Part 15

"Well, how 'ya doin'?" Paul said, "I'm Paul Whitman, another doctor. Dr. Jones referred you to me, because I had this brilliant idea, talking to him about your case."

Zander Smith was sitting up, perfectly alert, in pain, Paul noticed, of course, but also obvious, from a slight bend forward, with his right forearm unconsciously pressed against the abdomen.

"Great. I love brilliant ideas."

Slightly sarcastic, Paul noted. The stress and pain were driving undermining the efforts to keep up the wall that years of practice had strengthened, but only just enough.

"I was doing this really interesting research of runaways," Paul said. "Even a thing like that takes certain abilities. Those who don't succeed at it turn around and go home. Those who do succeed have the ability the take big risks, they even like risks, and they have an ability to think and act fast. Same qualities successful businessmen have. Did you ever know that?"

"No. I didn't know that."

"Now you do. It always helps to know a thing or two about ourselves. Anyway, that includes the physical too, i.e., the medical."

"Yeah."

"So about the Long Branch, Q, what is it?" Paul looked at the chart, instinct telling him to pretend not to know the name with precision and to treat it like it was no big deal. Just some stupid worry of doctors and women. "Long Q-T Syndrome," he read. "You know there's all the doctor and patient confidentiality, and even privileges that I wouldn't be able to testify in court. So say you do this: tell me the doctors, and I get in touch with them, as colleagues, and I say that I need these records and the fact I need them is confidential, too. A doctor would never report to anybody that a colleague wanted to discuss one of his patients. So I get them, white out all the names, and write over some identifier like X and Y or Mother and Father. Voila! Dr. Quartermaine can read your records and not learn a thing she doesn't already know that has no direct bearing on your medical condition."

"Some doctors would tell certain other people."

"Some would, certainly, but it's rare. I could have another colleague contact the doctor. This colleague is just a friend of mine and he's got like zero, totally zero, interest, and he's in Texas. So the trail from that end leads to him and no further."

"You probably think I'm nuts, but there are people who would pressure the guy in Texas and even threaten him. Dr. Quartermaine said she had to talk to them, too."

Paul noticed the use of the pronoun "them," indicating even a resistance to refer to the relationship. "Well, she'll have to do without that," he answered. "Still, what she would have is better than nothing, and it could lead somewhere away from them but still likely to produce some information. See we don't want to bother you about your identity, just your medical condition. Doesn't matter how well the people knew you. In fact, I just had another brilliant idea. Under all this same confidentiality, we have somebody look into the medical history of your grandparents or your cousins. There's some legal way to do that, I'm sure. Some of these people might have been asked, so they'd mention your parents as their cousin, or whatever it is, that had a problem, and we'll go on your word your parents didn't have a problem, so when it comes right down to it, what Dr. Quartermaine wanted to talk to them about is these aunts and grandparents and cousins and whether or not they had a problem with this Long P-T Boat thing."

Zander Smith laughed, but that brought on a spasm of pain.

"Be careful of those stitches," Paul advised.

"Think about it anyway," Paul added. He put the chart down and got up. As he went out he said, "I'll be back the next time I have a brilliant idea."

"I'm sure you will," Zander Smith said.