"Patients are all I work with. Let's see--" He stopped and his frown
deepened. "It was that damned accident case. Broken leg. I set it and
put him in ward five. I--"
His frown deepened as he sat up. "Uh-huh. It was that damned pulse.
That's it. There was something wrong. That pulse was even and steady
but, Goddamn it, something was wrong!" He got to his feet. "Baby--I've
got to go back to Park Hill."
"Do you want to take the car or shall I drive you?"
"You drive," he said absently as he got up from the sofa and reached for
his necktie.
* * * * *
Frank hurried in through the emergency entrance and went to the
admissions desk. A kindly, gray-haired nurse was working with papers and
she dug deep into the pile in response to Frank's query.
"We didn't find much on him. An identification card with the name
William Matson. Nothing else except a wallet initialed W. M. containing
thirty-six dollars in cash."
"_Nothing_ else?"
The gray-haired nurse shook her head. "No social security number, no
driver's license, no home or business address."
"Damned odd, don't you think?"
"Not at Park Hill. We get them in here without a blessed thing but their
clothing. In fact, two weeks ago the boys picked up a stark-naked blonde
out of a car crash on East River Drive."
Frank grinned automatically, but the grin fell from his face like a mask
the moment he turned from the desk. He went through the locker room and
got his stethoscope on the way to Ward Five.
The patient known to the hospital as William Matson lay quietly on his
back, staring at the ceiling. Frank checked the clipboard. There were no
notations but his own. He went around the bed and stood looking down at
the patient.
"Feeling better?"
"I feel all--right."
_There's some sort of a speech block here_, Frank thought as he bent
over and lowered the sheet. "I'm just doing a little checking," he said
casually. "No cause for alarm."
"I am not--alarmed."
Corson frowned slightly as he concentrated on his work. He went over the
patient's torso, up and down, back and forth. At times he straightened
to rest his back and stared down into the calm, expressionless face on
the pillow.
Twenty minutes passed, during which time Frank Corson checked and
rechecked every inch of the man's torso. When he finished, he slowly
folded his stethoscope and pulled the sheet back into place. He stared
at the patient for a full minute without bringing the slightest change
in the empty expression.
"Sleep well," he said, and walked slowly away.
Back in the street, five minutes later, he dropped into the seat beside
Rhoda. She eyed him questioningly and when he did not respond, she
asked, "Everything all right?"
"I don't know. I guess so."
"What do you mean--guess so? It is or it isn't."
"There was something about a patient's heartbeat. I passed it over on
the first examination, but it stuck in my mind. That's why I had to go
back."
"And ...?"
"He's got two hearts."
"He's _what_?"
"He's got two hearts, my beautiful love. One in his chest, where it
ought to be, and one in the center of his lower abdomen."
"You're--you're kidding."
"No, darling," Frank Corson said dreamily. "On this night of nights I
found a man who is pretty rare indeed. A man with two healthy,
functioning hearts."
"All right," Rhoda asked wonderingly. "What do we do about it?"
"We go home for the time being, baby--to your nice, private, wonderful
apartment."
"And ...?"
"We make love," he said absently.
* * * * *
Les King, the free-lance news photographer, surveyed his night's work
and was not happy. It had been singularly unproductive. A couple of
sneak necking shots he'd snapped during a stroll through Central Park
had come through a little too pornographic to be of value. Les threw
them into the wastebasket. A shot of a man leaning out of a
thirtieth-floor window came to nothing because the man had pulled his
head in and closed the window. He hadn't jumped. There was a picture of
a girl dodging a taxi. He'd caught her with both feet off the ground and
a look of surprise on her face, but with her body arced backward and
both hands on her rump as though she'd just been thoroughly and expertly
goosed. Too vulgar. He put the pic aside.
And the Park Avenue hit? Here it was, a shot of a guy lying where he'd
dropped, with the pigeon's rocketing away. Not bad, but it lacked an
angle. All that intern had found on him was a name. William Matson. No
address. The hell with it.
