest to life.

"I hope it won't crush you to learn that you won't be the only doctor here tonight."

"Hardly. Doctors are the bloodiest boring people on earth— except for me, of course."

"Of course. The other two are both G.P.s, by the way. And they used to be partners."

"Really?" A gleam sparkled in his eyes and his thin lips curved into an impish grin. "I'm glad I came tonight."

"I told you it would be interesting."

She glanced out the window at the sound of a car on the drive. The first guests had arrived. She checked herself in the full-length mirror set on the closet door. The black dress looked just right—a bit too low in the front, a bit too low in the back, a bit too tight across the hips. In perfect keeping with her image.

She linked her arm through Charles'.

"Shall we go?"

"Isn't that a Rolls, Alan?" Ginny said as they pulled into Sylvia Nash's driveway.

Alan squinted through the windshield at the silver-gray car parked near the front door. "Sure looks like one. And there's a Bentley right next to it."

Ginny made a small, feminine grunt. "And here we are in an Oldsmobile."

"A Toronado isn't exactly a pickup, Ginny." Alan cringed at the knowledge of where this conversation was headed. The two of them had been down this road before, many times, and he knew every turn. "It gets you to Gristede's and the tennis courts in style and comfort."

"Oh, I don't mean for me. I mean for you. Instead of that awful Beagle—"

"It's an Eagle, Ginny. An Eagle."

"Whatever. It's a dull car, Alan. No pizzaz."

"Back in January you thought it was great when we popped it into four-wheel drive and cruised through the blizzard and wound up being the only people to show up for Josie's fortieth birthday party."

"I'm not saying it doesn't have its uses. And I know it allows you to feel you can get to the office or hospital no matter what the weather—God forbid someone else should have to take care of one of your patients!—but so would a tractor. That doesn't mean you have to drive around town in one. You should get one of those cute little sports cars like Fred Larkin just got."

"Let's not talk about Fred Larkin. And I wouldn't own a ninety-thousand-dollar car even if I could afford one."

"You can write it off."

"No, I can't write it off! You know we don't have that kind of money lying around!"

"You're shouting, Alan!"

So he was. He clamped his lips shut.

"You usually don't get so hyper about money. What's the matter with you?"

Good question.

"Sorry. Just don't feel like going to a party tonight, I guess. I told you I didn't want to come."

"Just loosen up and try to enjoy yourself. Vic is covering for you, so why don't you have a few drinks and relax."

Alan smiled and sighed. "Okay." He would have a few drinks but he doubted he would relax or enjoy himself. There was too much on his mind tonight. Especially after the phone call he had received this afternoon.

Murray Raskin, the hospital neurologist, had been catching up on reading the hospital EEGs today and had come across little Sonja Andersen's. He had immediately called Alan at home, stuttering with excitement. Sonja's routine EEG last year had been grossly abnormal with a typical epileptic pattern in the left parietal lobe—the same as it had been for the past half-dozen years. The one Alan had ordered yesterday was completely normal.

All traces of her epilepsy were gone.

Alan had been stewing ever since. He knew now there would be no peace for him until he had unraveled the Andersen and Westin incidents and made sense out of them.

But that wasn't all that was eating at him tonight. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be in a social situation with Sylvia Nash where he couldn't play "Dr. Bulmer." He'd have to drop the professional mask and be "Alan." And he was afraid then that Sylvia and anyone else within half a dozen blocks would know exactly how he felt about her.

"Isn't that the Nash lady's car?" Ginny said, pointing to the bright red car under the lights of the front door.

"Sure is."

He parked the Toronado and they walked past Sylvia's car on their way to the front door.

"With all her money, you'd think she'd get something nice and new instead of this ugly old thing."

"Are you kidding?" Alan said, lightly running his fingers over the glossy red finish of the long hood to where it ended at the chromed, forward-leaning grille. He loved that huge grille with its vertical chromed rods gleaming like teeth. "This is a 1938 shark-nosed Graham, fully restored." He peered through the tinted windows. "More than restored. It was considered an economy car in its day. Look inside—she's even put in a bar."

"But why this awful red color? It would look better on a fire engine."

"Red was Mr. Toad's favorite color."

