Shedrow (6 page)

“Shit, I forgot my loupes,” Matt said. “You have yours on. Can you find it?”

“I already have found it. But I thought, since you’ve never seen one of these, you might have at least had the foresight to bring your own goddamn loupes. And where the hell were you when the ER was paging you?”

Kantor looked up nervously for a moment, then watched as Gianni located the two cut ends of the parotid duct, the structure that carried saliva from the salivary gland into the mouth. If left unrepaired, saliva would either pool in the wound and create an infection, or else drain out through a fistula in the face, rather than flowing into the mouth.

“Lacrimal probes and the twenty gauge catheter please,” Gianni said. He was ready to join the two ends over a small hollow catheter that would act as a scaffold to keep the duct open until the initial healing took place. It would also serve to keep the duct from scarring down and closing itself off to the proper flow of saliva.

“So where were you?” he asked Kantor again.

“Having dinner with my fiancé. It was a nice restaurant so I didn’t want my cell phone on.”

“Your phone doesn’t have a silent mode? Or your pager? Jesus Christ, Matt, are you for real? While you were munching your damn
foie gras
, I was preparing the patient for the OR. What the hell is wrong with that picture!”

Kantor said nothing.

“When I was a second year resident,” Gianni said, “we were required to be physically present in the ER until eleven every single night that we were on call. We saw a lot of interesting stuff that way and no one particularly complained. Enough of that. What kind of suture to repair the duct, Matt?”

“6-0 Vicryl?”

“No, finer even. Of course, without your loupes, you’d be hard pressed to see it. I’ll finish that part and then let you start a nice layered repair.”

He had Kantor begin to repair the wound in layers, which he did with a certain proficiency despite a fine tremor evident in both hands.

“That’s looking good, Matt,” Gianni said, sensing his resident’s need for reassurance.

“You know, Dr. Gianni, I think my generation just has different priorities. It’s all about quality of life.”

“And how about responsibility?”

“I don’t know, Dr. Gianni. Have you ever read
The Fountainhead
?”

“I have, and this is not a literature class,” Gianni said. “So let’s not get distracted here. We can work together on the skin closure. Brenda, can you re-start that tape again. That wasn’t half bad.”

They spent the last half hour on a very exacting closure of skin, to the music of Bon Jovi.

This is the story of my life

And I write it every day

I know it isn’t black and white

And it’s anything but grey

I know that no, I’m not all right

But I’ll be O.K. because

Anything can, everything can happen

That’s the story of my life

GIANNI INSPECTED THE FINAL repair. The man now had an intact face that appeared ruggedly handsome.

“Matt, why don’t you dictate the operative report,” Gianni said, handing him a sticker with the patient’s name on it. He took a second sticker for himself and placed it in his scrub shirt pocket.

He then took the familiar walk through the corridors to his office in the Doctors’ Pavilion. He sat at his desk and glanced at the pile of mail. He opened only one letter, a memo from Bushmill Stable.

TO: All partners in Chiefly Endeavor

We believe that Chiefly Endeavor is a three-year-old with great potential. His pedigree would suggest that he can run on dirt as well as grass. We have entered him in the Grade I Florida Derby at Gulfstream on March 30
^th
. This is a mile-and-an-eighth on the dirt. While this will be a relatively long layoff from his last race, he seems to require a longer rest period than most. He is a talented colt and we should use him sparingly. I trust you will agree.

Stuart G. Duncker
President, Bushmill Stable

Gianni set the letter aside and smiled. The Florida Derby was one of the major prep races for the Kentucky Derby. He then took the sticker from the operating room out of his pocket and set it onto another area of his desk. He read the name aloud, last name first:
Giardini, Hector.

The woman walked across the room and looked at the envelope on the dresser. Thumbing it casually, she noted that it contained a wad of hundred dollar bills. She did not count them.

She appeared to be in her early thirties with a trim and athletic body, blonde hair and a stunningly beautiful face. Deep blue eyes looked directly into his. Her small nose was perfectly sculpted, without any surgery, it seemed. She brushed back a fallen tassel of hair and smiled, declining Gianni’s offer of a drink from the minibar.

