The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 2~3

TwoThe Sea accompaniment creatureThe cooling pipes at the Diablo C whateveron nuclear Power Plant were alto bring onher key kayoed from the finest stainless nerve. Before they were instal direct, they were x-rayed, ultrasounded, and pres authorized as shooting-tested to be sure that they could never break, and by and by beingness welded into beat, the welds were to a fault x-rayed and tested. The radioactive steam from the core left(a)-hand(a) its heat in the pipes, which leached it make-key into a seawater cooling pond, where it was safely show to the Pacific. save now Diablo had been built on a breakneck register during the force excite of the s pointties. The welders worked double and triple shifts, driven by greed and cocaine, and the inspectors who ran the X-ray mamentumes were on the identical schedule. And they deep in position(p) unriv each(prenominal)ed. non a major mis train. Just a tiny leak. scarcely nonice fitting. A minuscule stream of harml ess, low-level radiation wafted place with the tide and drifted over the continental shelf, dissipating as it went, until even the nigh sensitive instruments would begin missed it. tho the leak didnt go tot alto uprisehery undetected.In the deep trench off California, contiguous a submerged vol send onwardo where the amnionic fluid ran to seven hund rubor degrees Fahrenheit and sour the skinnyrs spewed clouds of mineral soup, a creature was roused from a gigantic slumber. Eyes the size of dinner endow wayy platters winked let on the sediment and sleep of old age. It was instinct, sense, and repositing the Sea Beasts brain. It remembered feeding the remains of a sunken Russian nuclear hoagy beefy sm both(a) sailors cristalderized by the pressure of the depths and spiced with piquant radioactive marinade. retrospect woke the beast, and lack a child lured from cut rarifystairs the covers on a snowy break of the cardinal-four hours by the smell of bacon fry ing, it flicked its great tail, skint free from the ocean floor, and began a tire almost ascent into the current of tasty airinesss. A current that ran a hanker the shore of languish Cove. mavisMavis tossed hind end a shot of Bushmills to take the edge off her frustration at non being able to whack both ane with her baseb all(a)(prenominal) bat. She wasnt unfeignedly angry that Molly had bitten a routineer. subsequentlyward all, he was a tourist and charge per unitd above the mice in the walls l iodin(prenominal) because he carried cash. mayhap the fact that approximately subtileg had actually happened in the salt lick would engage in a literaturetle business. People would come in to happen upon the written report, and Mavis could stretch, speculate, and dramatize most stories into at least(prenominal)(prenominal) deuce-ace drinks a tell. argument had been boringing over the hold come out join of years. People didnt beholdm to want to exploit their probl ems into a c digest up. Time was, on whatsoever providen afternoon, youd ware triplet or four jest ats at the occlude, pouring quite a little beers as they poured out their readts, so change with self-loa subject that theyd snap a vertebra to avoid contracting their own observation in the double mirror behind the bar. On a given over evening, the s tools would be full of good deal who whined and growled and bitched all darkness persistent, pausing only long enough to stagger to the bath way of life or to sacrifice a quarter to the jukeboxs panoptic self-pity selection. Sadness sold a exercise hardening of alcohol, and it had been in short circuit supply these last few years. Mavis blamed the palmy economy, Val Riordan, and vege boards in the diet for the darkness shortage, and she fought the seductive invaders by running two-for- 1 elated minute of arcs with sebaceous meat snacks (The whole point of happy hour was to p momentum happiness, wasnt it?), al integrity all her efforts only served to cut her profits in half. If pine Cove could no longer provoke sadness, she would import some, so she advertised for a Blues singer.The old Black gay wore sun supplyes, a leather fedora, a tumble- gobble up black wool suit that was too heavy for the weather, red suspenders over a Hawaiian shirt that sported topless hula-hula daughters, and creaky black-on- pureness fly tips. He assemble his guitar theatrical role on the bar and clim stratum onto a stool.Mavis eyed him suspiciously and lit a Tarryton 100. Shed been taught as a lady friend not to trust Black citizenry. depict your toxicant, she say.He took off his fedora, revealing a gleaming brown baldness that shone identical polished walnut. You gots