Chapter 7

It was an incredible week. It was like a honeymoon trip, only neither of them had said anything just yet about getting married.

They rode bicycles all over St. Simons Island, slept late, swam in the surf, and sought out restaurants for lengthy lunches and delightful dinners.

And they made love, early and often.

The only unromantic part was Carolyn's near-constant monitoring of Ray's health. She had baseline figures for everything: waking, post-exercise, pre- and post-coitus.

The idea was that when Ray resumed making his hospital visits, Carolyn would be in a position to judge to what extent the work was interfering with his health.

Happily for both of them, mere sex didn't seem to be having significant deleterious effects. Quite the contrary: Carolyn's heart rate went up a lot more after a typical bout than Ray's did.

"I'm not really surprised at that," she told him after the first time Ray had suggested she do some baseline-measuring on her own body. "I don't mind telling you, I've never had it so good!"

If she'd been in possession of a device to measure ego satisfaction, Ray Pinsky certainly would have run it off the charts altogether. His experience of being Superman in bed was still quite new to him, and he reveled in it.

It also still seemed just — unreal, because although they were doing great together sexually, Ray continued to have no perception that his performance as a lover had improved all that much over his undistinguished past. The only real differences were in the much-increased feedback he was getting from his highly responsive partner, and the continuing rave reviews showered on him in the aftermath.

They both knew, but didn't often acknowledge, that his prowess was part and parcel of his larger healing gift. Both abilities were amazing — and inexplicable.

But despite knowing the reality, Ray couldn't entirely help being peacock-proud of himself. There was no real reason for it, he knew. Would a cyclist be proud that he could get up to sixty mph when he's heading straight down a steep hill?

But, hey, Ray was a guy, after all. For whatever reason, he was a great lover now.

Even if it was all downhill.

After their blissful single vacation week, however, both of them acknowledged that if Ray Pinsky was going to be anything other than an ordinary guy named Ray, they were going to have to hit the road again and resume his previous lifestyle.

Carolyn wanted to be an active part of it. She was still after Ray to contact Cosgrove and arrange to go in for elaborate medical testing and extended scientific analysis. She knew that Ray was wavering, and she was not about to let up.

But she always nagged him in an understated way, using a combination of her natural persuasive powers, her medical knowledge, and the authority she derived from being the love of Ray's life. Meanwhile, they would continue to do things his way.

Their first stop after leaving the island was a major public hospital just to the north in Savannah, Georgia.

They checked into a motel on Interstate 95, well outside the city. Reluctantly, Carolyn agreed to wait in the room while Ray drove into town, donned his disguise, and worked the corridors of the largest local hospital for four hours.

It felt good, being back on the job. They had been following press reports on a regular basis during the long stretch of inactivity. Ray's exploits were sufficiently well-noted by now that some limited press speculation had begun to emerge, wondering what had happened to the Mystery Healer.

But although it felt good, working again, Ray found himself flushed and weary when he arrived back in their room.

Carolyn took one look and ordered him to lie down on his back. In minutes, she was running him through her battery of tests.

"You blood pressure numbers are frighteningly high," she said. "How long has it been since you left the hospital?"

"I don't know," he said. "A little over a half-hour, I guess. I drove right back here, after."

"And you were in there for — what? — four hours?"

"Yeah. Almost that, anyway."

"Lots of ... customers?"

"Oh, yeah. I had free rein. Hit two whole floors of patients. Touched lots of folks."

"These results are alarming," Carolyn said. "There's no other word for it. I'm going to test you once every hour until we go to sleep tonight. We need to see how long it takes for your vitals to return to normal. This is really pretty scary, Ray!"

"I'll be okay later," he told her. "It's true I feel really washed out right now. But I'll be okay after we get something to eat."

"We can have an early dinner," she said, "but right now, please try to sleep for a couple of hours. Get undressed, Get under the covers."

He did as she suggested - but slowly and ponderously. Actually, Carolyn wasn't the only one who was alarmed. Ray was unaccustomed to having this kind of reaction to a normal afternoon of patrolling hospital corridors. A few months earlier, he had felt nothing more afterward than a pleasant weariness that he had taken for normal wear and tear.

Now it was obvious — even to Ray — that he was severely drained.

But maybe it wouldn't last for long. This was his first time back at work after the longest period of rest he'd had in more than twenty months. Actually, he thought, he ought to be in great shape.

Carolyn woke him two hours later, ran him through all the tests again, muttered her disappointment as she wrote down all the figures, and agreed with Ray's suggestion that they dress and go out to find some food.

Back in the room after a hearty dinner, Ray once again submitted to her battery of tests.

"Your recovery isn't what it ought to be," she said. "Blood pressure's still way above normal, although it's come down a little. Not nearly enough. Your pulse rate is too high. Your body is behaving as if you've just run four hundred meters at top speed."

"I do feel pretty whipped," Ray admitted.

"This is dangerous, Ray. You can't keep going like this. You just can't. You need medical attention yourself. You could have a stroke!"

"I don't think it's that bad," he protested.

"It is that bad!" she said.

