Recessional: A Novel (39 page)

“What do you mean?” the brash young fellow asked, and his insolence caused Zorn to lose his temper. Slamming both hands on his desk, he snapped: “Damn it all, Ted, you’re chasing women patients, dragging them to motels and endangering your career. What’s equally
deplorable is that you’re endangering the reputation of this clinic. Clean up your act from this moment on, or”—his voice rose to a shout—“you’ll get kicked right the hell out of this clinic with no letters of recommendation.”

Regretting that he had allowed himself to be goaded into such an outburst, he softened his tone: “Ted, my dear friend. The other doctors and I think of you as one of our best. We want to hold on to you. We want to help you achieve a long and illustrious career, but we cannot do that if you insist on galloping blindly down the path of your self-destruction and ours.”

Reichert had bristled: “You mean, you’ve gathered as a committee behind my back to discuss me? Who do you think you are?” and he stomped out of the office.

Recalling how ineffective he had been that day, Zorn now smiled ruefully, for his reprimand had had no effect on Reichert. There were more women, more motels, more gossip inside the clinic and out, and finally an outraged husband who dragged the whole sorry affair into the courts, with gleeful attention from the Chicago press.

So there had been a second meeting, and this time Andy did not lose his composure. With Reichert sitting before him like a disobedient schoolboy, Zorn had said in icy tones: “Ted, you’ve used up your credentials in this clinic. You’re dismissed as of this morning.”

“You can’t do that. I’ll sue you in every court—”

Brutally Zorn had said: “I’d think that you, of all people, would want to keep away from courts. Our lawyer assures us we’re on safe ground.”

At every point at which Ted tried to weasel out of the inevitable, or plead with Zorn for a second chance, Andy was resolute: “Ted, it’s finished. Your incredible behavior has cost you your job, your marriage, your two kids and your ability to work anywhere in Chicago. So leave this office and this building and find refuge somewhere far from here.”

He was proud of the way he had kept his temper this time, but when he was alone, he had suddenly felt sick to his stomach and suffered a convulsive retching for several minutes, as if he were striving to throw off a poison that had infected him.

In subsequent years Zorn made himself something of an expert in the attempts of America’s professionals to instill some kind of self-discipline among their memberships. He noted with approval the
effort in New York to prevent divorce lawyers from having sexual relations with women clients in a divorce case. The same held true in the field of psychiatry.

So when Andy Zorn walked along the channel talking to himself, he was a man fully knowledgeable about medical ethics, which made him perhaps unduly cautious about doctor-patient relationships. There was little likelihood that he would allow himself to become entangled with a pretty visitor to the health services of the Palms.

Andy tried to make light of the matter. “Betsy’s just a girl with a schoolgirl crush. This will all blow over if I simply treat her like any other patient. She’ll soon have completed all the rehabilitation we can offer here and be on her way safely back to Tennessee.” He would not be happy to see her go, for she had been a bright addition to the Palms, but he would feel easier if she went.

In the steamy days of midsummer, when Florida displayed its least attractive weather, an unsavory development at the Palms exhibited one of those ugly forces to which retirement areas are sometimes subjected. The two children of the Chris Mallorys, abetted by the strong voices of four grandchildren, launched judicial proceedings against the elder Mallorys. The suit, brought in the Florida courts, was being tried in Tampa, and charged that the grandparents, through their irresponsible expenditure of family money, were endangering the future welfare of their children and grandchildren. The court was implored to appoint a legal guardian to oversee how Chris Mallory, the grandfather, spent his savings, “lest their radical depletion harm the family.”

Andy, who had every reason to believe that Chris Mallory was in full possession of his faculties, for the man had become an exemplary resident of the Palms after the unfortunate affair over his driver’s license, felt it his obligation to do what he could to support the senior Mallorys, and he volunteered to do so. But when he was about to announce this decision, administrator Krenek rushed to Zorn’s office with cautionary advice: “Andy, for heaven’s sake don’t tangle with the legal system in Florida. You’ll find yourself enmeshed in a jungle with enemies coming at you from all sides.”

When Zorn asked how that could be, Krenek explained from his background of painful experience in the Florida courts: “Florida
does everything to protect its lawyers. Easy to understand, since most judges got their jobs by being lawyers to begin with.

“Andy, you’re already asking questions about our doctors. Don’t take on the lawyers, too.”

“But if there’s injustice—”

“No. What I’m warning you about is justice, Florida style. Stand clear.”

“What do I need to be afraid of in the Mallory case? Looks open-and-shut to me. Avaricious children trying to gain control of the old man’s money. Should be prevented.”

“It’s been my experience in these cases that what seems obvious to you and me is not at all clear to our judges and juries. Any family member may bring a suit like this, and many do; or contest a perfectly sound will, and God knows many do that—and succeed.”

“I thought a will was a will, rock-solid and secure.”

