The Silent Salesman Read online

  But for whatever reason, Loftus Pavilion had a style very different from the aging institutional character of the rest of Entropist Hospital. Newer, granted, but also more evidently purpose-built. Its street-level reception area, as I walked in, gave access to the reception desk and an area with privacy, as required. It was basically a rich place, with thick carpets, as if the paternal hand of Sir Jeff had come out of the pocket with a few extra coins so that the designers could go all the way.

  The Loftus Pavilion nurse wasn’t thick. She had sharp eyes and realized I was an enemy as soon as she saw me. “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I’d like to know when I can visit John Austin Pighee, please.” I think I said please.

  “Mr. Pighee is not allowed visitors,” she replied without hesitation.

  “Why not?”

  She seemed affronted to be asked other than a time-and-place question. “Because he’s not,” she said. “Risk of contamination: doctor’s orders.”

  “May I have a word with his doctor, please?”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  “I represent a member of Mr. Pighee’s family who wants to visit him and is not satisfied with being fobbed off by someone at the front desk. It’s simply not good enough. If there is a real reason why he mustn’t be visited, fine. But we want to know more about it and from the doctor in charge of the case.”

  “Dr. Merom isn’t in the hospital just now,” she said.

  “Well, then, I’d like to see whoever is here,” I said.

  She turned her head toward a man sitting in an inner office room, separated by a windowed wall from the reception desk.

  “Evan,” she said.

  The man stood up and I saw that he was wearing a parapolice uniform, was clearly their security man.

  “Now, look . . .” I said.

  But Evan continued unhesitatingly until he was standing next to me in front of the reception desk. “You want to see a man but he isn’t allowed visitors,” he began, having obviously been in touch with the word exchange from the beginning. “I have every sympathy with your situation, believe me. But if I were you I think I’d just let it drop, because if you keep on trying to see this man, there’s no telling what might happen. You might infect him or cause him to suffer a setback. Now, I’m painting the blackest possible picture, the blackest possible, but if you infected this man you want to see, it’s possible that he could die, just because you insisted on seeing him. You could be put on a police charge, of manslaughter or even murder.”

  Evan wasn’t armed, but he was tongued.

  “I take it you will not let me see John Austin Pighee and you will not let me talk to the person on the premises who is in charge of his case. Is that correct?”

  “He’s not allowed visitors,” Evan said emphatically.

  “I shall return,” I said. And left.

  But I didn’t go as far as they expected me to. Only as far as the hospital’s administration offices.

  “Yes?” said the man at the desk inside the room marked “Chief Administrator.” “Can I do something for you?”

  “The Chief Administrator wants to see me,” I said.

  “Do you have an appointment?” He peered into an open appointment book.

  “Better to see me now than wait until my client sues the hospital.”

  “J . . . Just a minute,” he said, and went to an inner room.

  It took about a minute.

  The Chief Administrator was a small, tired woman with carefully coiffed white hairs that were being gradually lost. The voice, however, was firmly rooted in Hoosier-land, efficiently clipped. “I understand you want to see me urgently.”

  I produced my pocket identification card, which showed that I was a private detective duly licensed by the State of Indiana in accordance with the Indiana Acts of 1961, Chapter 163.

  “So, a private detective,” she said matter-of-factly. She’d had dealings with Us before. “And your business?”

  “I have a client who wants to visit her brother and isn’t being allowed to. She’s not satisfied with the reasons she’s been given for her exclusion.”

  “Mmm,” she said. “A patient here?”

  I nodded.

  “The patient’s name?”

  I gave it.

  “And where is he? Which ward?”

  “My client says the Loftus Clinic’ but I’ve only been able to find something called ‘the Loftus Pavilion.’ ”

  “Aaah,” said the Chief Administrator, and she relaxed.

  “And just what is aaah’ supposed to mean?”

  “Well, Loftus Clinic is a part of the Loftus Pavilion. It’s an experimental section and a patient in there might well have different restrictions than patients in the rest of the Pavilion.”

  “Experimental?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. “The administration of the Loftus Clinic has nothing to do with me.”

  “I thought you were the administrative head of this hospital.”

  “I am,” she said.

  I waited a moment for an explanation, but it wasn’t forthcoming.

  “It will be your name on the suit my client files,” I said.

  “An action involving me would not be to the point. Loftus Pharmaceutical Company, in exchange for the construction of a fifty-two-bed addition known as Loftus Pavilion, retains control and legal possession of a ten-bed research unit known as Loftus Clinic. The ground floor of the new wing is taken up by the Clinic and technical and reception facilities. Upper floors known as Loftus Pavilion are under my supervision, but if your client’s relative is in Loftus Clinic, you must go to the company.”

  “It’s a completely independent body?”

  “We provide basic staffing, maintenance, materials, and some services. They have their laundry done by our sanitation section and may draw on our kitchen facilities. They can use specialist equipment by arrangement, can call on some of our medical and paramedical staff for consultation. But admissions, general and specific research policy, regular medical staff, and, more important for your purposes, control of access to patients, they determine for themselves and to suit themselves.”