"I don't get it, Alan."

"The Wind in the Willows—this is Toad Hall, and you remember Mr. Toad, always stealing motorcars, don't you? Well, red was his favorite color. And the author's name was Kenneth Grahame… get it?"

Ginny stared at him, a frown forming. "Since when have you had such an interest in children's books?"

He reined in his enthusiasm. "Always been one of my favorite stories, Ginny. Let's go in."

He didn't mention that he had bought a copy of The Wind in the Willows only after learning that Sylvia's place was called Toad Hall.

No, Alan thought as they approached the front door, he could not see how it was going to be a pleasant evening.

"Ah! Here comes a special guest!" Sylvia said.

Charles Axford glanced at her, then into the foyer, then back at Sylvia's face. She had suddenly become animated. That annoyed him.

A chap with average good looks with a slim, athletic-looking blonde on his arm—Charles guessed them both to be slightly younger than he—was approaching. The woman was beaming, the man looked ill.

"Which one's so bloody special?"

"Him. He's one of the doctors I told you about."

"I'm a doctor, too, you know."

"He's Jeffy's doctor."

"I was Jeffy's doctor for a while."

The corner of Sylvia's mouth pulled to the right. "You only did some tests on him. Alan's a real doctor."

"Two points for that one, Love."

Sylvia smiled. "That was worth five and you know it."

"Three, tops—because I'm precisely the kind of doctor I want to be. But let's go meet this 'special guest.' It's been so long since I've spoken to a real doctor."

"Come along, then, but try to limit the 'bloodys' to ten per minute."

Sylvia introduced them. Alan Bulmer was the fellow's name. Decent-looking chap. The woman was a pert, beaming blonde with the most captivating green eyes; she gushed over Sylvia and burbled on about the house and grounds.

Charles studied the doctor while he and the wife made nice-nice with their hostess. He looked acutely uncomfortable, like he was going to crawl out of his skin. His eyes kept moving to Sylvia and then richocheting off in all directions like misspent bullets.

What's the bloody matter with him?

Just then some other overdressed bird toddled over and tapped Bulmer's wife on the shoulder. They squealed and hugged and did everything but call each other "Darling!"

Charles turned away. Bloody doctor's wife. How well he knew the type. He had been married to one for eight very long years, and free of her for half again as long. This one reminded him of his ex: Probably a decent girl once, but now she was a Doctor's Wife and on the status trip.

Ba came by, resplendent in a white jacket and shirt, with a black bow tie and pants, carrying a tray full of tall, slim glasses of champagne. Some guests seemed afraid to take anything from him. Charles signaled to him.

While passing out the glasses to all those around him, he appreciated the awed expressions on Bulmer's wife and her friend as they looked up at Ba. Most hostesses would keep someone like Ba out of sight for a party. Not Sylvia. Good old Sylvia liked the stir he caused in the uninitiated.

Charles decided to start some friendly—for the moment— chatter with Bulmer and maybe find out what this real doctor was made of. He nudged him and nodded toward Ba's retreating form.

"Big fellow, what?"

Bulmer nodded. "Reminds me of Lurch from The Addams Family."

"Lurch? Oh, you mean that show on the telly… the butler. Yes, does remind one of him a bit, although I do believe Lurch's face was more expressive."

"Possibly," Buhner said with a smile. "I imagine Ba's height gave him some rough times as a kid. I mean, the average Vietnamese male is five-three, and Ba's got to be at least a foot over that."

"Pituitary giant, wouldn't you say?"

Bulmer's reply was immediate. "Uh-huh. Arrested in his mid-teens, I'd guess. Certainly doesn't show any acromegalic stigmata."

Five points to you, Doc, Charles thought with a rueful mental grin. The bloke already had a diagnosis filed away and waiting. Sharp for a G.P.

"Is that English you two are speaking?" Sylvia was saying.

"Doctor talk, Love," Charles said. "We use it to befuddle the masses."

"But it was about Ba. What were you saying?" She seemed genuinely concerned.

"We were saying that he probably had an overactive pituitary as a kid, maybe even a pituitary tumor. Made him a good foot taller than the average Vietnamese."

