I didn't notice any pain as I hurried down the stairs. My brain was working overtime on suspicion. Maybe Doc had lied about how much time I had. Maybe Zacharias had slipped me a contact poison-it was possible he knew what I had had to do with the murder of Pope John Paul I. I considered everything.
La Vecque frowned. 'Doesn't look good. Aside from the blood, there're cancer cells and proteins. The cancer may have reached your kidneys. If so, it's metastasized further than I thought.'
'And?'
'And I'd like another body scan. Tomorrow at the hospital. And I think you should stay there awhile.'
'No, thanks.' I stood. 'If I go, I go. I'll see you tomorrow, but that's all. I've got a lot to do.'
'I'm glad you feel that way.'
He watched me leave as if I were walking into the Outer Limits.
Back in my office, I half-fretted about dying, half-wondered why I thought it mattered. A cog in a machine never wonders whether it can be replaced or whether its failure will stop the machine. My universe ends with me, sure, but all the other universes go on.
I spent the day and evening rereading an old book called
. One of the lines that I remembered enough for it to bother me when I read it again was, 'Life is islands of ecstasy in an ocean of ennui, and after the age of thirty land is seldom seen.'
Except for those brief moments during an assassination-when I could feel the tides of history flow around me like a palpable, living stream-I'd been adrift in that featureless ocean.
I spent the night getting drunk.
The next morning-afternoon, actually-I rolled off the couch, poured myself breakfast, and made my way down First Street to Belvedere Hospital. I had a date with an NMR scanner. The walk took over an hour. I considered it a bad sign that my bones didn't bother me at all during that time. Maybe even my nervous system had entered the breakdown stage.
I reached the desk breathing heavily and wheezing. The short, fat girl behind the desk popped her chewing gum and handed me a plaque of forms to fill out. She stuck her thumb at a cracked coffee cup that held three styli. I picked out the cleanest one and punched up an image. The top right hand corner read, 'Page 1 of 17.'
An hour later, I lay naked on a table that had the look and feel of a block of ice. I was still beefy, I observed dispassionately, though a lot of my muscle had turned to flab in recent years. When I realized in what direction that line of thought led, I quit and turned to La Vecque.
'How's it going?'
'Shut up and turn your head back. Breathe normally. It's going fine.' He looked even more birdlike, hovering over the tech's shoulder.
'Dr. La Vecque?' A scrawny kid with glasses stuck his head through the doorway, followed by a folder and a plaque. Doc took both from the boy and read through the reports.
'My latest sample?' I asked.
He waved his hand around as if a palsy had struck him and then sat down by the scanner technician. The tech showed him a readout of my condition. Beady eyes narrowed in interest. He said nothing for a long time.
'Can I get up, Doc?'
'Sure, Dell, sure.' His fingers tapped against his jawline like a dancing spider.
'Is it something worse?' I reached for my slacks.
The tech moved around the two of us, preparing the machine for the next patient. I dressed and kept an eye on the good doctor. He looked like a sinking ship.
His first words in five minutes were, 'Have you had a bowel movement today?'
His skill at charming banter was exceeded only by his taste in conversational topics.
