The Lady and Her Doctor (15 page)

It was funny the way he stayed on that packed train, going through, at each station, the scuffle necessary in order not to be pushed out with the crowd until he came to his own station. Go home to die. Well, they all did that if they could.

He was home. His station. He stood at the edge of the platform while the ones to whom this station was also home walked toward the stairs and up and out, waiting until the next train so that just before it reached him, he would let her rip. It would be no harder than learning to dive when the boys had taught him. Like everything else, diving was harder for him to learn than for the others. His body had rebelled against letting itself go in, head first. “You can do it, Milt,” Phil had said. “If we can do it, you can do it,” Phil had said. (“If we could die, you can die,” Phil meant.) Milton set the black bag down, then picked it up again. Phil had also said, “I'm going to count ten, Milt, and then if you don't fall in, I'm going to shove you.” He could feel the canvas of the diving board under his toe and he curled his toes around the edge, faintly hearing the next train. “Come on and shove, Phil,” he said. “I need a shove. I need help, Phil.”

Cissie, clutching the imitation patent leather hatbox, prayed he would look up at her. She could pray because she hadn't made this happen. She had kept away from the Haunted House. She had been a good girl, so she could pray. The last person she had expected to see across from her on the uptown side was him so she could pray with a clear conscience. “Let him look up,” she could ask. Once. Look at me once more, Doctor. Just lift your head once, I want to see your face once again. (Her mother said what was he, no Clark Gable, not even a handsome face, her mother said.) “Oh, Doctor, just once look up before the train comes!”

If it had really been Cissie and not a hallucination, he thought, really Cissie standing there across the tracks on the downtown platform, the little bird, the little Cissie, then she had been sent. She had been sent like a vision, a message, a command. Phil had been telling him to keep his head down, but Phil was dead and if he had kept his head down and let go, he would be dead too, but he had looked up and across the tracks was life. Cissie was life. The train had come and divided them, Cissie or the vision of Cissie on the downtown side—he hadn't waited to find out which. With the train between them, hiding her, he had run, gasping, sweating, trembling, his legs almost unmanageable, along the platform to the steps and then up and out into the air.

He had not waited out on the street to see whether, if it had been Cissie, she would come out also, walk out of the downtown exit across the street there, no sense to that yet. Yet, he thought, putting the bag on the floor between his feet, feeling in his pocket for a dime. He closed the door of the telephone booth, slipped the dime into the slot and took off the receiver.
BEFORE DIALING WAIT FOR THE
—Before dialing—
wait!
All he had heard was “Hello? Sloane?” then he had run away. What she had probably said was that she suspected foul play and that the D.A. was going to exhume and find out if it was so. What else could she have said? She could have said that he didn't want her to tell Sloane what she was doing. Nothing wrong with that. Nobody would want his wife told such a thing. Was it good news?

She didn't have to wait, no point waiting—which was exactly what he was going to say to Sloane: that there was no point waiting around three weeks for the police to come and get them. What he was going to say was they shouldn't wait, not another day. They had their passports. They had the dough. Let them have their fling before the cops caught up with them. Give the cops a run for their money and see the world their slogan. Git up and git. He dialed the number and heard the phone ringing in the Haunted House. He counted: One, two, three. (It would have been dumb as hell to let Phil shove him before he got something out of this business, because so far—nothing.
And how
, nothing, he thought, picturing Sloane looking the way she did lying on the bed, hearing the telephone, going down to answer it.) “Hello?” he said. “Sloane?”

But it wasn't Sloane. He banged down the receiver. When he told the operator that he had dialed correctly but got the wrong number, his voice trembled with indignation.

“I'm sorry,” the operator said. “If you will hang up—”

He wiped his hands down his trousers before he dialed again. The telephone was picked up on the second ring. “Hello? Sloane?”

“Dr. Krop's residence.”

Milton said, “Who's this? This is Dr. Krop, who's this?”

“Dr. Krop's residence. Excuse me. Is it Dr. Krop speaking?”

“I'm speaking. Who's this?”

“Why, Dr. Krop, it is Mrs. Austen, Dr. Krop.”

