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Title: The Little Black Bag
Author: Kornbluth, Cyril M. (1924-1958)
Date of first publication: 1950(Astounding Science Fiction, July issue)
Date first posted: 12 October 2009
Date last updated: 12 October 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #401
This ebook was produced by: Dr. Mark Bear Akrigg
by
C. M. Kornbluth
Old Dr. Full felt the winter in his bones as he limped downthe alley. It was the alley and the back door he had chosenrather than the sidewalk and the front door because of thebrown paper bag under his arm. He knew perfectly well thatthe flat-faced, stringy-haired women of his street and theirgap-toothed, sour-smelling husbands did not notice if hebrought a bottle of cheap wine to his room. They all butlived on the stuff themselves, varied with whiskey when paychecks were boosted by overtime. But Dr. Full, unlike them,was ashamed. A complicated disaster occurred as he limpeddown the littered alley. One of the neighborhood dogs—amean little black one he knew and hated, with its teethalways bared and always snarling with menace—hurled at hislegs through a hole in the board fence that lined his path.Dr. Full flinched, then swung his leg in what was to havebeen a satisfying kick to the animal's gaunt ribs. But thewinter in his bones weighed down the leg. His foot failed toclear a half-buried brick, and he sat down abruptly,cursing. When he smelled unbottled wine and realized hisbrown paper package had slipped from under his arm andsmashed, his curses died on his lips. The snarling black dogwas circling him at a yard's distance, tensely stalking, buthe ignored it in the greater disaster.
With stiff fingers as he sat on the filth of the alley, Dr.Full unfolded the brown paper bag's top, which had beencrimped over, grocer-wise. The early autumnal dusk had come;he could not see plainly what was left. He lifted out thejug-handled top of his half gallon, and some fragments, andthen the bottom of the bottle. Dr. Full was far too occupiedto exult as he noted that there was a good pint left. He hada problem, and emotions could be deferred until the fittingtime.
The dog closed in, its snarl rising in pitch. He set downthe bottom of the bottle and pelted the dog with the curvedtriangular glass fragments of its top. One of themconnected, and the dog ducked back through the fence,howling. Dr. Full then placed a razor-like edge of thehalf-gallon bottle's foundation to his lips and drank fromit as though it were a giant's cup. Twice he had to put itdown to rest his arms, but in one minute he had swallowedthe pint of wine.
He thought of rising to his feet and walking through thealley to his room, but a flood of well-being drowned thenotion. It was, after all, inexpressibly pleasant to sitthere and feel the frost-hardened mud of the alley turnsoft, or seem to, and to feel the winter evaporating fromhis bones under a warmth which spread from his stomachthrough his limbs.
A three-year-old girl in a cut-down winter coat squeezedthrough the same hole in the board fence from which theblack dog had sprung its ambush. Gravely she toddled up toDr. Full and inspected him with her dirty forefinger in hermouth. Dr. Full's happiness had been providentially madecomplete; he had been supplied with an audience.
"Ah, my dear," he said hoarsely. And then: "Preposserousaccusation. 'If that's what you call evidence,' I shouldhave told them, 'you better stick to your doctoring.' Ishould have told them: 'I was here before your CountyMedical Society. And the License Commissioner never proved athing on me. So, gennulmen, doesn't it stand to reason? Iappeal to you as fellow memmers of a great profession—"'
The little girl, bored, moved away, picking up one of thetriangular pieces of glass to play with as she left. Dr.Full forgot her immediately, and continued to himselfearnestly: "But so help me, they couldn't prove a thing.Hasn't a man got any rights?" He brooded over thequestion, of whose answer he was so sure, but on which theCommittee on Ethics of the County Medical Society had beenequally certain. The winter was creeping into his bonesagain, and he had no money and no more wine.
Dr. Full pretended to himself that there was a bottle ofwhiskey somewhere in the fearful litter of his room. It wasan old and cruel trick he played on himself when he simplyhad to be galvanized into getting up and going home. Hemight freeze there in the alley. In his room he would bebitten by bugs and would cough at the moldy reek from hissink, but he would not freeze and be cheated of the hundredsof bottles of wine that he still might drink, the thousandsof hours of glowing content he still might feel. He thoughtabout that bottle of whiskey—was it back of a mounded heapof medical journals? No; he had looked there last time. Wasit under the sink, shoved well to the rear, behind the rustydrain? The cruel trick began to play itself out again. Yes,he told himself with mounting excitement, yes, it might be!Your memory isn't so good nowadays, he told himself withrueful good-fellowship. You know perfectly well you mighthave bought a bottle of whiskey and shoved it behind thesink drain for a moment just like this.
The amber bottle, the crisp snap of the sealing as he cutit, the pleasurable exertion of starting the screw cap onits threads, and then the refreshing tangs in his throat,the warmth in his stomach, the dark, dull happy oblivion ofdrunkenness—they became real to him. You could have, youknow! You could have! he told himself. With the blessedconviction growing in his mind—It could have happened,you know! It could have!—he struggled to his right knee.As he did, he heard a yelp behind him, and curiously cranedhis neck around while resting. It was the little girl, whohad cut her hand quite badly on her toy, the piece of glass.Dr. Full could see the rilling bright blood down her coat,pooling at her feet.
He almost felt inclined to defer the image of the amberbottle for her, but not seriously. He knew that it wasthere, shoved well to the rear under the sink, behind therusty drain where he had hidden it. He would have a drinkand then magnanimously return to help the child. Dr. Fullgot to his other knee and then his feet, and proceeded at arapid totter down the littered alley toward his room, wherehe would hunt with calm optimism at first for the bottlethat was not there, then with anxiety, and then with franticviolence. He would hurl books and dishes about before he wasdone looking for the amber bottle of whiskey, and finallywould beat his swollen knuckles against the brick wall untilold scars on them opened and his thick old blood oozed overhis hands. Last of all, he would sit down somewhere on thefloor, whimpering, and would plunge into the abyss ofpurgative nightmare that was his sleep.
After twenty generations of shilly-shallying and "we'llcross that bridge when we come to it," genus homo had bredhimself into an impasse. Dogged biometricians had pointedout with irrefutable logic that mental subnormals wereoutbreeding mental normals and supernormals, and that theprocess was occurring on an exponential curve. Every factthat could be mustered in the argument proved thebiometricians' case, and led inevitably to the conclusionthat genus homo was going to wind up in a preposterous jamquite soon. If you think that had any effect on breedingpractices, you do not know genus homo.
There was, of course, a sort of masking effect produced bythat other exponential function, the accumulation oftechnological devices. A moron trained to punch an addingmachine seems to be a more skillful computer than a medievalmathematician trained to count on his fingers. A morontrained to operate the twenty-first century equivalent of alinotype seems to be a better typographer than a Renaissanceprinter limited to a few fonts of movable type. This is alsotrue of medical practice.
