"Plague" - читать интересную книгу автора (Masterton Graham)

'When the boy died.'

Dr. Petrie stopped, and stared at him hard. 'You mean he's dead?'

Dr. Selmer took his arm. 'Leonard - I'm sorry. I thought you realized. He was dead on arrival. You better have your car cleaned out if he was sitting in the back. You wouldn't want to catch this thing yourself.'

Dr. Petrie nodded. He felt stunned. He saw a lot of death, but the death that visited his own clientele was the shadowy death of old age, of failing hearts and hardened arteries.

The people who died under Dr. Petrie's care were reconciled to their mortality. But young David Kelly was just nine years old, and today he was supposed to have gone to the Monkey Jungle.

'Anton,' said Dr. Petrie, 'I'll catch you later. I have to tell the father.'

'Okay,' said Dr. Selmer. 'But don't forget to tell both parents to come in for a check-up. I don't want this kind of disease spreading.'

Dr. Petrie walked quickly down the fluorescent-lit corridors to the waiting-room. Before he pushed open the door, he looked through the small circular window, and saw Mr. Kelly sitting hunched on a red plastic chair, smoking and trying to read yesterday's Miami Herald.

He didn't know what the hell he was going to say. How do you tell a man that his only son, his nine-year-old son, has just died?

Finally, he pushed open the door. Mr. Kelly looked up quickly, and there was questioning hope in his face.

'Did you see him?' Mr. Kelly asked, 'Is he okay?'

Dr. Petrie laid his hand on the man's shoulder and pressed him gently back into his seat. He sat down himself, and looked into Mr. Kelly's tired but optimistic eyes with all the sympathy and care he could muster. When he spoke, his voice was soft and quiet, expressing feeling that went far deeper than bedside manner.

'Mr. Kelly,' he said. 'I'm sorry to tell you that David is dead.'

Mr. Kelly's mouth formed a question, but the question was never spoken. He simply stared at Dr. Petrie as if he didn't know where he was, or what had happened. He was still sitting, still staring, as the tears began to fill his eyes and run down his cheeks.

Dr. Petrie stood up. 'Come on,' he said quietly. 'I'll drive you home.'

By the time he got back to his clinic, his assistant Esther had already arrived, opened his mail, and poured his fresh-squeezed orange juice into its tall frosted glass. She was sitting at her desk, her long legs self-consciously crossed and her skirt hiked high, typing with the hesitant delicacy of an effete woodpecker. After all, she didn't want to break her long scarlet nails. She was twenty-one - a tall bouffant blonde with glossy red lips and a gaspy little voice. She wore a crisp white jacket that was stretched out in front of her by heavy, enormous breasts, and she teetered around the clinic on silver stilettos.

For all her ritz, though, Esther was trained, cool and practical. Dr. Petrie had seen her comfort an old woman in pain, and he knew that words didn't come any warmer. Apart from that, he enjoyed Esther's hero-worship, and the suppressed rage of his medical colleagues whenever he attended a doctor's convention with her in tow.

'Good morning, doctor', said Esther pertly, when he walked in. 'I looked for you in your bedroom, but you weren't around.'

'Disappointed?' he said, perching himself on the edge of her desk.

Esther pouted her shiny red lips. 'A little. You never know when Nurse Cinderella might get lucky and catch Dr. Charming's eye.' Dr. Petrie grinned. 'Any calls?'

'Just two. Mrs. Vicincki wants to drop by at eleven. She says her ankle's giving her purgatory. And your wife.' Dr. Petrie stood up and took off his jacket. 'My ex-wife,' he corrected.

'Sorry. Your ex-wife. She said you'd have to pick your daughter up tonight instead of tomorrow, because she's going to visit her mother in Fort Lauderdale.'

Dr. Petrie rubbed his eyes. 'I see. I don't suppose she said what time tonight.'

'Seven. Priscilla will be waiting for you.'

'Okay. What time's my first appointment?'