F Paul Wilson - Novel 02 (11 page)

           
Oliver nodded glumly. "She was
just eighteen when she died five years ago." From her days as a teenaged
file clerk in
Duncan
's office, Gin vaguely remembered an occasional mention of his two
children, a boy and a girl, both younger than she.

 
          
"Five
years ago . . . I was away in medical school then. I never heard about it. What
happened?"

   
        
"A fall. She never regained
consciousness. It was terrible.
Duncan
was devastated. It was the straw that
almost broke his back."

 
          
"Why?
Was there something else?"

           
"I've said enough. If
Duncan
wants you to know, I'm sure he'll tell you.
He's put it all behind him." His gaze wandered away. "He's put a lot
of things behind him." He took a deep breath.

           
"But as for the here and now,
why don't you solidify your technique by filling a few more membranes? Then
call it ‘Will do’," she said, and patted his shoulder. "One thing's
for sure, Oliver, it looks to me like these implants are going to make you a
very rich man."

 
          
"Oh,
I hope so."

 
          
"What
are you going to do then?"

           
"Get as far away from here as
I can."

         
  
"Really? Where?
Hawaii
?"

           
He sighed. "Anyplace where I
don't have to watch
Duncan
wasting his talents like he is . . . prettifying twits and playing . .
. golf!" And then he hurried out with his white lab coat flapping around
him.

 
          
Gin
stared after him in shock.

DUNCAN

 
          
DUNCAN
GRIPPED THE LITTLE GIRL'S CHIN BETWEEN HIS thumb and forefinger.

 
          
He
tilted her head up, then down, then rotated it left and right.

 
          
Her
name was Kanesha and she was six. She wouldn't meet his gaze directly, and her
hand kept rising and fluttering about the left corner of her mouth, hovering
there like a hummingbird that had found a nectar-loaded blossom. Only there was
nothing sweet or flowerlike about the thick wad of scar tissue massed at that
corner of her mouth.

 
          
Her
skin was a glossy milk chocolate, her eyes huge and a deeper brown, the color
of espresso. She had big white teeth and a smile that would have been knockout
beautiful if not for that scar, fusing the lips at the corner, cutting every
smile in half.

 
          
Her
skin was scrubbed, her hair was braided, her shirt and shorts had been ironed.
Kanesha and her mother had dressed up for her visit to the doctor.

 
          
Duncan
liked that, not simply because it showed
respect for him, but for themselves as well. Some of the people he saw in the
clinic had estranged relations with all species of the soap genus and didn't
give a damn. What the hell, it was a free clinic, right' Right. The
maxillofacial clinic occupied a fifth-floor corner of one of D. C.

 
          
General
Hospital
's older buildings. The seats and fixtures
in the waiting room were worn but clean, the examining room smelled faintly of
the bleach that had been used to wipe the counters, its sickly yellow paint was
chipped, its examination table needed reupholstering, but the staff was
efficient and, more important, they cared.

 
          
Duncan
turned to Kanesha's mother. "When did
this happen, Mrs. Green?" No father was listed on the intake form, but
Duncan
had never been able to adjust to the
noncommittal "Ms". Cindy Green was young, barely into her twenties,
probably little more than a baby herself when she'd had Kanesha. The intake
form said she worked as a waitress. She was very pretty in a round-faced,
full-lipped way.
Duncan
studied those lips.

 
          
Kanesha's
mouth would look exactly like her mother's if not for the cicatricial
deformity.

 
          
"About
four and a half years ago. When she was seventeen months old. Happened before I
knew it." How many times had he heard that one?

 
          
But
he kept his voice neutral, "They're a handful at that age, aren't
they."

           
"One minute she was sitting on
the floor playing with the pots and pans. I turn to clean the sink and I hear
her scream. I turn around and she . . . " Her throat worked and her voice
grew thick. "She was knocked out and her mouth was smoking. I knew she was
teething but I never dreamed she'd bite an electrical cord."

 
          
"Happens
more often than you'd think." Which was true. Obviously it happened more
often in neglected kids, but he didn't think Kanesha was neglected. Just one of
those tragic accidents.

 
          
Near
tragic, actually.

 
          
Duncan
could fix it.

 
          
He
was mapping out the incisions now . . . debride the scar tissue, restore the
mouth to full width, evert some mucosa for the lips . . .

 
          
This
wasn't the first time he'd reconstructed an electrical burn on a child's face,
and it wouldn't be the last. Kanesha was a lucky one. She'd survived without
brain damage, and she had a mother who cared.

 
          
And
now she had him.

 
          
A
shame he couldn't use the beta-3 on her, but a clinic was no place for an
experimental protocol. The hospital didn't want the hassles, and he couldn't
blame them. As soon as free-clinic patients heard the word
"experimental" they started thinking Frankenstein and feared someone
was going to use them as guinea pigs.

 
          
"Can
you fix her, Dr. Duncan? When I saw what you did for little Kennique,"

           
"Who?"

           
"Kennique LeFave . . . you
know . . . her cheek was all,"

           
"Oh, yes. Of course." The
names people came up with these days. But he certainly remembered the
three-year-old who'd fallen from a window last year and ripped the right side
of her face to the bone.