It was a complicated affair of many factors. Thesupernormals "improved the product" at greater speed thanthe subnormals degraded it, but in smaller quantity becauseelaborate training of their children was practiced on acustom-made basis. The fetish of higher education had someweird avatars by the twentieth generation: "colleges" wherenot a member of the student body could read words of threesyllables; "universities" where such degrees as "Bachelor ofTypewriting," "Master of Shorthand" and "Doctor ofPhilosophy (Card Filing)" were conferred with thetraditional pomp. The handful of supernormals used suchdevices in order that the vast majority might keep somesemblance of a social order going.
Some day the supernormals would mercilessly cross thebridge; at the twentieth generation they were standingirresolutely at its approaches wondering what had hit them.And the ghosts of twenty generations of biometricianschuckled malignantly.
It is a certain Doctor of Medicine of this twentiethgeneration that we are concerned with. His name wasHemingway—John Hemingway, B.Sc., M.D. He was a generalpractitioner, and did not hold with running to specialistswith every trifling ailment. He often said as much, inapproximately these words: "Now, uh, what I mean is you gota good old G.P. See what I mean? Well, uh, now a good oldG.P. don't claim he knows all about lungs and glands andthem things, get me? But you got a G.P., you got, uh, yougot a, well, you got a ... all-around man! That's whatyou got when you got a G.P—you got a all-around man."
But from this, do not imagine that Dr. Hemingway was a poordoctor. He could remove tonsils or appendixes, assist atpractically any confinement and deliver a living, uninjuredinfant, correctly diagnose hundreds of ailments, andprescribe and administer the correct medication or treatmentfor each. There was, in fact, only one thing he could not doin the medical line, and that was, violate the ancientcanons of medical ethics. And Dr. Hemingway knew better thanto try.
Dr. Hemingway and a few friends were chatting one eveningwhen the event occurred that precipitates him into ourstory. He had been through a hard day at the clinic, and hewished his physicist friend Walter Gillis, B.Sc., M.Sc.,Ph.D., would shut up so he could tell everybody about it.But Gillis kept rambling on, in his stilted fashion: "Yougot to hand it to old Mike; he don't have what we call thescientific method, but you got to hand it to him. There thispoor little dope is, puttering around with some glasswareand I come up and I ask him, kidding of course, 'How's abouta time-travel machine, Mike?"'
Dr. Gillis was not aware of it, but "Mike" had an I.Q. sixtimes his own, and was—to be blunt—his keeper. "Mike" rodeherd on the pseudo-physicists in the pseudo-laboratory, inthe guise of a bottle-washer. It was a social waste—but ashas been mentioned before, the supernormals were stillstanding at the approaches to a bridge. Their irresolutionled to many such preposterous situations. And it happensthat "Mike," having grown frantically bored with his task,was malevolent enough to—but let Dr. Gillis tell it:
"So he gives me these here tube numbers and says, 'Seriescircuit. Now stop bothering me. Build your time machine, sitdown at it and turn on the switch. That's all I ask, Dr.Gillis—that's all I ask."'
"Say," marveled a brittle and lovely blonde guest, "youremember real good, don't you, doc?" She gave him a meltingsmile.
"Heck," said Gillis modestly, "I always remember good. It'swhat you call an inherent facility. And besides I told itquick to my secretary, so she wrote it down. I don't read sogood, but I sure remember good, all right. Now, where wasI?"
Everybody thought hard, and there were various suggestions:
"Something about bottles, doc?"
"You was starting a fight. You said 'time somebody wastraveling."'
"Yeah—you called somebody a swish. Who did you call aswish?"
"Not swish—switch."
Dr. Gillis's noble brow grooved with thought, and hedeclared: "Switch is right. It was about time travel. Whatwe call travel through time. So I took the tube numbers hegave me and I put them into the circuit-builder; I set itfor 'series' and there it is—my time-traveling machine. Ittravels things through time real good." He displayed a box.
"What's in the box?" asked the lovely blonde.
Dr. Hemingway told her: "Time travel. It travels thingsthrough time."
"Look," said Gillis, the physicist. He took Dr. Hemingway'slittle black bag and put it on the box. He turned on theswitch and the little black bag vanished.
"Say," said Dr. Hemingway, "that was, uh, swell. Now bringit back."
"Huh?"
"Bring back my little black bag."
"Well," said Dr. Gillis, "they don't come back. I tried itbackwards and they don't come back. I guess maybe that dummyMike give me a bum steer."
There was wholesale condemnation of "Mike" but Dr. Hemingwaytook no part in it. He was nagged by a vague feeling thatthere was something he would have to do. He reasoned: "I ama doctor and a doctor has got to have a little black bag. Iain't got a little black bag—so ain't I a doctor no more?"He decided that this was absurd. He knew he was a doctor.So it must be the bag's fault for not being there. It was nogood, and he would get another one tomorrow from that dummyAl, at the clinic. Al could find things good, but he was adummy—never liked to talk sociable to you.
So the next day Dr. Hemingway remembered to get anotherlittle black bag from his keeper—another little black bagwith which he could perform tonsillectomies, appendectomiesand the most difficult confinements, and with which he coulddiagnose and cure his kind until the day when thesupernormals could bring themselves to cross that bridge. Alwas kinda nasty about the missing little black bag, but Dr.Hemingway didn't exactly remember what had happened, so notracer was sent out, so—
Old Dr. Full awoke from the horrors of the night to thehorrors of the day. His gummy eyelashes pulled apartconvulsively. He was propped against a corner of his room,and something was making a little drumming noise. He feltvery cold and cramped. As his eyes focused on his lowerbody, he croaked out a laugh. The drumming noise was beingmade by his left heel, agitated by fine tremors against thebare floor. It was going to be the D.T.'s again, he decideddispassionately. He wiped his mouth with his bloodyknuckles, and the fine tremor coarsened; the snare-drum beatbecame louder and slower. He was getting a break this finemorning, he decided sardonically. You didn't get the horrorsuntil you had been tightened like a violin string, just tothe breaking point. He had a reprieve, if a reprieve intohis old body with the blazing, endless headache just back ofthe eyes and the screaming stiffness in the joints wereanything to be thankful for.
There was something or other about a kid, he thoughtvaguely. He was going to doctor some kid. His eyes rested ona little black bag in the center of the room, and he forgotabout the kid. "I could have sworn," said Dr. Full, "Ihocked that two years ago!" He hitched over and reached thebag, and then realized it was some stranger's kit, arrivinghere he did not know how. He tentatively touched the lockand it snapped open and lay flat, rows and rows ofinstruments and medications tucked into loops in its fourwalls. It seemed vastly larger open than closed. He didn'tsee how it could possibly fold up into that compact sizeagain, but decided it was some stunt of the instrumentmakers. Since his time—that made it worth more at the hockshop, he thought with satisfaction.
Just for old times' sake, he let his eyes and fingers roveover the instruments before he snapped the bag shut andheaded for Uncle's. More than a few were a little hard torecognize—exactly, that is. You could see the things withblades for cutting, the forceps for holding and pulling, theretractors for holding fast, the needles and gut forsuturing, the hypos—a fleeting thought crossed his mindthat he could peddle the hypos separately to drug addicts.