Les sighed and dropped the pic into his file case. Then he stopped. His
face went blank. He pulled the pic out and looked at it again. He felt
as if some nagging thought were trying to come to the surface, but
nothing clicked, so he dropped the pic back into the file and went to
the cooler where he opened an early-morning can of beer before sacking
out. A hell of a life, he thought, wandering through nighttime Manhattan
watching for people to take their mental pants down so he could get
shots of their naked inner backsides.
He finished the beer and went in to take a shower.
Funny about that hit case. The guy had the damnedest expression on his
face. Kind of like he was thinking, _Okay, so what do I do now?_
Fifteen minutes later, Les was asleep.
* * * * *
There was always a certain tension involved in Frank Corson's visits to
Rhoda Kane's apartment, with Rhoda usually slightly on edge, waiting for
one of Frank's outbursts.
An outburst consisted of his suddenly springing to his feet with a
scowl and announcing: "Goddamn it, I don't belong here!"
Rhoda always followed the same script at the beginning of these traumas
by inevitably asking, "Why, darling? Why must you say that?"
"Oh, hell, Rhoda! I don't want to hurt you but--"
"Darling, you know I'll go to your room with you if you'd be more
comfortable there."
He strode to the window angrily and, for Rhoda, there was that
indescribably sweet and exciting reaction she always got from his
nakedness. _Like a Greek god standing there, she thought_, and it
thrilled her even though she knew she was being a little subjective
about it.
She smiled with tender, understanding amusement as she realized Frank's
pattern never varied. His outbursts never came until the first fierce
need of her had been assuaged; this was to her liking because her need
was as great.
Reacting according to current, "broad-minded" thinking and Manhattan
sophistication, she regarded herself and Frank as having a "good
physical relationship." Which individual need was the greatest, she had
never been able to say. But there certainly was something extraordinary
about it. In analyzing it, she'd arrived at the conclusion that they'd
been able, on the basis of personal rapport, to function in a completely
uninhibited manner; thus, some of their love-making, when lifted out of
context and surveyed objectively, might have been called abnormal. Rhoda
did not think so, however; or, if she did, she blocked the idea
successfully by telling herself that whatever she and Frank did together
was all right because _they_ did it. She told herself it was good for
them because they looked at it with a healthy attitude.
She could, of course, have gotten this opinion, or one in complete
opposition to it, from two different psychologists, but she preferred to
play it as she saw it.
She had wondered at times just how important the sex relation was in her
attachment to Frank. It was of major importance, of that she was sure,
but was it the key? If they drifted apart physically, would the other
aspects of the relationship vanish? She thought not, but she certainly
would not have been willing to put it to the test.
Frank Corson was through looking out the window now and he began pacing
nervously. "Sure--so it's fine to be a doctor. It's the sure-fire answer
for later in life. But what about now? What about this crawling up the
ladder inch by inch?" He turned on her defiantly.
"Living on your money!"
"You aren't!"
"All right. Maybe not technically." He looked around the room
resentfully. "Using your apartment for--"
"Frank! When I have guests, do they hesitate because my apartment is
nicer than--?"
She knew she'd hurt him even before his head came around and his eyes
narrowed. "So that's what it really is to you!"
She'd said the wrong thing, but even as she sprang up from the bed she
felt that it made no difference because he would have found something
else. "I didn't mean it that way. You know I didn't."
She ran to him and laid her hands on his chest; his eyes traveled down
her naked body and his mind struggled. His expression said it was a
little unfair of her to come so close and stand that way, nude and
beautiful and eager, in front of him, especially when he had a point to
make.
"I'm a pauper trying to keep up with the rich."
She knew how to break his mood now. She smiled and pressed against him
lightly and said, "Uh-huh, but what a pauper. And darling, money
wouldn't change that part of it a bit."
He drew her to him violently. The impact of their bodies hurt her ribs
but she gloried in the pain. She let her knees weaken and sank to the
thickly carpeted floor, bringing him down with her.
She knew Frank's outburst was over--at least for that day.