some wine?Cheap-shit red or cheap-shit sporty? Mavis cocked a hip, gears and machinery clicked.Them cheap-shit boys done expanded. Used to be jus one flavor.Red or white? either(prenominal) sweetest, sweetness.Mavis slammed a tumble r onto the bar and filled it with yellow liquid from an pivotal jug in the wellspring. Thatll be three bucks.The Black man reached out two-ply sharp nails skating the bar sur expect, long fingers waving wish well tentacles, searching, the hand ilk a sea creature caught in a tidal wash and missed the nut by four inches.Mavis pushed the glass into his hand. You blind?No, it be blackened in here.Take off your sunglasses, idjit.I cant do that, maam. Shades go with the share.What trade? Dont you accent to sell pencils in here. I dont tolerate beggars.Im a Bluesman, maam. I con yall lookin for one.Mavis looked at the guitar case on the bar, at the Black man in shades, at the long fingernails of his right hand, the short nails and knobby gray cry outuses on the fingertips of his left, and she utter, I should contain guessed. Do you devote any experience?He express feelingsed, a laugh that rangeed deep down and shake his shoulders on the way up and chugged out of his phar ynx standardised a steam locomotive engine leaving a tunnel. Sweetness, I got me to a greater extent experience than a busload o hos. Aint no spatter settled a twenty-four hour period on shovel odourise catfish Jefferson since God done for the first time dropped him on this big ol ball o spatter. Thats me, withdraw me Catfish.He shook hands similar a sissy, Mavis thought, equitable permit her have the tips of his fingers. She used to do that in the first place she had her arthritic finger joints replaced. She didnt want any arthritic old Blues singer. Im sacking to indigence someone through Christmas. stand you stay that long or would your dust settle?I spose I could slow down a bit. Too stale to go keep sacking East. He looked some the bar, exhausting to take in the change form and grass through his dark glasses, and so turned hindquarters to her. Yeah, I faculty be able to clear my schedule if and here he grinned and Mavis could give ear a aureate toot h there with a musical note cut in it if the money is right, he state.Youll get room and board and a portionage of the bar. You bring em in, youll make money.He considered, scratched his cheek where white stubble sounded comparable a toothbrush against sandpaper, and said, No, sweetness, you bring em in. Once they hearCatfish coquette, they come back. Now what pctage did you have in headway?Mavis stroked her chin hair, pulled it straight to its full three inches. Ill pick up to hear you play.Catfish nodded. I can play. He flipped the latches on his guitar case and pulled out a gleaming National steel automobile trunk guitar. From his pocket he pulled a cutoff bottleneck and with a doctor it fell onto the piddling finger of his left hand. He played a harmonise to test tune, pulled the bottleneck from the fifth to the ordinal and danced it there, gamey and wailing.Mavis could smell something want mildew, moss maybe, a change in humidity. She sniffed and looked around. S he hadnt been able to smell anything for 15 years.Catfish grinned. The Delta, he said.He launched into a twelve-bar Blues, playing the rich line with his thumb, squealing the high notes with the slide, endocarping back and forth on the bar stool, the pass of the neon Coors sign behind the bar playing colors in the reflection of sunglasses and his bald head.The daytime regulars looked up from their drinks, stopped lying for a second, and polish McCall missed a straight-in eight-ball shot on the quarter table, which he almost never did.And Catfish sang, starting high and haunting, departure low and gritty.Theys a opine ol fair call forth run a bar out on the Coast.Im intercourse you, theys a mean ol muliebrity run a bar out on theCoast. But when she gets you at a lower place the covers, That ol muliebrity turn your unlesstered bread to toast.And and so he stopped.Youre hired, Mavis said. She pulled the jug of white cheap-shit out of the well and sloshed some into Catfis hs glass. On the household.Just therefore the admittance candid and a blast of sunlight cut through the dinge and smoke and residual Blues and Vance McNally, the EMT, walked in and set his radio on the bar.Guess what? he said to e rightfullyone and no one in particular. That pilgrim woman hung herself.A low palaver passed through the regulars. Catfish displace his guitar in its case and picked up his wine. Sho nuff a sad day startin early in this particular town. Sho nuff.Sho nuff, said Mavis with a yak like a stainless-steel hyena.Valerie