Let's go, he decided, and tried to fold up the case. Itdidn't fold until he happened to touch the lock, and then itfolded all at once into a little black bag. Sure have forgedahead, he thought, almost able to forget that what he wasprimarily interested in was its pawn value.
With a definite objective, it was not too hard for him toget to his feet. He decided to go down the front steps, outthe front door and down the sidewalk. But first—
He snapped the bag open again on his kitchen table, andpored through the medication tubes. "Anything to sock theautonomic nervous system good and hard," he mumbled. Thetubes were numbered, and there was a plastic card whichseemed to list them. The left margin of the card was arun-down of the systems—vascular, muscular, nervous. Hefollowed the last entry across to the right. There werecolumns for "stimulant," "depressant," and so on. Under"nervous system" and "depressant" he found the number 17,and shakily located the little glass tube which bore it. Itwas full of pretty blue pills and he took one.
It was like being struck by a thunderbolt.
Dr. Full had so long lacked any sense of well-being exceptthe brief glow of alcohol that he had forgotten its verynature. He was panic-stricken for a long moment at thesensation that spread through him slowly, finally tinglingin his fingertips. He straightened up, his pains gone andhis leg tremor stilled.
That was great, he thought. He'd be able to run to thehock shop, pawn the little black bag and get some booze. Hestarted down the stairs. Not even the street, bright withmid-morning sun, into which he emerged made him quail. Thelittle black bag in his left hand had a satisfying,authoritative weight. He was walking erect, he noted, andnot in the somewhat furtive crouch that had grown on him inrecent years. A little self-respect, he told himself, that'swhat I need. Just because a man's down doesn't mean—
"Docta, please-a come wit'!" somebody yelled at him, tugginghis arm. "Da litt-la girl, she's-a burn' up!" It was one ofthe slum's innumerable flat-faced, stringy-haired women, ina slovenly wrapper.
"Ah, I happen to be retired from practice—" he beganhoarsely, but she would not be put off.
"In by here, Docta!" she urged, tugging him to a doorway."You come look-a da litt-la girl. I got two dolla, you comelook!" That put a different complexion on the matter. Heallowed himself to be towed through the doorway into amussy, cabbage-smelling flat. He knew the woman now, orrather knew who she must be—a new arrival who had moved inthe other night. These people moved at night, in motorcadesof battered cars supplied by friends and relations, withfurniture lashed to the tops, swearing and drinking untilthe small hours. It explained why she had stopped him: shedid not yet know he was old Dr. Full, a drunken reprobatewhom nobody would trust. The little black bag had been hisguarantee, outweighing his whiskery face and stained blacksuit.
He was looking down on a three-year-old girl who had, herather suspected, just been placed in the mathematicalcenter of a freshly changed double bed. God knew what sourand dirty mattress she usually slept on. He seemed torecognize her as he noted a crusted bandage on her righthand. Two dollars, he thought— An ugly flush had spread upher pipe-stem arm. He poked a finger into the socket of herelbow, and felt little spheres like marbles under the skinand ligaments roll apart. The child began to squall thinly;beside him, the woman gasped and began to weep herself.
"Out," he gestured briskly at her, and she thudded away,still sobbing.
Two dollars, he thought— Give her some mumbo jumbo, take themoney and tell her to go to a clinic. Strep, I guess, fromthat stinking alley. It's a wonder any of them grow up. Heput down the little black bag and forgetfully fumbled forhis key, then remembered and touched the lock. It flew open,and he selected a bandage shears, with a blunt wafer for thelower jaw. He fitted the lower jaw under the bandage, tryingnot to hurt the kid by its pressure on the infection, andbegan to cut. It was amazing how easily and swiftly theshining shears snipped through the crusty rag around thewound. He hardly seemed to be driving the shears withfingers at all. It almost seemed as though the shears weredriving his fingers instead as they scissored a clean, lightline through the bandage.
Certainly have forged ahead since my time, hethought—sharper than a microtome knife. He replaced theshears in their loop on the extraordinarily big board thatthe little black bag turned into when it unfolded, andleaned over the wound. He whistled at the ugly gash, and theviolent infection which had taken immediate root in thesickly child's thin body. Now what can you do with a thinglike that? He pawed over the contents of the little blackbag, nervously. If he lanced it and let some of the pus out,the old woman would think he'd done something for her andhe'd get the two dollars. But at the clinic they'd want toknow who did it and if they got sore enough they might senda cop around. Maybe there was something in the kit—
He ran down the left edge of the card to "lymphatic" andread across to the column under "infection." It didn't soundright at all to him; he checked again, but it still saidthat. In the square to which the line and column led werethe symbols: "IV-g-3cc." He couldn't find any bottles markedwith Roman numerals, and then noticed that that was how thehypodermic needles were designated. He lifted number IV fromits loop, noting that it was fitted with a needle alreadyand even seemed to be charged. What a way to carry thosethings around! So—three cc. of whatever was in hypo numberIV ought to do something or other about infections settledin the lymphatic system—which, God knows, this one was.What did the lower-case "g" mean, though? He studied theglass hypo and saw letters engraved on what looked like arotating disk at the top of the barrel. They ran from "a" to"i," and there was an index line engraved on the barrel onthe opposite side from the calibrations.
Shrugging, old Dr. Full turned the disk until "g" coincidedwith the index line, and lifted the hypo to eye level. As hepressed in the plunger he did not see the tiny thread offluid squirt from the tip of the needle. There was a sort ofdark mist for a moment about the tip. A closer inspectionshowed that the needle was not even pierced at the tip. Ithad the usual slanting cut across the bias of the shaft, butthe cut did not expose an oval hole. Baffled, he triedpressing the plunger again. Again something appearedaround the tip and vanished. "We'll settle this," said thedoctor. He slipped the needle into the skin of his forearm.He thought at first that he had missed—that the point hadglided over the top of his skin instead of catching andslipping under it. But he saw a tiny blood-spot and realizedthat somehow he just hadn't felt the puncture. Whatever wasin the barrel, he decided, couldn't do him any harm if itlived up to its billing—and if it could come out through aneedle that had no hole. He gave himself three cc. andtwitched the needle out. There was the swelling—painless,but otherwise typical.
Dr. Full decided it was his eyes or something, and gavethree cc. of "g" from hypodermic IV to the feverish child.There was no interruption to her wailing as the needle wentin and the swelling rose. But a long instant later, she gavea final gasp and was silent.
Well, he told himself, cold with horror, you did it thattime. You killed her with that stuff.
Then the child sat up and said: "Where's my mommy?"
Incredulously, the doctor seized her arm and palpated theelbow. The gland infection was zero, and the temperatureseemed normal. The blood-congested tissues surrounding thewound were subsiding as he watched. The child's pulse wasstronger and no faster than a child's should be. In thesudden silence of the room he could hear the little girl'smother sobbing in her kitchen, outside. And he also heard agirl's insinuating voice:
"She gonna be O.K., doc?"
