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Read Ebook: Don't Look Now by Rubin Leonard Wood Wallace Illustrator
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Ebook has 312 lines and 12501 words, and 7 pages
Don't Look Now
BY LEONARD RUBIN
Illustrated by WOOD
The Royalty Party wasn't what you would imagine--it stood for a great deal, but there was as much it wanted no part of!
"You're not allowed in the ambulance," Miss Knox said.
They were both typical advertising men, down to the motorskates strapped beneath their shoes. Their faces were so utterly undistinctive as to seem fuzzy. Each carried a large flat briefcase with a coil antenna sticking out.
"Watch it!" the attendant growled, and they skated aside with a whir.
Big Carl came driving up the ramp, ducked his head to enter, and brought the bed to a stop in the belly of the ambulance. Miss Knox pressed the button and the door closed in the admen's faces.
She and the bed sank between white hospital walls and landed in the room with a bump. The waiting attendant walked around the platform, folding the safety gates. He unhooked the four support cables, each vanishing out of his grasp like spaghetti slurped from a plate.
Just as the ceiling closed overhead, cutting off sight and sound of the whirlybird against the sun, Brooks, the radiologist, came in through the door, shepherding an entire class of medical students. Then two nurses seemed to clear an inoffensive path through the chemically tainted air of the corridor--and after them came Dr. Gesner, the greatest throat man in the country. Miss Knox knew him from his portrait in the Mushroom.
Brooks winked her an "At ease!" with a shaggy eyebrow and followed the fat man through the crowd. Dr. Gesner went to the bed and sat down. He was Barger's weight, with the same sort of elephantine bones, but he was almost two feet shorter. He stared at the nose and cheeks protruding from the bedclothes, and opened a fat black bag.
A bell rang three times in the corridor. Five interns scurried into the room and stopped still, watching Dr. Gesner as though he were a golden calf. On each side of the doorway stood a student nurse at attention.
Mr. Barger stopped twitching and opened one eye wide. His chin lifted, and his other chins came out from under the sheet's folded edge.
One of Dr. Gesner's hands felt through the black bag. It emerged dragging a mutape by one wire. Brooks leaned forward and took out the rest of the apparatus. Shaking the hair off his forehead, he plugged into the bedside computer relay and placed the rubber-rimmed cup against the patient's skull, just over the Broca convolution.
Mr. Barger remained staring at the doctor through a gray film. The mutape chattered rapidly. Miss Knox craned her neck, deciphering the punched tape as it unrolled from the recorder in Brooks' hands. Sweat popped out on Mr. Barger's forehead.
"Help me, damn it," read Mr. Barger's tape. "I know you. You abolished laryngitis; why should it come to me now? I have a right to stop misuse of my work and to be free from pain--my patent is vital--free from pain. I want to be free...." His face turned pink in a new contortion and the hands folded over.
"Yes," Dr. Gesner said as the chatter stopped. "I know it hurts." He smiled gently in the middle of his face. He was writing on an index card, but his main effort was devoted to getting up from the bed with the help of two internes. "It will hurt this badly for twenty-four hours. Then the injection will have the upper hand." He turned to Brooks. "Please pass the tape around, Doctor. If any students haven't seen the X-rays yet, they're in my file."
Mr. Barger's face grayed a little; the sweat had turned to patches of crust against his skin. Dipping cotton in alcohol, Miss Knox bathed his forehead.
"That's all," said Dr. Gesner, handing her the card as the students began to vanish.
She stalked after him. "No examination, Doctor?" she asked, ignoring Brooks' horrified expression.
"Unnecessary, Nurse." He backed away from her and the door slid open. "I've already seen the X-rays and charts you phoned from the ambulance. And the patient cannot open his mouth. His intravenous menu is all here...."
"Yes, Doctor."
Three bells sounded in the corridor. "Calling Dr. Gesner. Emergency. Please come to the telephone. Emergency. Calling Dr. Gesner...."
He rolled his eyes at the index card in her hand. "You yourself are to take the shots prescribed for you, to prevent your catching or carrying the disease. In that bed, but for the grace of God...." He was crying softly.
"Doctor!" said Brooks, and the internes and nurses gasped.
Miss Knox walked back up the drive and struck a cigarette on one of the stone lions. It glowed in the dark, but the river breeze blew it out before she could draw. She snorted in annoyance.
Miss Erwin looked up sharply.
"Not in New York City. Why?"
"We used to just try again when a cigarette didn't light. Now we have to throw it away."
"Of course," said Miss Erwin. "That's how they train us to be right the first time."
"Ridiculous. That's how they sell more cigarettes."
Miss Knox laughed. "I'm not ready to join the British Commonwealth yet. No fooling, Hilda, you see the Silvertongue cigarette factory across the river?"
Miss Erwin twisted white-gloved hands in the dark. "Why, no ... mmm, smell that spray." An ocean-breathing tugboat passed, its complicated silhouette blocking the view. "No-oooooo," the whistle blew.
"Just wait till that tug is gone. There, Miss Erwin. Do you see the Silvertongue factory? Just before the Williamsburg Bridge."
"Is it the one with the new radio--the radio-thing on top?"
"Radiocompressor. Yes."
"Well, ladies--ladies," said a gravel voice beyond the entrance lights. "How is life in the Toadstool?"
"Boney!" said Miss Knox.
"The what?" asked Miss Erwin.
"That's what Dr. Brooks called it. Now you tell me what he meant--he wouldn't say. Toadstool."
"Come into the light, Boney--you frighten us," said Miss Erwin.
The man appeared, smiling, and climbed the first stone step. Resting his elbows on the lion and his chin in his hand, he looked down on them sideways.
It was an archaic double-breasted suit in good condition. Where the jacket hiked up in back, a wide expanse of extra trouser seat had been folded over and tucked beneath the belt.
"Hundred-fifty-dollar suit," he said.
"With or without the bottle?" asked Miss Knox.
"What bottle?"
"The one that bangs on your ribs when the breeze blows."
"Now listen here, lady...." He came down the step.
"Boney, I'm only kidding. You know that."
"What information?"
Bringing his drawn face so close that they could smell the wine, he gave both women a look of scorn. Then he backed away and leaned his padded shoulder against the lion.
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