‘A few days. Week. Elastic schedule. It makes a drug they’re interested in … you probably don’t know. Neither do I. In fact I don’t know anything, doctor; that’s the whole secret of my situation. Nobody tells me a thing. Even you; what’s wrong with me, for instance – you won’t tell me that, I bet.’
To one of the watching Secret Service men Eric said, ‘Where can I find a vidphone booth?’
‘Don’t go off,’ Molinari said, from his bed, half rising. ‘The pain would come back right away; I can tell. What I want you to do is get Mary Reineke here; I need to talk to her, now that I’m feeling better. See, doctor, I haven’t told her about it, about how sick I am. And don’t you, either; she needs to hold an idealized image of me. Women are like that; to love a man they have to look up to him, glorify him. See?’
‘But when she sees you lying in bed doesn’t she think—’
‘Oh, she knows I’m sick; she just doesn’t know that it’s fatal. You see?’
Eric said, ‘I promise I won’t tell her it’s fatal.’
‘Is it?’ Molinari’s eyes flew open in alarm.
‘Not to my knowledge,’ Eric said. Cautiously he added, ‘Anyhow, I learn from your file that you’ve survived several customary fatal illnesses, including cancer of—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I get depressed when I’m reminded how many times I’ve had cancer.’
‘I should think—’
‘That it would elate me that I recovered? No, because maybe the next time I’m not going to recover. I mean, sooner or later it’ll get me, and before my job is done. And what’ll happen to Terra then? You figure it out; you make an educated guess.’
‘I’ll go and contact Miss Reineke for you,’ Eric said, and started toward the door of the room. A Secret Service man detached himself to lead the way to the vidphone.
Outside in the corridor the Secret Service man said in a low voice, ‘Doctor, there’s an illness on level three, one of the White House cooks passed out about an hour ago; Dr Teagarden’s with him and wants you for a confab.’
‘Certainly,’ Eric said. ‘I’ll look in on him before I make my phone call.’ He followed the Secret Service man to the elevator. In the White House dispensary he found Dr Teagarden. ‘I needed you,’ Teagarden said at once, ‘because you’re an artiforg man; this is a clear case of angina pectoris and we’re going to need an org-trans right away. I assume you brought at least one heart with you.’
‘Yes,’ Eric murmured. ‘Had there been a history of heart trouble with this patient?’
‘Not until two weeks ago,’ Teagarden said. ‘When he had a mild attack. Then of course dorminyl was administered, twice daily. And he seemed to recover. But now—’
‘What’s the relationship between this man’s angina and the Secretary’s pains?’
‘”Relationship”? Is there one?’
‘Doesn’t it seem strange? Both men develop severe abdominal pains at about the same time—’
‘But in the case of McNeil, here,’ Teagarden said, leading Eric to the bed, ‘the diagnosis is unmistakable. Whereas with Secretary Molinari no such diagnosis as angina can be made; the symptoms are not there. So I don’t see any relationship.’ Teagarden added, ‘Anyhow this is a very tense place, doctor; people get sick here regularly.’
‘It still seems—’
‘In any case,’ Teagarden said, ‘the problem is simply a technical one; transplant the fresh heart and that’s that.’
‘Too bad we can’t do the same upstairs.’ Eric bent over the cot on which the patient McNeil lay. So this was the man who had the ailment which Molinari imagined he had. Which came first? Eric wondered. McNeil or Gino Molinari? Which is cause and which effect – assuming that such a relationship exists, and that is a mighty tenuous assumption at best. As Teagarden points out.
But it would be interesting to know, for instance, if anyone in the vicinity had cancer of the prostate gland when Gino had it… and the other cancers, infarcts, hepatitis, and whatever else as well.
It might be worth checking the medical records of the entire White House staff, he conjectured.
‘Need me to assist in the org-trans?’ Teagarden asked. ‘If not I’ll go upstairs to the Secretary. There’s a White House nurse who can help you; she was here a minute ago.’
‘I don’t need you. What I’d like is a list of all the current complaints among members of the local entourage; everyone who’s in physical contact with Molinari from day to day, whether these people are staff members or frequent official visitors – whatever their posts are. Can that be done?’