The room at the Delano Hotel was all white. White walls, bedcovers, and white sheer drapes floated in the breeze from the open glass doors. A peach colored bouquet of flowers sat on a glass table, providing the only color apart from the ocean and the clear blue sky. The ocean air was warm and it was nearing sunset.

She walked towards Gianni and embraced him, her arms around him, her hands finding his neck. The scent of her perfume was delicate yet alluring. Lilacs, he thought. She kissed him deeply
and lingered a long time before dropping to her knees. Clothes were flung to the floor.

“This is my favorite,” she said. She lingered there as well, then took his hand in hers and led him to the bed. Almost imperceptibly, she rolled on a condom and straddled his body, teasing him with gentle kisses. She seemed to enjoy it when he was finally inside her, if her chants were any indication. They were subtle, intense, genuine he thought.

“Sex is
so amazing
,” she said.

Gianni jumped up, breathing heavily when the alarm went off. He looked around the room and tried to recollect where he was. His breathing slowed. As the sleep faded, he gradually oriented himself.
Florida…the Delano Hotel…Florida Derby Day…Chiefly Endeavor.
He hadn’t set the alarm in his hotel room and was startled from a sound sleep when it went off.
But the dream was so real. Why did he have it? Nothing he would ever do, he thought.

He would often try to recall or analyze his dreams, and could usually link the content to an event from the past day. He remembered that the governor of New York had once been linked to a prostitution ring and was forced to resign in disgrace. It had come up in a recent conversation. Perhaps that explained the content, but the intensity? Freud said dreams were often about wish fulfillment. Would
he
ever be so unrighteous?

Gianni recalled that when he heard the news of the government official, he was incredulous, wondering how a man at the pinnacle of his career could flush it all in a moment of indiscretion. The same official had actually prosecuted prostitution rings during his time as Attorney General. Yet the very powerful come to feel entitled and
infallible. They take risks and seek excitement, even though it may be momentary, expensive, and dangerous. Gianni then thought of a quote from a character in a Robert Dugoni novel—something about being God-fearing ninety-five percent of the time and a sinner the other five percent. It was the five percent that got people in trouble, when they succumbed to a weakness or just did something plain stupid.

With that analysis, he dismissed the dream and began to focus on the day ahead. Chiefly Endeavor was set to run in the Florida Derby, one of the major prep races for the Kentucky Derby. He was alone at the hotel. Janice once again had business at home. Brad Hill also remained in New York. Stu Duncker was recovering from hip surgery, so Gianni and Chet would be forced to get better acquainted. Gianni looked forward to that with little enthusiasm, to say the least. He would focus mainly on the horse and perhaps try to learn a little more about his new partner as well.

TEN PALMS RESTAURANT is on level two at Gulfstream Park. A plenteous buffet had been assembled for the owners, trainers and others who had connections with the horses entered in stakes races that day. It included a carving station with slices of rare prime rib and freshly roasted turkey. There were a variety of pasta specialties, tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad, marinated artichokes, all sorts of freshly baked breads, salmon and blackened mahi mahi, and more.

Anthony and Chet were seated at a table for four. A waitress arrived to take their drink order.

“What kind of beer do you have?” Chet asked.

The waitress said, “Too many to remember. What kind do you want?”

“Do you have Guinness?”

“On tap,” she said.

“Pint of Guinness and a cognac, Courvoisier,” Chet said.

“And for you, sir?”

“Can I get an iced coffee, please?” Gianni asked.

Chet looked at him quizzically. “You a teetotaler?”

“No, I just don’t like drinking during the day. It makes me feel too logy. I like a clear head for a big race day.”

When the drinks arrived, Chet raised a brandy sniffer and said, “Well, here’s to Chiefly Endeavor.” He slugged it down in a single swallow, and then followed it with several gulps of beer.

“Shall we eat,” Chet announced as he stood up to head towards the buffet tables.

