The Three Dollar Phoenix by Walt Sautter (rooftoppers .txt) 📖

questions unanswered than before it had begun.

Chapter XIII

Larry was eager to meet Rita for dinner that evening. He waited impatiently at his table for her arrival. After about ten minutes, she appeared at the entrance of the dining room. Ralph quickly escorted her to Larry’s table.
He greeted her and they sat down.
“Rita, something’s going on again, like before” he began in an almost inaudible voice.
”I really shouldn’t tell you about it here, but I’ve got to.”
He spoke in a monotone, with his face buried in the menu, without even glancing up at her.
“What do you mean?” she whispered curiously.
“Today, House came to the pharmacy again. He used the pill maker again and did some compounding. I tried to see exactly what he was doing but I didn’t want to look obvious. He asked me to enlarge some of the same pills he’d been feeding to Druse, the Quaaludes. The whole thing is exactly like what happened before” he continued in the same muted tone.
“You couldn’t tell what compounds he was using? Not even an idea?” asked Rita.
“Well I tried to watch as inconspicuously as I could and all I could see is that it was somewhere over by the Cs and Ds.”
“What do you mean?”
“The compounds are shelved alphabetically and it looked like he took one of the bottles from the C or D section. The other bottle was just an inert carrier” answered Larry.
“The next question is who’s the patient?” said Rita.
”I can tell by the patient code that he’s in building A5, room 311, but that’s about it” replied Larry.
“That’s right next to Al Druse’ s room.”
“I accessed the records with the patient number House gave me as soon as he left but it was a closed file, like all of House’s personal patients. Only selected data input is allowed, no output data” replied Larry, anticipating her next question.
“There’s really very little that we can do. We don’t even know if this is related to the Druse case. It’s all only circumstantial at best. The only thing we can do is wait and see what happens. Sort of keep our ears to the ground”
The conversation moved towards the more mundane as dinner was served. They both knew that this wasn’t the time or place for trying to analyze the situation further. Larry had recognized the inappropriate timing even before he had begun to speak but he couldn’t contain himself. He had to tell her and he did. Now that it was done, he felt relieved enough to enjoy the dinner.
The meal finished, they arose and started towards the dining room door. From a table off in the corner, a large heavy set man stood up simultaneously and walked directly to intercept their path.
“Doctor Bickford” he announced in a gruff voice,
”Doctor has asked me to accompany you to his office. He’d like to speak with you.”
Rita was stunned not only by the unexpected nature of the request but also by his threatening aura. Although well dressed and superficially courteous, he radiated an air of intimidation that demanded obedience. After a brief moment of hesitation she replied.
“Now? Certainly!” she stammered mechanically with a glazed stare.
He stepped aside and gestured her through the door into the hallway, then purposefully moved to block Larry’s attempt to follow her.
“I’m sorry but Dr. House wants to speak to her privately. No offense” he added in an imperative tone.
Larry reluctantly complied and remained motionless as Rita and her escort walked down the hallway towards the building’s exit.
They walked quietly. Rita said nothing and neither did her companion. The clatter of their footsteps echoed back and forth through the silence of the corridor as they approached the elevator in D building. The man stepped into the elevator car as the door opened and pressed a button. Then, extending his burly hand, he blocked the door from closing. Rita entered and the man spoke tersely.
“Top floor. It’s the only stop” and then he stepped out of the car as the door began to close.
Rita knew the location of House’s penthouse. She had never been there but it had been pointed out to her several times. Although she knew it was only four floors up the ride seemed eternal. Her mind raced helter-skelter to find a reason for this meeting, other than the one she knew and feared the most.
If her suspicions were correct, there was only one person who could have betrayed her and that thought distressed her even more than her impending visit with House. She tried to remember the look on Larry’s face when they were first confronted. Although it was but a few moments ago the surprise of the encounter had washed her memory clean. She quickly decided that its recall wouldn’t serve any purpose anyway. She didn’t want to believe that Larry did this to her and any images she had would probably be distorted by that belief. She wasn’t sure if she should be mad or sad at the prospect of Larry’s betrayal.
She could feel a cold wetness under her arms as the elevator began to slow. She knew her face was beginning to pallor and she slapped herself several times hoping to renew its color. As the car door started to open she took a deep breath to calm herself as best she could .
A tall thin man sporting a goatee appeared in the opening as the door withdrew into its sheathe. Rita immediately recognized him.
“Doctor Bickford. How are you?” he said in a mildly impudent tone.
