Twelve Days, Day 4

[readingrat]

 Duke Orsino:
Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;
Be not denied access, stand at her doors,
And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow
Till thou have audience.
[Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 4]

May 19, 2010: Day 4
(Two days after the crane disaster in Trenton)

Three pm

"Mr Douglas, sir." The secretary stands aside to admit her companion to Nolan's office. Nolan rises and stretches out his hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr Douglas," he says. "Do sit down."

His visitor looks around the office. He walks over to the window and looks out, strolls over to the shelves and scans the book titles, examines the pictures on the walls. Nolan watches, amused at the kind of behaviour that would have him talking about attention deficiency or deflection or compulsive habits if Douglas were one of his patients. Having satisfied his curiosity Douglas sits down opposite Nolan. The objects on the desk are subject of the same intense scrutiny; Nolan can sense Douglas's fingers itching to pick something up.

"You have an assignment for me," Douglas says.

"Yes. I'd like to have someone observed. However, I can't give you much information on the person in question."

"Can't or won't?"

Nolan nods his head in appreciation. Douglas's fidgeting does not inspire confidence in his abilities, but he's probably no fool.

"Pete said it's a Dr Gregory House." Douglas waits for Nolan's confirmatory nod. "Forty-nine years old, resident of 221B Baker Street in Princeton, head of diagnostics at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital and a former inmate of this hospital."

Obviously no fool. But what exactly is he?

"I did some research before coming here," Douglas says casually. "You have a problem with patient confidentiality, right?"

"Yes," Nolan concedes.

"That's no problem with me. I've had cases where I didn't even have a name to go on - y'know, finding out who someone is cheating their spouse with - so this is a breeze."

"If you don't need any information from me, how come you agreed to come out here to meet me?"

"Whoa, that's not quite what I said! I said I don't need intel on Greg House as such; I can get at that without anyone violating patient confidentiality. Trust me, you don't want to know any details." He laughed a trifle self-consciously. "What I do need to know is what I'm to look for."

Nolan is silent, debating mentally whether this is what he really wants - a complete stranger whose trustworthiness is debatable investigating a patient whom he has come to respect and even to like.

Douglas continues, "See, in my experience, when men want other men observed, it's usually one of two reasons. One, there's a woman - wife, girl-friend, sometimes it's the daughter - involved." He looks expectantly over the desk, but it's bare of personal photos or the sort of knick-knacks that indicate offspring. "In that case I'd have to follow him everywhere, take pictures of everyone he meets, keep tabs on his phone calls ..." He pauses expectantly, but Nolan is silent. "Two, there's money involved. Then I'd track his expenditures, get bank statements, and so on."

"Okay, I get the picture." Nolan makes a decision. Staring out of the window he gathers his thoughts. What does he need in order to decide how Greg is doing? "I want to know how he spends his time, whom he meets, what he spends his money on - in short, anything out of the ordinary."

"That'll be difficult and expensive. It means round-the-clock surveillance."

Nolan can sense a certain amount of reluctance on Douglas's part, which is understandable. Watching someone 24/7 is uninspiring enough when it's done in eight-hour shifts in comfortable hospital environments. Out in the field in a cramped car parked outside the victim's house, enduring hours of unmitigated boredom in the hope of witnessing that one relevant action, not knowing whether it's going to happen or not, has to be the PI equivalent of scrubbing floors with a toothbrush.

"Besides, nothing about House is ordinary ... from what I've heard," Douglas adds quickly. He dips his hand into his backpack, rather like a magician performing a trick, and draws out two small cylindrical objects which he places on the desk. "I went through the trash at his building and found these. Plus these." Three empty scotch bottles join the cylinders. "Garbage disposal last came five days ago, so these have been in the trash for less than that. The scotch bottles could've come from some other resident, but they were in the same bin as the prescription bottles.”

Nolan fingers the vicodin bottles. Their origin is indisputable, being issued in Greg's name. "Were they empty?"

Douglas's laugh is a short bark.

"Doesn't mean he took them," Nolan muses. "They're dated over three years ago, so they might be empty bottles he had lying around."

Douglas shrugs indifferently. "I just present evidence. You're the one who interprets it."

"How is it that you brought this, but not the entire contents of the trash bin?" Nolan asks.

"Head of an institution specializing in addiction issues wants a former inmate with a publicly known painkiller addiction observed. I figured. ... See, it's easy, really. We can do this without violating your precious patient confidentiality. We've narrowed your interests down to a manageable size in a jiffy, haven't we, without you having to say a word." Douglas is downright self-satisfied. "I'll have to monitor his trash at home and at work too, unfortunately, seeing as it's a hospital with an in-house pharmacy, keep an eye on the pharmacy log and another on him after work. How much money were you planning to invest and what time span are we talking about?"

"I can spare about a thousand dollars and I was thinking of a few weeks, maybe a month." He can justify a month's delay in reporting to Dr Cuddy, but not more than that.

Lucas grimaces. "That won't get us far. Can't do much personal surveillance on that amount, just the odd hour or two per week. Okay, what I can do is tap my informants. I can find out what he's up to at the hospital, and if he tries to buy at the illicit drug market in Princeton or Trenton I'll find out - he's pretty conspicuous by any standards. And I can check on him on an on-and-off basis, see whether he's got any sort of social life, whether he's getting wasted in bars, or whatever. Will that do for you?"

"Why are you so interested in this assignment?" Nolan asks.

"Interested?" Douglas tries to laugh it off.

"Yes, interested. You've come here prepared and you've already put work into this." Nolan indicates the assortment of bottles sitting on his desk. "If we don't come to an agreement, your effort will be wasted."

"Google and a short dig through a couple of trash cans." Douglas waves a casual hand. Nolan raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Look," Douglas hastens to add, "this kind of a contract is a god-send. When I track down a cheating spouse, no one gets happy. Can't ever prove that someone is faithful, only that they were so while I was observing them. If I prove they cheated, I have an unhappy client. Either way, he's never happy to pay. Now you: your position is practically a guarantee that you'll pay. And no matter what I turn up on House, it doesn't affect you personally, so you won't get pissed at me."

"Okay," Nolan says abruptly.

"Okay?" Lucas echoes.

"Yes. Observe Dr House and report to me as soon as you have anything of interest."

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