“Think again! A will is what the probate court says it is, and the damnedest evidence can be brought in to upset what’s been written in the clearest possible words and clauses.” To demonstrate his point he cited a famous case that had involved a large grant to the university he had attended as an undergraduate. “Late in life this wealthy businessman had become enamored of astronomy and had willed his old school quite a substantial sum for building a first-class observatory. Such ‘misuse of family funds’ so enraged the old man’s heirs that they brought suit to have the will overthrown. Protesters crawled out of the woodwork, distant relatives the old man had never known, but they engineered a formidable challenge. The evidence that seemed to have the most effect on the jury was the substantiated claims that the old fellow had developed the habit of going out alone at midnight to study the stars. That proved he was nuts and not capable of writing a sensible will.”

“Surely such evidence wasn’t taken seriously,” Andy protested, but Krenek cited an even more serious charge against the old man: “The relatives brought in a medical doctor who testified that in his opinion the grandfather’s death had been caused by pneumonia he had contracted during one of his midnight vigils. The judge asked: ‘Was that the behavior of a man in his right mind?’ and when the doctor said ‘No,’ the jury agreed and the will was overthrown. The university never got its observatory, and the relatives split the boodle among themselves.”

“Did they get much?”

“So many of them, from so many parts, they got little. Lawyers ate it up before there could be a distribution.”

“You think the Mallory gang might be cooking up some attack like that?”

“I’ve followed three or four such cases, and no sane man could possibly guess what charges will be made against our boy, but they’ll be attacks the jury will take seriously, no matter how crazy.”

“So he could be in real trouble?”

“Yes.”

“So then, I’ve got to try and help.”

Krenek lowered his voice, looked about to be sure no one else was listening, and warned: “Andy, keep out of this. If you try to testify, the Mallory kids’ lawyers will make mincemeat of you. They’ll claim you’re only trying to protect your own financial interests. Suppose the custodian appointed by the court says that in order to live more frugally, the older Mallorys have to move out. You lose the rent on that big apartment.”

“Would they stoop so low? To dictate where the old people must live in order to save money for their offspring? What in hell is the world coming to?”

“That’s exactly what it comes down to,” Krenek said, and he summarized half a dozen court cases involving disputed wills, a subject in which he took great interest: “Most fascinating one I remember was the attempt of the family of the great opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini who claimed the old lady was going nuts in New York and wasting the money that ought to be conserved for their use later on. They marshaled a lot of wild testimony proving the singer was so certifiably loony that she must be placed under the care of a guardian—and, of course, they offered to serve in that capacity.”

“How did the case go?”

“Strongly against the old woman. She had behaved, shall we say, curiously, but when everything seemed lost she asked permission to stand in the witness box and without either a page of the libretto or any musical accompaniment, she sang solo the entire mad scene from the opera
Lucia di Lammermoor
. At the conclusion, so the story goes, the judge said from the bench: ‘Madam, you are far from incompetent,’ and the relatives lost their case.”

It was a chastened Dr. Zorn who attended the opening days of
Mallory vs. Mallory
, for it soon became clear that a voice of reason like his was not going to be welcomed in that court. He was appalled
by such evidence as was allowed, for the young Mallorys produced witnesses who testified that the old folks, “in their nineties, were known to frequent dance halls in which unsavory elements of society consorted,” and other witnesses too said that whereas they had never seen the Mallorys in any disreputable hall, “it was widely known that they were crazy about dancing and wasted large sums on tickets.”

Especially damaging was the testimony of a waitress from a local restaurant who said that “the couple often had dinner in her restaurant, and paid good money for it, even though they were entitled to a free meal at the Palms.”

“How do you know they were so entitled?” the judge asked, and the waitress said: “Because they told me so. One night they said: ‘This meal is costing us real money, because at the Palms we’ve already paid for our dinner.’ ”

“Why would they have told you that?”

“Because they wanted to talk. They told me lots of stuff. Very free with their talk, but very tight when it came to tipping.”

“You didn’t like the Mallorys?”

“I live off tips, not idle conversation.”

The lawyer hired by the children asked: “But they admitted they were wasting money by dining in your restaurant?”

“You could take it that way.”

“But you just testified that they told you that, and I quote your words, ‘This meal is costing us real money.’ Is that what they said?”

“Yes.”

There was other testimony that the older Mallorys were careless spendthrifts, A garage attendant said: “They had this good car, a Cadillac. Kept it outside their door. But to go to the restaurants they always called a taxi.”

“Could it be,” the lawyer for the old people asked, “that like many older people they did not want to risk driving at night?”

“Not at all. On lots of nights they drove to the mall for some late shopping. You know why, in my opinion, they used the taxi when they went to a restaurant? Because they had two or three drinks and didn’t want to risk a ‘driving under the influence’ arrest.”

This led to evidence from other witnesses that yes, the Mallorys did like their nip now and then, and yes, they did keep a goodly supply of bottles in their apartment, where they entertained his bridge devotees and her friends who helped in the Health building.

“So it’s true, is it not, that they were known as ‘the good-time Charleys of the Palms’?”

“Those who free-loaded on their booze sometimes said so,” replied a tart-tongued maid.

