“That’s an idea. You just don’t want to travel, huh?”
“Not any more. I’m settled down.”
“All right. I’ll drop in sometime.”
“Do that. I’ll fry you an egg.”
“Sure.”
He hung up and left the phone booth and walked down to Grofield’s car. He slid in and said, “McKay’s out. He’s retired.”
“Again?”
“This time he says it’s for good. He suggested Kerwin.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He’s a good man.”
Grofield shrugged. “I’ll take your word for it. Call him.”
“He lives in Brooklyn. I’ll call him from the city, after we see your man. Who is he, by the way?”
“Ormont. Chester Ormont.”
“Four thousand might be steep for him.”
“We’ll see.”
Grofield started the engine, and they drove away from there. They went through the Holland Tunnel into the city, and took the West Side Highway up to 72nd Street, and then crosstown through the park to the East Side. Grofield parked illegally on East 67th Street, between Fifth and Madison, and they walked down the block to the address. It was a fashionable brown-stone, with a doctor’s shingle in the window. They went up the stoop and inside, into the dimness, and there was a nurse in a white uniform at a desk.
She smiled impersonally and said, “Name, please?”
“Grofield. About my back.”
“You’ve been to see the doctor before?”
“Yes.”
“Have a seat, please, the doctor will be with you in just a minute.”
They went into the waiting-room, a large airy room done in Danish modern. Two stuffed matrons sat in opposite corners of the room, like welterweights between rounds. One was reading Fortuneand the other was reading Business Week. Grofield picked up a copy of Timefrom the central table, and he and Parker sat down to wait.
After about five minutes, the nurse appeared and took one of the women away with her. A little while later a whitehaired old man came in on a cane and took the absent woman’s seat and Fortune. Some time after that the other woman was escorted away by the nurse.
They waited about forty minutes, and then the nurse came to the door and said, “Mister Grofield?”
Grofield said, “Come on.” He and Parker followed the nurse out of the waiting-room, down a cream-colored hall, and into an office. There was no one in the office.
The nurse said, “Doctor Ormont will see you in just a minute.” She went away.
They sat in brown leather chairs and waited. They could hear a murmuring from somewhere else on the first floor. Five minutes went by, and then the door opened and a heavy impatient-looking man with pink scrubbed hands came in.
He smiled sourly at them, said, “How are you, Grofield?” and went around behind his desk.
“Just terrible, Doctor,” said Grofield. “I’ve got this terrible pain in my back.”
“Never mind that,” said the doctor. “This office isn’t bugged.”
Grofield burst out laughing. “Doctor, you’re priceless!”
The doctor didn’t get it, and didn’t want it. He looked at Parker and said, “You remind me of somebody.”
Grofield said, “This is Parker, with a face job. Not just the nose, the whole face. What do you think of that?”
“Parker, eh? Who did the job?”
“A doctor out west,” Parker told him. “You wouldn’t know him.”
“He did a good job.” The doctor switched his attention to Grofield. “You’ve got something on, eh?”
“So we have. We need financing.”
“Obviously. This isn’t a social call.”
“Of course not. It’s this pain in my back, it’s killing me.”
Parker said, “Cut it out, Grofield.”
“Right you are.” Grofield sobered, and said, “We need four G’s.”
“Thousand? Four thousand?”