He had forgotten Austen. When he left Sloane in the car in front of Queens General she had told him to tell Austen to come as soon as possible, “bag and baggage.” Austen, of course, had known Sloane was going to finagle it sooner or later, Austen had been all packed and raring to go, bag and baggage! His feet did a jig step on the floor of the telephone booth, a hope step. “How long have you been there, Mrs. Austen?”

“How long, Doctor?”

“How long, how long, were you there about an hour ago? Did you pick up the phone an hour ago?”

Yes, Austen had been there, had answered the telephone, had ascertained it was Lady Constant, had gone to madam who wasn't well and told her and madam hadn't been well enough to speak to Lady Constant.

“She
isn't
well enough, Mrs. Austen. She's sick. Am I glad you're there, Mrs. Austen! You've taken a load off my mind, I can tell you. Lifesaver,” he said, “a real lifesaver!”

“Dr. Krop, why, Dr. Krop—sir—You must know what it meant to me, sir, when madam—”

“Madam and me both, Mrs. Austen. All of us, we're all just one happy family now you're there!” As for Austen, she went into quite a song and dance about how much it meant to her to be earning an honest living with gentlefolk again.

“Shall I call madam to the telephone now, Doctor?”

“Don't bother. If she heard the phone ringing and asks you tell her it was me; otherwise don't bother. And Mrs. Austen, if Lady Constant calls again—I'll bet you've been trained how to say ‘madam is not at home' so they believe it! Well, madam is not at home if Lady Constant calls again, get me?”

“Yes, Dr. Krop.”

“She's not home to anybody tonight. When I get back, I'll explain.” There was a pause and when Austen said, “Yes, Dr. Krop” again, it was in the usual way, the usual snippy way. After Milton hung up he figured that one out: the Marster doesn't explain to servants. “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.” But nobody's going to die, Milton thought. Not tonight, anyhow. Not yet. While there's life, there's life, Milton thought.

It was Jenny's face which came to life when, answering the doorbell about fifteen minutes later, she saw Milton standing there with his medical bag. She reached for the bag with one hand and with the other, like the nurse she had been, moved to his side, grasped his elbow firmly and led him into the apartment.

Maureen called from the kitchen, “Mom, who is it?”

“Why didn't you get the door you're so anxious?” Bud said.

Jenny studied Milton's expression. “Never mind who it is, curiosity! You stay right there and eat your supper, Maureen!” She should have known better. Before she could get Milt into the waiting room, she heard Maureen squealing that it was Uncle Miltie, Bud. “You'll see him later. You'll see Uncle—Milt, Uncle Milt later, Maureen. He's going to come in there and eat in a few minutes so now you eat.” Jenny released Milton's arm to close the door of the waiting room so the kids wouldn't come there and stand gawking. If, at last, Milt had come to ask her help, they'd put him off. She could tell that right now he was in one of his moods where he was this way, that way; she didn't want the kids putting him off. Milt, when she let go of his arm, made straight for the Hide-a-Bed. Didn't that mean Milt was home again, that he'd come home because she had guessed right, that sister-in-law was poison? “Thanks God,” she thought, and then quickly took the thought back. “I didn't mean that, not like that, not thanks God, he's in trouble, just thanks he came to me he can trust!”