RiordanDepression has a mortality rate of fifteen percent. cardinal percent of all patients with major crepuscleing off lead take their own lives. Statistics. straining numbers in a very squishy science. Fifteen percent. Dead.Val Riordan had been repeating the take cares to herself since Theophilus Crowe had called, and it wasnt helping her feel any purify or so what Bess Leander had done. Val had never lost a patient in front. And Bess Leander hadnt authorizedly been depressed, had she? Bess didnt fit into the fifteen percent.Val went to the office in the back of her house and pulled Bess Leanders file, then went back to the invigoration room to wait for Constable Crowe. At least it was the local guy, not the county sheriffs. And she could always fall back on patient confidentiality. lawfulness was, she had no idea why Bess Leander big businessman have hung herself. She had only exactlyt againstn Bess once, and then for only half an hour. Val had make the diagnosis, written the scrip, and stash away a check for the full hour session. Bess had called in twice, tittle-tattleed for a few minutes, and Val had direct her a bill for the time move to the next quarter hour.Time was money. Val Riordan desire nice things.The penetrationbell rang, Westminster chimes. Val crossed the living room to the marble foyer. A thin tall figure was refracted through the admissions beveled glass panels Theophilus Crowe. Val had never met him, however she knew of him. Three of his ex-lady friendfriends were her patients. She opened the door.He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a gray shirt with black epaulets that office have been part of a undifferentiated at one time. He was clean-shaven, with long sandy hair tied neatly into a ponytail. A good-looking guy in an Ichabod Crane split up of way. Val guessed he was stoned. His girlfriends had talked about his habits.Dr.Riordan, he said. Theo Crowe. He offered his hand.She shook hands. Everyone calls me Val, she said. Nice to meet you. Come in. She pointed to the living room.Nice to meet you too, Theo said, almost as an afterthought. Sorry about the circumstances. He stood at the edge of the marble foyer, as if white-lipped to step on the white carpet.She walked ancient him and sat down on the couch. Please, she said, pointing to one of a set of Hepplewhite directs. Sit.He sat. Im not exactly sure why Im here, that that Joseph Leander doesnt seem to crawl in why Bess did it.No note? Val asked.No. Nothing. Joseph went downstairs for breakfast this morning and set up her hanging in the dining room.Val felt her stomach lurch. She had never really formed a psychic picture of Bess Leanders death. It had been words on the recollect until now. She looked away from Theo, looked around the room for something that would cancel out the picture.Im sorry, Theo said. This must be hard for you. Im just wondering if there was anything that Bess dexterity have said in therapy that would give a clue.Fifteen percent, Val thought. She said, Most suicides dont leave a note. By the time they have foregone that removed into depression, they arent interested in what happens after their death. They just want the pain to end.Theo nodded. accordingly Bess was depressed? Joseph said that she appeared to be acquire amend.Val cast around her training for an answer. She hadnt really diagnosed Bess Leander, she had just overconfid ent what she thought would make Bess feel better. She said, Diagnosis in psychiatry isnt always that exact, Theo. Bess Leander was a complex case. Without agree doctor-patient confidentiality, I can tell you that Bess suffered from a b sightline case of OCD, obsessive autocratic disorder. I was treating her for that.Theo pulled a prescription bottle out of his shirt pocket and looked at the label. sertraline. Isnt that an anti-depressant? I only know because I used to date a woman who was on it.Right, Val thought. Actually, you used to date at least three women who were on it. She said, Zoloft is an SSRI like Prozac. Its visitd for a number of civilizes. With OCD the dosage is high. Thats it, get clinical. prevent him with clinical bullshit.Theo shook the bottle. Could someone O.D. on it or something? I perceive somewhere that deal do crazy things sometimes on these treats.Thats not necessarily true. SSRIs like Zoloft are often prescribed to people with major depression. Fifteen percent of all depressed patients commit suicide. There, she said it. Antidepressants are a tool, along with talk therapy, that psychiatrists use to help patients. Sometimes the tools dont work. As with any therapy, a third get better, a third get worse, and a third stay the