“In the whole family, Doctor Dyckes.”
“And I just sit here and open up like the family Bible, eh? And you take it all in, just like it was the most ordinary thing in the world to listen to a doctor violate the ethics of his profession.”
“I… I thought you were responding to an expression of friendly interest and concern, Doctor, and–”
“Bullshit, McGee. Wanted to see if you handled yourself with any kind of sense at all. You do. Know why I’m talking to you about a patient… and the patient’s family?”
“I guess you want to tell me why.”
He brooded for a long tune, eyes half closed. “Trying to find the words for what she did for me. Even when there wasn’t anything left of her but the pain and her eyes, I’d go sit by her bed when things went wrong for me, like when I lost a young one that I’d prayed I wouldn’t lose. Dammit, I was borrowing guts from Helena Trescott. Leaning on her. We talked a lot, up until the tune I had to keep her too far under. One night she told me about a man named Travis McGee. She said that you might show up someday and you might ask a lot of questions. `Tell him how it was, Bill. Don’t pretty it up. Trust him. Tell him what you know about my girls. I’m going to ask him to help Maureen, I think.’ So, friend, she’s the one who made it easy for you. Not your persuasive charm. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“So where were we?”
“The next thing I was going to try to do was to get you to give me your opinion of Doctor Sherman.”
“Too bad about Stew. Good man. Vague spots here and there but generally solid. I mean in the medical knowledge sense. Damned fool about money, like most doctors. We’re the prize pigeons of the modern world. Gold bricks, uranium mines in Uganda, you hold it up and we’ll buy it.”
“I understood he invested in Development Unlimited.”
“Which may be as good as gold. The guys who have gone in swear by Tom Pike. Maybe they’re getting rich. Good luck to them. I turned down my golden opportunity. I was pretty interested there for a while.”
“What put you off it?”
“My brother. He and his wife were down visiting us. He’s a big brain in financial circles in New York. Taught economics at Columbia, then got into securities analysis and real estate investment with a couple of the banks. Then he started a no-load mutual fund a few years ago. A hedge fund. They watch him like eagles up there, trying to figure out which way he’s going to jump next. I was invited to one of those little get-in-on-the-ground-floor dinners Tom puts on from time to time. Stag. Took my brother along. Tom made quite an impressive talk, I thought. Had me about to grab for my checkbook. When we got home, Dewey told me what was wrong with the things Tom said. It boiled down to this. Tom used some wonderful terms, some very tricky ideas, a lot of explanations of tax shelters and so on. But my brother explained that it didn’t hang together. As if he’d memorized things that wouldn’t work in the way he said he was using them. Dewey said it was like a ten-year-old kid explaining Einstein to a roomful of relatives who never got past the tenth grade. The words were so big that, by God, it had to be good and had to be right. Dewey told me to stay out. Any spare change I have, I put in his mutual fund. And little by little he’s going to make me rich. He promises me he will. You know, I hope he was wrong about Tom Pike. Because if Tom is goofing, a lot of men in Fort Courtney are going to get very, very badly hurt’. Look, I better go scrub. Nice to talk to you. She was one very special woman, that Mrs. Trescott.”
I tried Hardahee again and struck out. But Janice Hoi-ton was home and said sure, I could stop by if I wanted to. I parked in front on the circular drive and went up and rang the doorbell. As I was waiting she came around the side of the house and said, “Oh. It’s you. I’m fixing some stuff around in the back. Want to come around? I don’t want to leave it half done.”