In the middle of Newhouse’s spiel, Lydia poked her head through the doorway to tell him that Ms. Chalmers was waiting in treatment room one.

“Have Dr. Fallon see her!” Newhouse said, hardly breaking stride with his presentation.

“I don’t think she’s going to be happy about that,” Lydia said.

In an instant, Newhouse’s demeanor changed from jovial to malevolent. “I said have Dr. Fallon see her!” He repeated each word with equal force.

“As you wish,” Lydia said, beating a hasty retreat.

Newhouse took a deep breath. In a blink of the eye, the storm had cleared and sunlight had burst forth. Jack was astounded at the transition.

“Now, where was I?” Newhouse questioned, glancing over the keyboard and up at the monitor as if the X-ray machine would tell him.

“So, you follow people with X-rays,” Jack said, ignoring Newhouse’s question.

“All the time. We are interested in documenting the patient’s progressive improvement, and the patients find it particularly reassuring.”

“Could you show me such a progression?” Jack asked.

“Absolutely,” Newhouse said. “We have a series available as a presentation for prospective patients like yourself, since we’d love to fulfill your health-care needs. Please, come back into my office. I’ll show it to you on the computer.”

Jack marveled at the effort Newhouse was willing to expend to gain another client. Until his last comment, Jack had wondered why Newhouse was being so generous with his time.

Jack moved behind Newhouse’s desk so the two of them could view the monitor. Newhouse brought up a lateral cervical X-ray, allegedly that of one of his patients. Superimposed on the film were a number of straight red lines intersecting carefully measured angles. It all looked legitimate, as if it was some complicated system to analyze the film. Yet the more Jack looked at the X-ray and the profusion of red lines, the less sense it made to him. The one thing he did notice was that the patient’s head was bent forward, with the chin practically resting on the anterior chest.

“In this preliminary film,” Newhouse said, “the curve of the cervical spine in this symptomatic patient is just the opposite of normal. As you can see, it exits the skull not curving forward as it should, but rather backward. Now, this was the initial film before therapy commenced. As I show you subsequent films of this patient, watch how the cervical spine changes as therapy progresses.”

Jack watched subsequent lateral films and could clearly appreciate the cervical spine change from curving backward to curving forward. At the same time he could see that the change was not from any therapy but due to the fact that the patient was slowly raising his head on each successive X-ray.

“Pretty dramatic, isn’t it,” Newhouse cooed.