Bulmer chimed in. "But his pituitary must have slowed down to normal when he reached adulthood because he doesn't have any of the facial and hand deformities you see with adult hyperpituitism."

"Lucky for him it stopped on its own. It's eventually fatal if untreated."

"But doesn't he ever smile?" Bulmer asked. "I've known him all these years but never once seen him smile."

Sylvia was silent a moment. "I have a picture of him smiling."

"I've seen that picture," Charles said. "It answers the old Pepsodent question about where the yellow went."

Sylvia was studiously ignoring him. Her eyes were on Bulmer, and they glowed in a way he had never seen.

"Want to see the picture?"

Bulmer shrugged. "Sure."

"Good," Sylvia said with a smile and a lascivious wink. "It's upstairs in my bedroom… with my erotic Japanese etchings."

Charles bit his lip to keep from laughing as he watched Bulmer almost drop his glass and begin to stutter. "I… well… I don't really know—"

Sylvia turned to Charles and looked him squarely in the eyes. Her gaze was intense. "Charles, why don't you show Virginia and Adelle around the ground floor. You know it almost as well as I do."

Charles resented the twinge of jealousy that stabbed through him. "Sure, Love," he said as nonchalantly as he could. "Be glad to."

As he guided the two women away, he noticed Bulmer's wife looking over her shoulder with a puzzled expression as Sylvia linked an arm through her husband's and led him up the wide, winding stairway.

Charles watched, too.

There was something going on between those two, but bloody-damned if he could figure it out just yet.

Does she fancy him, I wonder?

Alan felt like a lamb led to slaughter. If she had been sly and sneaky about getting him up here he would have backed straight out, no problem. But she had been so open about it, dragging him away right in front of Ginny. What could he do?

She led him down the hall as she had Tuesday night, but this time they passed Jeffy's room and traveled farther on, farther away from the party downstairs. And tonight she wasn't swathed chin to toe in flannel. She wore a filmy black something that exposed the nearly flawless skin of her back and shoulders just inches away from him.

A turn of a corner and they were in her bedroom. Thank God it wasn't dark—there was a light on in the corner. A nice bedroom, stylishly furnished with a king-size bed flanked by sleek, low night tables, long satiny curtains framing the windows. Feminine without being too frilly. And no Japanese erotica on the walls. Just mirrors. Lots of mirrors. At one point in the room, the mirrors reflected each other back and forth, and he saw an infinite number of Alans standing next to an endless line of Sylvias in an infinity of bedrooms.

She went over to a dresser and picked up a Lucite-framed eight-by-ten color photo. She said nothing as she handed it to him.

There was Ba—a much younger Ba—in a jungle setting, standing next to a shorter, redheaded American soldier. Both were in fatigues, each with an arm around the other's shoulder, and grinning from ear to ear. Obviously somebody had said, "Smile!" and they were complying with a vengeance. Ba's teeth were indeed yellow. And very crooked. Small wonder he didn't smile.

"Who's the soldier?"

"The late Gregory Nash. That was taken in 1969, somewhere outside Saigon."

"Sorry. Never knew him."

"Don't apologize." She took the picture from his hands, gave it a lingering look, then replaced it on the dresser.

Alan wondered if she thought of him often.

"And I didn't realize they had known each other. I mean, Ba—"

"Right. Ba didn't arrive until four years after Greg died. It turned out to be pure chance. I happened to be watching the evening news one night years back when they were doing all those stories on the continuous flow of Boat People from Nam. They showed some film from the Philippines about this fellow who had just piloted a fishing boat full of his friends and neighbors across the South China Sea. I recognized him at once. It was Ba."

"You brought them back here?"

"Sure," she said offhandedly. "They said his wife was ill. I flew out there and got them. I figured what good was Greg's blood money if I couldn't use it to help out one of his friends? You know the rest… about Nhung Thi and all that."

Alan knew about Ba's wife. She had been sicker than anyone had guessed. He wanted to move the conversation to a lighter level. He glanced out the window into the floodlit yard and saw two trees in full blossom.

"Are those new?"

Sylvia moved up close behind him. "Only one—the one on the right."

Alan was surprised. "I would have guessed this one here— that other one has so many more blossoms."

