the healing art. And so, having seen the logic of it, Angie would yield; she would assent to his turning over the little black bag to all humanity.
He would probably present it to the College of Surgeons, with as little fuss as possible—well, perhaps a small ceremony, and he would like a souvenir of the occasion, a cup or a framed testimonial. It would be a relief to have the thing out of his hands, in a way; let the giants of the healing art decide who was to have its benefits. No, Angie would understand. She was a goodhearted girl.
It was nice that she had been showing so much interest in the surgical side lately—asking about the instruments, reading the instruction card for hours, even practicing on guinea pigs. If something of his love for humanity had been communicated to her, old Dr. Full sentimentally thought, his life would not have been in vain. Surely she would realize that a greater good would be served by surrendering the instruments to wiser hands than theirs, and by throwing aside the cloak of secrecy necessary to work on their small scale.
Dr. Full was in the treatment room that had been the brownstone's front parlor; through the window he saw Angie's yellow convertible roll to a stop before the stoop.
He liked the way she looked as she climbed the stairs; neat, not flashy, he thought. A sensible girl like her, she'd understand. There was somebody with her—a fat woman, puffing up the steps, overdressed and petulant. Now, what could she want?
Angie let herself in and went into the treatment room, followed by the fat woman.
'Doctor,' said the blond girl gravely, 'may I present Mrs. Coleman?' Charm school had not taught her everything, but Mrs. Coleman, evidently nouveau riche, thought the doctor, did not notice the blunder.
'Miss Aquella told me so much about you, doctor, and your remarkable system!'
she gushed.
Before he could answer, Angie smoothly interposed: 'Would you excuse us for just a moment, Mrs. Coleman?'
She took the doctor's arm and led him into the reception hall. 'Listen,' she said swiftly, 'I know this goes against your grain, but I couldn't pass it up. I met this old thing in the exercise class at Elizabeth Barton's. Nobody else'll talk to her there. She's a widow. I guess her husband was a black marketeer or something, and she has a pile of dough. I gave her a line about how you had a system of massaging wrinkles out.
My idea is, you blindfold her, cut her neck open with the Cutaneous Series knife, shoot some Firmol into the muscles, spoon out some of that blubber with an Adipose Series curette and spray it all with Skintite. When you take the blindfold off she's got rid of a wrinkle and doesn't know what happened. She'll pay five hundred dollars.
Now, don't say 'no,' doc. Just this once, let's do it my way, can't you? I've been working on this deal all along too, haven't I?'
'Oh,' said the doctor, 'very well.' He was going to have to tell her about the Master Plan before long anyway. He would let her have it her way this time.
Back in the treatment room, Mrs. Coleman had been thinking things over. She told the doctor sternly as he entered: 'Of course, your system is permanent, isn't it?'
'It is, madam,' he said shortly. 'Would you please lie down there? Miss Aquella, get a sterile three-inch bandage for Mrs. Coleman's eyes.' He turned his back on the fat woman to avoid conversation, and pretended to be adjusting the lights. Angie blindfolded the woman, and the doctor selected the instruments he would need. He handed the blond girl a pair of retractors, and told her: 'Just slip the corners of the blades in as I cut—' She gave him an alarmed look, and gestured at the reclining woman. He lowered his voice: 'Very well. Slip in the corners and rock them along the incision. I'll tell you when to pull them out.'
Dr. Full held the Cutaneous Series knife to his eyes as he adjusted the little slide for three centimeters' depth. He sighed a little as he recalled that its last use had been in the extirpation of an 'inoperable' tumor of the throat.
'Very well,' he said, bending over the woman. He tried a tentative pass through her tissues. The blade dipped in and flowed through them, like a finger through quicksilver, with no wound left in the wake. Only the retractors could hold the edges of the incision apart.
Mrs. Coleman stirred and jabbered: 'Doctor, that felt so peculiar! Are you sure you're rubbing the right way?'
'Quite sure, madam,' said the doctor wearily. 'Would you please try not to talk during the massage?'
He nodded at Angie, who stood ready with the retractors. The blade sank in to its three centimeters, miraculously cutting only the dead horny tissues of the epidermis and the live tissue of the dermis, pushing aside mysteriously all major and minor blood vessels and muscular tissue, declining to affect any system or organ except the one it was—tuned could you say? The doctor didn't know the answer, but he felt tired and bitter at this prostitution. Angie slipped in the retractor blades and rocked them as he withdrew the knife, then pulled to separate the lips of the incision. It bloodlessly exposed an unhealthy string of muscle, sagging in a dead-looking loop from blue-gray ligaments. The doctor took a hypo, Number IX, preset to 'g,' and raised it to his eye level. The mist came and went; there probably was no possibility of an embolus with one of these gadgets, but why take chances? He shot one cc of 'g'—identified as
'Firmol' by the card—into the muscle. He and Angie watched as it tightened up against the pharynx.
He took the Adipose Series curette, a small one, and spooned out yellowish tissue, dropping it into the incinerator box, and then nodded to Angie. She eased out the retractors and the gaping incision slipped together into unbroken skin, sagging now.
The doctor had the atomizer —dialed to 'Skintite'—ready. He sprayed, and the skin shrank up into the new firm throat line.
As he replaced the instruments, Angie removed Mrs. Coleman's bandage and gaily announced: 'We're finished! And there's a mirror in the reception hall—'
Mrs. Coleman didn't need to be invited twice. With incredulous fingers she felt her chin, and then dashed for the hall. The doctor grimaced as he heard her yelp of delight, and Angie turned to him with a tight smile. 'I'll get the money and get her out,' she said. 'You won't have to be bothered with her any more.'
He was grateful for that much.
She followed Mrs. Coleman into the reception hall, and the doctor dreamed over the case of instruments. A ceremony, certainly—he was entitled to one. Not everybody, he thought, would turn such a sure source of money over to the good of humanity. But you reached an age when money mattered less, and when you thought of these things you had done that might be open to misunderstanding if, just if, there chanced to be any of that, well, that judgment business. The doctor wasn't a religious man, but you certainly found yourself thinking hard about some things when your time drew near—
Angie was back, with a bit of paper in her hands. 'Five hundred dollars,' she said matter-of-factly. 'And you realize, don't you, that we could go over her an inch at a time—at five hundred dollars an inch?'
'I've been meaning to talk to you about that,' he said.
There was bright fear in her eyes, he thought—but why?
'Angie, you've been a good girl and an understanding girl, but we can't keep this up forever, you know.'
'Let's talk about it some other time,' she said flatly. 'I'm tired now.'
'No—I really feel we've gone far enough on our own. The instruments —'
'Don't say it, doc!' she hissed. 'Don't say it, or you'll be sorry!' In her face mere was a look that reminded him of the hollow-eyed, aunt-faced, dirty-blond creature she had been. From under the charm- school finish there burned the guttersnipe whose infancy had been spent On a sour and filthy mattress, whose childhood had been play in the littered alley and whose adolescence had been the sweatshops and the aimless gatherings at night under the glaring street lamps.
He shook his head to dispel the puzzling notion. 'It's this way,' he patiently began. 'I told you about the family that invented the O.B. forceps and kept them a secret for so many generations, how they could have given them to the world but didn't?'
'They knew what they were doing,' said the guttersnipe flatly.
'Well, that's neither here nor there,' said the doctor, irritated. 'My mind is made up about it. I'm going to turn the instruments over to the College of Surgeons. We have enough money to be comfortable. You can even have the house. I've been thinking of going to a warmer climate, myself.' He felt peeved with her for making the unpleasant scene. He was unprepared for what happened next.
