The Barrens & Others Read Free Page A

from his first medical malpractice settlement. He had known then that malpractice was the only way to go.
    Especially when you had a method.
    It was simple, really. All it took was a few well-compensated contacts in the city's hospitals to let him know when a certain type of patient was being discharged. One of Howard's assistants – Howard used to go himself but he was above that now – would arrange to be there when the potential client left the hospital. He'd take him to lunch and subtly make his pitch.
    You couldn't be too subtle, though. The prospective client was usually a neurosurgical patient, preferably an indigent sleazo who had shown up in the hospital emergency room with his head bashed in from a mugging or a fight over a bottle or a fix, or who'd fallen down a stairway or stumbled in front of a car during a stupor. Didn't matter what the cause as long as he'd wound up in the ER in bad enough shape for the neurosurgeon on call to be dragged in to put his skull and its contents back in order again.
    "But you're not right since the surgery, are you?"
    That was the magic question. The answer was almost invariably negative. Of course, the prospect hadn't been "right" before the surgery, either, but that was hard to prove. Nigh on impossible to prove. And even if the potential said he felt pretty good, he usually could find some major complaint when pressed, especially after it was explained to him that a permanent post-surgical deficit could be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of seven figures to him if things went his way.
    Yeah, they were druggies and winos and all-purpose sleazos and it was an ordeal to be in conference with one of them for more than just a few minutes, but they were Howard's ticket to the Good Life. They were the perfect malpractice clients. He loved to stick them in front of a jury. Their shambling gaits, vacant stares, and disordered thought patterns wrung the hearts of even the most objective jurors. And since they were transients with no steady jobs, friends, or acquaintances, the defense could never prove convincingly that they had been just as shambling, vacant, and disordered before the surgery.
    In most cases, the malpractice insurer took one look at the cient and reached for his checkbook: It was settlement time.
    Yeah, life was sweet when you knew the bushes with the best berries.
    *
    Lydia was still fuming when she reached the garage downstairs. She handed in her ticket and found herself waiting next to Dr. Johnson. He nodded to her.
    "Can't they find your car?" she said for lack of something better.
    He shrugged. "Seems that way. Goes with the rest of the day, I guess." He looked tired, haggard, defeated. He smiled suddenly, obviously forcing it. "How'd I do up there?"
    Lydia sensed his desperate need for some hope, some encouragement.
    "You did very well, I thought. Especially at the end." She couldn't bring herself to tell him that his final remarks were shredded on the floor of the conference room.
    "Do you think I have a snowball's chance in hell of coming out of this with the shirt on my back?"
    Lydia couldn't help it. She had to say something to ease this poor man's mind. She put her hand on his arm.
    "I see lots of these cases. I'm sure they'll settle within your coverage limits."
    He turned to her. "Settle? I'm not going to settle anything!"
    His intensity surprised her. "Why not?"
    "Because if I agree to settle, it's as much as an admission that I've done something wrong! And I haven't!"
    "But you never know what a jury will do, Dr. Johnson."
    "So I've been told, over and over and over by the insurance company. 'Settle – settle – settle!' They're scared to death of juries. Better to pay off the bloodsucking lawyer and his client than risk the decision of a jury. Sure! Fine for them! They're only thinking about the bottom line. But I did everything right in this case! I released his subdural hematoma and tied off the leaking artery inside his skull. That man would have