The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

his belly. Suddenly — inexplicably — he wanted to be
popular
.
    Arthur kept staring straight ahead.
    “Well,” said Jeremy.
    “Good night,” said Arthur.
    “Thanks again.”
    “You’re welcome,” said Arthur. And nothing more.
     
18
     
    B y the time he reached home, Jeremy had put Arthur’s strange, sudden coolness aside. There were worse things in life than social error. When he crawled into bed, his mind was empty, and he slept like a corpse.
     
    The cold light of morning — and a hangover — killed further introspection. He popped aspirin, hazarded a run in the icy air, took a scalding shower, called Angela at home but got no answer. It was Saturday morning, but patients depended on him, and he suddenly felt like working. He was at his desk by nine, trying to ignore the grit in his eyelids and the throbbing in his temples.
    His pathetic stab at the book chapter glared at him reproachfully. He decided to do personal rounds earlier than usual, see all his patients before lunch, spend more time with each one of them.
    He’d dressed as he always did but felt rumpled and uncouth. Grabbing his white coat off the door hook, he threw it on. The coat was something he generally avoided, wanting to separate himself from the physicians.
    I’m the doctor who doesn’t hurt you.
    That helped with kids. Not that he saw many kids anymore. Too much pain. Some things he just couldn’t handle.
    Adult patients didn’t seem to care how you dressed as long as you avoided extremes of grooming and demeanor. Some were even comforted by the image the lab coat imparted.
    Clinical rites, priestly vestments. Here’s an
expert
.
    If they only knew.
     
     
    A few minor crises kept him working past noon, and he stretched the day farther by extending his bedside contacts, taking time to sit down with the nursing staff, charting carefully, with atypical legibility.
    A page-message from Angela said, “Sorry about today, got called in.”
    A major crisis arose just before three: man with a gun near the Ob-Gyn Clinic, and the page operator was adamant that Dr.
Carrier
was needed.
    The threat turned out to be the husband of a hysterectomy patient who’d been spotted by a nurse with a telltale bulge under his sweater and now sat alone and smoldering in a vacated waiting room.
    Security had been called, the charge nurse informed Jeremy. The husband was an angry man, he’d always made her nervous. Hospital regulations said someone from Mental Health needed to be there, and the department said he was next up.
    The affair turned out to be sad rather than frightening. Against everyone’s advice, Jeremy entered the room before the guards arrived. The man was unshaven, red-eyed, and under the influence of depression. Jeremy sat down and talked to him and listened and when the man said, “Why’s everyone so nervous?” Jeremy pointed to the bulge.
    The man laughed and lifted his sweater and shirt. Underneath was a colostomy bag. The man said, “They can frisk me if they want. At their own fucking risk.”
    He laughed harder, and Jeremy joined in. The two of them talked some more, and the poor fellow got into topics he’d never opened up about to anyone. Raged about his illness, his wife’s, the prospect of childlessness; there was plenty to be angry about. After an hour, he seemed calm, but Jeremy wouldn’t have been surprised if next time he did show up armed.
    When the two of them exited the room, three members of the useless security detail the hospital employed were standing by, trying to look competent.
    Jeremy said, “Everything’s under control. You can go.”
    The biggest guard said, “Now, Doc—”
    “Go.”
     
     
    The time he spent with the poor man cheered him. Someone else’s problems. He’d snapped to attention like the faithful member of the mental health army he was. Any good soldier knew the key to efficient battle: death of the individual in service of the greater good.
    Feeling noble and depersonalized, he