F Paul Wilson - Novel 02 (20 page)

 
          
"Nothing
like. actually being there." He sniffed. "Catch that, Gin? The
effluvium of naked power waiting to be unleashed. Heady stuff."

 
          
Gin
laughed. "Tell me about it." She glanced at the dais and saw the
committee members seating themselves. "Got to run. Enjoy yourself,
Duncan."

           
His smile was tight. "I hope
to." Her palms were moist by the time she regained the dais. She hoped she
didn't look a tenth as nervous as she felt.

 
          
Let's
stop fooling around and get this thing started, folks.

 
          
She
knew she'd be fine once the hearing was rolling, it was the waiting that was
killing her.

 
          
She
checked out the dais. All the attending committee members except Senator
Vincent were in place. Where was he?

 
          
She
searched the floor of the hearing room and spotted him, standing next to
Duncan
again. She saw
Duncan
say something to him and turn away.

 
          
She
couldn't see
Duncan
's face, but Senator Vincent's wore a baffled look.

 
          
Gin
had a sudden sense of deja vu . . . Duncan . . . his beeper . . . a parting
comment . . .

 
          
Gin
chewed her lip as the senator gained the dais and approached his seat. She knew
it was all coincidence but she wanted to know what
Duncan
had said to him.

 
          
Now
wasn't the time, however. But right after the hearing she'd find a way to ask.
Duncan
sat quite literally on the edge of his
seat, his hands clutched tightly between his knees. He struggled for outer
calm, to hide the surging adrenaline within.

 
          
No
glitches today. This one had to go according to plan. The setting was
absolutely perfect.

 
          
He'd
waited to see where Senator Vincent was sitting before choosing his own place.
When he spotted Vincent settling himself three seats to Marsden's right,
Duncan
found a chair halfway back with a clear
view of the senator.

 
          
He
glanced at his watch.

 
          
Won't
be long now.

 
          
He
watched Gin sitting tense and stiff against the back wall as Marsden brought
the room to order. The senator made a few brief opening remarks about the
missing committee members, offering condolences to the Lane family and hope for
Congressman Allard's speedy recovery. Out of respect, he said, their nameplates
would remain before their places until their replacements were chosen.

 
          
Duncan
knew he was tempting fate to do this with
Gin here, but he had little choice. Another of those perverse twists that
dogged his heels lately. Still, there was no way Gin could connect him to what
was about to happen to Senator Vincent.

 
          
Ah,
Gin, he thought. Look at you, my naive cygnet, thinking you can have some
effect on these proceedings. But it's all preordained. The real decisions as to
whether or not American medicine will be practiced via government-issue
cookbooks, and whether your fellow physicians will be suffocated under
mountains of regulations where they'll spend more time dodging fines and
penalties than attending to the health of their patients, will not be made here
but in back rooms and hallways, where a vote for the Guidelines act will be
traded for a bridge or a highway spur.

 
          
The
first witness was called, Samuel Fox, MD.

 
          
Typical,
Duncan thought. Congress's favorite pet doctor, the physician-hating physician.

 
          
Fox
styled himself as a consumer advocate but was little more than a grandstanding
autolatrous worm. This hearing was proceeding exactly as expected.

 
          
As
the notoriously prolix Fox began reading a prepared statement,
Duncan
kept his eyes fixed on Vincent, watching
for the first signs. His thoughts wandered back to the day
Congressman Hugo Lane
had shown up at his officer. That had been
earlier this year, shortly after the president had instigated the anabiosis of
the committee. Lane the notorious lush had come to him for removal of the
spidery blemishes sprouting all over his face and upper trunk. Supposedly from
too much sun.
Duncan
recognized them immediately as arterial angiomas, known in the trade as
boozer blossoms. They meant a fatty, cirrhotic liver.

 
          
Too
much sun? Too much Johnny Walker.

 
          
It
had required enormous control not to slam the man back on the examining table.
The flagitious toper! Lane had been a member of the original McCready
committee, a participant in the savaging of
Duncan
's career, his life, and he didn't even
remember him.

 
          
Like
the old song, Am That Easy to Forget?

 
          
He'd
been part of the process that had killed Lisa and he had never even heard her
name.

 
          
Duncan
remembered staring dumbfounded, thinking,
We have this history together, the most traumatic time of my entire life, and
you have no inkling.