“How do you like it here at Caramore?” he added before she had a chance to reply.
“What do you think of our facilities?” he interjected again without waiting for her reply to the initial questions.
It was apparent from his manner that he wanted to give the meeting the expected social amenities but was eager to dispense with them as quickly as possible.
Rita hesitated and when his stream of interrogatives slowed, she answered all his questions at once in a mannerly but brief response.
House led her to a large, luxuriously furnished room at the end of a short hallway. He offered her a drink which she declined. He began to speak as he prepared his own.
“Why are you working here at Caramore, Doctor Bickford?”
He paused and then quickly added, “May I call you by your first name? Rita isn’t it? No, I’m sorry, Margaret. Right!”
“Somehow you look like a Rita. Do you know how some people just look like they should have a certain name? You look like a Rita. I bet a lot of people have made that same mistake” he said with his heavy dark eyebrows raised.
Rita didn’t respond. He had made his point clearly.
He continued as if he really didn’t expect a reply.
“Let me tell you a little bit about Caramore.
You know, I don’t like to brag but I think I’m entitled to, a little.
Our facilities here are outstanding. I took this place from being a two bit health spa to what it is today. When I first cane here it was a place people came to for fake rehab because the boss or their wife or somebody else was on them. They came here to make it look good. They just came here and pretended to take the cure and get everybody off their backs for awhile. Nobody ever got real help. Now, we’ve got one of the highest cure rates in the country.
I’ve done my best to insure the finest in up to the minute equipment and an excellent staff. The results have been the best possible in patient care. It wasn’t easy. I put my blood, sweat and every cent I have into this place and turned a thistle into a rose blossom.”
Then he turned towards her and looked directly into her eyes.
“What do you think? Don’t you think I’ve got a right to be proud?”
“Yes” she replied weakly.
“You don’t sound very convinced” he said sternly.
“I am” she responded in a more emphatic tone.
Apparently convinced of her sincerity, he continued, “It’s unfortunate that all medical facilities can’t have the proper kind of situation. Some don’t even have the barest of essentials and they’re generally the ones who could use it the most. A lot of those inner city clinics for example, are on the fringes of nineteenth century medicine.”
I’d say doctors in those are wasting their time. It’s a shame.
How can you expect to accomplish anything in such primitive conditions” he said in a condescending tone.
Then he paused, awaiting her reply.
He had whimsically dismissed all her years of commitment to the clinic as a ‘waste of time’, and it stabbed at her guts. She wanted respect for her efforts, not pity. Her anger was so great that it prevented her from finding the words of rebuttal and she continued to remain silent.
Receiving no reply, House continued, “I’ve often wondered about how much more effective one of those store front clinics could be with a little money. I bet they could do a real damn good job. Kind of turn things around, like I did here.”
“I’m sure they could” Rita answered sarcastically.
“Sometimes I think I’d like to sponsor one of them. Just as an experiment, you know, for my own curiosity, just give them a bunch of money and watch them go.
How much do you think it would take to set up something like that?” he continued, not even noticing her less than genuine tone.
“I really don’t know” replied Rita coolly.
“I was thinking in the area of maybe a hundred thousand. Ten thousand to start. That would probably do the trick, don’t you think?”
“You know” he continued, “I’m a firm believer that every cloud has a silver lining. You have to look for the good in things. You have to look at the over all picture and decide what’s best.
A lot of people let vague principles and old fashion ideas about right and wrong cloud over the big picture. They sacrifice the good things that come out of a situation because they set themselves up as God and sit in judgment without all the facts. They don’t know why things are done or how thing happen, they just classify things as good or bad.
Did you ever watch those nature shows on TV?”
Rita nodded her head.
“The insects have the right idea. They willingly sacrifice themselves for the good of the colony. Sometimes they even form chains with their bodies to save the queen when she’s in peril. She insures their continuing as a species and they’ll do anything they have to, to keep her from perishing even destroy themselves.
Do you know how long insects have inhabited the earth, Doctor Bickford?”
“Not exactly”
“Since before the dinosaurs and the reason is because they put survival at the top of the list, not vague moralities” he answered with authority.
“Do you think man will last that long?”
He paused and briefly sipped his drink.
Rita didn’t answer.
She could see the look of an evangelist on his face as he struggled to deliver the full impact of his every word. His tone of voice made his message a peculiar combination of confession, catharsis and conviction all intertwined into one. His eyes flashed intermittently and at times appeared glazed as if