A man wearing a white medical coat came out; a pale-eyed American in his mid-sixties. He introduced himself as Dr Caulk, Mr Nottage’s physician.
“When may I see him?” Max Lamb asked.
“In a few minutes. He’s finishing his treatment.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Better, by and large,” said Dr Caulk, enigmatically.
The chat turned to the clinic, and cancer. The doctor asked Max Lamb if he was a smoker.
“Just started.”
“Started?” The doctor looked incredulous.
“Long story,” Max said.
“Mister Nottage smokes four packs a day.”
“I’d heard six.”
“Oh, we’ve got him down to four,” said the doctor. He gave the impression it was a contest of wills.
Max Lamb inquired about the unusual nature of the tumor treatments. Dr Caulk took full credit.
“We’re really onto something,” he told Max. “So far, the results have been quite astounding.”
“What made you think to try … you know-”
“Sheep semen?” Dr Caulk gave a wise smile. “Actually it’s quite an interesting story.”
As Max Lamb listened, he wondered if the deepening consternation showed on his face. The Caulk therapy was based entirely upon the casual observation that male sheep have a low incidence of lung cancer.
“Comparedto… ?”
The doctor slyly wagged a finger at Max. “Now you sound just like the PDA.” He folded his hands and leaned forward. “I suppose you’re curious about how we collect the semen.”
“Not in the slightest,” said Max, forcefully.
A mountainous nurse appeared at the doctor’s shoulder. She said Mr Nottage’s afternoon treatment was completed. Dr Caulk took Max to the old man’s room.
Outside the door, the doctor dropped his voice. “I’ll leave you two alone. Lately he’s been a bit cranky with me.”
Max Lamb had met Clyde Nottage Jr only once before, on a golf course in Raleiglj. The robust, fiery, blue-eyed curmudgeon that he remembered bore no resemblance to the gaunt, gray-skinned invalid in the hospital bed.
Until Clyde Nottage opened his mouth: “The hell you staring at, boy?”
Max pulled a chair to the side of the bed. He sat ‘ down and positioned the briefcase on his lap.
“Gimme cigaret,” Nottage muttered.
As Max inserted a Bronco in the old man’s bloodless lips, he said, “Sir, did the doctor tell you I was coming? How are you feeling?”
Nottage ignored him. He plucked the cigaret from his mouth and eyed it ruefully. “What they say is true, all true. About these goddamn things causing cancer. I know it’s a fact. So do you. So does the goddamn guv’ment.”
Max Lamb was uneasy. “It’s a choice people make,” he said.
Nottage laughed, a tubercular snuffle. With a shaky hand he returned the cigaret to his mouth. Max lit it for him.
The old man said, “They got you trained good. Look at me, boy-you heard about the sheep jizz?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I got a tumor the size of a Cuban mango in my chest, and I’m down to sheep jizz. My last earthly hope.”
“The doctor said-”
“Oh, fuck him.” Nottage paused to suck defiantly on the Bronco. “You’re here about the ads, right? Rodale sent you to change my mind.”
“Sir, the NIH report was news-bad news, to be sure. But they were only doing their jobs, the newspapers and magazines. They had to print the story; it was all over television-”
Clyde Nottage laughed until his nose ran. He wiped it with a hairless withered forearm. “Christ, you missed the point. They all did.”
The old man’s jocular tone gave Max a false burst of hope.
“I yanked those damn ads,” Nottage went on, “because I was pissed. That much is true. But I wasn’t mad they published the cancer report.”
“Then why?”
An inch of dead ash fell from the old man’s cigaret onto the sheets. He tried to blow it away, but the exertion of laughing had sapped him; his lungs moaned under the strain. After regaining his breath, he said: “The real reason I was pissed, they’re fuckin’ hypocrites. They tell the whole world we peddle poison, put it on the front page. Yet they’re delighted to take our money and advertise that very saame poison. Greedy cocksuckin hypocrites, and you may quote me to the boys in New York.”