"Some secret root food Ba is trying. Whatever it is, the new tree is really responding to it."

She was so close. Too close. Her perfume was making him giddy. Without saying anything more, Alan eased out into the hall and waited for Sylvia there. She caught up and they strolled back toward the party. She was more subdued than he could ever remember.

At Jeffy's door he stopped and waited in the hall while she tiptoed in to check on him.

"All's well?" he said as she returned.

She nodded and smiled. "Sleeping like a baby."

They walked on and stopped at the banister overlooking the front foyer. A glittering crowd swirled in conflicting, intermingling currents below, eddying into side pools of conversation in its ceaseless flow from one room to another. He recognized the bulky form of one of the Jets' better-known defensive backs as he passed through. The familiar face of a longtime New York TV weatherman was there, and Alan swore he recognized the voice of his favorite morning disk jockey but couldn't find the face.

That friend of Sylvia's, Charles Axford, passed through below. He wondered what Axford was to Sylvia. Her current lover, no doubt. She probably had a lot of lovers.

Then he saw a face he recognized from the newspapers.

"Isn't that Andrew Cunningham?"

"Right. I told you there'd be a few politicos here. Congressman Switzer is somewhere around, too."

"You know Mike?"

"I contributed to his campaign last year. I hope he won't be too disappointed when he doesn't get any money from me this time around."

Alan smiled. "Was he a bad boy in Washington?"

"I wouldn't know. But I have a rule: I never support incumbents." Her eyes narrowed. "Once they get comfortable, they get dangerous. I like to keep them off balance."

Alan sensed that he was seeing a hint of the anger Tony had mentioned last night.

"Why?"

Her features were taut as she spoke. "Comfortable incumbents sent Greg off to Vietnam, and he came back thinking he could handle anything. It got him killed."

Alan recalled the story. It had happened before he came to Monroe, but people were still talking about Gregory Nash's murder back then. Apparently the Vietnam vet had been waiting on line in the local 7-11 when someone pulled a gun on the clerk and told her to empty the cash register. According to witnesses, Nash stepped in and neatly disarmed the robber. But he hadn't known about the man's accomplice, who shot him in the back of the head. He was DOA at the hospital.

He looked down again at Cunningham, and thought of Mike Switzer, and suddenly remembered their feud.

"God, Sylvia! When Switzer and Cunningham run into each other tonight, all hell could break loose!"

Sylvia's hand darted to her mouth. "Oh, my! I never thought of that!"

Sylvia wanted to get away from the subject of politicians and onto the subject of Alan. She had known him all these years and had never had a chance to ask him about himself. Now that she had him all to herself, she wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

She put her hand on his arm and felt him flinch. Did she make him that nervous? Her heart stumbled over a beat. Could he possibly feel… ? No, that would be too much to ask.

"You know, I've always wanted to ask you how come you aren't a pediatrician? You have a way with kids."

"For the same reason I didn't specialize in any other area: I need variety. In my practice I can see a five-day-old infant with colic and a hundred-and-two-year-old man with prostate trouble back to back. Keeps me on my toes. But as for pediatrics, I had a more specific reason for not going into that. I rotated through the peds ward in my senior year of medical school and that cured me of a career in that field." A look of pain passed over his face. "Too many terminally ill kids. A few years of that and I knew I'd be an emotional basket case. And anyway, with the type of training I had, it was hard to go into anything but family practice."

Sylvia leaned forward with her elbows on the banister. She loved listening to him, hearing about a side of him that was otherwise hidden from her. "How's that?"

"Well, my school had this philosophy of teaching you all about every organ in the body but never letting you forget that it was part of a person. They always stressed the old cliche of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. We were never supposed to treat John Doe's heart disease— we were always to treat John Doe who happened to have heart disease."

"Sounds like semantics."

"Yeah. I thought it was a word game, too. But there's a world of difference when you put the two approaches into practice. But getting back to pediatrics, I've come to see that I can practice better office pediatrics as a family doctor than as a pediatrician."

Sylvia laughed. She knew a few pediatricians who might take issue with that.