 
          
If
Duncan
had not been in a towering rage over the
revival of the committee, if Lane had not been reappointed to it,
Duncan
might have simply explained who he was,
what he and his cronies had done to his life, and thrown the bastard the hell
out.

 
          
But
circumstances being what they were,
Duncan
had said, Yes, Congressman. No problem. We
can take care of all those unsightly areas of sun damage. Cautery of the
central vessel of each with an ultrafine laser. Easy as pie. Barbara will
arrange a day and time for the procedure.

 
          
While
I arrange a little something extra for you.

 
          
So
Congressman
Lane
had been the first.

 
          
Duncan
's plan had been to have him make an ass out
of himself at the French embassy.
Duncan
had been there, had watched and waited, but
Hugo
Lane
had behaved as usual, drank too much, ate too much, and talked too loud. Maybe
all the alcohol in his system was to blame, maybe his fatty liver wasn't
working up to snuff. Whatever the reason, Lane was apparently his usual self until
he was driving home. Witnesses said he wove all over the road before crashing
through a barrier and rolling down an embankment in
Rock
Creek
Park
.

 
          
Duncan
had been shocked and dismayed. He hadn't
intended for Lane to die, just go crazy in front of a roomful of his peers. And
maybe stay crazy for a few years.

 
          
No
worry about being found out. Lane's blood-alcohol level was explanation enough
for the accident. But even if the ME had looked for other causes he would have
come up empty. Toxicology screens can find only what they're looking for, and
no one would be screening for what
Duncan
had put into Lane. Only a handful of people
had ever known it existed.

 
          
Schulz
had been next. This procurante, too, had no memory of the doctor his committee
had flagellated years past, no knowledge of the teenage girl who'd died because
of it.
Duncan
realized then why they didn't remember him,
He'd never been important to them. Duncan Lathram was a name on a piece of
paper handed to them by one of their aides five years ago. They'd reviled him
when the microphones were on, but never gave him a thought between hearings,
and forgot about him after a couple of weeks.

 
          
Schulz
. . . a vain, strutting, womanizing roue whose diligent efforts over the years
to keep a year-round tan had left his face a mass of wrinkles. On the
recommendation of his good friend
Congressman Lane
he'd come to
Duncan
for a solution. He'd already tried Retin-A
but to no avail. His myriad wrinkles seemed baked in. Could
Duncan
help?

 
          
Of
course, Senator.
Duncan
had smoothed his rugose hide, and given him something extra.

 
          
Duncan
hadn't yet decided on the time and place
for Schulz when the shocking news reached him that the senator was dead.
Duncan
had been baffled until he'd learned that a
physical therapy session had been the penultimate event in the good senator's
life before he took a dive from the balcony of his high-rise town house. That
probably explained it.

 
          
Or
maybe Schulz simply had a guilty conscience.

 
          
Not
likely.

 
          
Again,
no loss to the world. But once again he'd been deprived of the catharsis he
craved.

 
          
Allard
had come the closest to what
Duncan
had planned for him, but that, too, had
fallen short.

 
          
Today
was going to be different.
Duncan
could feel it in his bones.

 
          
And
when he noticed the corner of Senator Vincent's mouth begin to twitch, he was
sure of it.

 
          
Gin
leaned forward in her seat and placed another note in front of Senator Marsden.
She'd been culling one question after another from Dr. Fox's parade of dubious
statistics but was passing only the more flagrant errors forward. There wasn't
time for the senator to consider all of them.

 
          
As
she slid back she noticed a small fleshy bump atop the auricle of the senator's
left ear. Smooth with a pearly surface.

 
          
On
a sun-exposed area, that was a basal cell carcinoma until proven otherwise. She
wasn't his doctor, and it was sometimes touchy to point out a potential health
problem to someone who hadn't asked, but she decided to mention it to him
later.

 
          
She
heard a pencil drop. She looked up. No, it was a pen. It had fallen near
Senator Vincent. He must have dropped it, but he didn't seem to notice. She was
forcing her attention back to Dr. Fox when she noticed Senator Vincent jerk in
his seat. She watched and he did it again. A spasmodic movement, as if someone
had jabbed him with a pin, or a violent chill had passed through him. The room
was cool but he seemed to be sweating. He ran a trembling hand through his
frizzy hair.

 
          
Is
he all right? she wondered.

 
          
She
watched him a moment longer and he seemed to be calm, no more jerks or
twitches. But he was still sweating, and gripping the edge of the table as if
it might float away from him, or he from it.