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    â€œI understand! I read you, Doctor! And believe me, there is nothing I admire more about us old-time clinicians, ha, than our concern for the traditional one-on-one doctor-patient relationship. But we got a little problem here.”
    â€œWhat’s the problem?” says Max in his old ironic style. Max is upset about something. I am noting that for some reason Bob Comeaux is striving for standard medical heartiness and not succeeding; is, in fact, doing very badly.
    â€œThe problem, fellows,” says Bob Comeaux, looking up for the first time and smiling his rueful attractive smile, “is that Tom’s license to practice is in bureaucratic limbo. Theoretically he has a probationary license, but that leaves him open to malpractice suits and any cop who wants to lean on him. What I’m saying is that I can take him aboard here and he can do what he pleases, licensed or not.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous,” says Max to me. “That’s wrong!”
    â€œWhat’s ridiculous?” asks Bob Comeaux, puzzled.
    â€œThat he has to report to us on his practice.”
    Bob Comeaux leans forward over his pocketed hands, frowning but not unpleasantly. “I’m not clear, Max. Do you mean that we both agree that Tom should be practicing any kind of medicine he pleases? Or do you mean that he was wrongfully deprived of his license?”
    â€œI mean it’s wrong! The whole damn thing.”
    We fall silent. Max’s defense of me is loud and lame.
    I am thinking that I should be experiencing a sinking of heart at Max’s lame defense of me, but that I’m not. Instead, I find myself watching Bob Comeaux curiously. There is a new assurance about him. I observe that when he leans over, and now when he takes his hands out of his pockets and folds them across his chest, grasping his suede-clad arms, at the same time sitting-leaning gracefully, one haunch on the desk, he is doing so consciously and well. There is a space between what he is and what he is doing. He is graceful and conscious of his gracefulness, like an actor.
    Max is nothing of the sort. He is upset and at a loss. Max suddenly looks tired and old. No longer the bright young Jesus among the elders, planes of his temples flashing light, amazing the older staff physicians with his knowledge, he sounds more like a Jewish mother. He moralizes: This is wrong, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.
    But Max revives, perks up, sits erect. “Excuse me, Bob, but this is all a lot of humbug. The fact is that is why we are here: to review Dr. More’s competence and integrity, which I’m assuming is not in question here, and as members of the ethics committee of the medical society to recommend to the state board that his license be reinstated in full, which will then occur as a matter of course, right?”
    â€œRight. Except for one annoying little glitch like I told you,” says Bob Comeaux patiently. He looks both genial and doleful.
    â€œWhat glitch?”—Max, cocking his head.
    â€œYou know as well as I do, Max,” says Bob Comeaux wearily. “In the case of a felony count, even with our recommendation, a license can only be reinstated after a year’s probationary service under our supervision—which is exactly what I’m offering him, except that he’ll be free and won’t have to report to us.”
    â€œFelony?” Max spreads his hands, beseeches the four walls, the Mississippi River. “What felony?”
    â€œOh boy,” says Bob Comeaux softly, shaking his head. He flips open the file next to his thigh on the desk where he’s still lounging at ease, reads in a neutral clerk’s voice, sighting past his folded arms. “These are the minutes of the first hearing before the State Medical Board. Dr. Thomas More charged by Agent Marcus Harris of the ATFA—let me see, blah blah—with the sale of one hundred prescriptions