The Touch

Alan

The patient was lying.

A new patient. His file said he was Joe Metzger, age thirty-two, and he was complaining of chronic low back pain. He said he wanted a cure for his backache.

The cure bit threw him. Alan had thought he'd had him pretty well pegged as a drug abuser looking for some Dilaudid or Percodan. He ran into his share of them—always a chronic painful condition, always "allergic" to the non-narcotic analgesics, always with a story about how "Nothing works except one kind of pill—I'm not sure what it's called, but it's yellow and has something like 'Endo' on it."

Yeah. Right.

Perhaps Alan would have been less suspicious if he hadn't happened to glance out the window just as Joe Metzger of the terrible back pain limberly hopped out of his little Fiat two-seater in the parking lot.

"Just what do you mean by 'cure'?" He had recounted an extensive work-up—myelograms, CT scans, and all—and consultations with bigshot orthopedists. "What do you expect from me that you haven't been offered elsewhere?"

Joe Metzger smiled. It was a mechanical expression, like something Alan would expect to see on Jerry Mahoney or Charlie McCarthy. His thin body was bared to the waist, with the belt to his jeans loosened. His bushy hair stuck out on all sides and a thick mustache drooped around each side of his mouth; wire-rimmed granny glasses completed the picture, making him look like a refugee from the sixties.

"A healing. Like you did for Lucy Burns' sciatica a couple of weeks ago."

Oh, shit! Alan thought. Now it starts. He couldn't quite place the name Lucy Burns, but he'd known something like this would happen sooner or later. He couldn't expect to go on working his little miracles without talk getting around.

He hadn't exactly caused the blind to see as yet—although old Miss Binghamton's cataracts had cleared after he'd examined her—but he had caused the deaf to hear and performed many other… he could think of no better word than miracles.

He was still unable to control the power and doubted he ever would. But he had learned a lot about it in the preceding weeks. He had the power twice a day for approximately one hour. Those hours were approximately twelve hours apart, but not exactly. Therefore he possessed the power at a different time each day, anywhere from forty to seventy minutes later than he had the day before. Day by day, the "Hour of Power," as he now called it, slowly edged its way around the clock. It occurred in conjunction with no biorhythm known to medical science. He had given up trying to explain it—he simply used it.

He had been judicious with the power, not only for reasons of discretion, but for safety as well. For instance, he could not try a cure on an insulin-dependent diabetic without informing the patient of the cure; otherwise the patient would take the usual insulin dose the next morning and wind up in hypoglycemic shock by noon. He had never promised results when he used the power, never even hinted that he possessed it. He did everything he could to make the cure appear purely coincidental, purely happenstance, brushing off any cause-effect relationship to him.

He didn't know what would happen if word got around about his little miracles, and he didn't want to find out.

But if this Joe Metzger sitting here before him had heard something, so had others. Which meant it was time to lie low, hold back from using the power until the rumors died out. It would be such a shame, though, to waste all the healing he could do in those hours. The power had come suddenly and without warning—it might leave the same way.

But for now, he'd do what he'd planned to do: stonewall it.

Today the Hour of Power was scheduled to begin around 5:00 p.m., which was three hours away.

Not that it mattered to Joe Metzger, if indeed that was his real name.

"Mr. Metzger, I'll do what I can for you, but I can't make any promises—certainly not of a 'cure' of any sort. Now let's check you out and see what's what."

Alan went through the routine of checking the range of motion in the spine, but then stopped. He was annoyed that this phony, for whatever reason, was taking up his time. He was also tired. And, to be frank with himself, he couldn't think of the next step in the routine low-back examination.

This was happening a lot lately. He wasn't sleeping well, and therefore he wasn't thinking well. This power, or whatever it was, had turned all his beliefs on their heads. It was blatantly impossible. It went against everything he had learned in life, in med school, and in a decade of practice. Yet it worked. There was no getting around the reality of that, so he had surrendered to it and accepted it.

"What would a cure cost me?" Metzger asked.

"If I could perform a 'cure,' it would be the same as an office visit: twenty-five dollars. But I can't: Your back's in better shape than mine."

Joe Metzger's eyes widened behind his granny glasses. "How can you say that? I have a—"

"What do you really want?" Alan said, deciding on a hardline approach. "I've got better things to do than waste my time with clowns looking for drugs for nonexistent problems." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the door. "Take off."

As Alan reached for the doorknob, Joe Metzger reached into his pocket. "Dr. Bulmer—wait!" He pulled a card from his wallet and extended it toward Alan. "I'm a reporter."

Oh, God.

"I'm from The Light."

Alan looked at the card. A photo of Metzger's face looked back at him. His name really was Joe Metzger and he did indeed work for the infamous scandal sheet. "The Light? You mean you actually admit that?"

"It's not such a bad paper." He had retrieved his shirt from behind him and was putting it on.

"I've heard otherwise."

"Only from people with something to hide—dishonest politicians and celebrities who like the spotlight but don't like anyone to know what they did to get there. Have you ever read an issue, Doctor, or does your low opinion come secondhand?"

Alan shook his head. "Patients bring in copies all the time. They show me articles about DMSO, Laetril, curing psoriasis with B-12, preventing cancer with lettuce, or losing ten pounds a week eating chocolate cake."

"Looks like the tables are turned, Dr. Bulmer," Metzger said with his marionnette smile. "Lately your patients have been coming to us with stories about you!"

Alan had a sinking feeling inside. He had never imagined things getting this far out of hand so soon.

"And what stories!" Metzger continued. "Miracle cures! Instant healings! If you'll pardon the cliche: What's up, Doc?"

Alan kept his expression bland. "What's up? I haven't the faintest. Probably a few coincidences. Maybe some placebo effect."

"Then you deny that you've had anything to do with any of these cures your patients are talking about?"

"I think you've wasted enough of my time already today." Alan held the door open for the reporter. "If you can't remember the way out, I'll gladly show you."

Metzger's expression became grim as he hopped off the table and walked past Alan.

"You know, I came here figuring I'd find either a quack who'd jump at the chance for some publicity or a small-time charlatan ripping off gullible sick old ladies."

Alan put a hand on Metzger's back and gently propelled him toward the rear of the building.

"Instead, I find someone who denies any power and who was only going to charge me twenty-five bucks if he could cure me."

"Right," Alan said. "You found nothing."

Metzger turned at the back door and faced him. "Not quite. I found something I want to look into. If I can produce evidence of genuine cures, I may have found the real thing."

The sinking sensation deepened in Alan. "Aren't you worried about ruining that real thing if it exists?"

"If someone can do what I've heard, everyone should know about it. It should be spread around like a natural resource." He flashed that mechanical smile again. "Besides—it could be the story of the century."

Alan closed the door behind the reporter and sagged against it. This was bad.

He heard his phone ringing in his office and went to pick it up.

"Mr. DeMarco on ninety-two," Connie said.

He punched the button.

"Alan!" Tony said. "Still interested in Walter Erskine?"

"Who?"

"The bum in the ER you wanted me to check out."

"Oh, yeah. Right." Now he remembered. "Sure."

"Well, I know all about him. Want to hear?"

Alan glanced at his schedule. He wanted to run next door right now, but he had three more patients to see.

"Be over at five-thirty," he said.

At last!