Public Anatomy Page 5

  “Well now,” the young woman said, as though impressed, “looks like the doctor wants to start early this morning.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The exotic young woman led him into a receiving room. Eli assumed the proper term was parlor, although his knowledge of Victorian style was scant, at best. Ornamental lamps sat on tiered tables, and the walls were stenciled by hand. The room looked as if it belonged to an old woman who hadn’t touched anything in years.

  “Would you like to sit on that fancy couch?”

  “Sure,” Eli said. He approached what she called a couch but what resembled two chairs turned opposite each other and glued side by side. He sat on one side, she on the other, so close that Eli heard leather peel from her hip.

  The cushions were too firm and the curved wooden arm rest was hard as bone. Eli was more accustomed to U-shaped sectionals that accommodated a crowd on game days or could sleep four comfortably.

  “You look older than most of the medical students.”

  She spoke a mixture of broken English and street slang. Eli guessed her speech was put on for effect. To his surprise, her dialect was working. Sexy as hell.

  She tilted her head. “How come’s that?”

  “I finished medical school ten years ago.”

  “What is it you do then?”

  Eli looked at the curved staircase, and wished Liza would descend.

  “I’m a surgeon.”

  Eli felt her hip quiver.

  She put her hand on his knee. “Dr. French is moving up a notch.”

  Eli found it difficult to follow her conversation. She was obviously referring to a part of Liza’s life of which he was unaware.

  “Why did you think I was a medical student?”

  “Oh, don’t you know, she’s very fond of them.”

  “Okay, Layla,” a voice came from the staircase, “that’s enough.”

  Layla quickly scooted away from Eli as Liza French descended the stairs in short bouncy jogs. She wore a tight, peach-colored top that stretched and clung to her upper body, the sleeves reaching to mid-forearm, her midriff exposed, tanned and toned. A similar fabric, but in black, sculpted her butt to mid-thigh.

  “Could you get us some tea, please?”

  Layla stood, said “Certainly,” and stuck her tongue out as she left the room.

  Liza stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She put both hands behind her and arched her back as though stretching for a morning run.

  “They found you rather quickly.”

  “Hello to you too, Liza.”

  She smiled and released a breath. “Forgive me. I seem to have lost my manners over the last day or so.”

  “Manners?” Eli said, “We both know you never had any.”

  She ran her fingers along the banister. “How long has it been, Eli? Ten years?”

  He wondered if those few minutes in the hospital linen closet, early one morning after a long, treacherous night on call, invaded her thoughts as often as they did his.

  “Ten years? Something like that.”

  Her hair was casually arranged in short spiky curls. Eli remembered her as a redhead. Now she had silver highlights. The touch of gray gave her a mature, sophisticated look. Then he realized his eyes were loosely wandering down her workout clothes. Her top had Body Glove written across her chest. It certainly fit her like one.

  Liza followed Eli’s lead and glanced down at her clothes. “I’m going out for a quick run. It’s the only way I can forget what’s happened.”

  Eli held open his hands. “And here I come to remind you.”

  She hesitated as though reluctant to get him involved. “I want to talk to you, Eli.”

  “I seem to have acquired a habit of getting in the middle of things.”

  Liza smiled. Layla reappeared in the doorway carrying a fragile tray and tea cups.

  “Tea?” Eli asked.

  Liza directed his attention to the Victorian-laden antiquities around them. “Well, yeah.”

  “I’ll take coffee, myself. If you have it.”

  “Only tea in this house, doctor.” Layla placed the set on a low table. Little white frosted cookies surrounded two delicate china cups. Liza sat on a fancy footstool across from him.

  Relieved that she didn’t sit next to him in the awkward side-by-side chair, Eli was ready to discuss the robotic operation gone bad. Instead, he picked up his dainty cup as if making a toast. “When in Rome.” He took a sip. It tasted like triple strength Lipton’s. He dumped in a teaspoon of sugar, gestured to the room’s interior design, and said, “What’s all this?”

  “You don’t like my décor?” Liza asked.

  “Not exactly my taste. But then again, I don’t have any.”

  “The Victorian era is my passion. Always has been, since I was a girl.”

  Eli said nothing.

  “You must have a passion, Eli. What is it? Golf, sports cars, women?”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer.

  “When the robotic program took off, I put everything I had into this old mansion. Two years it took to restore it.”

  “What happened, Liza?”

  She placed her delicate cup back on its saucer and stared at it. “Everything was going beautifully. The robotic surgery program was back on track, patients were doing very well. They were all so happy with the outcome, Eli.”

  She obviously wanted to flaunt her success first.

  “The incisions are so small. Patients have very little pain. I have patients booked out three months.”

  Her face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning.

  “Did you know my program has more referrals than any in the Southeast? Second only to the program in Boston?”

  “What went wrong?” Eli asked, trying to get her to focus.

  “It’s the damn machine, Eli. Has to be.”

  Her hand jerked, rattled the saucer, and tea spilled on the table.