He turned and saw a gaunt-faced, dirty-blonde sloven ofperhaps eighteen leaning in the doorway and eyeing him withamused contempt. She continued: "I heard about you,Doc-tor Full. So don't go try and put the bite on the oldlady. You couldn't doctor up a sick cat."
"Indeed?" he rumbled. This young person was going to get alesson she richly deserved. "Perhaps you would care to lookat my patient?"
"Where's my mommy?" insisted the little girl, and theblonde's jaw fell. She went to the bed and cautiously asked:"You O.K. now, Teresa? You all fixed up?"
"Where's my mommy?" demanded Teresa. Then, accusingly, shegestured with her wounded hand at the doctor. "You pokeme!" she complained, and giggled pointlessly.
"Well—" said the blonde girl, "I guess I got to hand it toyou, doc. These loud-mouth women around here said you didn'tknow your ... I mean, didn't know how to cure people. Theysaid you ain't a real doctor."
"I have retired from practice," he said. "But I happenedto be taking this case to a colleague as a favor, your goodmother noticed me, and—" a deprecating smile. He touchedthe lock of the case and it folded up into the little blackbag again.
"You stole it," the girl said flatly.
He sputtered.
"Nobody'd trust you with a thing like that. It must be worthplenty. You stole that case. I was going to stop you when Icome in and saw you working over Teresa, but it looked likeyou wasn't doing her any harm. But when you give me thatline about taking that case to a colleague I know you stoleit. You gimme a cut or I go to the cops. A thing like thatmust be worth twenty—thirty dollars."
The mother came timidly in, her eyes red. But she let out awhoop of joy when she saw the little girl sitting up andbabbling to herself, embraced her madly, fell on her kneesfor a quick prayer, hopped up to kiss the doctor's hand, andthen dragged him into the kitchen, all the while rattling inher native language while the blonde girl let her eyes gocold with disgust. Dr. Full allowed himself to be towed intothe kitchen, but flatly declined a cup of coffee and a plateof anise cakes and St. John's Bread.
"Try him on some wine, ma," said the girl sardonically.
"Hyass! Hyass!" breathed the woman delightedly. "You like-awine, docta?" She had a carafe of purplish liquid before himin an instant, and the blonde girl snickered as the doctor'shand twitched out at it. He drew his hand back, while theregrew in his head the old image of how it would smell andthen taste and then warm his stomach and limbs. He made thekind of calculation at which he was practiced; the delightedwoman would not notice as he downed two tumblers, and hecould overawe her through two tumblers more with his tale ofTeresa's narrow brush with the Destroying Angel, andthen—why, then it would not matter. He would be drunk.
But for the first time in years, there was a sort ofcounter-image: a blend of the rage he felt at the blondegirl to whom he was so transparent, and of pride at the curehe had just effected. Much to his own surprise, he drew backhis hand from the carafe and said, luxuriating in the words:"No, thank you. I don't believe I'd care for any so early inthe day." He covertly watched the blonde girl's face, andwas gratified at her surprise. Then the mother was shylyhanding him two bills and saying: "Is no much-a money,docta—but you come again, see Teresa?"
"I shall be glad to follow the case through," he said. "Butnow excuse me—I really must be running along." He graspedthe little black bag firmly and got up; he wanted very muchto get away from the wine and the older girl.
"Wait up, doc," said she. "I'm going your way." She followedhim out and down the street. He ignored her until he felther hand on the black bag. Then old Dr. Full stopped andtried to reason with her:
"Look, my dear. Perhaps you're right. I might have stolenit. To be perfectly frank, I don't remember how I got it.But you're young and you can earn your own money—
"Fifty-fifty," she said, "or I go to the cops. And if I getanother word outta you, it's sixty-forty. And you know whogets the short end, don't you, doc?"
Defeated, he marched to the pawnshop, her impudent handstill on the handle with his, and her heels beating out atattoo against his stately tread.
In the pawnshop, they both got a shock.
"It ain't stendard," said Uncle, unimpressed by theingenious lock. "I ain't nevva seen one like it. Some cheapJap stuff, maybe? Try down the street. This I nevva couldsell."
Down the street they got an offer of one dollar. The samecomplaint was made: "I ain't a collecta, mista—I buy stuffthat got resale value. Who could I sell this to, a Chinamanwho don't know medical instruments? Every one of them looksfunny. You sure you didn't make these yourself?" They didn'ttake the one-dollar offer.
The girl was baffled and angry; the doctor was baffled too,but triumphant. He had two dollars, and the girl had ahalf-interest in something nobody wanted. But, he suddenlymarveled, the thing had been all right to cure the kid,hadn't it?
"Well," he asked her, "do you give up? As you see, the kitis practically valueless."
She was thinking hard. "Don't fly off the handle, doc. Idon't get this but something's going on all right ... wouldthose guys know good stuff if they saw it?"
"They would. They make a living from it. Wherever this kitcame from—"
She seized on that, with a devilish faculty she seemed tohave of eliciting answers without asking questions. "Ithought so. You don't know either, huh? Well, maybe I canfind out for you. C'mon in here. I ain't letting go of thatthing. There's money in it—some way, I don't know how,there's money in it." He followed her into a cafeteria andto an almost-empty corner. She was oblivious to stares andsnickers from the other customers as she opened the littleblack bag—it almost covered a cafeteria table—and ferretedthrough it. She picked out a retractor from a loop,scrutinized it, contemptuously threw it down, picked out aspeculum, threw it down, picked out the lower half of anO.B. forceps, turned it over, close to her sharp youngeyes—and saw what the doctor's dim old ones could not haveseen.
All old Dr. Full knew was that she was peering at the neckof the forceps and then turned white. Very carefully, sheplaced the half of the forceps back in its loop of cloth andthen replaced the retractor and the speculum. "Well?" heasked. "What did you see?"
"'Made in U.S.A.'" she quoted hoarsely. "'Patent Applied forJuly 2450.'"
He wanted to tell her she must have misread the inscription,that it must be a practical joke, that—
But he knew she had read correctly. Those bandage shears:they had driven his fingers, rather than his fingersdriving them. The hypo needle that had no hole. The prettyblue pill that had struck him like a thunderbolt.
"You know what I'm going to do?" asked the girl, with suddenanimation. "I'm going to go to charm school. You'll likethat, won't ya, doc? Because we're sure going to be seeing alot of each other."
Old Dr. Full didn't answer. His hands had been playing idlywith that plastic card from the kit on which had beenprinted the rows and columns that had guided him twicebefore. The card had a slight convexity; you could snap theconvexity back and forth from one side to the other. Henoted, in a daze, that with each snap a different textappeared on the cards. Snap. "The knife with the blue dotin the handle is for tumors only. Diagnose tumors with yourInstrument Seven, the Swelling Tester. Place the SwellingTester—" Snap. "An overdose of the pink pills in Bottle3 can be fixed with one white pill from Bottle—" Snap."Hold the suture needle by the end without the hole in it.Touch it to one end of the wound you want to close and letgo. After it has made the knot, touch it—" Snap. "Placethe top half of the O.B. Forceps near the opening. Let go.After it has entered and conformed to the shape of—"Snap.