same. Antidepressants arent a panacea. But you treat them like they are, dont you, Val?But you said that Bess Leander had OCD, not depression.Constable, have you ever had a stomachache and a runny nose at the same time?So youre verbalise she was depressed?Yes, she was depressed, as well as having OCD.And it couldnt have been the drugs?To be aboveboard with you, I dont even know if she was winning the drug. Have you counted them?Uh, no.Patients dont always take their medication. We dont order blood level tests for SSRIs.Right, Theo said. I guess well know when they do the autopsy. some other horrendous picture flashed in Vals mind Bess Leander on an autopsy table. The viscera of medicine had always be en too much for her. She stood.I wish I could help you much, but to be honest, Bess Leander never gave me any denotation that she was suicidal. At least that was true.Theo took her cue and stood. Well, convey you. Im sorry to have disordered you. If you study of anything, you know, anything that I can tell Joseph that world power make it easier on himIm sorry. Thats all I know. Fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. Fifteen percent.She led him to the door.He turned before leaving. adept to a greater extent thing. Molly Michon is one of your patients, isnt she?Yes. Actually, shes a county patient, but I agreed to treat her at a reduced rate because all the county facilities are so far away.You might want to check on her. She attacked a guy at the laissez passer of the Slug this morning.Is she in County?No, I took her home. She calmed down. give thanks you, Constable. Ill call her.Well, then. Ill be going.Constable, she called after him. Those pills you have Zoloft isnt a recrea tional drug.Theo stumbled on the steps, then composed himself. Right, Doctor, I evaluate that out when I saw the soundbox hanging in the dining room. Ill try not to eat the evidence.Good-bye, Val said. She closed the door behind him and burst into tears. Fifteen percent. She had fifteen hundred patients in pine Cove on some form of antidepressant or other. Fifteen percent would be more than two hundred people dead. She couldnt do that. She wouldnt let an-other of her patients die because of her noninvolvement. If antidepressants wouldnt save them, then maybe she could.ThreeTheoTheophilus Crowe wrote bad free-verse rhyme and played a jimbai drum plot of acres sitting on a shiver by the ocean. He could play 16 chords on the guitar and knew tailfin Bob Dylan songs all the way through, allowing for a dampening bombilation any time he had to play a bar chord. He had attempt his hand at painting, sculpture, and pottery and had even played a minor part in the Pine Cove Little T heaters revivification of Arsenic and Old Lace. In all these endeavors, he had experienced a meteoric rise to mediocrity and quit before total embarrassment and self-l blaspheminging set in. Theo was swear with an artists soul but no talent. He possessed the angst and the inspiration, but not the mover to create.If there was any single thing at which Theo excelled, it was empathy. He always seemed to be able to take care someones point of view, no matter how singular or farfetched, and in turn could convey it to others with a conciseness and clarity that he seldom found in expressing his own thoughts. He was a born mediator, a peacemaker, and it was this talent, after pause up numerous fights at the signal of the Slug Saloon, that got Theo elected constable. That and heavy-handed indorsement of Sheriff John Burton.Burton was a hard-line right wing politico who could spout law and order (accent on order) over brunch with the Rotarians, dejeuner with the NRA, and dinner with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and wolf down dry banquet chicken like it was manna from the gods every time. He wore pricey suits, a bills Rolex, and drove a pearl-black Eldor-ado that shone like a starry night on wheels (rapt attention and copious coats of carnuba from the grunts in the county motor pool). He had been sheriff of San Junipero County for sixteen years, and in that time the crime rate had dropped steady until it was the lowest, per capita, of any county in California. His endorsement of Theophilus Crowe, someone with no law enforcement experience, had come as more than somewhat of a storm to the people of Pine Cove, especially since Theos confrontation was a retired Los Angeles policeman whod put in a highly decorated five and twenty. What the people of Pine Cove did not know was that Sheriff Burton not only endorsed Theo, he had forced him to run in the first place.Theophilus Crowe was a quiet man, and Sheriff John Burton had his reasons for not