to leave, though he knew they were again looking for a urologist in Ogden. His patience with Moe was definitely growing thin, but was this a good time to make a move? There had to be another way, a way he could have it all.
And to complicate his life further, there was Judy, an operating room nurse. God, was she pretty with lively brown eyes, a crooked mischievous smile and a flippant devil-may-care personality. They had been benignly flirting for several months, but lately, there had been more inadvertent touching, more long conversations and recently, a fairly harmless luncheon date.
Rusty knew Moe had been intermittently dating Judy for several months now, but that was part of the intrigue. And though he would never admit it, that was the reason, at least in part, why he was showing more interest in Judy lately. Anyway, Judy was better suited for him; Moe was just too old for her. It was irritating to see Moe trying to act down to her level, awkward, like a pimply, pubescence teenager. It would be a freezing day in hell before Moe could best him in the art of romance.
Regardless of that unspoken challenge, Judy was very sexy and fun to fantasize about, not at all like Faye. In fact, she had been on his mind so much lately she had almost become an addiction, an obsession. Just the thought of her nude, supple, young body next to him made him get hard. Kind of like that gorgeous, serpentine dancer at that strip joint on Bourbon Street that he had skipped the meetings to see.
“Do you want something to drink, honey?”
Rusty jerked, startled out of his reverie. He had almost forgotten Faye was seated next to him. He glanced up to see both his wife and the flight attendant peering at him.
“What?”
“Do you want something to drink?”
“Oh—uh, yes, I’ll have a Sprite,” he answered a bit sheepishly.
“You were a thousand miles away. You still worried about your practice?” Faye asked sweetly.
“Yeah, I just can’t decide what to do.” Rusty turned away. He was still feeling guilty about his carnal thoughts and afraid they might show in his eyes.
“About Moe?”
“Yes,” Rusty answered. “I’m not sure how much longer I can work with that man.”
“I know, honey, he has the morals of a rodent. You should really think about starting your own practice.”
“I might just do that, Faye. I might just do that.” Rusty took a long sip of Sprite and patted Faye’s hand, then to change the subject, he deliberately looked at his wristwatch. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes.”
About ten o’clock that evening, after the two hour drive from Las Vegas’ McCarran airport to St. George, Rusty dropped Faye at the house, then stopped by the office to check his schedule and see if there were any urgent messages. As usual, Moe’s office appointments were full for three weeks in advance, while Rusty’s future patient bookings were only full for less than a week even though he had been gone for a week. This fact always annoyed the hell out of him.
Rusty just could not understand why Moe was consistently more popular. It certainly wasn’t that he was a better doctor. Then to add to fuel to that argument, Moe was divorced, didn’t go to church and had started drinking. In this town, all of those were serious social offenses and this type behavior was totally unacceptable for a partner of his. Yet, people still continued to go to Moe. Even some of the good Mormons.
On the other hand, Rusty was a happily married man, went to church every Sunday and had never been in a bar in his life, at least as far as anyone in St. George knew. But in spite of this, Moe always saw more patients, did more surgery and subsequently made more money. To Rusty, this was unbelievable and unacceptable. What were patients thinking? However, he knew that regardless of the fact that his personal life was a mess, Moe rarely made mistakes in his professional life, and that was the hitch. If Moe screwed up more as a doctor, then most of these patients would be coming to him.
After checking his messages, Rusty started rummaging through the pathology outbox. Not surprisingly, it looked as if Moe had been busy. Idly, he picked up the two prostate biopsy specimen vials, one marked Howard H. Swensen, the other Robert E. Robinson. He could feel the corrugated gripping surface of the plastic caps, he popped the lid off one of the vials and the pungent odor of formalin stung his nostrils. Just for a fleeting second, he considered how much trouble Moe would be in if the vials were switched. It would serve that aging playboy son-of-a-bitch right. Wouldn’t that be the ticket? If he did switch them, how would anyone ever know? Should he?
“You back?”
Rusty jumped! Fighting for composure, he slowly turned around, rotating the uncapped specimen vial behind his back.
“Didn’t hear you come in.”
“That was obvious, I thought you were going to hit your head on the ceiling,” Moe said jokingly, but did not smile.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” Rusty asked hurriedly. It would be better if he took the offensive, started asking the questions.
“I was driving by and saw a light on. Thought I’d better check it out. You know, Ali Butras had his office broken into last month.”
“I heard. Kids looking for drugs. Any problems with any of my patients while I was gone?”
“No, not really. Oh—Laura Slembosky passed her stone, so I canceled her lithotripsy for tomorrow.”
“Guess I should have done her before I left,” Rusty joked. “After New Orleans, I need the money,”
Moe did not laugh. “How were the meetings?”
“Great! When we get a minute, I want to talk to you about a new procedure for stress incontinence, the vaginal sling. The initial patient trials show up to a ninety percent success at five years,” Rusty gushed.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Reminds me of what Mark Twain said about statistics. You going to be here much longer?”
“Nah, just going through some of my messages.”
“Smell like formalin in here to you?” Moe asked as he sniffed the air.
“Uh—uh, probably the cleaning solution housekeeping is using.”
“Yeah, probably. You’ll lock-up?”
“Of course.”
With an uneasy blend of relief and hostility, Rusty watched the old bastard leave. With his thumb, he recapped the specimen vial, then idly toyed with the vials. After a minute, he placed the specimen vials in the pathology outbox, turned out the lights and left.
The courier, clothed in a white lab coat, stopped at the office of Urology Associates at precisely 5:00 p.m. the next afternoon. There she collected blood and tissue specimens, a service provided by the lab of Dixie Pioneer Hospital to their private physicians. From Urology Associates, the last stop on her route, she collected three biopsy specimens, two from Dr. Mathis dated the previous day and one from Dr. Wright labeled with today’s date.
Her carrying tray was packed to over-flowing with specimens, mostly blood tubes
