"I'm sorry, but—"
"Look, Doc, don't be like that. I know you got a right to an afternoon off, but he's really bad."
"Under the circumstances. I think it would be better if you called another doctor."
"Where am I going to get another doctor on a Wednesday?" Kestler demanded.
"You can take him to the hospital. I'm sure if you call the police, they'll send an ambulance."
"Sure, and if he passes out in the ambulance? And if he gets to the hospital and some young squirt of a student starts tinkering with him?"
"I'm sorry, but considering your father's action only last month—"
"Doctor, Doctor, that's business. You ran your fence over our land. So my old man filed suit. It doesn't mean anything, there's no hard feelings. It's just how you do things in business, the one thing has nothing to do with the other, and it's you he keeps asking for, because he's got confidence in you."
Dr. Cohen knew he should be adamant and refuse, but he could also picture the old man lying in bed, suffering. "All right," he said, "I'll drop by and take a look at him."
He hung up and said to his wife, "I’ve got to go out." "But you were going to the Kaplans,” she objected.
"Oh, I won't be long." "Who is it?"
He hesitated, remembering how indignant she had been at the time. "It's Kestler, the old man," he said reluctantly.
"And you're going to see him!" "Well, he is my patient." "But a man who is suing you!"
"I suppose he feels one thing has nothing to do with the other. In a way, it's a compliment, here, he's suing me and still wants me for his doctor."
"That's because he can't get anybody else on a Wednesday." "So I guess that's another reason I've got to go."
"Well, if I were treating him, I'd give him something to remember me by, he wouldn't call me again in a hurry."
He smiled. "That's an idea."
When he was at the door, she called after him. "You going to want any supper?"
"Maybe something light. I expect they'll be serving at the Kaplans."
"Better take your raincoat," said Miriam. "If the storm should hit—"
"I was just out on the porch," the rabbi replied, "and it's positively balmy. Besides. I'll just be going from the car to the house."
"I don't see why you have to go at all. Kestler isn't even a member of the temple."
"That's why I make a point of visiting him regularly. To visit the sick is enjoined on all Jews, but the congregation palms it off on the rabbi and thinks of it as a special service they offer their members. 'Join our temple for free visits from the rabbi when you're sick.' So visiting a nonmember gives me the illusion that all my sick calls are purely voluntary, and Kestler is such an incorrigible old scoundrel that I feel it's a real mitzvah to go see him."
She laughed. "You coming right home afterward?"
"Yes— no. I think I'll stop at the Kaplans, he has an At Home Wednesday evenings, and I've never been."
"But—"
"Mort Brooks hinted this morning that Kaplan and his group were planning some skullduggery." He smiled. "Maybe I can get a clue."
Dr. Muntz ripped the sheet off his prescription pad and handed it to Safferstein. "It's a bacterial infection. I'm sure," he said. "I'm giving her penicillin, four times a day for five days, and I want her to take all of them, that's important, she may be all better by the second or third day, but she's to continue with the pills until she's finished the bottle. Understood, Billy?" The doctor's pale blue protruding eyes stared meaningfully at Safferstein.
"Oh sure, she's to take all of them," Safferstein said. "I'll get them right away."
Dr. Muntz glanced at his watch. "The drugstores are closed by now. Tomorrow will be all right." "Town-Line Drugs is still open."
"Yeah, I guess they are at that, then give her the first one tonight."
Safferstein helped him into his raincoat.
"You coming to Chefs tonight. Billy?" asked the doctor.
"Gee, I don't think I should with Mona feeling this way. You're going, I suppose."
"Oh sure. Chet expects me. I'm the official agnostic and cynic, you know, he needs my opposition to give some pep to the meetings." He chuckled. "Or maybe I'm the horrible example."
Safferstein grinned. "I always figured you were putting on an act."
"Oh, it's no act," said the doctor quickly.
Safferstein held the door open for him. "Then you're missing something, Al," he said seriously. "I know since I joined. I got this feeling of certainty, like I can't go wrong. I've made some long-shot deals, and they've all worked out."
The doctor chuckled again. "If you say so, Billy. If you say so."
It was Mrs. Kestler. Joe's wife, who answered the doctor's ring, she was blond and fleshy and faded and reminded him of the little girl who had sat next to him in the third grade, she had been pink and white, and plump and blond, and he always felt a little sad at the thought that she probably looked like Mrs. Kestler now, she was gentle and slow, and he assumed as a matter of course that she was bullied by her husband and imposed on by her father-in-law. When she had last had a checkup, she had asked him to do a Wassermann, too, because "Joe was out of town on business and you know how it is when men go out of town."
"He's upstairs, Doctor," she said. "Joe is with him." "All right, I know the way."
The examination did not take long, and when Dr. Cohen was finished, he nodded the son out of the room, as they proceeded down the stairs. Joe Kestler said. "Gee, that was quick. You guys got it made." He was a big powerful man with grizzled iron-gray hair covering a bullet-shaped head and with the flattened nose of a prize-fighter.
"Your father has a bacterial infection of the urinary tract," the doctor said, professionally impersonal.
"Sounds bad. What do you do? Can he take one of those wonder drugs like penicillin?"
"Your father is allergic to penicillin, so I'm giving him one of the tetracyclines instead. It works the same way, he's to take one four times a day, and he's to take all of them, even if the infection clears up after a day or two, that's important. I'd like him to get started on them right away."
"You got samples with you. Doc?"
"Samples? No, I don't carry drug samples around with me. I'll write you a prescription."
"Where am I going to get a prescription filled this time of night? The drugstores are as bad as you guys, they all close early Wednesdays."
"I believe Town-Line Drugs is still open," said the doctor stiffly.
"I don't go in there."
"You mean you don't trade with them?"
"That's right. I wouldn't set foot in there," Kestler said doggedly.
"But with your father sick—"
Kestler shook his bullet head like a boxer clearing his brain of fog. "Makes no difference."
Dr. Cohen considered. "Maybe I've got some samples at home." Another idea occurred to him. "What if I called in the prescription and they delivered it?"
"So long as I don't have to go in there. But look, Doc, why don't you check first and see if you got the samples? I could follow you in my car."
"That won't be necessary. I'm going out a little later and I can drop them off here. If I don't have the samples. I'll call in the prescription."
"Okay, Doc, but first look and see if you’ve got the samples, will you?"
There were half a dozen cars parked along the curb in front of Town-Line Drugs. Inside customers were milling around, impatiently waiting for someone to take their money and wrap up their purchases. It was the approaching storm, of course, that everyone was concerned about, they were buying flashlights and batteries; small first-aid kits and aspirin; cigarettes and candy, the supply of candles— the store carried a line of fancy dinner table candles— was all sold out.