  “The operation was going so smoothly, just like all the others. We were ready to close. Then something went terribly wrong. It’s like I had no control of the robot. No matter what I did, the trocars continued to move until they were ripping and tearing the tissue.”

  Liza made jabbing motions with fingers to emulate the doomed operation. Her face was red and tears pooled in the corners of her eyes.

  “One of the instruments hit the aorta and blood was everywhere.”

  Liza was calm again.

  She looked at Eli and said, “It wasn’t me. You have to believe that.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Eli took a sip from the china cup. Even though he was not a tea drinker, it seemed as though Layla had added too much cream. He wondered what else she might have put into it.

  “We haven’t spoken in ten years, Liza. Why do you want me involved in this mess?”

  “You make it sound so sinister, Eli. I know you’ve investigated problems like this before. I’ve seen you on the news.”

  “I was just in the wrong place at the right time. I have no investigative training. You need to hire a professional, starting with an attorney.”

  Liza closed her beautiful green eyes, then opened them only halfway, making them lazy, seductive, impossible to look at without feeling the sting. Eli had suffered this look before, and he did not want to see it now. Though some called it bedroom eyes, he knew Liza French never confined herself to one room.

  “I’m in trouble, Eli. My privileges are suspended. They’re threatening to permanently close my robotic program.”

  Her green eyes were now on fire.

  “I need your help.”

  As hard as it was for Eli to admit, he and Liza had a lot in common. He had lost his hospital privileges, his whole research program. He watched Liza pick up her cup and stir in another lump of sugar. At least you have use of both hands.

  “It’s not like I’m a stranger, Eli. I thought you might remember. You know.”

  He didn’t want to go there, not now.

  “How exactly do you th
ink I could help?”

  She leaned closer to him, and in a half whisper said, “Convince them it wasn’t my fault. It was device failure. Show them that the robotic instrument is responsible for this death. If you can prove that, then the blame will be off me and I can continue my work.” Liza stood and caressed the rim of a lamp shade. “I may have to move. Completely start over, I don’t know. But at least I’ll have a chance.”

  Her gaze returned to him and Eli considered his options. Federal agents had approached him because of his experience with corruption in the biotech industry. Now a former colleague, acquaintance, whatever the hell she was, was asking him to clear her name.

  Both of us want the same thing for ourselves.

  And there was the promise of steady pay for this job. No more all-night ER shifts, which he had no interest in ever doing again.

  Liza stood and handed him a business card. Renaissance Robotics was written in bold letters, with New York, New York printed under it. Below this was a local address for the company in Memphis. And in much smaller letters, in parentheses, a division of Regency Biotech International.

  Liza pulled her foot behind her and toward her head in a ballerina sort of stretch now. She released her foot, turned sideways and leaned forward to touch her toes. She looked up, caught him staring, and said, “The company has a branch office here, you won’t have to go very far.”

  Regency Biotech International. The parent company of Renaissance Robotics. Eli knew RBI well. After the biotech investigation that cost him his academic career, RBI was forced to close all its divisions. Except its robotics department. The one remaining focus of the company was Renaissance Robotics.

  The visit by the federal agents made more sense to him now. Their investigation of RBI continued. Same song. Different verse.

  “I can’t just walk up and say, ‘Hey, I’m here to find out why your robots have become so unruly.’”

  Liza approached him, lightly traced the V-neck of his scrubs with her fingertip. “The Eli I used to know was pretty crafty. You’ll think of something.”

  Then she turned away, held tight in black spandex.

  “I might think of doing nothing at all.” It sounded like an empty threat.

  Liza stopped but did not turn around. “On the second Monday of each month, the Madison Hotel hosts a medical conference. Renaissance Robotics has taken this opportunity to hold workshops on robotic surgery there. It draws surgeons from across the Southeast and the nation.”

  Eli wondered where she was going with this. He waited for more information. Then he realized that tomorrow was the second Monday.

  She turned where he could see her face, and other parts, in profile. “Maybe the workshop still has an opening.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Madison Hotel is a small, five-star luxury hotel on Madison Avenue in downtown Memphis. A former bank building, the sixteen-story structure built in 1905 was renovated nearly one hundred years later with European flair.

  The bellman greeted Eli and held the door. The ornate lobby displayed a colorful décor with plush seating. Discreetly placed in the corner of the lobby, a marquee announced the meeting.

  Renaissance Robotics presents:

  A Workshop in Robotic Surgery

  Continental Ballroom—Third Floor

  Eli took the stairs. He purposely arrived late so that he could sneak in the back just as the conference started, hoping to get a last-minute registration. He figured the attire would be business casual, so he had thrown a tweed jacket over a white button-down shirt and slipped on a pair of loafers. Stylish but comfortable. In the reception area, he approached the registration desk attended by two young women, both in their mid- to late-twenties, tanned, all smiles, with perfect makeup and grey business suit skirts well above their knees. Handpicked by the company, Eli thought. They would know nothing about robotic surgery, nothing about biomedical device production, but would attract attention from anyone who walked by. Eli hoped to use this to his advantage.

  “Good morning,” they called in a near-synchronized greeting.

