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Tonight, though, he should have already been gone by now. T.W had a standing racquetball game every Monday night at seven p.m. at the Caldwell Country Club . . . so he was a little confused as to why he’d agreed to see a patient now. Somehow he’d said yes and had his secretary find a replacement for him on the courts, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember the whys or whos of it all.

He took his printed schedule out of the breast pocket of his white coat and shook his head. Right next to seven o’clock was the name B. Nalla and the words laser cosmetics. Man, he had no recollection how the appointment had been made or who it was or who’d given the referral . . . but nothing got onto that grid of hours without his permission.

So it must be someone important. Or the patient of someone important.

Clearly he was working too hard.

T.W logged on to the electronic medical records system and ran a search, again, for B. Nalla. Closest match was Belinda Nalda. Typo? Could be. But his assistant had left at six, and it seemed rude to interrupt her while she was having dinner with her family with just a what-the-hell-is-this?

He stood up, checked his tie and buttoned his white coat, then picked up some work to review while he waited downstairs for B. Nalla or Nalda to show.

As he headed out of the department’s top-floor stretch of offices and treatment areas, he thought about the difference between up here and down in the private clinic. Night and day. Here the decor was done in hospital non-chic: low-napped dark carpet, cream walls, lots of plain cream doors. The prints that were hung had spare stainless-steel frames, and the plants were few and far between.

Downstairs? Top-tier spa land with concierge services delivered in the kind of luxury the very rich expected: the treatment rooms had HD flat-screen TVs, DVDs, couches, chairs, tiny Sub-Zero refrigerators with rare fruit juices, food that could be ordered from restaurants, and wireless Internet for laptops. The clinic even had a reciprocal agreement with Caldwell’s Stillwell Hotel, the five-star grande dame of lodging in all of upstate New York, so that patients could rest overnight after receiving care.

Over-the-top? Yes. And was there a surcharge? Absolutely. But the reality was, reimbursements from the federal government were down, insurers were denying medically necessary procedures left and right, and T.W needed funds to fulfill his mission.

Catering to the rich was the way to do it.

Thing was, T.W had two rules for his doctors and nurses. One, offer the best damn care on the planet with a compassionate hand. And two, never turn a patient away. Ever. Especially the burn victims.

No matter how expensive or how long the course of treatment for a burn was, he never said no. Especially to the children.

If he was seen as a sellout to commercial demand? Fine. No problem. He didn’t make a big deal about what he did on the free-care side of things, and if his colleagues in other cities wanted to portray him as a money-grubber, he’d take the hit.

When he got to the elevators, he reached out with his left hand, the one that was scarred, the one that was missing a pinkie and had mottled skin, and pressed the button for down.

He was going to do whatever he had to to make sure folks got the help they needed. Someone had done it for him, and it had made all the difference in his life.

Down on the first floor he hung a right and walked along a stretch of corridor until he came to the mahogany-paneled entrance of the cosmetics clinic. In discreet lettering that was frosted into the glass were his name and the names of seven of his colleagues. There was no mention of what kind of medicine was practiced inside.

Patients had told him they loved the exclusive, members-only-club vibe.

Using a pass card, he let himself in. The reception room was dim, and not because the lighting had been turned off after main business hours were through: Bright lights were not becoming on people of a certain age, either pre- or postoperatively, and