The children’s lawyer made a great to-do about the fact that the Tampa police had been forced by the old man’s erratic driving to cancel his license. He not only summoned the young traffic officer who told of the horrendous left turn that almost caused a pileup on Route 41, a major highway, but also called to the stand residents of the Palms who were forced to admit that what the lawyers had discovered by judicious questioning was true: each of his neighbors had in some way or other suggested that Chris ought to stop driving.

As he prodded, the lawyer made it sound as if the license problem sealed his case: “So you yourself, without pressure from anyone else, without even discussing it, decided on your own that old Mr. Mallory was incompetent to continue driving?” Whenever a witness had to say “Yes,” the lawyer would turn to the jury and shrug his shoulders slightly as if to say: What can I add? The old fellow is in his dotage.

Observing the way the jury seemed to accept the lawyer’s heavy emphasis on the loss of the license, Andy grew determined to intercede on Mallory’s behalf, because what was happening was a disgrace, but he did get some hint that the lawyer might be outsmarting himself when he called Muley Duggan to the witness box. He obviously did not want to testify, for his answers were grudging and tended to defend the senior Mallorys, but when the lawyer consulted a sheet of paper and asked: “Did you not at the Fourth of July gala tell a group of residents at the improvised bar that you had set up: ‘That old geezer ought to be taken off the road, for his own good and ours’?”

Muley remained silent for more than half a minute, a long time in a courtroom. Then, turning so that the lawyer and the jury could see his lips, but the judge could not, he mouthed but did not pronounce two words: “You bastard!” and he did it so slowly and with such emphasis that any knowing person in the jury could read his lips. Then slowly, turning back to the judge, he said: “Yes, Fourth of July joking.”

“I didn’t ask if it was joking,” the enraged lawyer said, aware of the trick Muley had played. “I asked ‘Did you say it?’ ” and Muley said contritely as if scared by the lawyer: “Yes.” But Andy could see
that at least two of the jurors had caught his unspoken words and had half smiled in approval.

But those two jurors were a slim reed on which to lean in this case, which involved a lot of money, for Andy had observed that other jury members seemed to be impressed by the mishmash of rumor, especially the fact that the Mallorys had dined in a public restaurant when their meals had already been paid for at the Palms. He judged that the case could go against his amiable tenants.

His worries intensified when he returned to the Palms and learned how seriously the older people were reacting to the danger their friends faced: “This week it’s his money they’re taking away, next week it could be ours,” one worried woman said. Her friend assured her: “But your children aren’t like that. They’re wonderful people, I know them,” at which Muley Duggan, who was listening, growled: “The old saying was: ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ The new truth is ‘Where there’s a will, there’s bound to be a lot of snarling relatives.’ We’re all vulnerable when sons of bitches like those Mallory kids get hungry for whatever savings we have.”

This fear was so widespread among the residents that Andy asked Krenek to join him in his office and said: “Ken, they’re crucifying our boy, and I cannot tolerate it. Call his lawyer and tell him I’m ready to testify. This has to be stopped.”

As before, the business manager cautioned against such a public appearance, especially when the young people’s lawyer would be prepared to tear him apart. Andy asked: “Are you afraid to make the call?” and Krenek deliberated for a moment before replying slowly: “To safeguard the Palms, yes, I refuse.” And he was about to leave when he stopped, waved his finger at Zorn and warned: “Andy, if you get on the witness stand, they’ll dig into why you left Chicago. They’ll accuse you of everything and point out that you’re not allowed to practice in Florida. For your own good, stay out of this.” And he left.

Alone, Andy reflected on his assistant’s advice: He could be right—I could damage myself as well as the Palms. But he dismissed the perils angrily and buzzed for his nurse to join him. “Nora, they’re persecuting the Mallorys, and I feel I have to jump in and defend them, but Ken advises against it. Says it might damage me and the Palms.”

Nora considered this advice, nodded her head and said: “Yes, Mr. Krenek’s been here so long he’s adopted this place as his own. Every
decision he makes is to protect the Palms. But you think also of the residents. I like your way better.”

“But could he be right? If I did jump in, could we both be damaged, me and the Palms?”

“I suppose you could. But is it injustice we’re talking about?”

“Yes. It’s terribly wrong.”

“Then what choice have you got? Knock ’em back now.”

“Brave advice, but if I get fired, will you come with me to whatever new job I land?”

“Looks like we’re a team, Andy. I say ‘Take a shot at the swine.’ ” But then she added: “I’d take those four gentlemen of the tertuila with you. They carry weight.”

So Andy telephoned the old couple’s lawyer and not only volunteered his services but also promised that he would bring with him when court opened the next day four very distinguished residents of the Palms who would certify that Chris Mallory was not only far removed from senility but entirely in command of his mental faculties. That commitment made, he went to the dining room, headed directly to the corner table where the tertulia was already discussing the case and, without asking permission, drew up a chair and said bluntly: “Gentlemen, I’ve taken the liberty of assuring the Mallorys’ lawyer that you four would be in court tomorrow to help me testify that Chris is competent to run his own affairs. It’s our duty to stop those avaricious kids.”