Did that mean just the opposite? Tina and Arthur knowing what it felt like to have your grief poisoned by suspicion?

Poor Tina. Poor Arthur.

The old man had reached out for him, and Jeremy had played hard-to-get.

No more. He belonged.

Still paying for archive time, he looked up “Kurau Village.” That produced only a single, wire-service snippet, dated fifty-one years ago.

Cannibals Rampant!

Kurau, an obscure island in the multithousand Indonesian chain, occupied by the Japanese before the Allied liberation, and now contested territory claimed by several native tribes, fell under the sway of yellow-primitivism as marauding gangs representing various factions rampaged through opposing villages with machetes and confiscated Japanese army sabers, dismembering and disemboweling and parading through the jungle with human heads impaled on stakes. Reports of bonfires suggest that cannibalism, once a fixture in this part of the world, has made an ugly comeback. A smattering of American military and diplomatic personnel remains on the island in an attempt to administer the transition from occupation to local rule. The State Department has issued a travel advisory for all Americans to avoid the region until calm is restored.

The phone rang.

Bill Ramirez said, “Have any time to talk about Doug Vilardi?”

“Sure. How’s he doing?”

“How about we talk in person? Pretend I’m a patient or something.”

Ramirez was at his office door five minutes later, and out of breath. “Hard to find you- what, your fellow therapists exiled you?”

“Space problem. I volunteered.”

“Kind of gloomy,” said Ramirez. “Then again, you have your privacy… space problem- oh, yeah, the cutters got your suite, didn’t they?”

“Expediency trumps virtue.”

“Pardon?”

“Have a seat. How’s Doug?”

Ramirez pulled up a chair. “Not so great. If his spleen doesn’t get smaller, we’ll be taking it out. Could happen anytime, we’re watching it. The idiopathic reaction to chemo’s resolving- whatever it was.” The oncologist slid low in the seat and stretched his legs. His shirt was wrinkled. Sweat stains circled his armpits. “That’s the thing about cases like this. Keep you humble.”

“Always.”

“Usually,” Ramirez went on, “I’m able to tell myself I’m a hero. Cases like Doug- secondary disease, you start thinking of yourself as the villain.”

“If you hadn’t treated his Ewing’s, he’d be dead. No wife, no baby on the way.”

“Spoken like a true therapist… yeah, you’re right. I appreciate your saying so. Still, it would be nice to not fuck anyone up.”

“Become a poet.”

Ramirez smiled. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. Pathology’s still struggling to come up with a fix on the leukemia. Now, they’re telling me it could be a mix of lymphatic and myelocytic, or maybe neither- something weird and undifferentiated. Could be acute and chronic at the same time- the kid’s bone marrow’s a mess. I’ve got the slides going out to L.A. and Boston because they see more than we do of these weird ones. The key is to see what protocol he fits into, but if he doesn’t and we just wing it, we’re lowering our chance of initial remission.”

He took a deep breath. “Mind if I have some of that coffee?”

“At your own risk,” said Jeremy.

“In that case, forget it. Basically, what I came to tell you is that there’s a good chance our Mr. Vilardi’s going to end up facing a bone marrow transplant. We typed the whole family, the mother was a little antsy but I just figured that for generalized anxiety. Turns out she and one of the brothers are excellent donors.”

He frowned.

Jeremy said, “Another good-news, bad-news situation?”

“You are a mind reader.” Ramirez took a breath. “The bad news is, Doug’s not his father’s biological son.”

“Okay,” said Jeremy.

“You’re not surprised.”

“I am, but not wildly. People are people.”

“Gee,” said Ramirez. “I wish you were my dad. Adolescence would’ve been a helluva lot easier. Okay, so that’s the big secret. The question is, what do we do about it?”

“Nothing,” said Jeremy.

“Plain and simple.”

“Plain and simple.”

“You’re right,” said Ramirez. “I just wanted to hear it from you. Get some backup.” He got to his feet. “Okay, good, thanks. Onward.”

“Anything else, Bill?”

“That’s not enough for one day?”

Jeremy smiled.

Ramirez said, “I’m glad you confirmed my initial instincts. Doug’s an adult, has a right to his medical records; but I’m going to destroy that part of the report. Just in case someone peeks.”

He looked at Jeremy.

Jeremy said, “I back you up on that, too.”

“It’s the best thing,” said Ramirez. “I already did enough damage to the kid.”

In the afternoon, after Jeremy had seen all his other patients, he sat by Doug’s bedside. No family members were around. Their usual arrival time was two hours later, and Jeremy had timed his visit carefully. He didn’t want to look into Mrs. Vilardi’s eyes.

Doug was sleeping with the TV on. A sitcom blared- small-town life, corny jokes, Hollywood’s take on jovial half-wits playing to the laugh track. Jeremy kept the show on but lowered the volume, concentrated on Doug’s swollen, jaundiced face, his big, callused, workingman’s hands lying inert. The laugh track began to grate on him, and he switched off the set, listened to the ticking, gurgling, chirping that confirmed the young man’s viability.

Doug didn’t stir.

Push past this, my friend.

Give me something to be inspired by.

Do it.

46

Jeremy cleared his next three evenings by lying. Feeding Angela tales of looming deadlines for the book, grinding pressure from the Head of Oncology, topped by a severe case of writer’s block.

He’d need to pull two or three all-nighters, maybe even four.

She said, “Been there, done it- it’ll work out, honey.”

On the first day, he spirited her away for an early dinner at Sarno’s, concentrated on being attentive, kept the conversation easy and light and flowing. The ever-present horror track in his head washed by: filthy, violent images, a mental cesspool that drained miles from the lover’s face he showed Angela.

By dinner’s end, he figured he’d pulled it off. Angela had loosened up, was smiling, laughing, talking about patients and hospital bureaucracy. By the time he dropped her back at Endocrinology, it was five-thirty and she was energized.

The next day, she paged him to let him know that the chief resident had frowned on her cutting out early.

“How about I write you a note,” he said. “ ‘Angela’s tummy was empty, and she needed to eat.’ ”

“If only,” she said. “How’d it go on the book, last night?”

“Painfully.”

“Stick with it, I know you’ll do great.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t have time, anyway, Jer. The Endo attendings are mostly high-powered, private practice brutes. They work us like galley slaves so they can be home in time for din-din with the family. So if I get to see you at all, it’ll have to be lunch. And tomorrow, lunch is a lecture on growth hormone abuse.”

“The schedule.”

“I’ll let you know if things ease up. Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, Ang. This too shall pass.”

And I’ve got my own schedule, now.

“I know,” she said. “But right now it seems interminable. Okay, gotta go. Miss you.”

“Miss you, too.”

Two more nights of Dirgrove playing at family man. Or whatever he did, once he was esconced in his limestone aerie.

One floor down from the penthouse. Jeremy knew because he’d strolled by when the doorman had gone inside to take a package to a resident. Made his way into the marble-walled lobby and checked out the directory, all those nice, healthy potted palms.