Read Online The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman - Free Book Online

and found himself studying Arthur.
    Now he saw why Arthur hadn’t noticed him. The old man was busy observing.
    The object of his fascination was a group of three physicians hunched over pie and coffee, two tables over. A trio of men, engaged in what looked to be spirited academic discussion.
    Jeremy recognized one of them, a cardiologist named Mandel. A good man, if a bit distracted. He’d thrown a few consults Jeremy’s way, some ill-conceived, all well-intentioned. His back was to Jeremy, and he hunched forward, paying close attention.
    The other two men wore surgical greens. One was tan, maybe Latino, with dark, well-groomed hair and a barbered black mustache. The other was white. Literally. His long, drawn face bore an indoor pallor Jeremy had only seen in long-term patients. Clipped yellowish hair topped a domed cranium. His nose was a beak, and his cheeks were sunken.
    He was doing all the talking, moving his lips and gesturing with spidery hands that served a surgeon well. Mandel remained rapt. The dark-mustached man’s attention seemed to flag, as if he was put-upon, being there.
    The pale man pulled a pen out of his pocket, drew something on a napkin, and gesticulated some more with those long-fingered hands. Mandel nodded. The pale man made a sawing motion and smiled. Mandel said something, and the yellow-haired surgeon sketched some more. Words were exchanged all around. Arthur kept staring.
    Obviously some sort of technical demonstration. Why would Arthur, a delver into death, a wielder of bone saws and carpentry tools, find it fascinating? The old curiosity kicking in?
    That was probably it. Arthur was mentally voracious, a true intellectual. Jeremy, who read magazines in his spare time and rarely opened the classic psychology texts he collected, felt shallow by comparison.
    He wondered why the pathologist didn’t get up and join the group. An intrusion to be sure, but Arthur was an important man at Central, and his stature would have guaranteed a welcome.
    Then Arthur’s interest seemed to wane and he turned a page of his newspaper, and Jeremy wondered if he’d been wrong. Perhaps Arthur wasn’t noticing the three men any more than he’d noticed Jeremy. Maybe the old man was caught up in some internal rapture — butterflies, predatory beetles, the minutae of body fluids, whatever — and the cant of his big, bald head toward the discussion had been a coincidence of angulation.
    Now, the old man’s eyes were glued to the paper. All the better. Jeremy could drink his coffee in peace, return to his office unmolested, put his feet up on his desk, and recall the wonders of making love to Angela.
    He allowed himself to wonder what the next time would be like.
    Men do it to women.
    The pale man stopped waving his pen. Seemed to draw himself away from his demonstration. Stared across the room at Jeremy.
    Intense stare.
    Or perhaps, Jeremy had imagined it because now the man was back to his lecture.
    Arthur stood, folded his paper, fixed the tilt of his bow tie. Headed straight for Jeremy’s table. Big smile on the pink face. “How fortuitous,” he said. “I was just about to call you.”
     
12
     
    H e took a seat at Jeremy’s table, unbuttoned his white coat, stuffed the paper in his pocket. His shirt was snowy-white piqué, heavily starched, with a high, stiff collar. The bow tie of the day was mint green, a luxuriant silk specked with tiny gold
fleur-de-lis
.
    “I wondered,” he said, “and please don’t think me forward — I wondered if you’d care to join me for supper this Friday evening. There are some people, interesting people, whom I’d like you to meet. Who, I’m allowing myself to presume, you might enjoy meeting.”
    “Friends of yours?”
    “A group . . . so to speak.” The old man’s speech, usually fluid, had grown choppy. Arthur Chess, embarrassed?
    Perhaps to cover, he smiled. “We meet from time to time to discuss matters of mutual interest.”
    “Medical matters?”