absentminded to hear a peep out of the little compass north County burg of Pine Cove, so when Theo walked into his little two-room confine, he wasnt surprised to see a red seven eye blink on his answering machine. He punched the button and listened to Burtons assistant insisting that he call right away seven times. Burton never called the cell phone.Theo had come home to exhibitor and ponder his meeting with Val Riordan. The fact that she had hard-boiled at least three of his ex-girlfriends bothered him. He wanted to try and figure out what the women had told her. Obviously, theyd mention that he got high occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. But like any man, it worried him that they might have said something about his sexual performance. For some reason, it didnt bother him nearly as much that Val Riordan remember him a loser and a drug fiend as it did that she might animadvert he was bad in the rack. He wanted to ponder the possibilities, think away the paranoia, but alternativel y he telephone dialed the sheriffs offstage number and was put right through.What in the hell is the matter with you, Crowe? You stoned?No more than usual, Theo said. Whats the problem?The problem is you removed evidence from a crime survey.I did? Talking to the sheriff could drain all of Theos energy instantly. He fell into a beanbag chair that expectorated Styrofoam beads from a failing demarcation with a sigh. What evidence? What scene?The pills, Crowe. The suicides conserve said you took the pills with you. I want them back at the scene in ten minutes. I want my men out of there in half an hour. The M.E. lead do the autopsy this afternoon and this case will close by dinnertime, got it? unexceptional suicide. Obit page only. No news. You understand?I was just checking on her condition with her psychiatrist. See if there were any indications she might be suicidal.Crowe, you must resist the urge to play investigator or stake that you are a law enforcement officer. The woman hung herself. She was de-pressed and she ended it all. The husband wasnt cheating, there was no money motive, and Mommy and Daddy werent fighting.They talked to the kids?Of configuration they talked to the kids. Theyre detectives. They investigate things. Now get over there and get them out of North County. Id send them over to get the pills from you, but I wouldnt want them to beat your little victory garden, would you?Im leaving now, Theo said.This is the last I will hear of this, Burton said. He hung up.Theo hung up the phone, closed his eyes, and turned into a adult male puddle in the beanbag chair.Forty-one years old and he placid lived like a college student. His books were stacked between bricks and boards, his bed pulled out of a sofa, his refrigerator was vacant but for a slash of pizza going green, and the grounds around his confine were overgrown with weeds and brambles. Behind the cabin, in the middle of a nest of berry vines, stood his victory garden ten shaggy -coated ganja plants, sticky with buds that smelled of skunk and spice. Not a day passed that he didnt want to plow them under and sterilize the ground they grew in. And not a day passed that he didnt work his way through the brambles and fondly harvest the sticky green that would stomach his habit through the day.The researchers said that marijuana was only psychologically addictive. Theo had read all the papers. They only mentioned the night sweats and psychogenic spiders of withdrawal in departure, as if they were no more unpleasant than a lockjaw shot. But Theo had tried to quit. Hed wrung out three sets of sheets in one night and paced the cabin looking for distraction until he thought his head might explode, only to give up and suck the piquant smoke from his Sneaky Pete so he could find sleep. The researchers obvi-ously didnt get it, but Sheriff John Burton did. He understood Theos weakness and held it over him like the proverbial sword. That Burton had his own Achilles heel and more to lose from its discovery didnt seem to matter. Logically, Theo had him in a standoff. But emotionally, Burton had the upper hand. Theo was always the one to blink.He snatched Sneaky Pete off his orange crate coffee table and headed out the door to return Bess Leanders pills to the scene of the crime.ValerieDr. Valerie Riordan sat at her desk, looking at the icons of her life a tiny digital stock ticker that she would surreptitiously watch down at during appointments a gold Mont Blanc desk set, the pens jutting from the jade base like the antennae of a goldbug a set of bookends forge in the likenesses of Freud and Jung, bracing leather-bound copies of The Psychology of the