"You're making things worse, Mongo."
I turned to face Joshua Greene. The rest of the local medical establishment stood slightly behind him, grimly nodding their agreement like a Greek chorus. "The girl is going to die," he continued tightly. "All you've done is raise false hopes. The mother and uncle were accepting. You should have left them alone with their grief; now they'll only have to go through that phase all over again."
"It seems to me that that decision is the mother's."
Joshua sighed. "How do you feel? You look terrible."
"I feel like shit. I've got stomach cramps, and I constantly have the sensation that I'm going to throw up. Is there something you can give me?"
He slowly, firmly, shook his head. "Within the past twenty-four hours you've been bitten-damn good-by a rabid animal. You've got rabies coursing through your system right now. You've had the first in a series of rabies shots that are painful and are no guarantee, in the circumstances, that you won't develop the disease anyway. The injections have side effects, and you're feeling them; I can tell by your eyes that you have a fever. If you don't rest and let the serum take effect, there's a very good chance that you could die of rabies. I don't think you're aware of just how dangerous your situation is."
He was wrong. I was very much aware of what I was risking. But I heard myself saying, "I have to keep going, and you know why I have to keep going. Give me something to prop me up."
"No," Greene said, a slight tremor in his voice. "I won't help you kill yourself; offhand, I'd say that's what you're trying to do. Rabies is a horrible way to die, Mongo."
He paused, stared at me with his compassionate, soulful eyes. "First, your vision will begin to blur. Then your throat will begin to constrict to the point where you can't even swallow your own saliva; you'll slaver all over yourself and howl like an animal because you'll crave water but won't be able to drink it. Of course, by this time your mind will be gone. We won't be able to do anything but isolate you, strap you down and wait for you to die. And once you start to develop symptoms, it's over. And you are going to develop symptoms unless you do as I say. Think about it."
"Oh, I will, Joshua," I said softly. "I have." My mouth already felt dry. Greene had told me that symptoms wouldn't normally appear for several days, at least. But then, I was a dwarf-and the bat had really enjoyed a picnic on my thumb; I had to be carrying an extra-large dose of pathogens in my system.
A glacial wind rose from somewhere in my mind, chilling me; regardless of the consequences, I couldn't rest-not just yet. I had only a few years left anyway; Kathy had a lifetime.
I wanted to talk to Janet, but she was involved in what looked like a heated conversation with one of the hospital administrators. I walked quietly into Kathy's room, paused beside the first bed and smiled at Linda Younger. The frail twenty-four-year-old woman was resting serenely, her hands folded peacefully across her stomach. Suddenly she opened her violet eyes, saw me and smiled. She reached out and gripped my hand.
"Thank you, Dr. Frederickson," she whispered weakly. "My father told me what you did."
I blew her a kiss, then moved around behind the kneeling April and put my hand on her shoulder.
"Thank you for not letting me give up, Robert," she said quietly, taking my hand.
"Hey, there's no guarantee," I whispered in her ear. "I just had to take this last shot at buying some time."
"I understand. Even Daniel seems to believe that Esteban can help. Otherwise, he wouldn't have permitted it."
"Where is he now?"
"He's back out. . hunting."
"When did he leave?"
"I don't know; I've lost track of time." She put her cheek against my hand, gently kissed my bandaged thumb. "You have to rest, Robert. You should see what you look like. You're killing yourself."
"I'll take it easy, April, but I've got to get back out on the streets. If I don't, getting Esteban down here will be a wasted exercise. Maybe we've got a little more time now, but not much." I gently pulled my hand away and looked at my watch. It was almost five, and the sand in Greene's original twelve-hour estimate was running out. "I've got to go. I'll be in touch."
Janet was waiting for me out in the corridor. "Thanks, love," I said to her. "You came through with flying colors. I can imagine the talking you had to do. I owe you a big one."
"Mongo!" she called after me as I headed for the elevator. "Where are you going?"
"Hunting."
It was five thirty by the time I got to the William Morris Agency offices in the MGM building on Avenue of the Americas. Despite the late hour, I was fairly certain Jake Stein would still be at his desk, talking on the phone to Los Angeles: such is the life of a high-powered talent agent.
The receptionist buzzed Jake, and a minute later I was on my way past a sliding glass partition into the honeycomb of inner offices of the largest talent agency in the world; William Morris, with its worldwide network of offices, represented about half of all the name actors, writers, directors and singers in the world. They'd represented me during my later years with the Statler Brothers Circus. Now I wanted to talk to Jake about Bobby Weiss.
Jake was twenty-eight; with a full head of bushy blond hair, he looked younger. When I walked into his office he was talking up some kind of deal into a telephone receiver that was part of a ten-button console; five of the ten buttons were lighted and flashing. He hung up, swung around in his swivel chair, saw me and grinned broadly. His grin faded as he rose and looked me up and down.
"Hello, sweetheart," Jake said. "For Christ's sake, what's the matter with you? You look like the lead in a cancelled pilot."
"Overwork. You know how it is with us hotshot private eyes. Don't you watch television?"
"No shit, Mongo; you look terrible."
"I'm all right," I said, shaking his hand. "It's good to see you, Jake."
"Likewise." He drew a long, thin cheroot from a plastic container in the pocket of his double-breasted sport jacket. He lighted the cigar and waved smoke away from his milky blue eyes. "You want a drink? I've got some Chivas in the drawer."
"Yeah. . uh, on second thought, no thanks." I had no idea how Scotch and antirabies serum would mix, and it didn't seem like a good time to experiment; the way I felt, I'd probably come down with instant bubonic plague. "I want to talk to you about Harley Davidson."
"Davidson? Christ, I haven't seen anything on him in six months. He left us, you know. What do you hear?"
"He's dead. I found his body. ."I had to stop and think; time was collapsing in on itself, and it seemed inconceivable to me that only a few hours had passed since I'd walked into Bobby's rotting apartment. "I found his body this morning."
"God damn," Jake said thoughtfully, shaking his head. He took a deep drag on his cheroot, breathed out the smoke with his words. "I'm really sorry to hear that. I liked that kid. What happened to him?"
"He killed himself. In slow motion."
"Drugs," Jake said, nodding. "I heard things, but I hoped they weren't true." Eight of the ten buttons were flashing now. Jake glanced at the console unconcernedly, looked back at me. "Poor son-of-a-bitch," he continued quietly. "The air's thin up there where he was, and it's stone fucking cold."
"He seemed fine while he was with you, Jake; top of the charts, and a network show in the offing. And he looked healthy enough in his pictures. What happened between the two of you?"