101 Mystery Stories

78 Deathbed Frank Sisk

The doctor and the nurse emerged from George Painter’s room just after 4 P.M. They conferred for a long minute in the upper hallway, voices low, before moving to the head of the circular staircase. At the foot, fretfully waiting, Coral hadn’t been able to make out a word that was said.

Why, she wondered, are members of the medical profession always whispering to each other? Why must they treat death and adenoids with similar secrecy? Even orderlies conceal the result of a thermometer reading as if it were privileged information. Charlatans, most of them. They certainly weren’t fooling George Painter with their mysterious muttering, always a bit out of earshot. That old crock has known for at least a month that he’s on the last lap. What’s more, the idea of death doesn’t seem to faze him at all. Lately his rare smile has grown sly. As his strength ebbs he looks each day more like a wily old gambler with an ace up his sleeve, a final card with which he plans to trump, for a moment at least, death itself.

Dr. Wolff and Miss Suratt were descending the stairs, he a stocky figure in gray tweed, she a slender figure in white nylon, their downward progress soundless on the thick gold carpet.

Coral slipped a dolorous mask over her tanned face. This morning she had played tennis with Otis and a little before lunch they had made love. She was still feeling keenly alive, almost youthful — not a bit like a prospective widow — but she wore the sad mask well.

“How is he doing, Doctor?” Into her own whisper she wove the correct amount of tension. “Is he still alert?”

“Very much so,” Wolff whispered back. “He’s a remarkable man. Remarkable.”

“Is he able to speak?”

“Yes, indeed. Not with any of his erstwhile vigor, of course, but his mind is quite clear. Quite clear.”

“Excuse me if you will,” Miss Suratt whispered. “I simply must go to the kitchen for my cup of tea.”

“Phone me at once if there’s a critical change,” Wolff said.

“And have Glenda fix you something to eat,” Coral said.

“Yes, thanks,” Miss Suratt said, on her way.

“Please be frank with me, Doctor,” Coral said. “How long does George really have?”

Wolff expelled a tiny hiss of air through crooked teeth. “My dear lady, I try not to prophesy in these terminal cases. A patient with a will of iron may battle a long time after that last faint spark of life should have flickered out. Your husband is that kind of person. A man of very strong will, very strong indeed.”

“I’m only asking for an educated guess, Doctor.”

“I hesitate to give it.”

“You’re an experienced physician. I understand you’ve been treating my husband for at least ten years. You must know what to expect. Roughly.”

“I do. Very roughly.”

“Will he last through the night?”

“I believe that’s safe to say. Yes, through the night.”

“Through the week?”

“Ah now, my dear lady.” Wolff raised a defensive hand.

“Well, may I see him now? Is he well enough for that?”

“Certainly. As a matter of fact, he asked me to send you up. But I do advise you to keep the visit brief. He’s already had a rather busy afternoon. Yes, rather busy.”

You can say that again, Coral thought.

First, at 1:30, the densely bewhiskered priest from the Greek Orthodox Church had appeared for the third time in as many days. His name was Mikos Gavros. He arrived as usual in a dusty old limousine, his black-garbed bulk occupying most of the tonneau. The chaffeur was his seventeen-year-old son Teddy, the eldest of what Coral understood to be a big brood. Father Gavros’ patriarchy wasn’t confined to the spirit alone.

Teddy, a runner-up in the hirsute category to his old man, hurried his own bearded face around the car to open the rear door. Father Gavros squeezed out. They entered the foyer together. Coral was there to receive the priest’s greeting, one of oily unction that parted his peppery whiskers in the middle, exposing lips of liverish hue.

Was he seeking a new convert? Coral wondered.

While he was closeted upstairs with the dying man, whose name had been legally changed long ago from Pantopoulous to Painter, Coral was left with Teddy, who seemed to have a rather salacious eye. She led him to the library, where she’d twice before abandoned him, and abandoned him again.

Norman Yard arrived an hour later, a few minutes after the departure of Gavros and son. The habitual smile of semiamusement lurked beneath his clipped gray moustache, the slender brown attaché case grew from his left arm like a prosthetic device. Coral’s opinion of lawyers, never worshipful at best, had been dropping steadily with each of Yard’s frequent visits this last month. She detested that know-it-all smirk of his. Smirking once more, Yard hastily ascended the stairs to consult with his richest client.

Yes, old George Painter had indeed had a busy afternoon.