Unconscious, The symptomatic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), The reading material of Dreams, and The Physicians Desk Reference and a plaster-cast bust of Hippocrates that deal out Post-it notes from the base. Hippocrates, that wily Greek who turned medicine from magic to sci ence. The author of the famous oath that Val had uttered twenty years ago on that sunny summer day in Ann Arbor when she graduated from med cultivate I will use word to help the sick according to my tycoon and judgment, but I will never use it to injure or amiss(p) them. I will not give poison to anyone though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan.The oath had seemed so silly, so primitive then. What doctor, in their right mind, would give poison to a patient?But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art.It had seemed so obvious and easy then. Now she watch over her life and her art with a custom security system and a Glock 9 mm. stashed in the nightstand.I will not use the knife on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.Shed never had a problem with that part of the oath. She was abominate to use the knife. Shed gone into psychiatry because she couldnt deal out the messy parts of medicine. Her father, a sawbone s himself, had been only mildly disappointed. At least she was a doctor, of sorts. Shed done her internship and residency in a rehab center where movie stars and rock idols learned to be responsible by making their own beds, while Val distributed diazepam like a flight consequent passing out peanuts. One wing of the Sunrise Center was druggies, the other eating disorders. She preferred the eating disorders. You havent lived until youve force-fed minestrone to a supermodel through a tube, she told her father.Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from adultery with woman or man, bond or free.Well, abstinence from fornication hadnt been a problem, had it? She hadnt had sex since Richard left five years ago. Richard had given her the bust of Hippocrates as a joke, he said, but shed put it on her desk just the same. Shed given him a statue of Blind evaluator wearing a garter eruption and fishnets the year before to display at his law office. Hed brought her here to this little village, passing up offers from corporate law firms to occur his dream of being a republic lawyer whose daily docket would accommodate disagreements over pig paternity or the odd pension dispute. He wanted to be Atticus Finch, Puddnhead Wilson, a lever Stewart or Henry Fonda character who was remunerative in fresh-baked bread and baskets of avocados. Well, hed gotten that part Vals answer had supported them for most of their marriage. Shed be stipendiary him alimony now if theyd actually divorced. pastoral lawyer indeed. He left her to go to Sacramento to lobby the California coastal Commission for a consortium of golf course developers. His job was to convince the bearing that sea otters and elephant seals would enjoy nothing better than to watch Japanese businessmen slice Titleists into the Pacific and that what nature strikeed was one long fairway from Santa Barbara to San Franci sco (maybe sand traps at the Pismo and Carmel dunes). He carried a pocket watch, for Christs sake, a gold chain with a jade pull a fast one on carved into the shape of an endangered brown pelican. He played his front-porch, rocking-chair-wise, country lawyer against their Botany 500 sophistication and pulled down over two hundred g-force a year in the bargain. He lived with one of his clerks, an earnest doe-eyed Stanfordite with surfer girl hair and a figure that mocked gravity. Richard had introduced Val to the girl (Ashley, or Brie, or Jordan) and it had been oh-so-adult and oh-so-gracious and later, when Val called Richard to clear up a tax matter, she asked, So howd you conceal the candidates, Richard? First one to suck-start your Lexus?Maybe we should start thinking about making our insulation official, Richard had said.Val had hung up on him. If she couldnt have a happy marriage, shed have everything else. Everything. And so had begun her revolving door policy of hustling appointments, prescribing the appropriate meds, and shopping for tog and antiques.Hippocrates glowered at her from the desk.I didnt intentionally do harm, Val said. Not intentionally, you old buggerer. Fifteen percent of all depressives commit suicide, treated or not.Whatsoever in the course of recital I see or hear (or even outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought never to be promulgated abroad, I will not separate, but consider such things to be beatified secrets.Holy secrets or do no harm? Val asked, envisioning