"I'm serious. Best example I can think of is a nine-year-old girl in a few months ago with stomach pains, weight loss, and sinking grades in school. If I were a pediatrician I'd start ordering a battery of blood tests, and when they came out negative, maybe even some barium X-ray studies. But I didn't."

"Flying by the seat of your pants again?" she said, remembering Tuesday night and Jeffy's bellyache.

"Not at all. Because over the past year I'd seen the mother three times for sprains, bruises, and contusions. Each time she'd say she had fallen, but I know what it looks like when someone gets punched in the nose. I confronted her; she admitted that her husband had been getting physically abusive over the past year; I sent them for family counseling, and when I last saw the girl her stomachaches were gone, she had regained her lost weight, and was performing back up to par in school."

"And you don't think a pediatrician could do that?"

"Of course. I'm not saying I'm a better pediatrician per se. I'm saying that because I treat whole families, I have a more direct line into what's going on in the home, which allows me a perspective no specialist has."

Sylvia saw Virginia Bulmer and Charles stroll into view below, and noted with a flash of satisfaction the relieved expressions on both their faces when they looked up and saw Alan and her standing in plain sight.

Lou Alberts, her uncle and Alan's old partner, came out to make it a threesome.

Alan apparently saw them, too.

"I guess I'd better get you back to your guests," he said.

Was that a note of reluctance in his voice?

"If you must," she said, looking him in the eyes.

Alan offered her his arm.

She sighed and allowed him to lead her down. It really was time to get back to the party—Switzer and Cunningham would be bumping into each other soon and she didn't want to miss that.

Mike Switzer came up and grabbed Alan's arm as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Alan!" he said, all smiles. "You did it!"

"What? Did what?" Alan said. Sylvia smiled, gave his arm a squeeze, and drifted away.

"The Guidelines bill! It's gone back to committee!"

"Is that good?"

"Hell, yes! It means it won't get tacked onto the Medicare appropriations, which puts it in limbo for a while."

Alan's rising spirits dipped. "So it's still alive."

"Yes, but it's wounded. And nowadays that's the best we can hope for." He slapped Alan on the back. "And you helped wound it, buddy!"

"The pleasure was all mine."

"Great! Just don't run against me in my district."

"Never fear," Alan said with heartfelt sincerity. "If I never see one of those committee rooms again it will be too soon."

"That's what I like to hear!" Switzer suddenly sobered. "But be alert for any of the senator's aides who may come around and say they want to 'get you on the team' where they can have 'easy access to your valuable insight.' They'll offer positions on things like study groups and the like. Ignore them."

"Why? Not that I have time for that kind of thing—but why ignore them?"

"It's an old trick," Mike said in an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper from the corner of his mouth. "You get your most articulate critics off guard by appearing open to their ideas, then you lose them in your study groups, sub-subcommittees, brain trusts, etcetera. You muffle them by burying them under tons of paper and red tape."

"Nice town you work in."

Mike shrugged. "If you know the rules, you can play the game."

"When it starts worming its way into my examining rooms," Alan said, "it's not a game anymore."

As Congressman Switzer drifted off to press flesh with other guests, Axford strolled by and stopped at Alan's side.

"So what field are you in?" Alan asked in an apparent attempt at making small talk with Axford; actually, he was curious as to what sort of man interested Sylvia.

"Research. Neurology."

"One of the schools? Pharmaceutical company?"

Axford shook his head. "Private. The McCready Foundation."

"Oh, God!"

Axford smiled. "Now don't get your knickers in a twist."

Alan couldn't help the sour look on his face. "But McCready… Christ! Wasn't it his kind that drove most of the good doctors out of England?"

Axford shrugged. "The famous 'Brain Drain'? I don't know and I don't bloody much care. National Health was already on the scene when I entered medical school. I just go where the research dollars are."

Alan felt an almost instinctive hostility rise in him. "So you come from a tradition of doctors as government employees. Must make it easy for you to work for McCready. Ever meet him?"

"Of course."

"What do you think of him?"

"His Circle of Willis is clogged with fecaliths."

Alan burst out laughing. Axford was anything but charming, but his candor was endearing. So was his wit. Alan had never heard anyone called a shithead in such an oblique manner.

"Do I detect a note of hostility toward academic medicine?" Axford said.

