II
He taxied downtown to the athletic club, where he maintained histhree-room apartment. The 20-story building was a citadel ofmasculinity--no females allowed--and recently it was an especial reliefto enter the lobby and leave behind the world of turbulently mixedsexes.
The small but lush entry chamber had a deserted air about it thisafternoon. At the room desk, Crumbley, the clerk, handed him his keywith a pallid hand and returned to sigh over a colored picture in_Esquire_--it was the "fold-out" page, featuring a gorgeous blondereclining at full length. Crumbley's expression, however, was far fromthe loose-lipped, lecherous leer that he normally exposed to such art.His eyes had a thin glaze over them, he breathed shallowly and, if Dr.Murt had not known the little man's cynically promiscuous nature sowell, he'd have sworn Crumbley was in love.
Upstairs, Murt donned rubber-soled gym shoes and sweat clothes and rodethe elevator back down to the gymnasium. Three times a week, he put hismuscles through the whole routine-work on the bars, rings, the leatherhorse, the rope climb and a twenty-lap jog around the balcony racetrack.Afterward, he showered, took a dip in the swimming pool and retired tothe health service department for a rubdown and some sunlamp.
Throughout the whole routine, he encountered not a single other member.While Charlie, the husky blond masseur, hammered and kneaded hismuscles, Murt reflected on the abating interest in athletics at theclub.
"Are we losing members, Charlie?" he asked.
"You'd think so from how dead it is up here," Charlie replied. "ButCrumbley says we aren't. The guys just aren't exercising. Can't figureit, Doc. Even with the usual summer slump, it's never been this slow."
When he had absorbed all the punishment he could stand, Murt rolled off,went into the ultraviolet room, set an alarm clock and lay down byhimself on one of the paper-covered tables. He adjusted the dark gogglesand reflected thankfully that he didn't have to go to the beach for hissun and have sand kicked in his face by a procession of predatoryfemales, ogling his long limbs and trying to attract his attention.
The clean smell of ozone was pleasant, the warmth of the lamps relaxedhim, and he dozed off. He dreamed that he heard someone else come in andlie down on the next table and, when he raised his head to see who itwas, was amazed to discover his assistant, Dr. Phyllis Sutton, stretchedout like himself, wearing only shower-sandals and goggles.
The alarm clock wakened him from the disturbing dream. He was sweatingprofusely and took another shower, using the cold water at full needleforce to dispel his shock at his subconscious.
* * * * *
Wrapping the robe around him, Murt returned to his apartment to dressfor dinner. As he snapped the paper laundry band off a clean shirt, hecaught himself wondering how old Phyllis Sutton was. Twenty-eight?Thirty? She appeared younger, but she was in her last year of residenceto gain her specialty of pathology. That meant over eleven years ofschool and practice. She was a lovely creature, but she was no child.
He had half an impulse to phone her for dinner, then became lost instudying his own reaction to the thought. Pulse over a hundred,respiration quickening, irregular. There was a tensing of the abdomen, afaint burning in the pit of his stomach.
He remembered the urge at the office, the dream in the sunroom, thesudden sweat that had required five minutes under the cold needleshower.
After so many years of deliberate, scholarly celibacy, what washappening to him?
He stared at the phone. With six motions of one finger, he could dialPhyllis Sutton's face into view, and suddenly he yearned to do that veryridiculous thing.
After staring at her, off and on, for the six months since she hadtransferred to High Dawn to complete her residency, now he wanted to seeher face outside of working hours for some inexplicable reason.
Call her up, date her, take her dancing, proposition her--get this sillyfeeling off your chest!
Suppose she was busy or refused to go out with him? Suppose she alreadyhad a boy friend?
This last thought deepened the burn in the pit of his stomach, and hefinished dressing listlessly. To hell with it! This was poker night. Ifhe did succeed in dating his assistant, they'd inevitably talk shop.That was why he enjoyed a night of cards with his six non-medicalbrother clubmen, once a week. It was refreshing to break away from theprofessional point of view.
No, he wouldn't sacrifice that for any woman.
* * * * *
He ate alone, read the paper, joined the poker party at seven o'clock,played six hands of stud, cashed in his chips and returned to his room.In a mood of deep irritation, he found Phyllis Sutton's home phonenumber and rang it four times with no result.
He thought to try the hospital. She answered from the lab extension onaudio only, but her voice and its frankly curious tone sent verticallypolarized chills through him.
"I--I wanted to apologize for my rudeness this afternoon," he said withdifficulty from a suddenly dry mouth.
There was a brief silence. "Have you been drinking, Dr. Murt?" Henoticed that she did not call him Sylvester. Why was he so damnedthirsty for some little sign of warmth and friendliness from her?
He cleared his throat. "No, I'm serious. It occurred to me that yourinterest in the out-clinic problem was commendable, and that I wasrather short in my remarks to you."
"Oh! I take it I have your permission to work my project in during theday, then?"
"That's right, so long as it doesn't interfere with the routine." Hesounded stuffy to himself, but he was entirely out of practice inspeaking to please a female.
"Thanks," she said wryly, and the conversation ended.
Somehow, the brief talk with her restored his perspective. Once againshe was his assistant, and the significance of her as a woman faded. Shewas a dedicated physician like himself. In another few years, she wouldfind a residency of her own. She had no more inclination to knock offand become a woman than he had to squander his time and energy onattaining the status of family man.
* * * * *
It was with mounting admiration that he followed her new project inexamining blood samples. As they came up from the clinic, she sorted thespecimen tubes at once, putting a tiny snip of yellow Scotch tape underthe label of each sample that belonged to a patient with the newundiagnosed disorder.
Then, after the requested hemoglobin, blood sugar and other standardtests had been run, she retrieved the samples from the technicians,grouped them in a special rack and devoted every spare minute to furtherexamination.
She centrifuged, precipitated, filtered and stained over and over, usingevery qualitative procedure in the book. Murt signed her requisitionsfor exotic reagents and rare stains. He helped her balance out the largecentrifuge to get the maximum r.p.m. from it. He let her use the mostcostly of the fine-porosity filters.
He had little hope of success, but it was good practice for her. She wasrequired to identify every organism she found, bone up on its knowneffects, then determine that it could not cause the symptoms reported.
She did all this without impairing her usefulness to Murt. When heneeded her, she was at his side, dissecting, taking down notes,preparing delicate sections and checking slides before they came to him.
In several weeks, she exhausted all known tests on the first samples.After lunch one day, she turned her palms up. "_Nichts da!_" she said,pulling a mashed cigarette from the huge pocket of her white smock.
He glanced at her and swiveled to stare out the window. It was part ofhis tight campaign to prevent a disastrous recurrence of the emotionaltempest he had suffered the day she had begun this research.
"It was a nice brush-up on your bacteriology," he said. "Have you savedthe filtrates?"
"Yes, of course. Did I overlook anything?"
"Nothing that we could do here, but there's an electron microscopedowntown at Ebert Industrial Labs. How about photomicrography? Could bea filtrable virus."
He knew that she was awa
re of the possibility, and also that she wasreluctant to ask him for additional funds to go into a virus hunt withthe expensive piece of equipment.
"Wonderful!" she told him. "I did hate to ask you, but it would be ashame to waste all that immaculate filtrate."