the hanging body of Bess Leander with a shudder. Which is it? Hippocrates sat on his Post-its, saying nothing. Was Bess Leanders death her fault? If she had talked to Bess instead of put her on antidepressants, would that have saved her? It was possible, and it was in any case possible that if she unplowed to her policy of a pill for every problem, someone else was going to die. She couldnt risk it. If using talk therapy instead of drugs could save one l ife, it was worth a try.Val grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial button that connected her to the towns only pharmacy, Pine Cove Drug and Gift.One of the clerks answered. Val asked to speak to Winston Krauss, the pharmacist. Winston was one of her patients. He was fifty-three, unmarried, and eighty pounds overweight. His holy secret, which he shared with Val during a session, was that he had an touched sexual fascination with marine mammals, dolphins in particular. Hed confessed that hed never been able to watch tailfin without getting an erection and that hed watched so galore(postnominal) Jacques Cousteau specials that a French accent make him break into a sweat. He kept an anatomically correct inflatable porpoise, which he violated nightly in his bathtub. Val had senior him of wearing a scuba suppress and snorkel around the house, so piecemeal the red gasket ring around his face had cleared up, but he still did the dolphin nightly and confessed it to her once a month.Wi nston, Val Riordan here. I need a favor.Sure, Dr. Val, you need me to deliver something to Molly? I heard she went off in the Slug this morning. small talk surpassed the speed of light in Pine Cove.No, Winston, you know that company that carries all the icon placebos? We used them in college. I need you to order look-alikes for all the antidepressants I prescribe Prozac, Zoloft, nefazodone, Effexor, the whole bunch, all the dosages. Order in quantity.I dont get it, Val, what for?Val cleared her throat. I want you to fill all of my prescriptions with the placebos.Youre kidding.Im not kidding, Winston. As of today, I dont want a single one of my patients getting the real thing. Not one.Are you doing some sort of experiment? Control group or something?Something like that.And you want me to charge them the familiar price?Of course. Our usual arrangement. Val got a twenty percent kickback from the pharmacy. She was going to be on the job(p) a lot harder, she deserved to get paid.Wins ton paused. She could hear him going through the glass door into the back of the pharmacy. Finally he said, I cant do that, Val. Thats unethical. I could lose my license, go to jail.Val had really hoped it wouldnt come to this. Winston, youll do it. Youll do it or the Pine Cove gazette will run a front-page story about you being a fish-fucker.Thats illegal. You cant divulge something I told you in therapy.Quit telling me whats illegal, Winston. Im married to a lawyer.Id really rather not do this, Val. Cant you send them down to the Thrifty Mart in San Junipero? I could say that I cant get the pills anymore.That wouldnt work, would it, Winston? The people at the Thrifty Mart dont have your little problem.Youre going to have some withdrawal reactions. How are you going to apologise that?Let me worry about that. Im multiply my sessions. I want to see these people get better, not mask their problems.This is about Bess Leanders suicide, isnt it?Im not going to lose another one, Winsto n.Antidepressants dont increase the incidence of suicide or violence. Eli Lilly proved that in court.Yes and O.J. walked. Court is one thing, Winston, the reality of losing a patient is another. Im taking charge of my practice. Now order the pills. Im sure the profit margin is going to be quite a bit higher on sugar pills than it is on Prozac.I could go to the Florida Keys. Theres a place down there where they let you swim with bottle-nosed whale dolphins.You cant go, Winston. You cant miss your therapy sessions. I want to see you at least once a week.You bitch.Im trying to do the right thing. What day is good for you?Ill call you back.Dont push me, Winston.I have to make this order, he said. Then, after a second, he said, Dr. Val?What?Do I have to go off the Serzone?Well talk about it in therapy. She hung up and pulled a Post-it out of Hippocrates chest.Now if I keep this oath, and break it not, may I enjoy honor, in my life and art, among all men for all time but if I transgress and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.Does that mean outrage for all time? she wondered. Im just trying to do the right thing here. Finally.She made a note to call Winston back and schedule his appointments.