Then Carolyn switched gears suddenly. "C'mon, get undressed," she said. "I've been cooped up in here all afternoon. I'm horny."

Her sudden change of subject was spectacular, and for Ray, a little shocking. One minute she'd been telling him that he was a sick man; the next she's demanding immediate sex.

"Maybe I'd better take another nap first," Ray said. From the neck up, he was eager to respond to her invitation. But the rest of him was far less enthusiastic.

Carolyn agreed immediately. Her sudden enticement had been nothing more than her attempt to demonstrate that he was seriously hurting.

"I think you'd better take an all-night nap first," she said. "Are you maybe convinced, now, that you need some help? ... Listen, Ray, if you wake up — anytime at all during the night — even if it's just to go pee, I want you to wake me too, so we can run these tests again. Now, then. Goodnight, Sweetheart."

He slept for thirteen hours, waking once for the pee that Carolyn had predicted, and submitting to another quick round of tests. He had no trouble afterward, dropping back off to sleep. Carolyn did, though. She was alarmed now, and determined to get Ray some help.

Ray's morning round of tests still were not back to his normal resting baselines. Carolyn didn't hide her concern.

Without a word, they skipped the implied promise of morning sex and checked out of the motel immediately after breakfast.

On their way to Charleston, South Carolina, it was agreed that Ray's next hospital stop would be limited. Very limited. They settled on his seeing only three patients.

Ray would go in, locate three people who appeared to be visibly ill, and administer his healing touch.

Three -- and no more.

Then he would return to the camper, submit himself to more tests, and they would try to take some measure of how much he had been drained by that very limited use of his powers.

Afterward, Carolyn read off the results and shook her head. "It's not as serious as Savannah," she said. "Limiting how many people you touched seemed to have a significant effect. But you're still showing readings that reflect near-exhaustion."

"I never used to have this kind of reaction, even from a whole day's work," he said.

"It's obviously a progressive problem," she said. "I hope you're persuaded now that you've got to do something about it. Immediately."

Ray said nothing for the moment. He had been thinking about the necessity of making this decision for many months. The stakes now, however, were extremely clear.

It had always been a tough call, whether his decision to work alone - to avoid hands-on scientific analysis - was wise or even fair. But the debilitating effects of what he was doing had become too obvious to ignore. Ray knew he couldn't continue on his present course.

The decision was being made for him. His body was insisting that it was time to come in out of the cold.

"I'll call Cosgrove today," he told Carolyn.

They met Cosgrove two days later at his home just outside of Chicago, after driving directly there from Charleston. Carolyn had done most of the driving.

It was immediately decided that they would be Cosgrove's houseguests, with the invitation extended for an open-ended period.

Albert Cosgrove was delighted with Carolyn. He continuously praised her for having encouraged Ray to submit to treatment. Like Carolyn, Cosgrove had to spend some time getting used to calling the man he'd known all this time as "John Healer" by his new name - Ray Pinsky.

"I'm not just here for treatment," Ray told him. "Research, too. You've always told me that I needed to let the scientists get a shot at me. Well, here I am."

"I don't know," Cosgrove said. "From what you two have told me, lately when you work your cures on people, your own health has started to be severely threatened. If that's the case, it seems to me too dangerous for you to do any more of it."

"Maybe the doctors can figure out what's causing the difficulty," Ray said. "But if I don't do any more work, if I don't heal anybody, how are they going to have anything to measure?"

"We'll get together a team," Cosgrove said. "A small group of specialists who can do this right. I've been in touch with some leading medical people all along — ever since you cured my daughter."

"You think we can somehow keep this secret?" Ray said. "Avoid doing it all in public? I still have some hope of leading a normal life someday. I'd like to be able to go out to the supermarket for a gallon of milk without getting mobbed."

"Let me start a conversation with a couple of the people I have in mind," Cosgrove said. "We'll be able to make some decisions about the shape of this project after that."

Three days later, over dinner in Cosgrove's dining room, he laid out his suggested procedure.

"I've spoken to two physician-researchers at length," Cosgrove told us. "Doctors Karl Hempstead and Alicia Lincoln — both from the University of Chicago. Both have been following your exploits for months. Both are totally committed to this project. Better yet, they know exactly who else we need to recruit, and they are willing to take leaves of absence from their regular work and spend the next six months on this exclusively."

"Six months?" Ray said, incredulous. "They expect this to take six months? I thought it would be, like, two weeks of examinations and testing."

"Six months," Cosgrove said. "More, if necessary. This is going to be a two-part exercise, Ray. Finding out what makes you tick, and trying to determine whether your abilities can somehow be transmitted to others. That part is the project I've wanted to undertake all along — even before you started having difficulties with your own health.

"But now, the second part is perhaps even more important. We've got to find out why your health is being seriously compromised, and what can be done about that."

"Amen," Carolyn said.

They learned from Cosgrove that the entire project would be conducted from his estate. All the researchers would be housed on the premises. There was ample room. Carolyn and Ray had a suite of rooms all to themselves, and Cosgrove easily was able to accommodate the four physician-scientists and their three staff assistants in privacy and comfort elsewhere on the house and grounds.