'Frank, don't move, honey, please. You feel so good. I want to do a little while you're still inside me. Just a line. Okay? ' I Frank's secretary, the blond one, was named Annette Dolan. She had moved with her child to live with her mother in Sterling, and had been working as a hostess in the Mountain Laurel Restaurant when Frank first spotted her and offered her a job. Her qualification for the position was, quite plainly, that she looked better in a sweater than any woman he had ever seen. She was a mediocre receptionist, and a far-worse-than-that secretary, but she was sweet and polite to everyone, and had proved a wonderful, undemanding diversion, especially on those occasions when he was able to indulge her passion for cocaine. 'Go ahead, baby, ' he said, running his thumbs over her nipples. 'But hustle. I don't have much time left.'
For more than an hour, first on the oriental rug in his office, and then on the couch, Annette had screwed him as only she could-purely and passionately, without any of the head games he tolerated but hated in brighter women. He cradled her breasts in his hands as she slipped one end of a straw into her nose and lowered the other onto the mirror that she had rested on his chest. 'That's it, ' he whispered as she inhaled the dust. 'Get it all, baby. Get it all.'
He glanced across at the Lucite clock on his bookshelf. Twenty after eight. Less than an hour until Mainwaring was due. Less than an hour until the beginning of the end. Annette had been the perfect appetizer for that session. Now, however, it was time to pack her up and ship her home. Frank waited until she had wiped the last grains of powder off the mirror and onto her gums. Then he skimmed the mirror across the room and pulled her magnificent, glistening body close to his. Slowly, he toppled off the couch and on top of her on the rug. She was beautiful to the eye and to the touch, but after an hour and a hundred dollars worth of cocaine, she held little excitement for him. All that remained was the mechanical need to climax. He grabbed her corn-silk hair tightly in his fists, buried his chest against her breasts, and rammed himself into her again and again until, in less than a minute, it was over. If only Lisette knew how much he needed this sort of uncomplicated, unquestioning sex, everything would be much better for them, he thought.
Much better. He took a minute to stroke the woman's clit, her tight, flat stomach, and finally her perfect ass. Then he moved to the chair behind his desk and watched as she dressed. Once every week or two was perfect-just enough to keep the adventure fresh and the woman from becoming tiresome. Absently, he thumbed through the papers on his desk-papers that included the application of the surgeon who would be Mainwaring's replacement. The whole business had gone down like clockwork, Frank mused, just as he had promised it would. He and Mainwaring had estimated two years, and precisely two years it had been.
Now, there was less than an hour until the final phase of their project would start. Less than an hour until the beginning of the end, until the beginning of everything good for him. Frank wrapped up what was left of the cocaine and flipped the plastic bag across to the woman. 'Here you go, baby, ' he said. 'Enjoy.'
'You promised you would try some with me sometime, Frank. Remember?'
'Sometime, maybe. For now, you just get on home and enjoy it, ' he answered. 'I don't have much use for that shit. There are enough other things I get off on. Like you.'
And, he was thinking, like a million dollars. Frank showered in the bathroom off his office, dressed, and cleaned up the last vestiges of his session with Annette Dolan. Then he settled in before the computer terminal on his desk. There were still twenty minutes before Mainwaring was due-just enough time to check in with Mother. And, Frank noted, it was especially fitting that he should. For at a time when his back was to the wall, when the absence of $250, 000 he had borrowed from the hospital accounts and then lost in that foolish land deal stared at him every day like a gaping, black hole of doom, Mother had provided him with the answer. Mother was Ultr'ma, the Ultramed mainframe computer housed in the home office in Boston. She was the fiber that held the expanding Ultramed empire together, providing it with consistency, rapid exchange of information, and a seemingly endless pool of physicians. And in Frank's darkest, most desperate hour, Mother had served up both Jack Pearl and Jason Mainwaring. Frank activated the terminal, dialed the network number, and flipped the toggle switch on his phone. In seconds, Good evening, welcome to Ultr'maplease enter access code appeared on the screen. Frank typed in the code and then, when requested, his own password. In a week or so his regional director would receive a printout of Ultr'nla users and would note on the appropriate evaluation form that at nine o'clock in the evening of that day, Frank had been hard at work in his office. Good evening, Mr. Iverson. We trust all is well in Sterling, New Hampshire. Do you wish to see your menu?
