Free Boston Cream by Howard Shrier Page A

cafeteria in a bright two-floor atrium. I lined up for a cup of dark roast and took it with me as I went in search of the east-wing elevators. I went down a hallway where both walls were lined with portraits of prominent Bostonians who had contributed to medicine through science, medical practice, philanthropy and other means. Near the endon the left was a beatific shot of the very man I was going to see, E. Charles Stayner, fingers steepled under his backlit chin as he gazed out at something only a man of his vision and talent could see.
    On the sixth floor, I passed through a set of glass doors and found the Transplant Clinic on the left. Gave my name to the receptionist inside. “Right,” she said, “I spoke to your assistant. You’re here about poor David.”
    My assistant. I hoped she hadn’t called Jenn that on the phone. We’d have to add phone repair to our hotel bill.
    “Dr. Stayner had to take a call but it shouldn’t be too long. Just have a seat and I’ll call you.”
    There were eight other people in the waiting room. Two were clearly on their own and neither looked healthy. Their skin was the colour of lard, their eyes a waxy yellow. The other six were in pairs: a sick one accompanied by a well one. Two older couples and a woman with what had to be her grown daughter. Some stared at a flat-screen monitor that had CNN with the sound off, which is the best way to watch CNN. Others read newspapers or did Sudoku or crosswords. Everyone spoke quietly if they spoke at all, leaning in close to murmur to each other.
    There were three padded chairs in a nook by a window. I sat on the far left, where there was a table stacked with the hospital newsletter. I sipped my coffee and scanned stories about Sinai’s recent accomplishments and initiatives, and there were plenty, of course. New research findings, breakthroughs in clinical practice, expansions of service, acquisitions of clinics and smaller hospitals.
    A burly man in his sixties filled the doorway, a Lee J. Cobb type who must have been powerful in his day. He paused there, panting a little, one hand on the jamb, then boomed out, “What is this, a waiting room or a morgue? Good morning, everybody.”
    He stood there looking around until everyone muttered, “Good morning, Al,” or some variation back at him. He took in the three-seater I was in, ambled over and sank into the cushion on my right with a great exhalation. He looked at me, nodded, then looked over the magazines on the table in front of us and picked up a
Sports Illustrated
with last year’s basketball playoffs on the cover. He read; I read. Then he stood up and took off his coat and hung it on a hook on the wall and sat down again. His arms were furred with white hair and he had a thick gold watch on his left wrist. Between his right elbow and wrist were four large red lumps rising out of the skin like volcanoes in a diorama.
    “They don’t hurt,” he said in a deep voice that sounded like it had rumbled through a lot of late, smoky nights.
    He had caught me staring. “Sorry,” I said.
    “Don’t worry about it. They look painful but the doctors actually grow them on purpose, to make dialysis easier. Everything flows a little faster and you don’t get so many infections. They’re called fistulas.”
    “I see.”
    “You here with one of your parents?”
    “No. Just visiting Dr. Stayner.”
    “But not for yourself. You’re way too healthy to be one of us. Trust me, by the time you see Stayner, you look like shit. Like me.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just smiled at him.
    “I don’t suppose you’re a donor,” he said. His grin showed he kept his teeth nicely whitened.
    “Me?”
    “You can live on one kidney, you know. Why we have two is a mystery, I’m told. And a healthy donor bounces back in two, three weeks. Everything’s done laparoscopically. You can wear a bathing suit in a month. You swim?”
    “Not much.”
    “Too bad. You know I’m just pulling