Hooked (11 page)

“That’s nice of you, but things are more complicated than that,” he said. “Money will solve my problems but not yours—”

“Mine?”

Ames knew he was returning her kindness with cruelty but he had to. “You need to make the tour. If you want to keep Nicky.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Adriana said. “Nicky and I have been together too long. I know he wants me to make a comeback. He wants a lot of things. He’ll get over it—”

“Have you seen him lately?” He knew the answer. Adriana had been with Ames almost every night and she wouldn’t have been if Nicky were available.

“He’s been busy,” Adriana said, making light of the question.

“Do you know with what?” Ames said. “Or should I say ‘with whom?’” He knew Nicky was spending every night with Barbara Restrepo, the steel heiress.

“Is it serious?”

“Not if you make a comeback,” Ames said. “If you want Nicky, you don’t have any choice—”

The rest of the evening was spent in silence but both knew that Ames had made his sale.

Nicky and Adriana were sitting in her co-op apartment at the United Nations Plaza discussing her concert tour. Nicky was surprised when Adriana said she wanted a written agreement setting out the financial arrangements they had agreed on.

“Since when have you and I had to draw up a contract about anything?” Nicky wanted to know. He sounded hurt.

“Since I’ve put my career and my reputation at stake,” said Adriana. Nicky heard a certain hardness and determination in her tone.

“You don’t trust me?”

“It’s not a matter of trust,” she said diplomatically. “It’s a business deal—”

“Haven’t I always given you everything you wanted?” Nicky asked. “Your clothes? This apartment? Your trust fund?”

That was exactly her point. He gave her everything but there were always strings. The apartment was hers to use but legally it was in his name. The trust fund was revocable at any time. She had not considered before how vulnerable she was and how dependent on him. She was determined to be financially self-sufficient and this concert tour would give her that opportunity.

“You have indeed,” she said. “And now I expect the three million dollar advance we agreed on—”

“That’s a lot of money—”

“I’m putting my reputation on the line—”

“Nobody’s forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,” Nicky said. “Didn’t you come to me on your own and tell me you’ve decided to make a comeback tour?”

“‘On my own?’” Adriana replied. “You’ve devoted the last two months to get me to say yes. You’ve cajoled and manipulated and threatened me with another woman. And why? Because you’re a fame whore and my celebrity is an ego trip for you—”

“I never noticed you pushing away a photographer or turning down an interview—”

“Just stop being a hypocrite,” Adriana said. “All I’m asking is for you to put it in writing—”

There was no point in prolonging the argument. “I’ll have my lawyers draw up the papers,” Nicky said.

“And I’ll have my lawyers check them out—”

Adriana had gotten what she wanted and Nicky turned his attention to more practical matters. “When will you be ready to start the tour?”

“I’ll let you know tomorrow after I see Dr. Jenkins—”

Adriana was unwilling to return to his office and so Nicky arranged to have Dr. Jenkins treat her at home.

“When can I schedule the first concert?” she asked. Once she had made her decision to go ahead with the comeback, she accepted the doctor and his injections as necessary.

“A year,” Gavin said. “Medically speaking, of course. Musically, you’ll have to decide yourself—”

“I can be ready in a year—”

“I’ll want to see you three times a week,” Gavin said. “After a while we can cut it down to twice and then eventually once a week. Right before the first concert, I’ll want to see you every day again—”

“That seems like a lot—”

“Not if you want to perform,” Gavin said. “You’ll have to follow a schedule. And you can’t walk out on me the way you did last time—”

“I won’t—”

“You need me,” Gavin reminded her. “And you’re going to use me—”

“And you’ll use me, too,” she said. “I have no doubt of that.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Not yet. But I’ll tell you when I do—”

“You don’t have to like me,” he said. “Not everyone does—”

He prepared the two injections — the goldsalts into the back of the neck and the mixture of amphetamine and vitamins into the left arm. He took her arm and he could feel her draw away as if the touch of his hand were unpleasant to her. Slowly he emptied the fluid into her veins and in a few seconds she stopped fighting him.