Frank typed Y. Immediately, ADMINISTRATOR'S MENU flashed on, followed by a list, 1. Changes in procedures and policies manual 2. Ultramed current staff physicians and salaries (your hospital only) 3. Ultramed current staff physicians and salaries (your region only) 4. Available physicians (by specialty) 5. Promotions, reassignments, terminations (past 30 days) 6. National health news of note 7. Regional health news of note 8.
Preferred suppliers and services (your region only) 9. Performance ratings (region) 10. Performance ratings (nation) 11. Golden Circle Administrators As he invariably did when communicating with Mother, Frank began by affirming his membership in the Golden Circle and his position as the leading administrator in the northest region. Leading administrator. Golden Circle. It was laughable now to think of how close he had come to not even applying for the Ultramed-Davis job. But with his electronics firm going down the tubes, the Judge refusing to help him out, and Leigh Baron insisting that he would get serious consideration in the search process despite his lack of hospital experience, he really had nothing to lose. It had been a mild shock when he was finally offered the position. And although there could be no arguing his remarkable success with the corporation, it remained something of a mystery to him why Leigh had picked him over many more experienced candidates. Frank scanned the regional and national rankings and then returned to the Administrator's Menu and summoned up item four.
The physicians of possible interest to the Ultramed system were listed by specialty and subspecialty, along with a detailed but straightforward summary of their education and work experience. However, item four was hardly a typical employment bulletin board.
Included with many of the names was a paragraph summarizing the professional and/or personal difficulties that had made that physician available. Drugs, alcohol, sexual entanglements, financial improprieties, professional misconduct of one sort or anther-compiling the roster was the full-time job of an obsessively diligent investigator in the home office. Primary among her responsibilities was the weeding out of those physicians for whom there was little or no hope of rehabilitation. Those remaining on the list, many of them excellent practitioners, were of particular interest to the corporation. More often than not, they proved to be devoted employees, grateful for a second chance, totally loyal to the company and its policies, and willing to work for any salary that was reasonable. Steve Baumgarten in the emergency ward had been recruited through Ultr'ma's unique bulletin board. So had Suzanne Cole, a real prize, who almost from the start had generated an income many times greater than her salary. But for Frank, it was the one-two parlay of Jack Pearl and Jason Mainwaring that had made Mother worth her megabytes in gold. For a time when Frank's back was to the wall, when he was becoming so desperate about the $250, 000 that he was actually considering approaching the Judge for help, Jack Pearl's name appeared in item four. The description of Pearl's problem, which Frank eventually had memorized, read, Holds patent on what he has claimed is revolutionary new general anesthe ic. Texas license suspended pending investigation of alleged illegal clinical testing of the substance and falsification of information on experimental drug application. Physician with same name resigned 1984 from Wilkes Community Hospital, Akron, Ohio, because of alleged sexual involvement with a ten-year-old boy. Further information currently being sought.
Mildly intrigued, Frank had made a note to do some checking on the man, but had not put much energy into the project until, not a month later, Ultr'ma served up a brief item on a professor of surgery from Baltimore.
Jason Mainwaring had been found to be an officer and partner in a Georgia pharmaceutical house, and subsequently had resigned his position due to charges of conflict of interest and illegal use of an unapproved drug. It had taken trips to Maryland, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio, an additional twenty thousand dollars in Ultramed-Davis funds to gather information and secure the cooperation of a certain politician in Akron, and finally, a series of the most delicate negotiations with both physicians. But in the end, Frank had forged the key to his future. And now, within the next two weeks, the rest was about to become history.
For several minutes Frank scanned the electronic roster of physicians.
He was amazed, as always, at how so many who held the ultimate ticket to success and prestige could have made such pathetic shamble@s of their lives. A pediatrician from Hartford about to complete four months in an alcohol rehabilitation center, a gynecologist from D. C. who had resigned his hospital appointment amid a cloud of accusations that his 'aminations were too prolonged and included house calls, an oral surgeon facing revocation of his license for writing too many narcotic prescriptions for himself, Frank jotted down several names, along with a memo to himself to make some preliminary calls. Ultramed and its parent corporation had the clout to make any
