XIX
It hadn't been easy to get time off from the oil-painting factory. KenOliver was a little late when he slid into the aseptic-smelling waitingroom of the Michigan City Medical Center. A parabolic mike in theceiling trained itself on the heat he radiated and followed him acrossthe floor to a chair. A canned voice said: "State your business,please."
He started a little and said in the general direction of the mike: "I'mKen Oliver. A figure man in the Blue Department, Picasso Oils andEtching Corporation. Dr. Latham sent me here for--what do you callit?--a biopsy."
"Thank you, please be seated."
He smiled because he was seated already and picked up a magazine, thecurrent copy of the _Illinois Sporting News_, familiarly known as theGreen Sheet. Everybody in Mob Territory read it. The fingers of theblind spelled out its optimism and its selections at Hawthorne inBraille. If you were not only blind but fingerless, there was a talkingedition that read itself aloud to you from tape.
He riffled through the past performances and selections to the articles.This month's lead was--_Thank God I am Dying of Throat Cancer_.
He leaned back in the chair dizzily, the waiting room becoming gray mistaround him. _No_, he thought. _No._ It couldn't be that. All it could bewas a little sore on the back of his throat--no more than that. Just alittle sore on the back of his throat. He'd been a fool to go to Latham.The fees were outrageous and he was behind, always a little behind, onhis bills. But cancer--so much of it around--and the drugs didn't seemto _help_ any more.... But Latham had almost promised him it wasnon-malignant.
"Mr. Oliver," the loudspeaker said, "please go to Dr. Riordan's office,Number Ten."
Riordan was younger than he. That was supposed to be bad in ageneral practitioner, good in a specialist. And Riordan was aspecialist--pathology. A sour-faced young specialist.
"Good morning. Sit here. Open your mouth. Wider than that, and relax._Relax_; your glottis is locked."
Oliver couldn't protest around the plastic-and-alcohol taste of thetongue depressor. There was a sudden coldness and a metallic _snick_that startled him greatly; then Riordan took the splint out of his mouthand ignored him as he summoned somebody over his desk set. A young man,even younger than Riordan, came in. "Freeze, section and stain thisright away," the pathologist said, handing him a forceps from which asmall blob dangled. "Have them send up the Rotino charts, three hundredto nine hundred inclusive."
He began to fill out charts, still ignoring Oliver, who sat and sweatedbullets for ten minutes. Then he left and was back in five minutes more.
"You've got it," he said shortly. "It's operable and you won't lose muchtissue." He scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed it to Oliver. Thepainter numbly read: "... anterior ... epithelioma ... metastases ...giant cells...."
Riordan was talking again: "Give this to Latham. It's my report. Havehim line up a surgeon. As to the operation, I say the sooner the betterunless you care to lose your larynx. That will be fifty dollars."
"Fifty dollars," the painter said blankly. "But Dr. Latham told me--" Hetrailed off and got out his check book. Only thirty-two in the account,but he would deposit his paycheck today which would bring it up. It wasafter three so his check wouldn't go in today--he wrote out the slipslowly and carefully.
Riordan took it, read it suspiciously, put it away and said: "Good day,Mr. Oliver."
Oliver wandered from the Medical Center into the business heart of theart colony. The Van Gogh Works on the left must have snagged the bigorder from Mexico--their chimneys were going full blast and the reek oflinseed oil and turps was strong in the air. But the poor beggars on theline at Rembrandts Ltd. across the square were out of luck. They'd beenlaid off for a month now, with no sign of a work call yet. Somebodyjostled him off the sidewalk, somebody in a great hurry. Oliver sighed.The place was getting more like Chicago every day. He sometimes thoughthe had made art his line not because he had any special talent butbecause artists were relatively easy-going people, not so quick to popyou in the nose, not such aggressive drunks when they _were_ drunks.
Quit the stalling, a thin, cold voice inside him said. Get over toLatham. The man said "The sooner the better."
He went over to Latham whose waiting room was crowded with irasciblewomen. After an hour, he got to see the old man and hand him the slip.
Latham said: "Don't worry about a thing. Riordan's a good man. If hesays it's operable, it's operable. Now we want Finsen to do thewhittling. With Finsen operating, you won't have to worry about a thing.He's a good man. His fee's fifteen hundred."
"Oh, my God!" Oliver gulped.
"What's the matter--haven't you got it?"
To his surprise and terror, Oliver found himself giving Dr. Latham ahysterical stump speech about how he didn't have it and who did have itand how could anybody get ahead with the way prices were shooting up andeverybody gouged you every time you turned around and yes, that went fordoctors too and if you did get a couple of bucks in your pocket thesalesmen heard about it and battered at you until you put down aninstallment on some piece of junk you didn't want to get them out ofyour hair and what the hell kind of world was this anyway.
Latham listened, smiling and nodding, with, as Oliver finally realized,his hearing aid turned off. His voice ran down and Latham said briskly:"All right, then. You just come around when you've arranged thefinancial details and I'll contact Finsen. He's a good man; you won'thave to worry about a thing. And remember: the sooner, the better."