“Aw, Milt,” she said, and walking across the room, sat next to him on the Hide-a-Bed and laid her hand on his thigh. “Aw, gee, Milt, it's so good to see you home again!” Milt didn't answer, just stared at the waiting room. “It's kind of tatty,” Jenny said. “I know. You get lazy keeping it right without the patients coming in. Without you, Milt. Will you listen to me,” she said, laughing at herself. “I'm like talking about the weather. What do you care if the waiting room is tatty? Right, Milt? That's the last thing on your mind, right, Milt?” She had the feeling if he didn't spill soon, he'd never spill, so she shut up and patted his thigh encouragingly, but still he just sat there, waiting. For what? She studied him anxiously. He didn't look well, Milt! She jumped up then and hurried to his bag, fishing in it for his sphygmomanometer because maybe she was wrong, maybe it was his health, after all, and not the sister-in-law. When she came back to Milton and tried to pull his topcoat off, Milt came to and shook his head, so she folded the gray cuff neatly and put the instrument back into the medical bag. This time, instead of sitting next to him again, she pulled a straight chair across the floor and set it in front of the Hide-a-Bed and sat where she could see him full, catch his eye and hold it. “Listen, Milt, don't you hear me?” Her tone seemed harsh to her, so she reached out and patted his thigh again. “Of course you hear me, you're not deaf, you're just in trouble up to here!” She touched his neck gently. “Well, maybe you are, maybe you're not, but two heads are always better than one, Milt.” (“So
give
,” she thought.
“Give!
Maybe there's not a minute to lose and you just sit there like a bump on a log!”) “I can't help, Milt, if you don't tell me what happened. It's not a guessing game, Milt! I give up. I give up, Milt. I admit I can't guess the riddle, so you have to tell me, then I can help you, Milt. O.K.?” Now at least he looked at her instead of the room. “How many times have I helped you, Milt? We put our two heads together and we get the answer, right?”

“What right?”

“Let me help you. You're Phil's kid brother, Milt!”

Milton wet his lips. Everything wasn't so rosy. All that happened was Sloane didn't know yet, and what was that? Maybe if he did tell Jenny, laid it out for her, maybe she could tell him what to do next. Cissie had saved his life, but for what? Maybe so Jenny could tell him what to do. “Jenny,” he began. It was the triumphant expression on her face, the victorious relaxation evident in the way her whole body slumped as he said her name, that stopped him. He swallowed hard and said it again, “Jenny—”

And then the telephone rang.

Jenny jumped but stayed her ground, “Yes, Milt? Yes, Milt?” But she couldn't help listening to see if Maureen or Bud was getting the phone, and so was Milt listening. They both sat listening until Maureen tapped down the hall, tapped a knock on the door and tapped until her mother told her to come in.

“It's a lady—a lady. A lady wants to talk to Uncle Miltie, Mom.”

“I'll get it,” Jenny said. “Some lady. I'll get it, Milt, don't worry.”

He walked past Jenny and up to Maureen. “Some lady? What lady?”

Bud, picking his teeth, was behind Maureen in the hall. He took his finger out of his mouth. “That's no lady, that's his wife!”

“It is not his wife. It's a lady, Uncle Milt, that's what she said.”

Jenny stared after Milt's back. He was staring at the telephone.

“You know what you said, you little dope, you said Uncle Miltie's wife wasn't a lady! Mom, Murine said Uncle Miltie's wife wasn't a lady!” But his mother wasn't paying attention to what the little dope said.

Milton talked quietly, as if he could be overheard by the party on the telephone. “Jenny, take Maureen and go in the kitchen again. Bud, close that door!”

“Milt, if it's the sister-in-law—Let me handle her, Milt! Don't you talk to her—”

“Out,” Milton said. He waited until Jenny left and Buddy closed the door, then he went to the telephone. “Hello?”

“Dr. Krop? Lady Constant here.”

“Yes?”

“I called to tell you that I've thought over what you wanted me to do. I won't tell Sloane about the exhumation until I know.”

“You won't regret it. Thanks a million.”

“You do understand that everything is going ahead just as I told you? This doesn't affect anything else.”

“All I'm interested is that you shouldn't tell Sloane. I told you that before and I'll tell you that again; that's all I ask.”

“Yes, but could you tell me why you don't want Sloane to know yet? It is only three weeks. Why is it so vital that she doesn't know, could you tell me that?”

“I could but I won't. Not after what happened up there. Let's not go into that or I'll see red again. The reason I came to see you—not what you thought by a long shot—the reason I came to see you was to tell you why I don't want you to let Sloane hear about this. Naturally, I couldn't jump in with both feet. I had to wait and make sure you had this wild idea of yours first—”

“Don't be under the misapprehension that I believe it a wild idea, Dr. Krop!”

“You still think I murdered your mother? I came to your room for murder number two—O.K. It's a free country, think what you want, just don't let Sloane know a thing about what you think.”

“Now, Dr. Krop, you don't think I'm going to see Sloane, do you? Call on her? Leave cards? Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?”