"No more than the average clinician."

"And I suppose you think you can get along just ducky without the research physician and the academician?"

"They have their places, but when a guy who hasn't laid a finger on a living patient since 1960 condescends to tell me how to practice clinical medicine—"

"You mean you actually touch people?" Axford said with an exaggerated grimace of distaste.

Lou Albert was passing by then and Axford caught him by the elbow.

"I say, why don't we three doctor-types stand around and talk shop, what? I understand you two were partners once upon a time. Is that so?"

Lou looked decidedly unhappy, but he stopped and nodded. He was shorter than either Alan or Axford, and at least a decade older, but he stood tall as always with his military-straight spine and gray, crew-cut hair. "You know damn well that's so. You asked me about it an hour ago."

"That's right, that's right. I did, didn't I?" Alan saw a gleam begin to glow in Axford's eyes. His smile became vulpine. "Years ago, wasn't it? And didn't you tell me that Alan here stole a lot of patients from you?"

Lou's face reddened. "I said no such thing!"

"Oh, do come along, old fellow. I asked you how many patients he stole from you and you said… ?" Axford's voice curved up at the end like the barb on a hook.

"I said 'a few,' that's all."

Alan couldn't fathom what Axford was after, but he knew he was up to no good. Still, he found himself unable to keep silent.

" 'Stole,' Lou?" Alan heard himself saying. "Since when do patients belong to anybody? I haven't seen any yet that came with your Social Security number stenciled on them."

"They wouldn't be going to you now if you hadn't had your secretary call them all up and tell them where your new office was!"

I don't believe I'm getting sucked into this! Alan thought as he glared at the contentedly smiling Axford.

"Look, Lou," he said. "Why don't we drop it for now. I'll just say that the only reason I had my secretary call all those patients was because the few who found me on their own said your office told them I'd left town."

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" Axford said in a mock-conciliatory tone. "It wounds me to see two primary-care physicians, two foot soldiers on the bloody frontlines of medicine, bickering so! I—"

"I've had just about enough of this!" Lou said. "My niece's taste in friends is equal to her taste in doctors!" He stormed off.

"Really, old boy," Axford said, turning to Alan. "What did break you two up?"

Alan was about to suggest a dark place where Axford could store his curiosity when Ginny and Sylvia walked up. Alan thought the presence of the women might blunt Axford's goading, but it only seemed to spur him on.

"I mean, was one of you using too much B-12? Not shooting enough penicillin? Tell me: Doesn't general practice get bloody boring, what with all those endless sore throats?"

"At times," Alan said, keeping cool and pretending to take Axford very seriously. "Beats abusing white rats for a living, though."

Axford's eyebrows rose halfway to his hairline. "Does it now? And how many colds have you treated this week? How many stomach viruses? How many hangnails? How many boils and carbuncles?"

"Careful, Charlie," Sylvia said somewhere to the right of Alan's shoulder. Alan couldn't see her. His face was no more than a foot from Axford's and their eyes were locked. "You're getting yourself too exercised."

"None," was all Alan said.

Axford's face parodied shock. "None? Pray tell, then, old sock, what do you treat?"

"People."

Alan heard Ginny clap and laugh and Sylvia say, "Touche, Chuck-o! A ten-pointer!"

Axford's third-degree interrogator's expression wavered, then broke into a rueful smile. "How did I let myself get maneuvered into that old saw?" He looked at Sylvia. "But ten points is a bit much, though, wouldn't you say? After all, I gave him all those openings, unintentional though they might have been."

Sylvia wouldn't budge. "Ten."

What's going on here? Alan felt like a species of game fish that had spit a hook. He was about to say something when angry shouting arose in the living room. They hurried in as a group to find the cause.

Had to happen, Alan said to himself from his vantage point behind a couch as he saw florid, overweight Andrew Cunningham of the MTA squared off against dapper Congressman Switzer in the center of the room. Cunningham had evidently had too much to drink, as evidenced by his unsteady stance. Alan and the rest of the New York Metropolitan area had been watching the two swap accusations and insults via the TV and the newspapers for the past three or four months. The situation had escalated from the political to the personal, with Switzer painting Cunningham as the ringleader of the most graft-ridden, featherbedded transportation system in the country, and Cunningham calling the congressman a headline-grabbing traitor to the district that elected him. As far as Alan could tell, neither was completely wrong.