‘With the staff, yes,’ Teagarden said. ‘But not with visitors; we have no medical files on them. Obviously.’ He eyed Eric.
‘I have a feeling,’ Eric said, ‘that the moment a fresh heart is transplanted to McNeil here the Secretary’s pains will go away. And later records will show that as of this date the Secretary recovered from severe angina pectoris.’
Teagarden’s expression fused over, became opaque. ‘Well,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘Metaphysics, along with surgery. We’ve obtained a rare combination in you, doctor.’
‘Would you say that Molinari is empathic enough to develop every ailment suffered by every person around him? And I don’t mean just hysterically; I mean he genuinely experiences it. Gets it.’
‘No such empathic faculty,’ Teagarden said, ‘if you can bring yourself to dignify it by calling it a faculty, is known to exist.’
‘But you’ve seen the file,’ Eric pointed out quietly. He opened his instrument case and began to assemble the robant, self-guiding tools which he would need for the transplant of the artificial heart.
SEVEN
After the operation – it required only half an hour’s labor on his part – Eric Sweetscent, accompanied by two Secret Service men, set off for the apartment of Mary Reineke.
‘She’s dumb,’ the man to his left said, gratuitously.
The other Secret Service man, older and grayer, said, ‘”Dumb”? She knows what makes the Mole work; nobody else has been able to dope that out.’
‘There’s nothing to dope out,’ the first – youthful – Secret Service man said. ‘It’s just the meeting of two vacuums and that’s the same as one big vacuum.’
‘Yeah, some vacuum. He rises to the UN Secretaryship; you think you or anybody else you know could do that? Here’s her conapt.’ The older Secret Service man halted and indicated a door. ‘Don’t act surprised when you see her,’ he told Eric. ‘I mean, when you see she’s just a kid.’
‘I was told,’ Eric said. And rang the bell. ‘I know all about it.’
‘”You know all about it,”‘ the Secret Service man to his left mocked. ‘Good for you – without even seeing her. Maybe you’ll be the next UN Secretary after the Mole finally succumbs.’
The door opened. As astonishingly small, dark, pretty girl wearing a man’s red silk shirt with the tails out and tapered, tight slacks stood facing them. She held a pair of cutical scissors; evidently she had been trimming and improving her nails, which Eric saw were long and luminous.
‘I’m Dr Sweetscent. I’ve Joined Gino Molinari’s staff.’ He almost said your father’s staff; he caught the words barely in time.
‘I know,’ Mary Reineke said. ‘And he wants me; he’s feeling lousy. Just a minute.’ She turned to look for a coat, disappearing momentarily.
‘A high school girl,’ the Secret Service man on Eric’s left said. He shook his head. ‘For any ordinary guy it’d be a felony.’
‘Shut up,’ his companion snapped, as Mary Reineke returned wearing a heavy, blue-black, large button, navy-style jacket.
‘Couple of smart guys,’ Mary said to the Secret Service men. ‘You two take off; I want to talk to Dr Sweetscent without you sticking your big fat ears into it.’
‘Okay, Mary.’ Grinning, the Secret Service men departed. Eric was alone in the corridor with the girl in the heavy jacket, pants and slippers.
They walked in silence and then Mary said, ‘How is he?’
Cautiously, Eric said, ‘In many ways exceptionally healthy. Almost unbelievably so. But—’
‘But he’s dying. All the time. Sick, but it just goes on and on – I wish it would end; I wish he’d—’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘No, I don’t wish that. If Gino died I’d be booted out. Along with all the cousins and uncles and bambinos. There’d be a general housecleaning of all the debris that clutters up this place.’ Her tongue was amazingly bitter and fierce; Eric glanced sharply at her, taken aback. ‘Are you here to cure him?’ Mary asked.
‘Well, I can try. I can at least—’
‘Or are you here to administer the – what do they call it? The final blow. You know. Coup something.’
‘Coup de grace,’ Eric said.
‘Yes.’ Mary Reineke nodded. ‘Well? Which did you come for? Or don’t you know? Are you as confused as he is, is that it?’