LITMIR.BIZ

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stomach.

      Moran lowered himself into one of the two Chippendale armchairs that faced Cook’s desk and squirmed into the hard seat.

      “By your tone when you called, I gather the news is not good. What’s wrong?” Moran asked.

      Cook remained silent, letting the question hang in the air—the question that’s always asked. Finally, the doctor cleared his throat and sat down behind his desk. He opened the file that lay before him and ceremoniously placed a pair of Benjamin Franklin eyeglasses on the bridge of his wide nose, cleared his throat and began to thumb through the thick stack of pages in the file.

      While Cook skimmed through the file, Moran stared at the doctor and thought of how he didn’t particularly like the man, although he recognized Dr. Cook’s competence in his field. Moran was put off by Cook’s arrogant attitude, his overuse of jewelry— like that five-figure, oversized gold and diamond Rolex on his left wrist, and the way he painstakingly combed strands of dyed black hair from his left side over his bald pate. Right, Cook, that really fools everyone.

      Moran pushed aside those thoughts and downshifted mental gears, realizing he didn’t want the doctor to be a cheerleader with rah-rah messages and bubbling over with enthusiasm. What Sandra needed was Cook to be like a good ballplayer, capable of hitting cancer right out of the ballpark—a home run over the center field wall.

      When Cook finished reviewing the file, he grunted, and the answer to Moran’s question came straight, a doughnut with no glaze.

      “A.L.L. can be a very stubborn adversary. It’s now been six months since we began administering chemotherapy with central nervous system preventive therapy. I was hoping by now to have significantly reduced the leukemic cell population.” Cook poured a glass of water from the pitcher on a tray next to the telephone. “Unfortunately, the CNS hasn’t produced the results I expected. What was diagnosed originally as L3 morphology has unfortunately become what is known as PH1 morphology.” He paused and rotated the oversized ring on his left pinky while he looked at Moran whose face became a question mark. “Which is?”

      Cook slowly removed his eyeglasses and held them daintily between his pudgy fingers. “It only occurs in one to two percent of patients with A.L.L., and hers is the worst type.” He leaned forward and placed his forefingers together. After another clearing of the throat, he continued. “I’m afraid that without a bone marrow transplant the outlook is bleak.” Cook’s tone, with its hint of superiority, chafed Moran’s nerves. The detective also found Cook’s habit of clearing his throat increasingly irritating, like a rat scratching on glass.

      The doctor wiped his eyeglasses with the back of his broad violet striped yellow tie—a silk banner of bad taste. “It’s unfortunate that your markers didn’t—”

      “Markers?” Moran asked with a puzzled look.

      “Human Leukocyte Antigens.”

      “Ah, yes… you explained that. If I remember, you said because of her advanced condition all six antigens had to match. And mine only matched four. But she has a half-brother, Alfred Abravanel, in upstate New York. Could he be a donor?”

      “If the leukocytes,” Cook said, and stopped. He gazed at Moran’s questioning face and then continued. “Those are the white blood cells used to test for the antigens. If the six antigens match, I see no problem.” Cook returned the eyeglasses to his nose. “If not… well, the donor list is backed up three years, and she doesn’t have that long.”

      “Can’t we move her up the list? After all you said she’d die without a transplant?”

      The doctor adjusted the knot of his tie. “I’m afraid that would require the approval of the hospital board. Preferences are only granted in extreme cases.”

      Moran’s face tightened and he uncrossed his legs. “Excuse me, Dr. Cook, but doesn’t dying qualify as an extreme case?”

      Cook leaned back in his chair. “I can certainly petition the board on your behalf if you wish, detective, but—”

      “Yes, I do wish it; in fact, I insist.”

      Cook stood and snapped the file shut. “Very well, I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I suggest you contact your wife’s brother and have him schedule an appointment so we can conduct the necessary compatibility tests.” He smiled, “I am, however, encouraged by the fact that during the past three months the milder chemotherapy has given her body’s immune system an opportunity to strengthen.”

      Moran stood, flattened a wrinkle in his tie with the palm of his hand, and riveted his eyes on the doctor. “Thanks,” he deadpanned.

      “I’m sorry, but please realize that this is all very embarrassing for me. I was confident we’d have better news.”

      Embarrassing, Moran thought in anger. What kind of a frigging word is that? Spilling soup on your tie is embarrassing; noticing someone see you pick your nose is embarrassing; leaving the house with your fly unzipped, that’s major league embarrassing. Is this guy for real?

      The door swung open and Sandra stepped into the office. She looked up at her husband’s flustered face.

      “Anything wrong?” she asked.

      Moran cast Cook a sideways glance. “Everything’s okay. Dr. Cook was kind enough to invite me to wait here for you.”

      A few minutes later Moran and Sandra stepped out onto the sidewalk. It was a bright brisk early November day with only two or three clouds trailing across a taut blue sky. The city was rushing toward Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year, and the two had made plans the day before to have an early lunch at the Waldorf’s Bull & Bear Steakhouse, do some window-shopping, and stop at Gristedes for groceries on their way home, which was a three-story brownstone on West 10^th Street.

      The street-toughened detective gazed at his wife, and memories of the past began to flicker like a sepia Hollywood flashback in Moran’s mind: He had bought the brownstone with the hope that he and his first wife, Sally, would raise a family. That dream vanished when she left him to redefine herself in California. During the next four years, Moran lived alone in the large dark house in monk-like loneliness surrounded only by bitter memories of his failed marriage.

      Three years ago, it had all come to a climax when his right knee was shattered by an assailant’s bullet. At forty-six years of age, his career seemed over. However, fortune smiled on a depressed Moran when he was given a new knee along with a new job as head of the Cold Cases Task Force, now the Cold Case & Apprehension Squad.

      One day when Moran went to the gym as part of his physical rehabilitation to build up his right leg with its new space-age titanium knee replacement, he met Sandra Mazzetti, seven years his junior and a professor of Criminal Psychology at CCNY, the College of the City of New York. With a five-year old sickly boy, she was a single parent whose estranged husband had been killed in a motorcycle accident years before—another one of the walking wounded.

      The remembrances stopped with the same suddenness as they had appeared, and Moran swallowed hard. He looked at Sandra and his gaze met hers.

      Sandra gave her husband a curious look. “Where were you just now, James?”

      Moran smiled. “Nowhere… right here.” He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand. He was back in the present and feeling a sense of relief.

      When they reached the corner, Moran hailed a cab. They got in and after a few blocks, Sandra ordered the driver to stop. She wanted to walk she explained, to feel the sun on her skin, the breeze on her face--to feel alive. “I’m fed up with being poked and prodded at by doctors and nurses.”

      Moran readily agreed, smiling as he recalled his father’s words: “Stay away from hospitals, son; too many sick people.”

      Sandra slipped her hand into the crook of Moran’s arm, and when he glanced at her, he saw her tired eyes. She peeked at him over her raised coat collar. He was a full foot taller, and when she caught his

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