The slot man saw "FLANNERY 1—MEDICAL" in the upper leftcorner of the hunk of copy. He automatically scribbled "trimto .75" on it and skimmed it across the horseshoe-shapedcopy desk to Piper, who had been handling Edna Flannery'squack-expos� series. She was a nice youngster, he thought,but like all youngsters she over-wrote. Hence, the "trim."
Piper dealt back a city hall story to the slot, pinned downFlannery's feature with one hand and began to tap his pencilacross it, one tap to a word, at the same steady beat as ateletype carriage traveling across the roller. He wasn'texactly reading it this first time. He was just looking atthe letters and words to find out whether, as letters andwords, they conformed to Herald style. The steady tap ofhis pencil ceased at intervals as it drew a black lineending with a stylized letter "d" through the word "breast"and scribbled in "chest" instead, or knocked down thecapital "E" in "East" to lower case with a diagonal, orclosed up a split word—in whose middle Flannery had bumpedthe space bar of her typewriter—with two curved lines likeparentheses rotated through ninety degrees. The thick blackpencil zipped a ring around the "30" which, like allyoungsters, she put at the end of her stories. He turnedback to the first page for the second reading. This time thepencil drew lines with the stylized "d's" at the end of themthrough adjectives and whole phrases, printed big "L's" tomark paragraphs, hooked some of Flannery's own paragraphstogether with swooping recurved lines.
At the bottom of "FLANNERY ADD 2—MEDICAL" the pencil sloweddown and stopped. The slot man, sensitive to the rhythm ofhis beloved copy desk, looked up almost at once. He sawPiper squinting at the story, at a loss. Without wastingwords, the copy reader skimmed it back across the Masonitehorseshoe to the chief, caught a police story in return andbuckled down, his pencil tapping. The slot man read as faras the fourth add, barked at Howard, on the rim: "Sit in forme," and stumped through the clattering city room toward thealcove where the managing editor presided over his ownbedlam.
The copy chief waited his turn while the make-up editor, thepressroom foreman and the chief photographer had words withthe M.E. When his turn came, he dropped Flannery's copy onhis desk and said: "She says this one isn't a quack."
The M.E. read:
"FLANNERY 1—MEDICAL, by Edna Flannery, Herald StaffWriter.
"The sordid tale of medical quackery which the Herald hasexposed in this series of articles undergoes a change ofpace today which the reporter found a welcome surprise. Herquest for the facts in the case of today's subject startedjust the same way that her exposure of one dozen shysterM.D.'s and faith-healing phonies did. But she can report fora change that Dr. Bayard Full is, despite unorthodoxpractices which have drawn the suspicion of the rightlyhypersensitive medical associations, a true healer living upto the highest ideals of his profession.
"Dr. Full's name was given to the Herald's reporter bythe ethical committee of a county medical association, whichreported that he had been expelled from the association onJuly 18, 1941 for allegedly 'milking' several patientssuffering from trivial complaints. According to swornstatements in the committee's files, Dr. Full had told themthey suffered from cancer, and that he had a treatment whichwould prolong their lives. After his expulsion from theassociation, Dr. Full dropped out of their sight—until heopened a midtown 'sanitarium' in a brownstone front whichhad for years served as a rooming house.
"The Herald's reporter went to that sanitarium, on East89th Street, with the full expectation of having numerousimaginary ailments diagnosed and of being promised a surecure for a flat sum of money. She expected to find unkemptquarters, dirty instruments and the mumbo-jumboparaphernalia of the shyster M.D. which she had seen a dozentimes before.
"She was wrong.
"Dr. Full's sanitarium is spotlessly clean, from itstastefully furnished entrance hall to its shining, whitetreatment rooms. The attractive, blonde receptionist whogreeted the reporter was soft-spoken and correct, askingonly the reporter's name, address and the general nature ofher complaint. This was given, as usual, as 'naggingbackache.' The receptionist asked the Herald's reporterto be seated, and a short while later conducted her to asecond-floor treatment room and introduced her to Dr. Full.
"Dr. Full's alleged past, as described by the medicalsociety spokesman, is hard to reconcile with his presentappearance. He is a clear-eyed, white-haired man in hissixties, to judge by his appearance—a little above middleheight and apparently in good physical condition. His voicewas firm and friendly, untainted by the ingratiating whineof the shyster M.D. which the reporter has come to know toowell.
"The receptionist did not leave the room as he began hisexamination after a few questions as to the nature andlocation of the pain. As the reporter lay face down on atreatment table the doctor pressed some instrument to thesmall of her back. In about one minute he made thisastounding statement: 'Young woman, there is no reason foryou to have any pain where you say you do. I understandthey're saying nowadays that emotional upsets cause painslike that. You'd better go to a psychologist or psychiatristif the pain keeps up. There is no physical cause for it, soI can do nothing for you.'
"His frankness took the reporter's breath away. Had heguessed she was, so to speak, a spy in his camp? She triedagain: 'Well, doctor, perhaps you'd give me a physicalcheckup. I feel run-down all the time, besides the pains.Maybe I need a tonic.' This is never-failing bait to shysterM.D.'s—an invitation for them to find all sorts ofmysterious conditions wrong with a patient, each of which'requires' an expensive treatment. As explained in the firstarticle of this series, of course, the reporter underwent athorough physical checkup before she embarked on herquack-hunt, and was found to be in one hundred percentperfect condition, with the exception of a 'scarred' area atthe bottom tip of her left lung resulting from a childhoodattack of tuberculosis and a tendency toward'hyperthyroidism'—overactivity of the thyroid gland whichmakes it difficult to put on weight and sometimes causes aslight shortness of breath.
"Dr. Full consented to perform the examination, and took anumber of shining, spotlessly clean instruments from loopsin a large board literally covered with instruments—most ofthem unfamiliar to the reporter. The instrument with whichhe approached first was a tube with a curved dial in itssurface and two wires that ended on flat disks growing fromits ends. He placed one of the disks on the back of thereporter's right hand and the other on the back of her left.'Reading the meter,' he called out some number which theattentive receptionist took down on a ruled form. The sameprocedure was repeated several times, thoroughly coveringthe reporter's anatomy and thoroughly convincing her thatthe doctor was a complete quack. The reporter had never seenany such diagnostic procedure practiced during the weeks sheput in preparing for this series.
"The doctor then took the ruled sheet from the receptionist,conferred with her in low tones and said: 'You have aslightly overactive thyroid, young woman. And there'ssomething wrong with your left lung—not seriously, but I'dlike to take a closer look.'