Oliver slumped out of the office and went straight to the Mob Building,office of the Regan Benevolent Fund. An acid-voiced woman there turnedhim down indignantly: "You should be ashamed of yourself trying to drawon the Fund when there are people in actual want who can't beaccommodated! No, I don't want to hear any more about it if you please.There are others waiting."
Waiting for what? The same treatment?
Oliver realized with a shock that he hadn't phoned his foreman aspromised, and it was four minutes to five. He did a dance of agonizedimpatience outside a telephone booth occupied by a fat woman. Shenoticed him, pursed her lips, hung up--and stayed in the booth. Shebegan a slow search of her hand-bag, found coins and slowly dialed a newnumber. She gave him a malevolent grin as he walked away, crushed. Hehad a good job record, but that was no way to keep it good. One blackmark, another black mark, and one day--bingo.
General Advances was open, of course. Through its window you could seehandsome young men and sleek young women just waiting to help you,whatever the fiscal jam. He went in and was whisked to a booth where abig-bosomed honey-voiced blonde oozed sympathy over him. He walked outwith a check for fifteen hundred dollars after signing countless papers,with the creamy hand of the girl on his to help guide the pen. What wasprinted on the papers, God and General Advances alone knew. There weremen on the line who told him with resignation that they had been payingoff to G.A. for the better part of their lives. There were men who saidbitterly that G.A. was owned by the Regan Benevolent Fund, which must bea lie.
The street was full of people--strangers who didn't look like yourrun-of-the-mill artist. Muscle men, with the Chicago style and ifanybody got one in the gut, too goddamned bad about it. They werepeering into faces as they passed.
He was frightened. He stepped onto the slidewalk and hurried home,hoping for temporary peace there. But there was no peace for his frayednerves. The apartment house door opened obediently when he told it:"Regan," but the elevator stood stupidly still when he said: "SeventhFloor." He spat bitterly and precisely: "_Sev-enth Floor._" The doorsclosed on him with a faintly derisive, pneumatic moan and he was whiskedup to the eighth floor. He walked down wearily and said: "Cobalt blue"to his own door after a furtive look up and down the hall. It worked andhe went to his phone to flash Latham, but didn't. Oliver sank insteadinto a dun-colored pneumatic chair, his 250-dollar Hawthorne ElectricStepsaver door mike following him with its mindless snout. He punched abutton on the chair and the 600-dollar hi-fi selected a random tape. Along, pure melodic trumpet l
ine filled the room. It died for two beatsand than the strings and woodwinds picked it up and tossed it--
Oliver snapped off the music, sweat starting from his brow. It was theGershwin _Lost Symphony_, and he remembered how Gershwin had died. Therehad been a little nodule in his brain as there was a little nodule inOliver's throat.
Time, the Great Kidder. The years drifted by. Suddenly you weremiddle-aged, running to the medics for this and that. Suddenly they toldyou to have your throat whittled out or die disgustingly. And what didyou have to show for it? A number, a travel pass, a payment book fromGeneral Advance, a bunch of junk you never wanted, a job that was aheavier ball and chain than any convict ever wore in the barbarous daysof Government. Was this what Regan and Falcaro had bled for?
He defrosted some hamburger, fried it and ate it and then wentmechanically down to the tavern. He didn't like to drink every night,but you had to be one of the boys, or word would get back to the plantand you might be on your way to another black mark. They were racingunder the lights at Hawthorne too, and he'd be expected to put a coupleof bucks down. He never seemed to win. Nobody he knew ever seemed towin. Not at the horses, not at the craps table, not at the numbers.
He stood outside the neon-bright saloon for a long moment, and thenturned and walked into the darkness away from town, possessed byimpulses he did not understand or want to understand. He had only avague hope that standing on the Dunes and looking out across the darklake might somehow soothe him.
In half an hour he had reached the deciduous forest, then the pine,then the scrubby brushes, then the grasses, then the bare white sand.And lying in it he found two people: a man so hard and dark he seemed tobe carved from oak and a woman so white and gaunt she seemed to becarved from ivory.
He turned shyly from the woman.
"Are you all right?" he asked the man. "Is there anything I can do?"
The man opened red-rimmed eyes. "Better leave us alone," he said. "We'donly get you into trouble."
Oliver laughed hysterically. "Trouble?" he said. "Don't think of it."
The man seemed to be measuring him with his eyes, and said at last:"You'd better go and not talk about us. We're enemies of the Mob."
Oliver said after a pause: "So am I. Don't go away. I'll be back withsome clothes and food for you and the lady. Then I can help you to myplace. I'm an enemy of the Mob too. I just never knew it until now."
He started off and then turned. "You won't go away? I mean it. I want tohelp you. I can't seem to help myself, but perhaps there's something--"
The man said tiredly: "We won't go away."
Oliver hurried off. There was something mingled with the scent of thepine forest tonight. He was half-way home before he identified it: oilsmoke.