“I only recently learned about these notes. The information in them is useless because it’s totally inaccurate. But in the wrong hands it might look most damaging to Xerxes. It could be difficult for me to prove that all the data he collected were wrong.”
“Especially over a twenty-year period,” I said. “But if you could get those notebooks, you would give me my mortgage? And withdraw any threat to Dr. Herschel?”
“There would also be a bonus for you because of the amount of trouble you’ve been subjected to by some of my overly zealous friends.”
He reached inside his jacket pocket and held out a piece of parchment for me to look at. After glancing at it casually I dropped it on the little table between us. My coolness took an effort—the document represented two thousand preferred shares of Humboldt Chemical. I picked up the Times again and looked at the stock summaries.
“Closed at 101 3/8 yesterday. A two-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus with no brokerage fees. I’m impressed.” I leaned back in the chair and looked at him squarely. “Trouble is, I could double that just by shorting Humboldt. If money was that important to me. It just isn’t. And you’re shit out of luck on the notebooks, anyway—they’ve already gone both to an attorney and to a team of medical specialists. You’re dead. I don’t know what the value of the coming lawsuits is, but half a billion probably isn’t too far off the mark.”
“You’d rather put your friend, the woman who has stood as a mother to you, out of practice, for the sake of some people you never met and who aren’t worth your consideration anyway?”
“If you’ve been doing research on me, you know that Louisa Djiak isn’t a casual acquaintance,” I snapped. “And I defy you to think of any threat to Dr. Herschel that her reputation for probity wouldn’t be equal to.”
He gave a smile that made him look very like a shark. “Really, Ms. Warshawski. You must learn not to be so hasty. I would not make any threat I didn’t feel competent to execute.”
He rang a bell tucked into the mantel. Anton appeared so quickly, he must have been hovering in the hallway.
“Bring our other visitor, Anton.”
The butler inclined his head and left. He returned a moment or two later with a woman of about twenty-five. Her brown hair was permed around her head in tight little corkscrews that exposed too much of her blotchy neck. She had obviously made an effort over her appearance; I supposed the ruffled acetate dress was her best, since the boxy high heels had been dyed a matching aqua. Under the thick pancake covering her acne she looked belligerent and a little frightened.
“This is Mrs. Portis, Ms. Warshawski. Her daughter was a patient of Dr. Herschel’s. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Portis?”
She nodded vigorously. “My Mandy. And Dr. Herschel did what she should have known better than to do, a grown woman with a little girl. Mandy was crying and screaming when she came out of the examining room, it took me days to get her settled down again and find out what went on. But when I found out—”
“You went to the state’s attorney and made a full report,” I finished smoothly, despite a rage that was making my cheeks flame.
“She was naturally too disturbed to know what do to,” Humboldt said with an unctuousness that made me want to shoot him. “It’s very difficult to bring charges against a family doctor, especially one who can summon the support that Dr. Herschel can. That’s why I feel grateful for my own position, which enables me to help out a woman like this.”
I stared incredulously at him. “You really think you can take someone with Dr. Herschel’s reputation to court with a woman like this as your witness? An expert lawyer will shred her. You’re not just an egomaniac, Humboldt—you’re stupid with it.”
“Be careful whom you call stupid, young lady—an expert lawyer can make anyone break down. Nothing turns a jury hostile faster. And besides, what would the publicity do to Dr. Herschel’s practice? Not to mention the state licensing board? Especially if Mrs. Portis is joined by other worried mothers whose daughters Dr. Herschel has treated. After all, Dr. Herschel is almost sixty and has never married—a jury would be bound to suspect her sexual preferences.”
The pulse in my neck was throbbing so violently, I could hardly breathe, let alone think. The dog was whimpering a little at my feet. I forced myself to stroke her gently; it helped slow my heartbeat a little. I got up and moved to a phone on a corner table, Peppy close on my heels.
Lotty was still at the clinic. “Vic! You’re all right? It’s nearly seven now.”
“I’m okay physically, Dr. Herschel. But mentally I’m slightly deranged. I need to explain something to you and get your reaction. Do you have a patient named Mrs. Portis?”