“It will be easier as the treatment progresses,” Gavin said, as he withdrew the needle.

“I know,” said Adriana. “That’s what I’m afraid of—”

That evening Gavin told Cleo about his conversation with Adriana Partos and thought she might have some comment to make. He was surprised by her silence.

Cleo was thinking about Adriana’s remark that Gavin was going to use her. Adriana was right and Cleo knew why. Adriana Partos was the person Cleo had been waiting for — the patient who would enable her to make her husband the most famous doctor in America.

Over lunch with her old friend Arthur Congden, associate editor of
Image
magazine, Cleo mentioned Adriana’s tour.

“But she’s retired, isn’t she?” asked Arthur.

“She was,” said Cleo.

“I heard she couldn’t play any more,” said Arthur. “Arthritis—”

“She
had
arthritis,” said Cleo, “but Gavin’s been treating her and the condition has disappeared.”

She told Arthur how many hours a day Adriana was practicing in the studio across from Carnegie Hall. She named the cities where Adriana would be performing and she even named the pieces in her repertoire.

Arthur couldn’t conceal his excitement. Adriana Partos was one of the few authentic superstars of the last twenty-five years but hadn’t been heard on a public stage for almost a decade. Arthur confirmed Cleo’s leak in a telephone conversation with Adriana herself.

Assured of the accuracy of Cleo’s information, Arthur ran the story announcing the comeback tour. In it, the magazine named Dr. Gavin Jenkins as the miracle doctor who was making it possible.

Cleo was so pleased by her success that she called the features editor of
Social Notebook
in Palm Beach and suggested a profile of Gavin. The editor, sensing a story that would interest his readers, sent a reporter and photographer to interview Gavin who talked about the “optimum” man and how creative people possessed the capacity to work faster, better, longer if only it could be released. They snapped photos of Gavin in his consulting room and the article referred to Gavin’s private practice and to his research at Lowell. The caption read “Medical Chic.”

Newsworld
picked up one of Gavin’s quotes on how the world’s leaders were working at only a fraction of their capacity. An item ran in the “Newsmakers” section, along with a small photo of Gavin.

Gossip columnists started printing Gavin’s name in their columns. Someone coined the phrase “Celebrity Doctor” and society columnists wrote about “the beautiful Gavin Jenkinses (she’s heiress Cleo Eames Talbot).”

It was fun, it was harmless.

And their marriage had never been better.

“You were right,” Cleo told Bobbi.

The
Image
article, so helpful to Gavin’s career, was a major annoyance for Ames Bostwick. Nicky phoned constantly, wanting the latest details of the tour and, most of all, the profit-loss potential. Ames hated being hounded; he resented his financial future being controlled by Nicky; and he found it almost intolerable to dance to another man’s tune.

Ames dealt with the stress by eating compulsively. He gained eighteen pounds in three weeks.

“I can’t stop eating,” Ames admitted to Nicky. “I can’t control myself—”

“A shot wouldn’t hurt you, you know,” Nicky said, giving Ames Gavin’s number.

Ames didn’t think twice about it. He made an appointment, rolled up his sleeve, stuck out his arm, and said, “Okay, doc. Gimme a hit.”

In a week Ames lost ten pounds and began dropping into Gavin’s office almost daily. Somehow, the rest of Adriana’s bookings fell neatly into place, Nicky’s constant phone calls were less irritating and Ames discovered reserves of energy he didn’t know he had.

He felt confident and sure of himself, just the way he had back when he’d been a kid starting out, fearless and filled with energy. He renewed projects he had shelved and even initiated a few new ones. He was getting more done in an hour than ever before and there were more hours in a day, because now that he was seeing Dr. Jenkins, he didn’t need as much sleep.

Ames was getting the kind of massive publicity for Adriana’s comeback tour that he was famous for and Adriana, to her surprise, began to look forward to being on stage again. Just as Gavin had predicted, her pain had gradually retreated and then left her fingers completely. She could move them effortlessly and she practiced for hours until muscle memory returned and she could play with the skill and thrilling emotion that had made her one of the most famous women in the world.

