Before Bellows had been given a chance to say anything, Stark had launched into a tirade about attendance and interest, performance, and reward. He had essentially told Bellows that any future absence by Susan would be debited to Bellows’s own record. Bellows was to make it his personal goal to see that all the students assigned to him performed exemplarily.
During actual rounds Stark had been as nasty as ever, particularly toward Bellows. In almost every case Bellows had been asked some difficult question and his answers never satisfied the irate chief. Even some of the other residents had realized that Bellows was being raked over the coals and they had tried to interfere by answering questions even when the questions were clearly directed at Bellows.
At the end of rounds, Stark had called Bellows aside to tell him that he was not performing up to his usual level, nor to the department’s expectations. Finally Stark had gotten around to what was really bothering him. After a rather lengthy pause, the Chief of Surgery had asked Bellows exactly what role he had played with respect to the drugs found in locker 338.
Bellows had denied any knowledge whatsoever of the drugs, except what Chandler had told him. Bellows had told Stark directly that he had used locker 338 for about one week before his permanent locker came available. Stark’s only comment to this information had been that he wanted the affair cleaned up in short order.
For Bellows, even being remotely related to such a situation caused him a disproportionate amount of anxiety. His horribly compulsive mentality magnified the whole affair out of proportion. His tendency toward professional paranoia began to feed on itself and, as the morning passed, his anxiety had waxed rather than waned.
Bellows operated on two cases himself that morning, allowing the students to come into the OR. On the first case, Goldberg and Fairweather had scrubbed, more to wet their hands than actually to help.
On the second case, Carpin and Niles had scrubbed. Bellows had been particularly careful and encouraging for Niles and it had paid off. There had been no fainting episodes. In fact, Niles had turned out to be the most dexterous of the students and had been allowed to close the skin.
During lunch Bellows found the opportunity to corner Chandler. The chief resident had reiterated what Bellows already knew—namely, that Stark was really uptight about the drugs.
“The whole Goddamned thing is ridiculous,” said Bellows. “Has Stark talked with Walters yet to get me off the hook?”
“I haven’t even talked with Walters,” said Chandler. “I went into the OR
area to talk with him but he hasn’t shown up today. Nobody has seen him all day.”
“Walters?” Bellows was greatly surprised. “He hasn’t missed a day here in a quarter of a century.”
“What can I tell you? He’s not here.”
Bellows responded to this information by going up to the personnel office to get Walters’s home phone number. It turned out that Walters did not have a telephone. Bellows had to be satisfied with an address: 1833 Stewart Street, Roxbury.
By one-thirty Bellows was very much on edge. Another call to the OR
desk confirmed the fact that Walters still had not appeared, and Bellows made a decision. He decided that he would take the time and make the effort to go and visit Walters. It was the only way that he could think of to extricate himself immediately from the drug affair. It wasn’t all that difficult a decision,- although it was very irregular for Bellows to leave the hospital in the middle of the day. But Bellows had the distressing feeling that over the last forty-eight hours his comfortable and promising position at the Memorial had been put in jeopardy. As he saw it, he had two problems: the first, the drug problem, was simple, because he knew that he was not involved and that all he had to do was to establish that fact; the second problem, Susan and her so-called project, was something else.
Bellows managed to foist his medical students off on Dr. Larry Beard, a grandson of the Beard wing benefactor. Then, with his beeper on his belt, the operators notified, and a fellow resident by the name of Norris willing to cover for an hour, Bellows slipped out of the hospital at one-thirty-seven, and flagged a cab.
“Stewart Street, Roxbury? You sure about that?” The taxi driver’s face contorted into a questioning, disdainful expression when Bellows gave his destination.
“Number 1833,” added Bellows.
“It’s your money!”
With dirty steaming piles of snow pushed aside here and there, the city looked particularly depressing. It was raining almost as hard as it had been when Bellows had walked to work in the morning. Very few people were visible along the route the driver took. The peculiar, uninhabited look of the city recalled the deserted cities of the Mayans. It was as if things had gotten so bad that everyone decided to just close their doors and leave.
As the cab penetrated Roxbury deeper and deeper, the city got worse.
Their route took them down through a disintegrating warehouse area, then through decaying slums. The mid-thirties temperature, the relentless rain, and the rotting snow made it that much more depressing.
Finally the cab pulled to the right and Bellows leaned forward, catching sight of the street sign for Stewart Street. At the same time the right front wheel descended into a pothole filled with rain water and the bottom of the front part of the cab crashed against the pavement. The driver swore and threw the steering wheel to the right to avoid the same hole with the rear tire. But the rear of the car slammed down and then lurched upward with a shudder. Bellows’s head hit the ceiling hard enough to hurt.
“Sorry, but you wanted Stewart Street!”
Rubbing his head, Bellows looked out at the numbers: 1831, and then 1833. After paying the fare, he stepped out and closed the door. The cab raced off, weaving its way between the potholes and turning off as soon as possible. Bellows watched it disappear from sight, wishing that he had told the driver to wait. Then he looked around, thankful that the rain had stopped. There were several gutted hulks of automobiles with everything of even questionable value removed. There were no other cars parked on the grim street, or moving, for that matter. There were no people in sight either. When Bellows looked up at the row house in front of him, he realized it was deserted, most of the windows boarded up.
Then he looked at the surrounding houses. All were the same. Most were boarded up; any windows exposed were smashed.
A torn sign nailed to the front door said that the building was condemned and owned by the BHA, the Boston Housing Authority. The date on the sign was 1971. It was another Boston project that had got completely fouled up.
Bellows was perplexed. Walters had no phone, and this seemed a phony address. Remembering Walters’s appearance, it didn’t seem so surprising.
Curiosity made Bellows mount the stairs to read the BHA sign. There was another smaller sign saying “No Trespassing” and that the police had the premises under surveillance.
The door had once been attractive, with a large oval stained glass window. The glass was now broken and several pieces of roughcut lumber were haphazardly nailed across the opening. Bellows tried the door, and to his surprise it opened. One of the straps of the hasp was unattached, with the screws gone despite the fact that the hasp had a large steel padlock.
The door opened in, scratching over the broken glass. Bellows took one look up and down the deserted street, then stepped over the threshold.
The door closed quickly behind him, extinguishing most of the meager daylight. Bellows waited until his eyes adjusted to the semidarkness.
The hall in which he found himself was in ruins. The stairs ascended directly in front of him. The banister had been pushed over and broken into pieces, presumably for firewood. The wallpaper was hanging in streamers. A small dirty drift of snow half-covered the debris on the floor and extended toward the rear of the building. Within six or seven feet it dissipated. But directly in front of him, Bellows saw several footprints. Examining them more closely, he could tell that there were at least two different sets. One set was huge, made by feet half again as large as his own. But more interesting was that the tracks did not seem very old.
Bellows heard a car coming down the street and he straightened up.
Conscious of trespassing, Bellows moved over to one of the boarded-up windows in what had been the