"He selected an instrument from the board which, thereporter knew, is called a 'speculum'—a scissorlike devicewhich spreads apart body openings such as the orifice of theear, the nostril and so on, so that a doctor can look induring an examination. The instrument was, however, toolarge to be an aural or nasal speculum but too small to beanything else. As the Herald's reporter was about to askfurther questions, the attending receptionist told her:'It's customary for us to blindfold our patients during lungexaminations—do you mind?' The reporter, bewildered,allowed her to tie a spotlessly clean bandage over her eyes,and waited nervously for what would come next.
"She still cannot say exactly what happened while she wasblindfolded—but X rays confirm her suspicions. She felt acold sensation at her ribs on the left side—a cold thatseemed to enter inside her body. Then there was a snappingfeeling, and the cold sensation was gone. She heard Dr. Fullsay in a matter-of-fact voice: 'You have an old tubercularscar down there. It isn't doing any particular harm, but anactive person like you needs all the oxygen she can get. Liestill and I'll fix it for you.'
"Then there was a repetition of the cold sensation, lastingfor a longer time. 'Another batch of alveoli and some morevascular glue,' the Herald's reporter heard Dr. Full say,and the receptionist's crisp response to the order. Then thestrange sensation departed and the eye-bandage was removed.The reporter saw no scar on her ribs, and yet the doctorassured her: 'That did it. We took out the fibrosis—and agood fibrosis it was, too; it walled off the infection soyou're still alive to tell the tale. Then we planted a fewclumps of alveoli—they're the little gadgets that get theoxygen from the air you breathe into your blood. I won'tmonkey with your thyroxin supply. You've got used to beingthe kind of person you are, and if you suddenly foundyourself easygoing and all the rest of it, chances are you'donly be upset. About the backache: just check with thecounty medical society for the name of a good psychologistor psychiatrist. And look out for quacks; the woods are fullof them.'
"The doctor's self-assurance took the reporter's breathaway. She asked what the charge would be, and was told topay the receptionist fifty dollars. As usual, the reporterdelayed paying until she got a receipt signed by the doctorhimself, detailing the services for which it paid. Unlikemost, the doctor cheerfully wrote: 'For removal of fibrosisfrom left lung and restoration of alveoli,' and signed it.
"The reporter's first move when she left the sanitarium wasto head for the chest specialist who had examined her inpreparation for this series. A comparison of X rays taken onthe day of the 'operation' and those taken previously would,the Herald's reporter then thought, expose Dr. Full as aprince of shyster M.D.'s and quacks.
"The chest specialist made time on his crowded schedule forthe reporter, in whose series he has shown a lively interestfrom the planning stage on. He laughed uproariously in hisstaid Park Avenue examining room as she described the weirdprocedure to which she had been subjected. But he did notlaugh when he took a chest X ray of the reporter, developedit, dried it, and compared it with the ones he had takenearlier. The chest specialist took six more X rays thatafternoon, but finally admitted that they all told the samestory. The Herald's reporter has it on his authority thatthe scar she had eighteen days ago from her tuberculosis isnow gone and has been replaced by healthy lung-tissue. Hedeclares that this is a happening unparalleled in medicalhistory. He does not go along with the reporter in her firmconviction that Dr. Full is responsible for the change.
"The Herald's reporter, however, sees no two ways aboutit. She concludes that Dr. Bayard Full—whatever his allegedpast may have been—is now an unorthodox but highlysuccessful practitioner of medicine, to whose hands thereporter would trust herself in any emergency.
"Not so is the case of 'Rev.' Annie Dimsworth—a femaleharpy who, under the guise of 'faith' preys on the ignorantand suffering who come to her sordid 'healing parlor' forhelp and remain to feed 'Rev.' Annie's bank account, whichnow totals up to $53,238.64. Tomorrow's article will show,with photostats of bank statements and sworn testimonythat—"
The managing editor turned down "FLANNERY LAST ADD—MEDICAL"and tapped his front teeth with a pencil, trying to thinkstraight. He finally told the copy chief: "Kill the story.Run the teaser as a box." He tore off the lastparagraph—the "teaser" about "Rev." Annie—and handed it tothe desk man, who stumped back to his Masonite horseshoe.
The make-up editor was back, dancing with impatience as hetried to catch the M.E.'s eye. The interphone buzzed withthe red light which indicated that the editor and publisherwanted to talk to him. The M.E. thought briefly of aspecial series on this Dr. Full, decided nobody wouldbelieve it and that he probably was a phony anyway. Hespiked the story on the "dead" hook and answered hisinterphone.
Dr. Full had become almost fond of Angie. As his practicehad grown to engross the neighborhood illnesses, and then toa corner suite in an uptown taxpayer building, and finallyto the sanitarium, she seemed to have grown with it. Oh, hethought, we have our little disputes—
The girl, for instance, was too much interested in money.She had wanted to specialize in cosmetic surgery—removingwrinkles from wealthy old women and whatnot. She didn'trealize, at first, that a thing like this was in theirtrust, that they were the stewards and not the owners of thelittle black bag and its fabulous contents.
He had tried, ever so cautiously, to analyze them, butwithout success. All the instruments were slightlyradioactive, for instance, but not quite so. They would makea Geiger-M�ller counter indicate, but they would notcollapse the leaves of an electroscope. He didn't pretend tobe up on the latest developments, but as he understood it,that was just plain wrong. Under the highestmagnification there were lines on the instruments'superfinished surfaces: incredibly fine lines, engraved inrandom hatchments which made no particular sense. Theirmagnetic properties were preposterous. Sometimes theinstruments were strongly attracted to magnets, sometimesless so, and sometimes not at all.
Dr. Full had taken X rays in fear and trembling lest hedisrupt whatever delicate machinery worked in them. He wassure they were not solid, that the handles and perhapsthe blades must be mere shells filled with busy littlewatchworks—but the X rays showed nothing of the sort. Oh,yes—and they were always sterile, and they wouldn't rust.Dust fell off them if you shook them: now, that wassomething he understood. They ionized the dust, or wereionized themselves, or something of the sort. At any rate,he had read of something similar that had to do withphonograph records.
She wouldn't know about that, he proudly thought. Shekept the books well enough, and perhaps she gave him auseful prod now and then when he was inclined to settledown. The move from the neighborhood slum to the uptownquarters had been her idea, and so had the sanitarium. Good,good, it enlarged his sphere of usefulness. Let the childhave her mink coats and her convertible, as they seemed tobe calling roadsters nowadays. He himself was too busy andtoo old. He had so much to make up for.
Dr. Full thought happily of his Master Plan. She would notlike it much, but she would have to see the logic of it.This marvelous thing that had happened to them must behanded on. She was herself no doctor; even though theinstruments practically ran themselves, there was more todoctoring than skill. There were the ancient canons of thehealing art. And so, having seen the logic of it, Angiewould yield; she would assent to his turning over the littleblack bag to all humanity.
He would probably present it to the College of Surgeons,with as little fuss as possible—well, perhaps a smallceremony, and he would like a souvenir of the occasion, acup or a framed testimonial. It would be a relief to havethe thing out of his hands, in a way; let the giants of thehealing art decide who was to have its benefits. No, Angiewould understand. She was a goodhearted girl.