Gavin administered gold salts, traditionally used to reduce arthritic inflammation, but took the precaution of making certain that the medication had not caused a depression in her white cells. On the occasions she mentioned feeling jumpy, he added dionine to her treatment and reduced the amphetamine dosage when, on two occasions, her pulse rate was elevated. On another occasion, he gave her diuretics because she complained of feeling bloated. Between visits, he put her in cervical traction.

A few months before the first concert, Gavin injected cortisone into the back of her neck. It gave Adriana a sense of well-being and there was no question in her mind that by opening night she would be playing even better than when she had been in her prime. She was aware of a heightened command of tonal shadings and she pedaled to give a nuanced sense of shifting harmonic color. Her musicality had always had a basic dignity overlaid with a fiery, intense emotion, but now she was becoming nobler, more inward, more mysterious and meditative than ever.

Nicky could sense the difference in her. She was excited about her practice sessions and looked forward to her tour. Her optimism and intensity spilled over into their personal relationship.

Sex had always been good between them, but now it was spectacular and there was an intensity about her lovemaking that reminded Nicky of the way it had been aboard
Lydia
with Gail. He said nothing, but he had no doubt that Gavin Jenkins was responsible, now as then.

Adriana’s excitement over her tour increased every day. She was convinced that it would be nothing short of a total triumph. Even though Ames admitted that he had just been making a sales pitch, she believed now that she did owe something to the millions who worshiped her; she did owe something to the genius with which nature had bestowed her.

She got so she could barely wait for the first concert, the first glowing reviews, the first baskets of red roses, the first time that, again, she would hear a hall resounding with “bravos.” She would have everything in the world: her art, her ego, her lover.

Adriana lived through the preparation period in a heightened state that approached ecstasy.

It had become fashionable to be treated by Gavin Jenkins. The list of his patients read like a Who’s Who of prominent people. There was the anchorman for the seven-o’clock news whose comments influenced the nation’s thinking; the alcoholic star of a Broadway musical who depended on Gavin’s shots to get her through every performance; a famous fashion model who swore that Gavin’s shots helped keep her fabulous body fabulous. In every field — finance, industry, the arts, politics — the people at the top visited the fourteen-room suite on Beekman Place. Gavin was not called the Celebrity Doctor for nothing.

Because Gavin was accustomed to treating influential men and women, the phone call from Washington D.C. did not surprise him. The man who was requesting an appointment insisted on speaking with Dr. Jenkins personally and, when Gavin picked up the phone, his caller dictated the arrangements.

Dr. Jenkins would fly to the nation’s capitol via private plane and arrive late at night in order to keep his visit a secret. He would not carry a medical bag; instead an ordinary briefcase. He was to tell no one except his wife where he was going or who he was treating.

The night before Gavin was to leave for Washington, a plain manila envelope was delivered to his home by messenger. The envelope contained a set of medical records and Gavin stayed up to study them.

The records revealed that the patient had a compression fracture of a lower vertebrae resulting in severe lower-back pain. The fracture was a result of a carefully concealed car crash on a California superhighway and the patient had been treated with Novocain, Robaxin, Valium, procaine, and cortisone. None had been effective in relieving him of constant pain.

It seemed that James Santana, the President of the United States, liked the company of young women. It also seemed that he liked to drive too fast in the middle of the night.

Gavin was surprised at how good-looking the President was. Photographs accented the downward lines that ran from nose to mouth; in real life, the lines were there, certainly, but they were nowhere as deep as Gavin had expected. The nose that photographed like an errant ski jump was, in fact only slightly upturned at the tip. Above all, the body that was always encased in nondescript dark-blue suits was amazingly youthful for a man of fifty-four, with well-developed musculature in the shoulders, a lean waist, and long, beautifully shaped legs.

He was lying nude on a massage table in a dressing room just off the basement pool of the White House while Gavin examined him for the first time.

“Jeee-sus,” hissed the President through clenched teeth as Gavin moved his hands over the crushed vertebrae. He was seeing Jenkins because none of his other doctors were worth a damn and because his wife’s sister, Gail de Córdoba, had called him a miracle worker.