The Fifth Harmonic Read Free Page B

be numbered on one hand.
    “Come upstairs,” she said.
    He followed her back up to the front room. Her step seemed heavier than before, almost weary. She stopped by the desk andpicked up his index card.
    “‘W. C. Burleigh.’ Is that what they call you—W. C.?”
    “You mean, like W. C. Fields? No. I go by Will.”
    “Very well, Will. Can you leave me a phone number where I can reach you?”
    He gave her his home phone and she jotted it down. Then she stepped to the door and held it open for him.
    “I will call you tomorrow night.”
    “What's going to change between now and then?” he said, slipping the cap back onto his head.
    “I must do some . . . research.”
    Research what? My Dun & Bradstreet?
    Stop being such a cynical bastard.
    “I'll be waiting for your call,” he said as the blinding wet heat from the sidewalk slapped him. “By the way, what's your name?”
    “Call me Maya,” she said.

2
Bedford, NY
    Will was sitting in the claustrophobic, chart-strewn dictation room of the hospital record department, signing off on the last of his open charts when Dave Andros popped in.
    Just the man Will did not want to see.
    “Hey, Will.” Andros, a short, portly bundle of energy, dropped into the chair next to Will and fixed him with his dark eyes. “How're you feeling?”
    “Decent.”
    He lifted Will's chin. “Let me see that incision.” Dave leaned close, tilting his head left and right, then nodded. “Damn, I do good work!”
    Will laughed. “You do, Dave.”
    “Yeah, I know.” He continued to stare at Will. “Well?”
    “Well what?”
    “What's the final word from Sloane?”
    “You didn't get a report?”
    “Not yet. What did they think?”
    Will sighed. “Same as everybody else.”

    Will had first noticed the lump in his neck a month ago while shaving: a firm, non-tender, subcutaneous mass about the size of the last phalanx of his little finger. No question—an enlarged lymph node. He'd watched it for about a week, fully expecting it to return to normal size.
    Lymphomas, after all, happened to other people.
    But the node did not shrink. In fact, Will suspected that it might be enlarging. And was that a second node he felt beneath it?
    Uneasy now, he copped a hallway ENT consult from Dave, who said the fastest way to find out what was going on was to biopsy the node. And not to worry too much—even if it was a lymphoma, they were getting fabulous results these days.
    Two days later, Dave removed the node under local in the outpatient surgical suite and sent it down to pathology for a quick read. As soon as the incision was sutured closed, Will headed for the path department where the frozen section results would be waiting for him.
    He rapped on the door frame of Alex Reed's office. “What's the word, Alex?”
    Reed was the hospital's chief pathologist. He was pushing sixty and his build mimicked his name; he sat folded in his chair, wrapped in a white lab coat with sleeves that were inches too short for him. He didn't smile when he looked up from his desk.
    “Oh, Will. Have a seat. And close the door, will you?”
    Something in the pathologist's eyes started a cold, sick dread growing in Will's gut. He closed the door but remained standing.
    “What is it, Alex? Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma?”
    “No. It's squamous, Will. The node was packed with squamous cell carcinoma.”
    “Oh, shit.” Will's knees suddenly felt rubbery. He lowered himselfinto the chair. “You're sure?”
    “Very. I'll be able to give you more details after I examine a full prep, but even in the frozen sections this appears to be one very aggressive-looking tumor. I suggest you get rolling on therapy right away.”
    “But where the hell's the primary?”
    “Could be anywhere in the head or neck. You want my guess? I'd say the tongue.”
    Stunned, Will had stumbled out of Reed's office in search of Dave.
    No more hallway consults now. Dave had Will come to his office where he did a thorough oral exam. He found what