It was nice that she had been showing so much interest inthe surgical side lately—asking about the instruments,reading the instruction card for hours, even practicing onguinea pigs. If something of his love for humanity had beencommunicated to her, old Dr. Full sentimentally thought, hislife would not have been in vain. Surely she would realizethat a greater good would be served by surrendering theinstruments to wiser hands than theirs, and by throwingaside the cloak of secrecy necessary to work on their smallscale.
Dr. Full was in the treatment room that had been thebrownstone's front parlor; through the window he saw Angle'syellow convertible roll to a stop before the stoop. He likedthe way she looked as she climbed the stairs; neat, notflashy, he thought. A sensible girl like her, she'dunderstand. There was somebody with her—a fat woman,puffing up the steps, overdressed and petulant. Now, whatcould she want?
Angie let herself in and went into the treatment room,followed by the fat woman. "Doctor," said the blonde girlgravely, "may I present Mrs. Coleman?" Charm school had nottaught her everything, but Mrs. Coleman, evidently nouveauriche, thought the doctor, did not notice the blunder.
"Miss Aquella told me so much about you, doctor, and yourremarkable system!" she gushed.
Before he could answer, Angie smoothly interposed: "Wouldyou excuse us for just a moment, Mrs. Coleman?"
She took the doctor's arm and led him into the receptionhall. "Listen," she said swiftly, "I know this goes againstyour grain, but I couldn't pass it up. I met this old thingin the exercise class at Elizabeth Barton's. Nobody else'lltalk to her there. She's a widow. I guess her husband was ablack marketeer or something, and she has a pile of dough. Igave her a line about how you had a system of massagingwrinkles out. My idea is, you blindfold her, cut her neckopen with the Cutaneous Series knife, shoot some Firmol intothe muscles, spoon out some of that blubber with an AdiposeSeries curette and spray it all with Skintite. When you takethe blindfold off she's got rid of a wrinkle and doesn'tknow 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 totell her about the Master Plan before long anyway. He wouldlet her have it her way this time.
Back in the treatment room, Mrs. Coleman had been thinkingthings over. She told the doctor sternly as he entered: "Ofcourse, your system is permanent, isn't it?"
"It is, madam," he said shortly. "Would you please lie downthere? Miss Aquella, get a sterile three-inch bandage forMrs. Coleman's eyes." He turned his back on the fat woman toavoid conversation, and pretended to be adjusting thelights. Angie blindfolded the woman, and the doctor selectedthe instruments he would need. He handed the blonde girl apair of retractors, and told her: "Just slip the corners ofthe blades in as I cut—" She gave him an alarmed look, andgestured at the reclining woman. He lowered his voice: "Verywell. 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 headjusted the little slide for three centimeters depth. Hesighed a little as he recalled that its last use had been inthe extirpation of an "inoperable" tumor of the throat.
"Very well," he said, bending over the woman. He tried atentative pass through her tissues. The blade dipped in andflowed through them, like a finger through quicksilver, withno wound left in the wake. Only the retractors could holdthe edges of the incision apart.
Mrs. Coleman stirred and jabbered: "Doctor, that felt sopeculiar! Are you sure you're rubbing the right way?"
"Quite sure, madam," said the doctor wearily. "Would youplease try not to talk during the massage?"
He nodded at Angie, who stood ready with the retractors. Theblade sank in to its three centimeters, miraculously cuttingonly the dead horny tissues of the epidermis and the livetissue of the dermis, pushing aside mysteriously all majorand minor blood vessels and muscular tissue, declining toaffect any system or organ except the one it was—tuned to,could you say? The doctor didn't know the answer, but hefelt tired and bitter at this prostitution. Angie slipped inthe retractor blades and rocked them as he withdrew theknife, then pulled to separate the lips of the incision. Itbloodlessly exposed an unhealthy string of muscle, saggingin a dead-looking loop from blue-grey ligaments. The doctortook a hypo, number IX, pre-set to "g" and raised it to hiseye level. The mist came and went. There probably was nopossibility of an embolus with one of these gadgets, but whytake chances? He shot one cc. of "g"—identified as "Firmol"by the card—into the muscle. He and Angie watched as ittightened up against the pharynx.
He took the Adipose Series curette, a small one, and spoonedout yellowish tissue, dropping it into the incinerator box,and then nodded to Angie. She eased out the retractors andthe 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 intothe new firm throat line.
As he replaced the instruments, Angie removed Mrs. Coleman'sbandage and gayly announced: "We're finished! And there's amirror in the reception hall—"
Mrs. Coleman didn't need to be invited twice. Withincredulous fingers she felt her chin, and then dashed forthe hall. The doctor grimaced as he heard her yelp ofdelight, and Angie turned to him with a tight smile. "I'llget the money and get her out," she said. "You won't have tobe bothered with her any more."
He was grateful for that much.
She followed Mrs. Coleman into the reception hall, and thedoctor dreamed over the case of instruments. A ceremony,certainly—he was entitled to one. Not everybody, hethought, would turn such a sure source of money over to thegood of humanity. But you reached an age when money matteredless, and when you thought of these things you had done thatmight be open to misunderstanding if, just if, therechanced to be any of that, well, that judgment business. Thedoctor wasn't a religious man, but you certainly foundyourself thinking hard about some things when your time drewnear—
Angie was back, with a bit of paper in her hands. "Fivehundred dollars," she said matter-of-factly. "And yourealize, don't you, that we could go over her an inch at atime—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'mtired now."
"No—I really feel we've gone far enough on our own. Theinstruments—"
"Don't say it, doc!" she hissed. "Don't say it, or you'll besorry!" In her face there was a look that reminded him ofthe hollow-eyed, gaunt-faced, dirty-blonde creature she hadbeen. From under the charm-school finish there burned theguttersnipe whose infancy had been spent on a sour andfilthy mattress, whose childhood had been play in thelittered alley and whose adolescence had been the sweatshopsand the aimless gatherings at night under the glaring streetlamps.
He shook his head to dispel the puzzling notion. "It's thisway," he patiently began. "I told you about the family thatinvented the O.B. forceps and kept them a secret for so manygenerations, how they could have given them to the world butdidn't?"
"They knew what they were doing," said the guttersnipeflatly.
"Well, that's neither here nor there," said the doctor,irritated. "My mind is made up about it. I'm going to turnthe instruments over to the College of Surgeons. We haveenough money to be comfortable. You can even have the house.I've been thinking of going to a warmer climate, myself." Hefelt peeved with her for making the unpleasant scene. He wasunprepared for what happened next.
Angie snatched the little black bag and dashed for the door,with panic in her eyes. He scrambled after her, catching herarm, twisting it in a sudden rage. She clawed at his facewith her free hand, babbling curses. Somehow, somebody'sfinger touched the little black bag, and it openedgrotesquely into the enormous board, covered with shininginstruments, large and small. Half a dozen of them joggledloose and fell to the floor.