  “Including having a bouncer on the premises?”

  “A bouncer?”

  “A guy in a uniform who gets rid of querysome people by talking their hind legs off—but making it clear that if necessary he’d pull them off with his bare hands.”

  “Well,” she said, “for your sort of problem, it’s a separate hospital.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “There is a department at Loftus under the Research Administration. It’s called Clinical Research.”

  I drove, grumbling, south. But I didn’t want my poor reception at Entropist Hospital’s various hands to predetermine the way I went into the Loftus Pharmaceutical Company, so I stopped for a cup of coffee and took the opportunity to reconstruct, for my notebook, my morning conversations.

  Red tape is red tape is red tape, and the usual way to get through is to go door to door till you find someone with a pair of scissors. The question, save a couple of details, was how long it was going to take to find the door and then what if would take to get the inmate to exercise his fingers. I had at least got the name of Pighee’s doctor: Merom.

  But suppose, I thought, suppose I get no joy at Loftus. What then? Pighee’s lawyer, I thought. Habeas corpus? Or maybe a little medical help? Second opinion?

  Chapter Three

  “It’s a little early for lunch, isn’t it?” I asked a woman about to bite into a huge sandwich. She hesitated.

  “Gee, do you think so?”

  “Yeah, but don’t mind me. You’re too thin anyway.”

  “Gee, do you think so?”

  “Look,” I said. “I was told outside that the person in charge of the Loftus Clinic at Entropist Hospital could be found here. Is that right?”

  “Mr. Dundree? Yeah, I guess he’s who you want. But he’s not in the office right now.”

&n
bsp; “Where can I find him?”

  “Well, he’s over at Research Three, but you can’t get in there because it’s inside the security perimeter and he isn’t expecting you. Hey, unless you’re somebody important, then I can probably get you through. You somebody important? You don’t look important.”

  “I’m important,” I said. I get so few opportunities.

  “Well, in that case I’ll write you a pass that will get you through the gate, but you’ll have to sign in and out.”

  “Tight security, is it?”

  “Pretty tight. There was some trouble about ten years ago, and people wanted Sir Jeff to have a big mop-up; search everybody going in and out and that sort of thing, but he wouldn’t do it.”

  “No?”

  “No, Sir Jeff feels that you’ve got to trust the worker to get the best out of him.”

  “Except you had some trouble ten years ago. . . .”

  “Yes, but Sir Jeff decided that was people from the outside. Now we have fences and guards checking who goes in and out. I.D.s and that kind of thing.”

  “Must get pretty rushed when the shifts change.”

  “Well, a lot of them are staggered, but the workers have two gates of their own they go through and the guards get to know the faces. It’s strangers they worry about. And you’re a stranger. You’re sure you’re important?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Well, that’s O.K., then.” She held out a yellow card. “Hey, wait, I didn’t put your name on it. What’s your name?”

  I told her.

  “O.K.,” she said, and handed it to me. “Of course, if any of the workers do get caught stealing pills or anything, it’s pffft.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah. But with free medical care and free prescriptions, they’d be crazy to do it anyway, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Crazy.”

  “At least that’s what Sir Jeff thinks. And it seems to work.”

  Loftus Pharmaceutical Company occupied a large area west of Meridian on the south side. I had turned in to the main entrance and found a mixture of buildings, some new and some old, clearly marked for administration and sales. A patrolling guard cum parking attendant had steered me to the Clinical Research section.

  He acknowledged me as I left the building carrying the yellow card. “Going inside? Down the road, show the card to the guard in that little building, you see?”

  I walked the two hundred yards to the round brick building, with windows on all sides like a gazebo. On its right, from where I stood, there was a high link fence; on its left, a pivoted barrier blocked vehicular access. Beyond that, more link fence. As I crossed the road to the gate, I saw a large parking lot on the left, several hundred cars. Clearly the notion of security was strict enough that “the workers” walked in and didn’t drive.

  At the Security Building I was challenged by a tall guard who studied my yellow card. It seemed all right to him and after he signed me in, he asked, “Do you know your way to Research Three?”

  I didn’t, so he gave me instructions.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You sign in and out there, too. A book just inside the front door.”

  “Oh. O.K.”

  “And check out here when you leave.”

  “What happens if I forget? You chop me up and feed me to Sir Jeff for breakfast?”

  It was a poor remark to make; taking Sir Jeff’s name in vain. The guard growled and said, “Just don’t forget.”

  I found Research Three easily enough. The building was a two-story shoe box, of recent vintage. Most of the other non-factory buildings I’d passed had been relatively old, modernized and adapted. But the temptation to sweep the area clear and build all new had clearly been resisted at various stages.

  Inside the door, alone on a small wooden table, I found the book I was supposed to sign. There was nobody there to make me do it. So I did.

  The corridors on my right and left were empty. Even the walls, a kind of light marine green, were bare except for four telephones, two in each direction. At the end of each corridor were what looked like showers.

