Dear Old Dead(96)

“What are you talking about?” Ida Greel asked. “We’re busy, but we’re not drowning. Actually, we’re doing pretty well for a Friday night.”

“Shut up,” Augie told her fiercely. “Michael’s busy.”

“I just want to ask him a couple of questions,” Gregor said gently. “I’m not going to slap him into handcuffs and haul him off to the Tombs. I don’t have the authority.”

“He does.” Augie pointed at Hector Sheed.

“Oh, Augie,” Ida Greel said. She turned to Gregor Demarkian and Hector Sheed, looking a little helpless. Augie felt anger welling up inside herself and turned away. “Michael’s in his examining room,” Ida continued. “I think he’s alone. He did a job in OR about ten minutes ago and when he came out there was nothing immediately waiting. Of course, it’s early in the night.”

“Thank you,” Gregor Demarkian said.

Gregor Demarkian and Hector Sheed started to walk away. They knew where Michael’s examining room was. Every single reader of the New York City newspapers knew where Michael’s examining room was. Augie could feel the fury mounting up inside her like steam in a pressure cooker. She spun around on Ida and hissed, “What did you think you were doing? What did you think you were doing? Do you want to destroy him?”

“Destroy him?” Ida was shell-shocked. “Augie, what are you talking about?”

“None of you thinks for a minute about him,” Augie raged. “None of you thinks for a minute. You treat him like he’s some kind of machine.”

Sister Kenna and Sister Mary Grace were looking at each other.

“Augie,” Sister Kenna said tentatively, “I think you’re a little tired. You’re overreacting.”

“Of course I’m not overreacting,” Augie exploded. “Oh, you’re all such babes in the woods. None of you understand anything. You don’t realize how dangerous this situation is.”

“Dangerous,” Sister Mary Grace repeated in bewilderment.

But of course, Augie knew she was overreacting. She knew she had been overreacting for days. She couldn’t help herself.

What she could do was get out of there, and that she did. She picked up the tray of sodium pentathol doses and sailed off down the hall to put them away in the drugs cupboard.





3


THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR of his examining room, Michael Pride had seen Gregor Demarkian and Hector Sheed and then Augie, having one of her epiphanies of sense. Now he sat on the corner of his desk and waited, tired, for the two men to get to him. He had gone on working without so much as a nod in the direction of his condition, at the same intensity, at the same hours, with just as little food or rest. It hadn’t mattered until tonight. That was the real problem with cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma or any other kind. Your body spent so much time fighting a war it couldn’t hope to win, there was nothing left over for your ordinary life. Half an hour ago, Michael had been standing in the operating room, extracting four .38-caliber bullets from the bone marrow of a boy no more than fourteen years old. Michael had stayed awake and alert throughout the procedure, but in the end he had done it only by an effort of will. In a week or two, he knew the effort of will would not be enough. With proper care and careful management, he could expect to go on working for months, or even for years—but he could not expect to go on working like this. The twenty-hour days, the six operations back to back, the endless marathons that constituted his part in the gang warfare of the ghettos of New York City: All that was going to have to come to an end. Michael rubbed his face and told himself that all that had already come to an end, just now, it was over, he was never going to be able to do it again. He needed somebody to lean on and there was nobody here. Eamon and Augie were falling apart. They reached out to him and he gave them what help he could, because he always had. What was he going to do next? Michael Pride had always been a man alone. He had always wanted to be a man alone. He wanted to be that now. He just wanted to rest.

There was a gentle tap on his open door. In the hall, Gregor Demarkian and Hector Sheed waited politely. Michael stood, said, “Come in,” and walked around the desk to take a seat in the chair.

“There was some discussion outside that you might be busy,” Gregor Demarkian said. “If we’re interrupting something we could wait a few minutes until you had time.”

“I’ve got time.” Michael waved them into the two seats in front of the desk. The chairs looked much too small for such big men. “If I didn’t have time, waiting a few minutes wouldn’t be much help. Sometimes it seems to me that what we do around here is either everything or nothing. We’re either frantic or dead.”