And my hand began to shake and I could not stop it, it might have belonged to someone else, and the other hand too when it reached out convulsively and slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
Malignant, benign, malignant, benign, malignant…
I could not do it, I could not make the call.
Goddamn you, you goddamn coward, you've got to face it sooner or later. What's the sense in putting it off any longer? Make the call!
But my legs turned me around and my hands shoved me out of the booth, and I groped my way to one of the lobby chairs and sat in it with the sweat streaming out of me. I had steeled myself for this moment for days now, and I had been functioning all right, even with the fear and the doubts-but now that the time had come my nerve had deserted me. I took out my handkerchief and mopped away the wetness, and realized as I did so that the desk clerk had come out and was standing three feet in front of me, looking nervously worried.
He said, “Are you all right, sir?”
“Yeah, I'm all right.”
“You look pale as a ghost. You're not having some sort of attack, are you?”
“I'm not going to die in your lobby, if that's what you think.”
His mouth turned prim. “I was only trying to help, sir.”
“Sure,” I said. “It's okay-everything is fine.”
“Do you want a glass of water…?”
“No. I just want to sit here a minute.”
He hesitated, and then went away reluctantly; but when he got behind the desk again he made a pretense of sorting a batch of mail while he watched me with up-from-under glances.
I thought: Maybe I can't do it because it's too cold and impersonal this way. Long-distance telephone, you can't look at his face and he can't look at yours, there's nothing to hang onto but the words themselves. “Hello, Doctor, I'm calling from Tuolumne County to find out if I'm going to die pretty soon.” No, not that way-there's no dignity to it. A man should have a little dignity in a thing like this, a little human contact. A doctor's office, yes, that was the place for death sentences or reprieves; not a phone booth in a hotel lobby, with fiddlers playing outside and kids squealing for a ride on an authentic replica of the Hangtown Stagecoach.
All right, then. Try to get away from here as soon as possible, drive straight to White's office if you can get back before close of business; otherwise, first thing tomorrow morning. You can do it that way, can't you? You won't lose your nerve again?
I can do it that way, I thought, and knew that I was not lying to myself. This was not something you could run away from, or postpone for more than a few long hours. If you tried it, the not-knowing would become unbearable, and you would still have the answer to face eventually.
I began to feel a little better; I had myself under control again. After a time I got: up and found the restroom and washed my face with cold water, opened my shirt and used a wet paper towel to sponge off the drying perspiration on my chest and under my arms. The face in the mirror looked pale, all right. Pouches under the eyes, puffiness at the cheekbones and around the mouth. Old bear, Erika had called me, and I had thought then that it was a cute little pet name; I wouldn't have liked it at all now.
When I came back into the lobby and looked over at the desk clerk, I had a small twinge of embarrassment at the way I had treated him. I walked over there and said, “Look, I'm sorry if I snapped at you a while ago. I guess the heat is starting to get to me; I felt pretty dizzy there for a minute.”
“No need to apologize, sir,” he said, but there was still an injured stiffness in his tone. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Well, you can get me Charles Kayabalian on the phone.”
“Certainly.”
We went through the switchboard-and-extension-phone routine, and Kayabalian was in and ready to see me in his room. So I climbed the stairs to the second floor, found the number he had given me, knocked, and went in when he called out that the door was unlocked.
He was wearing a sports jacket today, no tie, and he looked cool and rested. He could hardly have missed noticing the way I looked, but he had the grace not to say anything about it. Instead he motioned me to a chair and said, “I've got that list of names and addresses for you.”
“Right.”
The chair was one of those lumpy pseudo-Victorians, made for people with better posture than I had; I sat on it gingerly and watched Kayabalian open a briefcase that was sitting on a writing desk, take out two sheets of paper. He brought them to me and stood there while I glanced over them. Most of the addresses were in San Jose, but there were two in San Francisco and one in Fresno. Under each one he had written out a paragraph of information on the individuaclass="underline" occupation, connection with Terzian, relevant personal data.
I asked him a couple of questions, made a note or two of my own, and said finally that I guessed I had everything I would need for the time being.
He asked, “Would you like an advance against your fee and expenses?”
“That's not necessary,” I said. Under other circumstances I would have taken his check, but even though I kept telling myself I would follow through for him no matter what Dr. White had to tell me, I could not make myself forget the frightening possibility of things like hospitals and further tests and maybe even an urgent need for surgery. “We can take care of a retainer after I get to work.”
He nodded. “Do you know yet how you stand with your time?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I'll let you know later today or early tomorrow, if that's all right.”
“Yes. You can reach me at my office, or at home after seven.”
He gave me another business card, this one with his telephone number written on the back. We said a few more things to each other, and then he got his briefcase and a small overnight bag-he was ready to check out-and we went downstairs together and shook hands and said good-by in the lobby.
Outside, the Hangtown Stagecoach had gone off with its first load of kids, but the fiddlers were still working on the veranda and there was still a crowd in front of the General Store. A guy in buckskins and an Indian headdress was circulating there, selling balloons and souvenirs-a red-haired guy with freckles. Nobody seemed to think it odd, or if they did, none of them cared.
And people wondered why native Amerinds were so angry these days…
I got my car and fought the main street traffic until the county road intersection; I was the only one who turned off. The temperature had picked up another few degrees, but there were clouds massing above the peaks to the east, restless and soiled-looking, and the sky in that direction had a kind of dull silvery sheen, like an old dime. If the high-altitude winds blew those clouds down here, it would rain later in the day. I wished it would rain right now-break the heat and clear the dryness out of the air and settle that damned red dust.
When I came around one of the turns two miles from the camp, driving mechanically, half my mind on the road and half of it brooding about the abortive telephone call, a deer bounded out of the undergrowth thirty yards in front of me and darted across the road. I said something in alarm and jammed my foot down on the brake; the car slewed to the left and for an instant I thought it was going off into the trees. But when I pulled the wheel around and eased up on the brake pedal, the rear tires held traction and the thing settled on a point and came to a sharp stop. The deer had vanished into the woods on the other side.
I sat there for a minute and thought that that would have been all I needed, an accident with the car. Once I started moving again, I drove more slowly, watched the road ahead more carefully-and I was more aware of my surroundings than I might have been otherwise.