Third Degree

ahead of him in the eternal competition that was life. If he were to learn that his whole worldview was wrong, that the greatest threat to his marriage had come from a man who wasn’t competing with him in any way-who in fact cared nothing about competition, but was only and profoundly glad to be alive (and who touched a part of Laurel so deep that her husband had never even glimpsed it)-Warren might not survive that. Watching him now, Laurel suddenly understood the essential nature of what was unfolding before her. Warren was a control freak who sensed control slipping inexorably away. First at work, and now at home. The fear growing inside him probably had no limit.

“Hey,” Warren said softly. “If I untaped you now, would you go in the bedroom and make love with me?”

She closed her eyes involuntarily. “If you really want it, I suppose I would. But what we need to do right now is talk. I think someone is trying to hurt you, Warren. Maybe to destroy you.”

His chin began to quiver like Grant’s when the boy tried not to cry. “Yeah,” Warren said, his voice completely different from the one he’d spoken in a moment ago. “You. I don’t know what I was thinking, asking you for sloppy seconds. I just wish I knew how long I’ve been getting them.”

The words stung her more deeply than she would have imagined. “Warren, please listen to me-”

“I’m going to find out,” he vowed, slapping the side of the Sony’s screen. “This porn is just the beginning, I’m sure. I’m going to dig out every last secret in this pile of garbage before I’m through.”

Laurel felt tears coming again.

A savage light had entered his eyes. “Maybe we should show some of these pictures to the kids when they get home. Show them what Mom does in her spare time.”

Her heart seized at the mention of the kids. So Warren was well aware that they would soon be home. But how did he think they would get here, with her trussed up like a turkey? Did he plan to lock her in the trunk of his Volvo and pick them up himself? The idea didn’t seem as impossible as it would have an hour ago.

“Screw you,” she said. “You want them to stay up and watch you jerk off to soft-core on Cinemax after we’re asleep? Dictating medical charts, my ass.”

He stared at her with visceral hatred.

“God, we’re pathetic,” she said, meaning it.

She had no idea what to do or say next. Warren wasn’t going to listen to anything from her. His obsession with her infidelity had nothing to do with love. It was about possession. Ownership. Someone had appropriated his personal property, and he wanted revenge. She was like all his other possessions, something to be jealously guarded, not because of her intrinsic worth, but because she was his. That concept was laughable now. The issue of ownership had been decided within two weeks after she first kissed Danny McDavitt. No matter whose ring Laurel wore, no matter who mounted her in the dark of the night, Danny owned her, body and soul. That was the reality, and nothing but death could change it.

Chapter 8

Kyle Auster sat on the stool in examining room five and silently regarded his nineteenth patient of the day. Arthur M. Johnston. White male, fifty-three years of age, forty pounds overweight, high cholesterol, hypertension, enlarged prostate, erectile dysfunction, history of persistent alcohol abuse, osteoarthritis-the chart went on and on. An intern might look at Johnston’s record and think, This guy is sick, but Auster knew he was looking at a classic malingerer. After working seven years at the now defunct chemical plant, Johnston had somehow talked his way into a full Social Security disability (for back pain, of course). That was a couple of decades back. Now he spent his days cushioned on a carpet of pain medication, watching daytime TV, working in his garden, and taking his grandkids fishing in a boat purchased with government money.

As he droned on about his need for constant pain relief (which only opiates could provide), Auster wondered how he’d gotten to this little chamber of hell. He’d been a goddamn ace in medical school. The only reason he hadn’t specialized in surgery was that he’d had to get out into the real world and start making money. It wasn’t as if he’d had a choice. He had an expensive lifestyle, even then. People had no idea how much money changed hands in a frat house during football season. You could dig a deep hole without ever rolling out of bed.

“What do you think, Doc?”

The patient’s question penetrated Auster’s reverie. “I think you’re doing about as well as you’re going to do, Mr. Johnston. You’re not going to play ball for the Yankees, but you’re not going to drop dead anytime soon either. You’ll probably still be fishing when they bury me.”

Johnston gave a little laugh. “I hope so, no offense. But I was thinking, Doc, you know…. I might need some tests.”

Auster looked back in puzzlement. Johnston had the tone of a patient who’d read some article on preventive medicine in Reader’s Digest. He probably wanted a goddamn sixty-four-slice CAT scan of his heart. “What kind of tests?”

Johnston’s face looked blank as a baby’s. “Well, you’re the doctor. I thought maybe you could tell me.”

Auster’s financial antennae went on alert. He glanced at the upper-right corner of Mr. Johnston’s file, searching for a faint check mark in pencil. There was none, as he had suspected. If there had been, it would indicate that Mr. Johnston was a “special” patient, meaning that he’d undergone some tests that might have been unnecessary in a strictly medical sense, but which had proved lucrative for both doctor and patient. But there was no pencil mark. So what the hell was Johnston hinting at?

“What are your symptoms, Mr. Johnston?”

A sly grin now, minus three front teeth. “Well, Doc, I thought maybe you could tell me that, too.”

A few months ago, Auster would have been happy to oblige Mr. Johnston. Thorough lab work was good, sound medicine, and a chest X-ray never hurt anybody. But given the present state of affairs, Mr. Johnston’s not- so-subtle hints were like the blare of a fire alarm. Auster put on his soberest countenance, the face he used when telling people they had a disabling or deadly illness.

“Mr. Johnston, in the past, I’ve worked with patients to solve their health problems as creatively as I could, given the state of government regulations. But recently the government has taken a dim view of that kind of alternative medicine. It’s become very risky to do anything unconventional these days. Anyone who does could be subject to severe penalties. Abusing the Social Security disability program would be a good example.”

Mr. Johnston blanched.

“Am I being clear enough, sir?”

Johnston was already getting up. “You know, I think I’m doing fine, Doc, except for this back of mine. If you could just renew that prescription, I’ll be on my way.”

Auster stood and patted him on the shoulder. “Happy to do it.”

He wrote out another prescription for Vicodin, then, cursing under his breath, marched out of the exam room and down the hall to his private office. Things were spinning out of control. Vida was doing everything she could to erase all trace of questionable activity, but people kept crawling out of the woodwork with their hands out.

The patients weren’t even the main problem. The real threat was the state’s Medicaid Fraud Unit. Five attorneys, eleven investigators, and four specially trained auditors bird-dogging every medical practice in the state that accepted Medicaid patients. The injustice chapped Auster’s ass no end. Many doctors refused even to treat Medicaid patients, so pathetic was the level of reimbursement. It was the humanitarians who found it in their hearts to treat the poor and indigent who got raped by the government. It made you want to leave the damn country.

Auster knew the Fraud Unit was on his tail. Patrick Evans, his doubles partner on the high school tennis team, was an executive assistant to the governor. Pat was wired into every agency in the state, and a week ago he’d quietly informed Auster that Paul Biegler, the pit bull of the Fraud Unit, had begun investigating him, based on a tip called in to the attorney general’s office. The whistle-blower could have been anybody, but it was probably a disgruntled patient, someone who’d made a little extra money off Auster, then wanted more and got angry after being turned down. Or maybe it was a woman. Auster didn’t get many attractive female patients, but when he did, he wasn’t above a little horse-trading. An ER doc had taught him this racket during his residency. Five Mepergan could get you a hell of a blow job from a strung-out woman, and that beat seventy taxable dollars for an office visit