She entered the enormous bedchamber for the first time in a week. The windows were closed against the late October chill, the great brocaded drapes were drawn. The air was heavy with an odor which she would always associate with George — Turkish cigarette smoke; and there was an odor of something else now, something repugnantly dry and stale. The room was a place of silent dusk except for a nimbus of light centered around a lamp on a bedside table. George sat propped up like a bloodless puppet, so thin that his body hardly raised the thermal blanket covering him, and he was smoking a cigarette; the gray tendrils curling slowly round the lampshade were the only signs of life.

“Hello, George,” Coral said nervously as she approached the foot of the king-size bed.

The dying man’s face was skeletal but the dark eyes imbedded in that face burned like coals of fire. Coral felt almost literally scorched by his gaze.

“I just left Dr. Wolff. He says you’re doing fine.”

With brown, bony fingers the man removed the cigarette from his dry lips. “You are a natural liar,” he said in a thin, hoarse voice.

“He told me you wanted to see me,” Coral said.

“I said I wanted to see—” A thin hacking cough dimmed his eyes for a moment. “Yes, I said I wanted to see that slut without conscience who calls herself my wife. And here you are.”

“George, this is hardly the time—”

“Hold your tongue, Coral. Listen.” Again that throat-scraping cough. “Pour me a glass of water.”

Concealing the disgust that this man aroused in her, she went to the bedside and reached for the pitcher. How had she ever managed to endure these sickening years? Money. Was the money really worth it? It had better be.

“I nurtured no illusions when we married,” he was saying. “A tennis bum, your first husband. You outgrew him. Understandable. I outgrew a few previous wives when I was young. You wanted a little luxury for a change. I wanted somebody—” the cough was like a rasp across cartilage “—somebody to keep me warm the last years of my life. Not love — the gesture of attention. A fair trade.”

“Do you think you should be talking so much?” She held out the glass of water.

“I should talk. You should listen.” He took a sip of water and set the glass on the table. “So listen.”

“I’ll try.”

“It will open your deceitful eyes, what I have to say.”

“Please. No more of that.”

“Almost from the beginning you broke our personal deal.”

“What did you expect?”

“Just that. It was no surprise. A healthy young trollop tied to a sick old goat. The horns were inevitable. As long as you were discreet I was tolerant. My pride was not touched. But then you finally threw discretion to the winds. Your gross infidelities became common knowledge. You made me the butt of sad dirty jokes. Even then... yes, even then I—” The cough was phlegmy this time and he gave it thoughtful concentration. “Even then I rationalized the situation. But when you seduced my nephew Otis under this roof and flaunted the affair, that was just too much. I decided to take drastic steps.”

“I don’t know what you can do about it now.”

“At this moment Otis is on a plane to Athens where his father, my brother, will welcome him. Already I have done that.”

“Impossible. We had lunch together and—”

“He failed to mention the journey. In Greek the name Otis means keen-eared. A few days ago my nephew listened well to Norman Yard, who outlined certain financial arrangements that could improve his future.”

“Why, you interfering old buzzard!”

“Wait till you hear what I have in store for you, Coral.”

“Well, you can’t disinherit me, George. I’m you legal wife. You have no children. Even if you die intestate I’m entitled to half of what you leave.”

That rare, sly smile tightened his dry lips. “You know the state law well. So you may as well see what you will inherit half of.” From his bathrobe pocket he took a thin sheaf of greenbacks. “A hundred thousand, ten bills of ten thousand each. My entire estate as of today.”

“You’re not kidding me, George,” Coral said nonchalantly.

“You’ll see soon enough. All my other assets have become part of the ecological Painter Foundation. What I have here is all that’s left of my personal wealth.”

Stunned, Coral watched the disgusting old man take one of the bills and tear it into a dozen small pieces.

“What in hell are you doing?”

Reaching for the glass of water, he crammed the shredded paper into his mouth and washed it down with a gulping swallow. “I’m taking it with me,” he said as he began tearing up another bill.

“Why, you crazy old bugger,” she screamed, grasping his scrawny throat with her strong tennis-playing hands. He died so quickly that she couldn’t believe it. She looked at the greenback clutched in his hand. It was transparently bogus. Of course. The government hadn’t printed $10,000 bills in years.

“What have you done to him?” asked a voice at her shoulder. It was Miss Suratt.

“What have I done to him?” She raised the murdering hands to her eyes. “What has he done to me? What has he done to me?”