He returned with two plates, a large dinner plate heaped into several large piles that included virtually everything that had been offered. The piles mixed together so that they blended into some sort of monumental goulash. At the bottom of the heap were double portions of the beef and turkey. On the smaller plate were several types of salad, a little more distinct from one another than the giant goulash on the larger plate.

“What a spread, huh?”

Gianni looked across at the two plates. “Looks more like a heap than a spread there on your plate, Chet.”

“All goes to the same place, Doc.” He patted his belly, which protruded noticeably from his unbuttoned sport coat. The top two buttons of his shirt were open and a heavy gold chain was visible amidst the forest of black and grey hair. The chain disappeared into the shirt, and Gianni wondered what hung at the end of it—a medallion,
crucifix, maybe nothing.

Chet looked across at Gianni’s plate. “What’s wrong with you? You on a diet?”

Gianni had selected roast turkey, a pasta salad, and the tomato with buffalo mozzarella. “No, I’m just not in the mood for a big meal. I’ll have my dinner celebration tonight.”

Regardless of the amount of food Gianni had on his plate, he would invariably finish it quickly, but without any appearance of eating too fast. It was more a deliberate pace, not a rushed one, something that he had acquired during his residency training. He remembered that at the time, his colleagues would often skip a lunch rather than try to wolf something down in five or ten minutes. He would always sit and eat, even if for only a few minutes. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t function well for the remainder of the day. He thought then, and he thought now, how terrible it must feel to go hungry for days, or longer, as some of the world’s impoverished must do. Then he thought of his upcoming medical mission to the island of St. Lucia. He had spent much of the previous week assembling the required credentialing files and completing the application.

Across the table, Chet looked like a human shovel, devouring large forkfuls of mixed portions in a shark-like feeding frenzy. Gianni imagined that if there had been another fork at his side, he might be using one in each hand. He did need the free hand though, because the fistfuls of food were punctuated by gulps of beer. When the glass was empty, he turned his head side to side looking for the waitress. When he spotted her, he raised his empty glass in her direction and she soon returned with another Guinness.

Few words were spoken for the next several minutes. Knowing
he was a fast eater, Gianni was amazed when Chet finished just shortly after him, though Chet’s speed and voracity were clearly evident.

When Chet returned from the desert table, Gianni noted that he had been a little more selective for his final feeding, choosing only a piece of key lime pie and a slice of dark chocolate cake.

“Where will you watch the race?” Gianni inquired.

“We have a box, don’t we?” Chet asked.

“So does Jeff, in a different area, though. Jeff can get a little superstitious about certain things, so if he does well with his horse in the sixth race, I’d be willing to bet that he’ll want to stay in the same spot for our race. So I may join him there, or wherever he’s headed.”

Chet had not quite finished desert when he began to tell Gianni a story about the superstitions of a certain well-known trainer. As he spoke, a mixture of key lime and chocolate moved about in his open mouth.

“They say this guy is so superstitious that he can never stop the gas pump with any combination of the number thirteen on the meter, you know, like thirteen dollars, thirteen g-g-gallons. So if he tops off his tank at thirteen something, he keeps pumping the gas, right on the pavement, until it hits fourteen.”

“You know the story of the Kentucky Derby Trophy?” Gianni asked.

“What about it?”

“They changed the trophy in 1999 for the 125
^th
running so that the horseshoe on the gold cup has the open end pointed up instead of down. It was done because superstition decrees that if the horseshoe is turned down, all the luck will run out.”

“Really? No shit?”

Gianni felt for the knot in his necktie, straightened it, then fastened the top button of his navy blue, cotton suit coat. “I have some people I need to see. I’ll see you in the paddock before the race. Let me take care of the bar tab and leave something for our waitress. The buffet is on the house, I guess you know, so it’s just the drinks and her tip.”

Gianni fully expected to pay but was surprised that Chet didn’t even raise a token objection or offer to contribute. Instead, Chet summoned the waitress one last time. “How about a coffee, dear?”

Gianni looked at Chet and thought,
My new partner— a slob and a skinflint, too
.