“Hello, doc,” he whispered.
“Hello,” I whispered and tried to smile. He looked suspiciously at my mashed face, but the white uniform and stethoscope, which I made sure he could see underneath my open coat, seemed to satisfy him.
“Is there a patient named Barton on this ward?” I asked.
He pushed his glasses back on his large nose and looked at a clipboard before him, running his finger quickly down a list of names on it.
“No, but there is a Bartnik.”
“Must have the wrong ward. I could swear they said two.”
“This is four, doc. You want two floors below.”
“I didn’t pay much attention when I got on the elevator. Must have pressed the wrong button. First time I’ve been here, you know.”
“I didn’t think I recognized you. You sure it’s two you want?”
“You know, now I’m not sure. I’ll go down and check it out.”
“I’ll call records for you, doc, and find out what room this Barton is in.”
He reached for the phone on his desk.
“The name is Bartoni, but hold on.” I pretended to look at the watch on my wrist. “I’m not going to have time to see him as it is. I’d better just get down to emergency.” He held the phone in his hand for a second, looked at me, and put down the phone.
“Suit yourself, doc.” I turned toward the aisle between the two rows of beds. “Doc, do you mind if I check your pass. I mean so I can enter it in the night log.”
I walked to the desk, shrugged, and handed the card Sklodovich had given me to the nearsighted orderly.
“Thanks, doc.”
“Right,” I said as jauntily as I could, took the card back, and hurried down the aisle toward the far double glass doors. His eyes, I could feel, were fixed on my back as I walked away from him, expecting to hear him calling for me to stop. I hurried out of the light from the small desk lamp. About midway across the room I heard a loud voice behind me.
“You mad bastard. Did you think you could get away with this?”
I came close to panic, but I held the metal rail at the foot of the nearest bed. Trapped between two orderlies, I waited for them, or rather the one behind me with the flat head, to leap on my back.
The clap of footsteps echoed behind me in a rush, growing louder and closer, and I turned to see the squat tree trunk coming toward me like a black shadow, a shadow with arms outstretched like an ape to take me in a wild grip and crush me into a small whimper. When he was close enough to touch me, I pulled my doubled fist back, hoping to get in one lucky punch and run like hell. He ducked past me and moved to the side of a patient sitting upright and pointing at me out of the darkness.
“He’s not a doctor. He’s a mad bastard. I know him.”
The man did not shout, but he spoke with anger. He was a little bone bag, that much I could tell but no more, for he was now held in a smothering bear hug by the orderly, whose glasses slipped dangerously down his nose.
“Just calm down now,” soothed the orderly, pausing to push his glasses back. “Take it easy. It’s all right, doctor. I’ll take care of him.”
“Right,” I said as if this sort of thing happened to me all the time, which might be true if ‘all the time’ began that afternoon.
“As your Lord God and Savior,” hissed the little man in the bed, “I tell you he is not a doctor. I saw him led into this purgatory several aeons ago by that same Delilah who the fallen one sent to tempt and destroy-”
His voice was cut off by the glass door through which I had stepped. Vaguely I thought of how many minutes I might have to go before the alarm was sounded by M.C.
The small space was well lighted to show the elevator and a white-haired, powerful-looking wiry man who sat at a desk before me. A cynical smile greeted me when he looked up from the book he was reading.
“Pass,” he said.
I handed him the pass. He examined it and handed it back to me.
“Trouble in there?” he asked. “Heard a little noise.”
“The other orderly is taking care of it,” I said, pushing the button for the elevator.
“Little fella? ’Bout halfway down on the left?”
“Yes,” I said.
“God.”
“What?”
“Thinks he’s God.”
“I see,” I said, hoping the elevator would stop grinding and arrive.
“No trouble, doc, but he makes a lot of noise.”
“Yes. Typical,” I said, not knowing what was typical.
“Yeah,” he said as the door for the elevator opened.
“Be seeing you,” I said, stepping in.
“Right, doc.” The doors closed and I ran my sleeve across my perspiring forehead as I pressed the button marked 2. I leaned against the wall as the elevator went down. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the door opened on the third floor and I had found myself facing M.C.
The door opened with a glunking sound, and I stepped into a hallway deserted except for an old Negro woman who leaned against a mop. The floor was covered with wet soap. She watched without expression as I left footprints on her floor in my search for room 321. I forced myself to smile at her and whistle “Dardenella” as I walked down the corridor, looking for the right room and pretending to know exactly where I was going. I found the door I had been told to look for, gave the woman a last smile, and stepped inside.
The staircase was there and I hurried down, feeling the stethoscope thump-thump against my chest. My heart was beating an attack tattoo when I reached the first floor.
With a little confidence restored, I opened the door. A pair of nurses were walking down the hall, and a trio of doctors stood about fifty feet to my right in a huddle. Beyond the doctors I could see the main lobby. As I stepped clearly into the hall, the doctors shifted slightly and one of them, a youngish man as closely as I could judge, seemed to recognize me, change his mind, and then put his hand to his chin as if thinking about something apart from the group topic. He was Dr. Randipur, and the something he was trying to place was me.
I walked through the big room, under the portraits of Drs. Winning of the past, beyond the forest of ferns, around the cluster of doctors, and through the front door. The drizzle was still coming down. I jumped down the four wooden steps and ran for my Ford.
The door was open. I reached for the glove compartment. The gun was gone. I hoped to hell I could remember how No-Neck Arnie had taught me to wire a car. I remembered. It was damn easy and something every cop and private eye should know. I’d just never had to do it before.
The Ford started noisily, and I whispered to it to be quiet as I backed up and started down the drive with my lights out. I hit a shrub, backed up, and tried again. The stethoscope hit me in the eye, but I kept it on. I still had to get through the gate.
About fifty yards down I turned on my lights, or, I should say, light. The right one didn’t work. I eased my way to the gate, hoping that M.C. had not yet raised the alarm and that the same guy who had been on the gate in the morning wasn’t on now.
I stopped in front of the closed gate and saw the raincoatclad figure coming at me from the small lighted booth. He put his face next to the window and I rolled it down, smiling. It wasn’t the same guy.
“Bad night for driving, doc,” he said. “And you got a headlight out.”
“Emergency,” I yawned. “You know how it is.”
“Yeah,” he grinned and moved to open the gate.
I gave him a wave and counted slowly to keep myself from tearing down the road, but the count kept going faster, and I couldn’t hold it back. By ten I was moving as fast as the Ford would take me away from the Winning Institute.
CHAPTER 14
Rosie turned down the raincoat and stethoscope as collateral for the money I owed her. She didn’t even ask why I was dressed like a doctor, only shook her head and let some air out between her teeth to indicate I was the damndest practical joker she had ever met. She filled my gas tank, gave me another five-dollar loan, and I promised to get it back to her within the next week even if I had to sell the car to do it, which would have made little sense, since I already owed more than a century note on the damn thing. I rummaged through a box of clothes left by Rosie’s long-gone husband and came up with a not-too-bad-fitting pair of brown pants, a flannel shirt, and a blue sweater with one hole just under the left armpit. That was all free. I gulped down some coffee and a roll Rosie pushed in my hands just as the sun started to come up. I was coming out of a nightmare, and I wondered how much of it had really happened.