As Alan and most of the other guests watched, Cunningham roared something unintelligible and threw his drink in Switzer's face. The congressman went livid, grabbed the MTA chief by the lapels, and swung him around. They pushed and shoved this way and that across the room like a couple of barroom brawlers while the rest of the guests either called for them to stop or shouted encouragement to one or the other.

Alan saw Ba standing off to the side in a corner of the room. But he was not watching the fight; instead, his eyes were fixed somewhere to Alan's left. Alan looked and there stood Sylvia. He had expected to see a look of dismay on her face, but he was wrong. She stood on tiptoes, her eyes bright, a tight smile on her face as she pulled short, quick breaths between her slightly parted lips.

She's enjoying this!

What was it with her? And what with him? He should have been repulsed by the pleasure she took from these two grown men, two public figures, making fools of themselves. Instead, it drew him more strongly to her. He thought he knew himself, but where this woman was concerned… everything was new and strange.

Alan turned back to the struggle in time to see Cunningham lose his grip and stumble backward toward the fireplace. His heel caught the lip of the outer hearth and he lost his balance. As his arms flailed helplessly in the air, the back of his head struck the corner of the marble mantelpiece. He went down in a heap.

Alan leaped over the couch, but was not the first to reach the fallen man. Ba was already there, crouched over the bulky, unconscious form.

"He's bleeding!" Alan said as he saw the characteristic red spray of an arterial pumper along the white marble of the mantelpiece. Probably a scalp artery. A small puddle had pooled around the back of Cunningham's head and was spreading rapidly.

The room, filled a moment ago with shouting and catcalls, had gone deathly still.

Without being told, Ba lifted the head and rolled the man onto his side so Alan could inspect the wound. Alan immediately spotted the jagged two-inch gash in the lower right occipital area. Wishing he carried a handkerchief, he pressed his bare hand over the wound, applying pressure. Warm blood filled his palm as he tried to press the slick, ragged edges closed with his fingers.

It happened then: The tingling ecstasy and euphoria started where his hand covered the wound, darting up his arm, then spreading throughout his body. He shuddered. Cunningham shuddered with him as his eyes fluttered open.

Alan took his hand away and looked. Terror, wonder, and disbelief mingled furiously within him when he saw the scalp. The wound had closed; only a shallow, irregular scratch remained.

Ba leaned over and looked at the wound. Abruptly, he released Cunningham and rose to his feet. For a moment, as Ba towered over him, the giant seemed to sway, as if he were dizzy. Alan saw shock and amazement in his wide dark eyes… and something else: Alan couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw recognition there. Then Ba turned to the people crowding forward.

"Please, back! Please, back!"

Sylvia came forward and crouched beside him. The tight smile was gone, replaced by a mask of genuine concern. Axford was behind her but remained standing, aloof but watchful.

"Is he all right?" she asked Alan.

Alan couldn't answer. He knew he must look silly, kneeling here with his mouth hanging open and a puddle of another man's blood clotting in his palm, but he couldn't speak just yet. All he could do was stare at the back of Cunningham's head.

"Of course I'm all right!" Cunningham said and sat up. He didn't appear the slightest bit groggy. All signs of inebriation were gone.

"But the blood!" She looked at Alan's hand.

"Scalp wounds bleed like crazy—even little ones," Alan managed to say, then he looked pointedly at Axford. "Right?"

He watched Axford's eyes travel over the spray of blood along the mantelpiece and wall, to the puddle on the floor. He hesitated, then shrugged. "Right. Bloody right."

The party was in its final spasms and Ba was glad. He did not like so many strangers in the house. For the Missus it had no doubt been just another party, but for Ba it had been a revelation.

Dat-tay-vao.

As he stood at the front door and watched the Doctor's car cruise toward the street, the phrase reverberated through his mind, echoing endlessly.

Dat-tay-vao.

Dr. Bulmer possessed it.

But how? It wasn't possible!

Yet he could not deny what he had seen tonight: the gout of blood, the open wound—stopped and closed at the Doctor's touch. He had felt his knees go weak and rubbery at the sight.

