Twelve
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me yesterday about Alyce’s infection?’ demanded Jordan, still as angry as he had been when he’d finished reading her statement the previous night. He’d been on the phone as nine o’clock struck, insisting upon an immediate meeting, but had to wait until noon.
‘Because I wanted you to read everything through for yourself,’ responded Beckwith, calmly. ‘This way we can take it forward, not spend hours talking back and forth because you didn’t have everything in context.’
‘What context! She’s got a venereal disease and I slept with her!’
‘Your choice not to ask. Her choice not to tell you,’ reminded the lawyer, still calm. ‘And you’ve got a medical report that says you haven’t got an infection.’
‘Is that why you had me undergo that examination in England: that you already knew she had it?’
‘No,’ denied Beckwith. ‘It’s regular practice with such damages claims in North Carolina. I didn’t know about Alyce until I got her exchange yesterday. It surprised me as much as I guess it surprised you.’
‘Surprise doesn’t cover it! And I don’t think you can feel the same way about it as I do,’ refused Jordan. ‘What about her medical report?’
‘Not part of the first exchange. And if it helps I understand chlamydia responds to antibiotics. The effect is worse in woman and their babies than it is in a man.’
‘That assurance doesn’t help a damn, either,’ refused Jordan, again. ‘She says she didn’t have any other sexual partner except Appleton, before me.’
‘I’ve read what she says.’
‘And she knew she had it before we slept together?’
‘Yes?’
‘So if he gave it to her and she knowingly passed it on to me I’ve got a claim against both of them, haven’t I?’
‘Your report says you’re clear.’
‘I think the doctor who examined me was a robbing asshole. Maybe incompetent, too. I want another test… a second opinion.’
‘I do, too,’ said the man, offering a paper across the desk just as Lesley Corbin had done in England. ‘Dr Abrahams is the venerealogist we use regularly. Suzie’s got you an appointment for this afternoon – I guessed you’d want it as soon as possible. We’ve copied the English medical report. Abrahams wants to see it.’
People making decisions for him again, thought Jordan. ‘What about me counterclaiming?’
‘Sure, if you are infected. You slept with anyone else since Alyce?’
‘No,’ denied Jordan. ‘What about what Alyce says, that Appleton slept around – admits himself to have done so with two different women – but refused to have any examinations? Could a court order him to have one?’
Beckwith pursed his lips, making an uncertain expression. ‘There could be a technical argument against it, claiming assault.’
‘That’s what Lesley told me you wanted my medical examination for: that if a sexual infection is knowingly transmitted there’s a criminal case to be made. It’s been established in law with AIDS, hasn’t it?’
‘We’re sure as hell getting an interesting case here.’
With more and more potential for publicity, thought Jordan, worriedly. ‘You had any contact yet with Alyce’s lawyer?’
‘Speaking with him later today.’
‘I want to be at any meeting,’ insisted Jordan.
‘I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘I think I’ve got more right now than before.’
‘Not if you’re going to issue suit against her, you haven’t! We sue her you don’t get within a million miles of her lawyer until we go into court.’
Jordan was getting that straitjacketed feeling again. ‘How long’ll it take Abrahams to make his reports?’
Beckwith shrugged, not knowing. ‘Tell him you’re in a hurry.’
‘Which I am.’
‘Why don’t I talk things through generally with Bob, down there in Raleigh?’ suggested Beckwith. ‘Get a feel of where he’s coming from; he’s seeking a meeting with us, after all. We’re in the driving seat.’
‘Do whatever you’ve got to do to push things along: to get me off this fucking great hook from which I don’t believe I should be hanging in the first place,’ said Jordan, impatiently.
‘You’re losing your temper,’ accused Beckwith.
‘You’re damned right I’m losing my fucking temper! And we’re in Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, not in some half-assed court in Raleigh, North Carolina.’
‘That half-assed court in Raleigh, North Carolina, has the legal power, upon each and every one of Appleton’s claims, to award against you a maximum of fifteen million dollars.’
‘You didn’t tell me that, either!’ accused Jordan.
‘It didn’t arise in the conversation until now. And now it has.’
‘I couldn’t come anywhere near a figure like that!’ protested Jordan.
‘I’d increase my fees if I thought you could,’ said Beckwith. ‘For the moment you’ve got to remember the difference between where you are, when you have to.’
‘I will.’ This was a juvenile, who-punches-whom first argument, Jordan acknowledged. ‘Let’s stop this shit, shall we?’
‘Probably a good idea,’ said the already smiling Beckwith. ‘If I were you, I’d be pissed, too.’
‘Is this the way these things go? Upon so little?’
‘This case is getting features all of its own,’ admitted the lawyer.
‘Can I call you again, after you’ve talked to Alyce’s lawyer? And I’ve seen the venerealogist?’
‘I think you should. Some things might be clearer then.’
‘I hope so,’ said Jordan, meaning it.
The difference was dramatic, in each and every way. George Abrahams’ surgery on West 58th street was a space-age comparison of chrome-gleaming, germ-forbidden sterility against the sagged-cushioned, frayed-carpeted Harley Street townhouse conversion of James Preston. George Abrahams was a close-cropped, rarely smiling man in a white jacket-and-trouser clinical uniform so starched that Jordan expected it audibly to crack when the man moved. Abrahams looked too young to have gained all the qualifications, the framed testimonials, which lined the walls, and Jordan was confident even before the man looked up from the English venerealogist’s report that if he’d contracted something from a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian burial pyramid, Abrahams could have diagnosed and cured it.
‘Why do you want these findings confirmed?’ asked the American, when he did finally look up. Abrahams’ tone was as sterile as his surroundings.
‘We didn’t know when that examination was carried out that the woman in whose divorce I am being cited had a sexual infection.’
Abrahams went back to the first report. ‘Which sexual infection, precisely? The report here refers to HIV.’
‘Chlamydia.’
Abrahams said, ‘That’s not signed off.’
‘Which is why I am here.’
‘How long was your relationship with her?’
Jordan sighed, without intending to, at the familiarity of the questioning. ‘Just short of a month. We met on holiday, in France.’
‘She tell you she had an infection?’
‘Of course not! I wouldn’t have slept with her if she had, would I?’
‘Probably not,’ agreed the other man, as flat-voiced as Beckwith had been earlier. ‘What symptoms have you got?’
Jordan felt hot with a mixture of embarrassment and frustration at the conversation: it was as if his penis was under permanent microscopic examination. ‘I don’t have any symptoms! The examination I had in London was
