Read Online Flashback by Michael Palmer - Free Book Online

repercussions from Frank or anyone else regarding the old mans hospitalization.
    All in all, they had been two interesting and rewarding days—the sort that more than made up for medicines liabilities as a career.
    This day, however, was the one Zack had been awaiting. It would start with his first major case in the O.R.—the removal of a woman’s ruptured cervical disc—and it would end with dinner at Suzanne’s. He smiled to think of how misguided his apprehension about coming to Sterling had been.
    “Okay, everyone, find a seat.”
    The staff president, a pale, doughy internist named Donald Norman, called out the order as he hand-shook his way to the front of the room.
    Norman had interviewed Zack twice on behalf of Ultramed, and it was actually
in spite
of the man and those two sessions that Zack had decided to come to Davis at all. A graduate of one of the medical schools in the Caribbean, Norman had been subsidized and trained at Ultramed hospitals and was a company man right down the line. His portion of the interviews had consisted of little more than a mirthless litany of Ultramed procedural and medical policies, each accompanied by a set of statistics justifying the “guideline” as beneficial to the welfare of both patient and hospital.
    While Norman hailed the streamlined corporate approach as “revolutionary and unquestionably necessary,” Zack wondered if it amounted to a sort of gentrification of health care.
    And he made no points whatever with the man by saying so.
    To make matters worse between the two of them, Zack’s spontaneity and relaxed, eclectic approach to medicine sat poorly with Norman, who, though no more than a year or two older than Zack, wore a three-piece suit, smoked a curved meerschaum, and generally conducted himself like some sort of aging medical padrone.
    In the end, with Zack’s decision still very much in the air,several of the other physicians on staff managed to convince him that Ultramed-Davis was far more flexible in its policies and philosophy than Donald Norman liked to believe.
    Norman took his place at the front table and gaveled the meeting to order with the underside of an ashtray.
    During the secretary’s, treasurers, and committees’ reports, several latecomers straggled in, including Suzanne, looking lithe and beguiling in sandals and a floral-print dress. She was accompanied by Jason Mainwaring, who, Zack noticed in spite of himself, wore no wedding ring, although he did sport a sizable diamond on one little finger. The two took seats on the opposite side of the room and continued a whispered conversation, during which the charismatic general surgeon touched her on the arm or hand at least half a dozen times.
    Zack spent a minute or two trying, unsuccessfully, to catch her eye, and then gave up and turned his attention to the meeting.
    “Any additions or corrections to the committee reports?” Norman was saying. “If not, they stand accepted as read. Old business?”
    One hand went up, accompanied by low groans from several parts of the room.
    “Yes, Dr. Beaulieu,” Norman said, taking no pains to mask the annoyance in his voice.
    From his seat, five or six rows in front of Zack, Guy Beaulieu stood, looked deliberately about the room, and finally marched up to the speakers podium—a move that prompted several more groans.
    Zack, who had not seen Beaulieu in three or four years, was struck by the physical change in the man. Once energetic and robust, he was now almost pathologically thin. His suit was ill-fitting and his gaunt face had a sallow, grayish cast. Still, he held himself rigidly erect, as had always been his manner, and even at a distance, Zack could see the defiant spark behind his gold-rimmed bifocals.
    “Thank you, Mr. President,” Beaulieu began, with a formality that probably would have sounded unnatural and patronizing coming from most in the room, but coming from him, did not. His speech still bore an unmistakable French-Canadian