How long had the Dat-tay-vao been with him?

Surely not long, for Ba had seen the surprise on the Doctor's face when the wound had healed under his hand. If only…

Ba's mind leaped back over the years to the time when his dear Nhung Thi was wasting away from the cancer that had started in her lungs and spread throughout her body. He remembered how Dr. Bulmer had returned again and again to her side during the endless torment, the year-long days, the epochal months as she was devoured from within. There had been many doctors treating Nhung Thi in those days, but for Ba and his wife, Dr. Bulmer had come to be The Doctor.

If only he had possessed the Dat-tay-vao then!

But of course he hadn't. He had been an ordinary physician then. But now…

Ba felt a pang in his heart for the Doctor, because all the tales about the Dat-tay-vao hinted that there was a balance to be struck. Always a balance…

And a price to be paid.

I can do it! Alan thought as he drove home.

There was no longer any doubt that he had come to possess some sort of healing power. Tonight's episode proved it. Cunningham's scalp had been hanging open, bleeding like crazy, and he'd put his hand over it and changed it to a scratch.

Eleven p.m. He had made a mental note of the time it happened.

Sonja Andersen and Henrietta Westin weren't freak coincidences! He could do it! But how to control it? How to use it when he wanted to?

Ginny's voice broke through.

"Josie and Terri won't believe tonight when I tell them about it!"

"Won't believe what?" Alan said, suddenly alert to what she was saying. Had she seen? If she had, they could talk about it without him sounding crazy. He desperately needed to share this with someone who believed.

"The party! All those celebrities! And the fight between Cunningham and Switzer! Everything!"

"Oh, that." He was disappointed. Obviously she hadn't seen anything.

He thought Ba might have seen what had happened, but perhaps he hadn't quite believed his eyes. That would be the normal reaction—disbelief. Which was why Alan had to keep this to himself. If he couldn't quite believe what was happening, how could he expect anyone else to accept it?

"You know," Ginny was saying, "I can't figure that Sylvia. She seems hard as nails, yet she took in that little retarded boy and cares for him by herself. I just don't—"

"Jeffy's not retarded. He's autistic."

"Just about the same thing, right?"

"Not really. Most autistic kids test out retarded, but there's a lot of debate as to whether they all are. I don't think Jeffy is." He gave her a quick summary of the latest theories, then said, "Sylvia once snowed me a photo of a house he had built out of blocks. So I know there's intelligence in that boy: It's just locked away."

Ginny was staring at him. "That's the most you've said in days!"

"Is it? I hadn't realized. Sorry."

"That's okay. You've been only a little bit more preoccupied than usual. I'm used to it by now."

"Again, sorry."

"But back to our hostess: How did she come to adopt that little boy? I asked her but she never got around to answering me. As a matter of fact, I got the distinct impression she avoided answering me."

Alan shrugged. "I don't know, either. I figure it's something she doesn't feel is anybody else's business."

"But isn't there something that can be done for him?"

"Every known therapy has been tried."

"With all her money, I'm surprised she doesn't take him to see some bigwig pediatrician in the City—" She stopped abruptly.

Alan finished for her. "Instead of making do with a local family doc?" he said with a sour smile.

Ginny looked uncomfortable. "I didn't mean that at all."

"It's okay." Alan was not angry, nor was he hurt. He had developed a thick skin on this topic. He knew Ginny wished that he had specialized in some field, any field, of medicine. She said she wanted it for him so he wouldn't have to work such long hours, but he knew the real reason. All her friends were the wives of specialists, and she had come to think of a family doctor as the bottom of the medical pecking order.

"I didn't," she said quickly. "I simply— Alan! That's our street!"

Alan braked and pulled in toward the curb.

"Are you all right?" Ginny asked, genuine concern on her face. "Were you drinking much?"

"I'm fine," Alan said in a meticulously steady voice. "Just fine."

Ginny said nothing as he backed the car along the deserted road and turned into their street. Alan didn't understand how he could have missed the street. He had been paying attention to the road. He had even seen the street sign. He simply hadn't recognized it. And he hadn't the vaguest notion why.