'Out of the goddamn way!' yelled Dr. Petrie. 'Get that truck out of the goddamn way!'
The truck driver tossed away a spent match and searched for another.
'What's the hurry, mac?' he called back. 'Don't get so worked up — you'll give yourself an ulcer.'
'I'm a doctor! I have a sick kid in this car! I have to get him to hospital!'
The driver shrugged. 'When they open the gates, I'll move out of your way. But I ain't shifting till I'm good and ready.'
'For God's sake!' shouted Dr. Petrie. 'I mean it. This kid is seriously ill!'
The truck driver blew smoke. 'I don't see no kid,' he remarked. He looked around to see if the gates were open yet, so that he could back the truck up.
Dr. Petrie had to close his eyes to control his fury. Then he spun the Lincoln on to the sidewalk, bouncing over the kerb, and drove around the truck's front fender. A hydrant scraped a long dent all the way down the Lincoln's wing, and Dr. Petrie felt the underside of the car jar against the concrete as he drove back on to the street on the other side of the truck.
Three more precious minutes passed before he pulled the car to a halt in front of the hospital's emergency unit. The orderlies were waiting for him with a trolley. He lifted David out of the back of the car like a loose-jointed marionette, and laid him gently down. The orderlies wheeled him off straight away.
Mr. Kelly leaned against the car. His face was drawn and sweaty. 'Jesus,' he whispered. 'I thought we'd never make it. Is he going to be all right?'
Dr.Petrie rested a hand on Mr. Kelly's shoulder. 'Don't you doubt it, Mr. Kelly. He's a very sick boy, but they know what they're doing in this place. They'll look after him.'
Mr. Kelly nodded. He was too exhausted to argue. 'If you want to wait in the waiting-room, Mr. Kelly — just go into the main entrance there and ask the receptionist. She'll tell you where it is. When I've talked to David's doctors, I'll come and let you know what's happening.'
Mr. Kelly nodded again. 'Thanks, doctor,' he said. 'You'll — make sure they look after Davey, won't you?'
'Of course.'
Dr. Petrie left Mr. Kelly to find his way to the waiting-room. He pushed through the swing doors outside the emergency unit, and walked down the long, cream-colored corridor until he reached the room he was looking for.
Through the windows, he could see his old friend Dr. Selmer talking to a group of doctors and nurses, and holding up various blood samples. Dr. Petrie rapped on the door.
'How's it going?' he asked, when Dr. Selmer came out. Anton Selmer was a short, gingery-haired man with a broad nose and plentiful freckles. He always put Dr. Petrie in mind of Mickey Rooney. He had a slight astigmatism, and wore heavy horn-rimmed eyeglasses.
Dr. Selmer, in his green surgical robes, pulled a face. 'Well, I don't know about this one, Leonard. I really can't say. We're making some blood and urine and sputum analyses right now. But I'm sure glad you brought him in.'
'Have you any clues at all?'
Dr. Selmer shrugged. 'What can I say? You were right when you said it looked a little like cholera, but it obviously isn't just cholera. The throat and the lungs are seriously infected, and there's swelling around the limbs and the joints. It may be some really rare kind of allergy, but it looks more like a contagious disease. A very virulent disease, too.'
Dr. Petrie rubbed his bristly chin.
'Say,' grinned Dr. Selmer. 'You look as though you've been celebrating something.'
Dr. Petrie gave him half a smile. 'Every divorced man is entitled to celebrate his good fortune once in a while,' he replied. 'Actually, it was the golf club party.'
'By the look of you, I'm not sorry I missed it. You look like death.'
A pretty dark-haired nurse came out of the emergency unit doors and both men watched her walk down the corridor with abstracted interest.
Dr. Petrie said, 'If it's contagious, we'd better see about inoculating the parents. And we'd better find out where he picked it up. Apart from that, I wouldn't mind a shot myself.'
'When we know what it is,' said Selmer, 'we'll inoculate everybody in sight. Jesus, we've just gotten rid of the winter flu epidemic. The last thing I want is an outbreak of cholera.'
'What a great way to start the week,' said Dr. Petrie. 'They don't even live in my district. The guy runs a garage on North West 20th.'
Dr. Selmer took of his green surgical cap. 'I always knew you were the guardian angel for the whole of Miami, Leonard. I can just see you up there on Judgement Day, sitting at God's right hand. Or maybe second from the right.'
Dr. Petrie grinned. 'One of these days, Anton, a bolt of lightning will strike you down for your unbelieving. You know, I bent my goddamn car on the way here. Some son of a bitch in a truck was blocking the street, and I had to drive over the sidewalk. Would you believe he just sat there and lit a cigar?'
Dr. Selmer raised his gingery eyebrows. 'It's the selfish society, Leonard. I'm all right, and screw you Charlie.'
They started to walk together down the corridor. 'I guess that must have been when it happened,' Dr. Selmer said.
'When what happened?'
'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