  I didn’t feel unclean, but I walked down to have a look. A gray steel stirrup hung from a chain. Behind it a plate read “Statutory Emergency Shower. Pull handle sharply down. Stand directly under spigot. Remove affected clothing.”

  Not much privacy, but you can’t have everything in a statutory emergency.

  For the first time since I’d entered the building, I heard human voices, which seemed to come from above me. I walked back toward the stairs; as I did, a man in a white lab coat came down them. I ran the remaining distance to him.

  “Excuse me, a Mr. Dundree is supposed to be here. Do you know where I can find him?”

  “I am Dr. Dundree,” he said.

  “I’d like a few minutes of your time,” I said. “I’m a private detective and I think you can help me out.”

  He hesitated but then led me to the privacy of a small room nearby where he had a desk and a couple of chairs. For all the people around to overhear us, we’d have been just as private under the shower. He was a smallish man, tending to overweight. He had a round face and bright brown eyes. “You say you’re a private detective.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m representing a member of the family of John Austin Pighee.”

  “Pighee?” The name had tensed him in an instant.

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re not an insurance investigator, are you?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you could be,” he said reflectively. “Anyway, the lab was refitted within two weeks. There’s not much sign left that anything happened.”

  “Where did it happen?” I asked.

  “Upstairs.”

  “This building?”

  “Yes.” He hesitated. “But if you’re not . . . What exactly is it that you want?”

  “Mr. Pighee is presently a patient in the Loftus Clinic at Entropist Hospital.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I work for Mr. Pighee’s sister. She’s been repeatedly re¬fused permission to visit her brother. I’m trying to find out why that should be, and I’m trying to get clearance for her. Which seems, I must say, only reasonable. Can you clear that up for us? Then I won’t bother you further.”

  He seemed displeased. “Your name is?” I told him. “You must understand, Mr. Samson, that what you ask is a medical issue, not an administrative one. I’m only the administrative head of the Loftus Clinic.”

  “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

  He smiled condescendingly. “But a Ph.D. doctor. Not an M.D.”

  “Where the hell does the buck stop around this place?”

  He put one hand in the pocket of the lab coat. “It’s not something I can help you with.”

  I was getting angry. “Now, let’s get this clear. Is there some standing administrative policy at the Loftus Clinic which excludes visitors to all patients there?”

  He hesitated. “No . . . Each case is judged on its merits.”

  “That’s something. Now, someone said the Clinic is an experimental unit, is that right?”

  “Yes.” He seemed to be playing with something in his pocket.

  “What kind of experiments have you been doing on Pighee? I wouldn’t have thought that a drug company had much interest in accident victims. No disease to treat. He was in an explosion, I believe.”

  “Yes, a lab explosion. Part of our experimental interest in Mr. Pighee has to do with his having suffered from a violent injury. We feel that after initial stabilization of the condition of such a patient, there is not enough known about the possible uses of chemotherapy.”

  “So you’re trying out drugs on him?”

  He ignored the question. He said, “But we are also concerned to make sure Mr. Pighee has the best possible medical treatment and chance of recovery. He is, one of our own employees, after all. And if his doctor has restricted vis
iting, I’m sure it’s in Mr. Pighee’s best interests.”

  I said, “His doctor is called Merom, I believe.”

  “That’s right.”

  “At the Clinic this morning, they said he wasn’t there. Do you know where I could find him?”

  “Well, Dr. Merom is in this building, I believe.”

  “A Loftus employee?”

  “We staff the Clinic from our own research personnel.”

  “May I talk to him?”

  “Her,” he said.

  “To her, then.”

  He sighed. “We’re all very busy around here, you know.”

  “John Pighee is very—”

  “All right, all right,” he interrupted me. “I’ll call her and see if she can come down.” He dialed a short number, on the internal phone and waited while the person answering called Dr. Merom to it. “Marcia?” he said. ‘This is Jay. I know you’re busy, but I’ve got a man down here who would like to talk to you about why John Pighee isn’t allowed visitors at the Clinic.” He paused.

  “Represents a member of the family. . . . No. Sister, I think.” I nodded. She must have asked a question, because he looked at me and said, “I don’t think there are any ramifications. I think it’s pretty straightforward.”

  While I waited for Dr. Merom to come down, I resolved to be as circuitous as I could.

  Dundree made conversation hard, while we waited, by standing in his office doorway. We seemed to wait, quietly and uncomfortably, for quite a long time.

  At last he stepped back into the room and said, “Here she is.”

  An enormously tall man with curly flaxen hair stepped, into the office. “Where is this guy?” he said belligerently to Dundree, though I was the only other person in the room. Perhaps from his height, about six ten or eleven, it was easy to overlook people.

  “It’s Marcia we wanted to see, Lee,” Dundree said peevishly.

  The tall man didn’t seem impressed, and from behind him a small woman in a dirty lab coat came into the room. She was about thirty and had long brown hair.

  “This is Dr. Merom,” Dundree said. “And this”—the tall man—“is Lee Seafield, a colleague of John Pighee’s. We are all, naturally, interested in anything to do with John.”

  “Can you make it quick?” Dr. Merom asked. “I’m between test tubes.”