"Now see what you've done!" roared the doctor,unreasonably. Her hand was still viselike on the handle, butshe was standing still, trembling with choked-up rage. Thedoctor bent stiffly to pick up the fallen instruments.Unreasonable girl! he thought bitterly. Making a scene—
Pain drove in between his shoulderblades and he fellface-down. The light ebbed. "Unreasonable girl!" he tried tocroak. And then: "They'll know I tried, anyway—
Angie looked down on his prone body, with the handle of theNumber Six Cautery Series knife protruding from it. "—willcut through all tissues. Use for amputations before youspread on the Re-Gro. Extreme caution should be used in thevicinity of vital organs and major blood vessels or nervetrunks—"
"I didn't mean to do that," said Angie, dully, cold withhorror. Now the detective would come, the implacabledetective who would reconstruct the crime from the dust inthe room. She would run and turn and twist, but thedetective would find her out and she would be tried in acourtroom before a judge and jury; the lawyer would makespeeches, but the jury would convict her anyway, and theheadlines would scream:"BLONDE KILLER GUILTY!" and she'dmaybe get the chair, walking down a plain corridor where abeam of sunlight struck through the dusty air, with an irondoor at the end of it. Her mink, her convertible, herdresses, the handsome man she was going to meet and marry—
The mist of cinematic clich�s cleared, and she knew what shewould do next. Quite steadily, she picked the incineratorbox from its loop in the board—a metal cube with adifferent-textured spot on one side. "—to dispose offibroses or other unwanted matter, simply touch the disk—"You dropped something in and touched the disk. There was asort of soundless whistle, very powerful and unpleasant ifyou were too close, and a sort of lightless flash. When youopened the box again, the contents were gone. Angie tookanother of the Cautery Series knives and went grimly towork. Good thing there wasn't any blood to speak of— Shefinished the awful task in three hours.
She slept heavily that night, totally exhausted by thewringing emotional demands of the slaying and the subsequenthorror. But in the morning, it was as though the doctor hadnever been there. She ate breakfast, dressed with unusualcare—and then undid the unusual care. Nothing out of theordinary, she told herself. Don't do one thing differentfrom the way you would have done it before. After a day ortwo, you can phone the cops. Say he walked out spoiling fora drunk, and you're worried. But don't rush it, baby—don'trush it.
Mrs. Coleman was due at 10:00 A.M.Angie had counted onbeing able to talk the doctor into at least one morefive-hundred-dollar session. She'd have to do it herselfnow—but she'd have to start sooner or later.
The woman arrived early. Angie explained smoothly: "Thedoctor asked me to take care of the massage today. Now thathe has the tissue-firming process beginning, it onlyrequires somebody trained in his methods—" As she spoke,her eyes swiveled to the instrument case—open! She cursedherself for the single flaw as the woman followed her gazeand recoiled.
"What are those things!" she demanded. "Are you going to cutme with them? I thought there was something fishy—"
"Please, Mrs. Coleman," said Angie, "please, dear Mrs.Coleman—you don't understand about the ...the massage instruments!"
"Massage instruments, my foot!" squabbled the woman shrilly."That doctor operated on me. Why, he might have killedme!"
Angie wordlessly took one of the smaller Cutaneous Seriesknives and passed it through her forearm. The blade flowedlike a finger through quicksilver, leaving no wound in itswake. That should convince the old cow!
It didn't convince her, but it did startle her. "What didyou do with it? The blade folds up into the handle—that'sit!"
"Now look closely, Mrs. Coleman," said Angie, thinkingdesperately of the five hundred dollars. "Look very closelyand you'll see that the, uh, the sub-skin massager simplyslips beneath the tissues without doing any harm, tighteningand firming the muscles themselves instead of having to workthrough layers of skin and adipose tissue. It's the secretof the doctor's method. Now, how can outside massage havethe effect that we got last night?"
Mrs. Coleman was beginning to calm down. "It did work,all right," she admitted, stroking the new line of her neck."But your arm's one thing and my neck's another! Let me seeyou do that with your neck!"
Angie smiled—
Al returned to the clinic after an excellent lunch that hadalmost reconciled him to three more months he would have tospend on duty. And then, he thought, and then a blessed yearat the blessedly super-normal South Pole working on hisspecialty—which happened to be telekinesis exercises forages three to six. Meanwhile, of course, the world had to goon and of course he had to shoulder his share in the runningof it.
Before settling down to desk work he gave a routine glanceat the bag board. What he saw made him stiffen with shockedsurprise. A red light was on next to one of the numbers—thefirst since he couldn't think when. He read off the numberand murmured "O.K., 674,101. That fixes you." He put thenumber on a card sorter and in a moment the record was inhis hand. Oh, yes—Hemingway's bag. The big dummy didn'tremember how or where he had lost it; none of them ever did.There were hundreds of them floating around.
Al's policy in such cases was to leave the bag turned on.The things practically ran themselves, it was practicallyimpossible to do harm with them, so whoever found a lost onemight as well be allowed to use it. You turn it off, youhave a social loss—you leave it on, it may do some good. Ashe understood it, and not very well at that, the stuffwasn't "used up." A temporalist had tried to explain it tohim with little success that the prototypes in thetransmitter had been transducted through a series ofpoint-events of transfinite cardinality. Al had innocentlyasked whether that meant prototypes had been stretched, soto speak, through all time, and the temporalist had thoughthe was joking and left in a huff.
"Like to see him do this," thought Al darkly, as hetelekinized himself to the combox, after a cautious look tosee that there were no medics around. To the box he said:"Police chief," and then to the police chief: "There's beena homicide committed with Medical Instrument Kit 674,101. Itwas lost some months ago by one of my people, Dr. JohnHemingway. He didn't have a clear account of thecircumstances."
The police chief groaned and said: "I'll call him in andquestion him." He was to be astonished by the answers, andwas to learn that the homicide was well out of hisjurisdiction.
Al stood for a moment at the bag board by the glowing redlight that had been sparked into life by a departing vitalforce giving, as its last act, the warning that Kit 674,101was in homicidal hands. With a sigh, Al pulled the plug andthe light went out.
"Yah," jeered the woman. "You'd fool around with my neck,but you wouldn't risk your own with that thing!"
Angie smiled with serene confidence a smile that was toshock hardened morgue attendants. She set the CutaneousSeries knife to three centimeters before drawing it acrossher neck. Smiling, knowing the blade would cut only the deadhorny tissue of the epidermis and the live tissue of thedermis, mysteriously push aside all major and minor bloodvessels and muscular tissue—
Smiling, the knife plunging in and its microtomesharp metalshearing through major and minor blood vessels and musculartissue and pharynx, Angie cut her throat.
In the few minutes it took the police, summoned by theshrieking Mrs. Coleman, to arrive, the instruments hadbecome crusted with rust, and the flasks which had heldvascular glue and clumps of pink, rubbery alveoli and sparegrey cells and coils of receptor nerves held only blackslime, and from them when opened gushed the foul gases ofdecomposition.
[End of The Little Black Bag by C. M. Kornbluth]
