“I’ll tell you something,” I said. “I find that I’ve undergone a very dramatic recovery. My condition has improved at least a thousand percent, and I’m not going to need a nurse at all.”
Claggett complained that I hadn’t been listening to him. I’d already engaged a nurse — the redhead — and the doctors said I did need one.
“I’ve probably got the wind up over nothing, anyway, Britt. After all, the fact that I can’t check on her doesn’t mean that she’s hiding anything, now does it?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think it’s proof positive that she was up to no good during those lost years of her nonage and that she is planning more of same for me.”
Claggett chuckled that I was kidding, that I was always kidding. I said not so, that I only kidded when I was nervous or in mortal fear for my life, as in the present instance.
“It’s kind of a defense mechanism,” I explained. “I reason that I can’t be murdered or maimed while would-be evildoers are laughing.”
Claggett said brusquely to knock off the nonsense. He was confident that the nurse would work out fine. If he’d had any serious doubts about her, he’d’ve acted upon them.
“I’ll have to go now, Britt. Have a good night, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Wait!” I said. “What if I’m murdered in my sleep?”
“Then I won’t talk to you,” he said irritably.
And he left the room before I could say anything else.
I got up and went to the bathroom. The constant dryness of my mouth had caused me to drink an overabundance of water.
I came out of the bathroom and climbed back into bed.
The hall door opened silently, and the reddish-haired nurse came in.
17
She was wheeling a medicine cart in front of her, a cart covered with a chaos of bottles and vials and hypodermic needles. Having gotten the job as my regular full-time nurse seemed to have given her self-confidence. And she smiled at me brilliantly and introduced herself.
“I’m Miss Nolton, Mr. Rainstar. Full name, Kate Nolton, but I prefer to be called Kay.”
“Well, all right, Kay,” I said, smiling stiffly (and doubtless foolishly). “It seems like a logical preference.”
“What?” She frowned curiously. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean, it’s reasonable to call you Kay since your name is Kate. But it wouldn’t seem right to call you Kate if your name was Kay. I mean — oh, forget it,” I said with a groan. “My God! Do you play tennis, Kay?”
“I love tennis! How about you?”
“Yeah, how about me?” I said.
“Well?”
“Not very,” I said.
“I mean, do you play tennis?”
“No,” I said.
She sort of smiled-frowned at me. She picked up my wrist and tested my pulse. “Very fast. I thought so,” she said. “Turn over on your side, please.”
She took a hypodermic needle from the sterilizer and began to draw liquid into it from a vial. Then she glanced at me, gestured with light impatience.
“I said to turn on your side, Mr. Rainstar.”
“I am on my side.”
“I mean the other side! Turn your back to me.”
“But that wouldn’t be polite.”
“Mr. Rainstar!” She almost stamped her foot. “If you don’t turn your back to me, right this minute...!”
I turned, as requested. She jerked the string on my pajamas and started to lower them.
“Wait a minute!” I said. “What are you doing, anyway?”
She told me what she was doing, adding that I was the silliest man she had ever seen in her life. I told her I couldn’t allow it. It was the complete reversal of the normal order of things.
“A girl doesn’t take a man’s pants down,” I said. “Everyone knows that. The correct procedure is for the man to take the girl’s — ooowtch! WHAT THE GODDAM HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, WOMAN?”
“Shh, hush! The very idea making all that fuss over a teensy little hypo! Sergeant Claggett told me you were just a big old baby.”
“That’s why he’s only a sergeant,” I said. “An upper-echelon officer would have instructed you in the proper treatment of wounds, namely to kiss them and make them well.”
That got her. Her face turned as red as her hair. “Why you... you...! Are you suggesting that I kiss your a double s?”
I yawned prodigiously. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” I said, and yawned again. “I might add that it’s probably the best o double f offer you’ll ever get in your career as an assassin.”
“All right,” she said. “I think I’ll just take you up on it. Just push it up here where I can get at it good, and—”
“Get away from me, goddammit!” I said. “Go scrub out a bedpan or something.”
“Let’s see now. Ahh, there it is! Kitchy-coo!”
“Get! Go away, you crazy broad!”
“Kitchy-kitchy-coo...”
“Dammit, if you don’t get away from me, I’m going to... going to... going—”
My eyes snapped shut. I drifted into sleep. Or, rather, half sleep.
I was asleep but aware that she had dropped into a chair, that she was shaking silently, hugging herself, then rocking back and forth helplessly and shrieking with laughter. I was aware when other people came into the room to investigate — other nurses and some orderlies and a couple of doctors.
The silly bastards were practically packed into my room. A couple of them even sat down on my bed, jouncing me up and down on it as they laughed.
I thought. Now, dammit—
My thought ended there.
I lost all awareness.
And I fell into deep, unknowing sleep.
I slept so soundly that I felt hung over and somewhat grouchy the next morning when Kay Nolton awakened me. She looked positively aseptic, all bright-eyed and clean-scrubbed. It depressed me to see anyone look that good in early morning, and it was particularly depressing in view of the way I looked, which, I’m sure, was ghastly. Or shitty, to use the polite term.
Kay secured the usual matchbook-size bar of hospital soap — one wholly adequate for lathering the ass of a sick gnat. She secured a tiny wedge of threadbare washcloth, suitable for scrubbing the aforementioned. She dumped soap and washcloth into one of those shiny hospital basins — which, I suspect, are used for puking in as well as sponge bathing — and she carried it into the bathroom to fill with water.
I jumped out of bed, flattened myself against the wall at one side of the bathroom door. When she came out, eyes fixed on the basin, I slipped into the bathroom and into the shower.
I heard her say, “Mr. Rainstar. Mr. Rainstar! Where in the world—”
Then I turned on the shower full, and I heard no more.
I came back into my room with a towel wrapped around me. Kay popped a thermometer into my mouth.
“Now why did you do that, anyway? I had everything all ready to — Don’t talk! You’ll drop the thermometer! — give you a sponge bath! You knew I did! So why in the world did you — I said don’t talk, Mr. Rainstar! I know you probably don’t feel well, and I appreciate your giving me a job. But is that any reason to — Mr. Rainstar!”
She relieved me of the thermometer at last, frowned slightly as she examined it, then shrugged, apparently finding its verdict acceptable. She checked my pulse, and ditto, ditto. She asked if I needed any help in dressing, and I said I didn’t. She said I should just go ahead, then, and she would bring in my breakfast. And I said I would, and I did, and she did.