“I see.”
“I don’t want some dry, deadly report. I don’t want to read a bunch of medical lingo.” Harold looks the doctor in the eye. “I want you to give me the real juice, man-to-man.”
Dr. Warren shifts back in his chair. “I’d be happy to help you however I can,” he says tentatively.
“Well then, let’s schedule a time to talk.”
“Schedule a time? Oh. Well, I’m afraid that won’t be easy. I’m usually booked solid.”
Harold stands. “Let me know when you have time to spare. I’ll buy you a drink and pick your brain, so to speak. Maybe give you a few tips of my own, if you like. Business insight.” Harold taps his forehead with a forefinger.
The doctor tilts his head and smiles up at Harold, looking for that moment like a teenager in a beam of praise.
The doctor chooses the bar, a generic Irish pub that Harold has never noticed, just off the main street near the hospital. There are television sets showing the same frantic basketball game. In the dim light, the doctor’s features are softer, more human. He is a handsome man with a pair of strong eyebrows and a turned-up curl at one corner of the lips, as if he is harboring illicit thoughts.
The first half hour is useless, a banter of commonplaces. Like a bad date. But Harold is patient. It is impolite to rush things.
Finally, after his second Scotch, they get into it. “What was your first surgery like?” Harold asks, and the next hour swarms with tales of the doctor’s first year in the operating room, its triumphs and missteps and ultimate mysteries. So many mysteries remain, the doctor says, shaking his head.
“That’s it,” says Harold quietly. “That’s exactly what this is about.”
They meet again two weeks later, at the same bar. The doctor’s love of his work is evident, as is his satisfaction in being so queried. Harold reciprocates with his own insights, where appropriate, into the market, amused by the doctor’s intent stare. It is a beautiful joining of minds, Harold thinks, a fruit-bearing tree.
They meet every other week for the rest of that year. Finally, on a bitter December evening, Harold tells Dr. Warren that he is ready to make his donation.
Two hundred grand is more than reasonable for the fulfillment of his purpose. The doctor’s only condition is that the payment be in cash. Harold nods in understanding, fired by such backroom collusion.
Harold is exhilarated with himself, with this, his greatest investment of all. After just three whiskeys, the doctor has agreed to grant him access to the operating room, where he will be able to observe a neurosurgical procedure.
The next several days are limned with anticipation. Christmas passes in a blur. Harold feels a physical rush each time he thinks of his secret, each time he considers the prospect of encountering a stranger’s brain—another person’s memories and experiences contained in one unit, exposed.
Harold returns to the hospital on the agreed-upon day in January, without Carol. Like a boy, he nearly jogs from the car to the front entrance, past the stocky hospital shrubs, through the enchanted automatic doors. He nods to the nurses and winks at the pretty ones. They walk obliviously past him in their tropical uniforms, South Pacific blue. He, in his gray suit, is invisible. Visitors have disturbingly free rein here. It is almost insolent, this lack of concern on the part of the staff, who are all but chained to their little clipboards. Harold takes the wrong route to the neurosurgery wing, but finally finds the way to Dr. Warren’s door. He knocks. He imagines that when he emerges from this office in just a few minutes, he’ll be wearing the tropical uniform, too.
Dr. Warren takes him in and closes the door. Harold still thinks the doctor, his friend, seems suspiciously young with his wavy Roman hair and unlined brow. He motions briefly to the visitor’s chair.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but I won’t be able to help you today.” The doctor speaks strongly, not meeting Harold’s eye, as if afraid of faltering. “I just can’t be held responsible for a breach of security.”
Harold sits quietly as the doctor goes on. A sudden flashback to his Hippocratic oath, perhaps. Or, simply, sobriety. The money is attractive, the doctor admits, but he can’t hazard going to jail.
“Dr. Warren, we had an agreement.”
“I’m sorry, Harold, but I’ve thought about it, and it’s just too risky.”
“But it wouldn’t be you at fault, it would be me,” Harold reminds him.
The doctor smiles sadly. “I’m the one who’d be fired.”
“But our story is solid.”
The surgeon shakes his head. Harold increases his offer. Dr. Warren flinches, but still refuses.