Silent Treatment Read Online Free PDF Page B

gesturing toward the rapidly filling amphitheater. “You’d think they were giving away free stethoscopes.”
    MMC was the largest of the three hospitals contracting with the Manhattan Health Cooperative. As the vice president responsible for marketing and development of the rapidly expanding HMO, Atwater had an office at each of them. He had come to the company six or seven years before from someplace in the Midwest. There were many, including Harry, who believed that without Atwater’s creative energy and business sense, the Cooperative and its hospitals might well have gone under some time ago. Instead, Manhattan Health had captured a decent share of the market and become a real force in the business. Like Harry, Atwater was a devoted jazz fan, although he didn’t play himself. The two of them managed to hit a club every three or four months. And from time to time Doug would stop by C.C.’s Cellar when Harry was sitting in with the combo that regularly played there.
    “Did Sidonis or anyone on his committee speak to you about all this?” Atwater asked.
    “Of course. Dan Twersky, the psychiatrist, got assigned to interview me. You know him? He couldn’t have been more pompous or condescending if he had tried. He wanted to know how Marv Lorello could have sewn up that guy’s thumb so badly. I told him that as far as I could tell, Marv didn’t sew up anything badly. Twersky asked why Lorello didn’t call in a hand surgeon. I told him that all anyone could do was clean up the gash and suture it closed. The most skillful hand surgeon in the world might easily have gotten the same unfortunate result Marv did. Sometimes circulation to a wound isn’t all it should be, and there is some tissue loss. He said I sounded a bit defensive of GPs. I told him that a thousand times out of a thousand I would choose to repair that cut without calling in a hand surgeon, and that nine hundred and ninety nine of those times the two halves would heal perfectly. Twersky just sat there and smiled. It was an
Anything you say, Doc, as long as you don’t count on ever fixin’
my
thumb
kind of smile.”
    Atwater reached over to give him a supportive pat on the shoulder.
    “Harry, you’re a hell of a doctor,” he said. “And nothingSidonis or his committee can do is going to change that.”
    Steve Josephson maneuvered down the row, nodded a greeting to Atwater, and settled into the seat next to Harry.
    “They just took Clayton Miller up to the unit,” he said. “The man’s doing great. A save of the highest order. After you left, once his breathing was back near normal, he started talking baseball nonstop. He was a pro—a teammate of Satchel Paige in the Negro baseball leagues. And get this: apparently his son works for the Yankees. He says that any time you or I want tickets, we’ve got ’em.”
    “My kind of patient,” Harry said.
    “What gives?” Atwater asked.
    Harry deferred to Josephson, who detailed the event with all the drama of a fighter pilot recounting a dogfight. Atwater listened, enthralled.
    “Too bad Sidonis doesn’t know what you did,” he said.
    “He does. I don’t think he’s impressed enough to call off the vigilantes, though. In fact, I don’t think he’s impressed at all.”
    “Well, just the same, you guys are really something. I listen to you and I honestly wish I could be on the front lines instead of sitting up there pushing pencils. Say, Harry, what’s the story with Evie?”
    “She’s coming in later this week. Probably the day after tomorrow.”
    Atwater pulled out a black memo book and wrote down Evie’s name and
Flowers
.
    “She’s a hell of a gal,” he said. “I know she’ll do great.”
    Evie’s headaches, which she had first attributed to allergies, then to stress from her job, and finally to stress from Harry, had proven to be caused by something far more structural and virulent. Harry spent several frustrating weeks trying to convince her to see a doctor and get a CT