 
          
That
had been a real challenge.

 
          
"All
her mommy does is sing the praises of Dr. Duncan, Dr. Duncan. So I knew I just
had to bring Kanesha to you. Do you think you can . . . ? "

           
Duncan
nodded. "It will take a couple of
procedures, but yes, I think we can fix her up good as new."

           
The mother's eyes were intent on
Duncan
's. "Can you? Can you really?"

           
"Is that a note of doubt I
detect?"

           
"No, it's just,"

           
"Smile for me, '
Duncan
said.

 
          
"What?"

           
"Go ahead. Smile."

           
The mother smiled, a lovely smile,
even when forced.

 
          
Duncan
reached out and grasped her chin just as he
had Kanesha's.

 
          
"I'd
like to make your daughter's smile look just like yours."

 
          
"You
can do that?" the mother whispered.

 
          
Yes.
He could. This was the age of miracles, and he was a miracle worker.

 
          
But
still . . . never promise too much. Better to give them more than they're
expecting.

 
          
"A
certain amount depends on Kanesha. Not everyone heals the same. So . . . a
smile like yours . . . that'll be okay?"

           
The mother smiled softly,
hesitantly, but genuinely this time "Yes. That will be okay."

 
          
"Good!"
He pressed a buzzer on the wall. A heavyset black nurse entered. "Marge,
see if we can set up Kanesha for a facial reconstruction, left upper and lower
labial, for late Wednesday, morning."

          
 
"Next week?" the mother said.

 
          
"Too
soon?"

           
"Well, no, I just . . . "

 
          
"She's
had that scar long enough, don't you think?"

           
The mother looked at him, staring
into his eyes, looking for assurance there.

 
          
"Yes,"
she said finally. "Too long."

           
As Marge led them out, Cassie
Trainor stepped into the room and slipped behind him. She was tall, blond, and
well proportioned, her uniforms were tailored to maximize the effect of her
ample bust. Midforties, trim, and sexy. She gripped his shoulders and began to
knead the muscles at the back of his neck with her thumbs.

 
          
"How's
Dr. Duncan today?" Duncan had everyone at the clinic refer to him as
"Dr. Duncan." It was a legitimate moniker and it obscured the Lathram
name.

 
          
He
didn't want it getting around that Duncan Lathram was doing charity work. He'd
made such a point of refusing to deal with insurance companies, private,
government, or whatever, and about performing no surgery that was necessary,
that he didn't want to have to explain why he was fixing up ghetto kids for
free.

 
          
He
had stopped explaining.

 
          
"I'm
fine, and that feels good."

 
          
"So,
what're you doing after we finish here? Ready to buy that drink you've been
promising?" Duncan tried to keep his shoulders from tightening. He'd been
ducking Cassie for months now. Not long after his divorce they'd had a little
fling.

 
          
Very
hot. Too hot not to cool down, as the song went. She was an excellent nurse and
uninhibited under the covers. He remembered one night when . . . no, now was
not the time to relive that, not with her fingers kneading his shoulders.
Eventually, they'd gone their own ways, but every now and again Cassie seemed
to like to fan the embers of old blazes.
Duncan
knew there were plenty of old blazes in Cassie's
past.

 
          
Too
many for comfort nowadays when casual sex had stopped being a recreational
sport and metamorphosed into serious business, grim business, requiring
research and background checks, especially with someone with such a busy and
enthusiastically varied history as Cassie Trainor.

 
          
He
hated that something so basic and so wonderful as sex had become a source of
paranoia and anxiety, a new religious sect with purification rites and latex
Eucharists.

 
          
What
a world. What a goddamn screwed-up world.

 
          
Casual
sex was all he had the heart for these days, and casual sex was like Russian
roulette. No time or heart to invest in a lasting relationship, and no desire
to pursue one, not after what had happened to his marriage.

 
          
What
had happened to him since the divorce? Where had his passion for life gone?
He'd withdrawn from all his old friends. Not consciously.

 
          
He
hadn't even realized what was happening until it was done. He spent a lot of
time alone now, but that didn't seem to bother him. He didn't know this
preoccupied, isolated man he had become.

 
          
Maybe
Lisa hadn't been an aberration. Maybe it ran in the family.

 
          
Whatever
the reason, he realized he'd become a man who feared intimacy more than
solitude.

 
          
But
at least today he could tell Cassie the truth.

 
          
"I'd
love to, Cassie, but I'm meeting my son for dinner."

           
"Too bad. How old is he
now?"

           
"Twenty-one last month."
Lisa would have been 23 last spring, already graduated a year. "Starting
his senior year in college. We're trying that new Italian restaurant in
Georgetown
."

           
"Giardia?"

           
Duncan
laughed. "Not funny. Giardinello. I'd
ask you along but we're going to talk about the flare."

 
          
"I
getcha. Okay. Maybe next time"

 
          
"Definitely."
She glided away and he watched the white fabric of her uniform slide back and
forth over her buttocks, an urge rose within and he almost changed his mind,
almost called her back. Instead he looked at his watch. He'd have to pick Brad
up soon at the house.

 
          
The
house . . .

 
          
Used
to be his house too. Now it was just Diana's. He wondered how she could live
there, walk through that foyer where . . .