  He stopped in front of the desk. One of the young women held a clipboard with names of the registrants while the other arranged preprinted name badges in plastic clip-on holders. A table piled high with pastries, fruit, and coffee sat to the left of the registration desk. On the opposite side, Renaissance Robotics displayed its brochures. Behind the smiling young women, through the closed conference room doors, Eli heard the crescendo of a musical passage as though a movie was starting.

  They addressed him, in tandem. “Welcome, doctor. Your name please, doctor.” You could tell they liked to say “doctor.”

  Without hesitation, Eli said, “Hunter. John Hunter.”

  He had never used an alias before. Never had the need for one. But his name had been all over the papers a few weeks before and the biotech company would not want him as a workshop participant, he felt sure. He wanted to remain anonymous as long possible. The fake name rolled out so effortlessly, even he was surprised by it. Then he realized that the name he had chosen was anything but anonymous. John Hunter was the influential surgeon in the mid-1800s who brought science into the surgical discipline.

  Well, at least the name would be anonymous to them. He let the clipboard woman search her list of registered names. A little anxious, she crossed and recrossed her skirt-bound legs.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Well,” she said and glanced at her partner. Eli knew that most if not all of the workshop participants would have traveled from out of town and therefore were preregistered.

  “We can’t find your name and we don’t have your registration fee of four hundred fifty dollars.”

  “Yeah,” the other one said, “four hundred fifty.”

  “My assistant mailed in the registration and the fee several weeks ago.”

  The girls scrambled to the list again, flipping pages, searching their desk for lost paperwork.

  “I’m sure you’ll find it.” Eli was already moving toward the conference hall.

  “But you need a name tag, sir.”

  Eli winced at the “sir” and grabbed a name tag. “I’ll fill it out,” he said, holding it above his head as he disappeared into the meeting room.

  Except for the PowerPoint presentation on a large central screen, the room was dark. Eli let his eyes adjust and took an open seat in the back row between two attendees riveted on the screen who did not acknowledge his presence. Seven rows of linen-covered tables filled each side of the room. Most of the seats were occupied. He guessed the room held between fifty and seventy-five people.

  In the center of the room, the tables were pushed to the side, making room for a plastic drape suspended from poles, a rectangular indoor tent. It appeared to hide a large object beneath. Behind the lit podium, a man in a business suit and slicked-back gray hair advanced the next slide.

  “I’m Michael Bass, CEO of Renaissance Robotics. You’ve been watching a brief presentation about our company. Now, I am pleased to tell of our contribution to the history of robotic surgery.” The next slide was bulleted for emphasis.

  • The first in the Southeast to bring robotic technology into the operating room.

  • A leader in robotic hysterectomy.

  Bass flipped through slides on the history of robotics. A bit on the theory behind robotic technology, aspects of robotics that made robotic surgery such a powerful innovation with its three-dimensional precision movements. Bass even made reference to a potential use of the technology in the military: robotic devices to disarm bombs, unmanned vehicles to rescue soldiers wounded in combat.

  Eli noticed a conspicuous absence of any reference to RBI, the parent company of Renaissance Robotics. An intentional disguising, he suspected, due to RBI’s recent negative publicity and its desire to establish Renaissance Robotics as a separate entity. Of course, there was no mention of the recent operative death, or the death six months ago, both during robotic hysterectomy, the pioneering pr
ocedure of the company. Eli wondered if any of the attendees knew about the failures yet.

  A few minutes later the presentation ended and the lights came on. Full light revealed the space to be a ballroom, chairs of blue linen with gold accents and long draperies framing floor-to-ceiling windows. Bass moved down the stairs from the podium carrying a handheld microphone. The attendees sipped coffee and watched him stop next to the tent-covered structure.

  “Now let’s get to what you’re all here for,” he said. “Nathan, please unveil our instrument.”

  His assistant untied a single rope and the plastic covering dropped gently to the floor.

  “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the new Veritas surgical robot complete with the very latest in robotic engineering.”

  The entire module was set up to simulate a real operating room. A mannequin lay supine on an operating table, four stainless steel trocars piercing its abdomen. Two large plasma video screens were positioned on each side of the table to receive transmission from the intraabdominal camera. The screens revealed the stationary trocars inside the abdominal cavity, beset with anatomically accurate organs—liver, gallbladder, and uterus. Fifteen feet from the mannequin sat the robotic console, resembling a space-age flight simulator, with screen, hand controls, and custom-fitting seat inside the cockpit.

  “We have simulated an actual OR environment with cameras inside the dummy’s abdomen. The robotic movements will be projected on high-definition screens.”

  Bass pointed these out for the audience.

  “Many of you have seen the previous model of Veritas, and some of you may be utilizing it already in your own practices for robotic surgery. A show of hands for those of you who have used the Veritas.”

  Out of the entire room, three hands went up, then a reluctant fourth. So most had come just to see what robotic surgery was all about. But they, unlike me, Eli thought, were here to see the advantages it could offer for their surgical practices, not to investigate what could go wrong.