The Doomsters

18

I PARKED on upper Main Street, in front of a flat-topped building made of pink stucco and glass brick. An imitation flagstone walk led through well-trimmed shrubbery to a door inset in one corner. A small bronze plate beside the door announced discreetly: J. Charles Grantland, M. D.

The waiting-room was empty, except for a lot of new-looking furniture. A fairly new-looking young woman popped up behind a bleached oak counter in the far corner beside an inner door. She had dark, thin good looks which needed a quick paint job.

“Mr. Archer?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, doctor’s still busy. We’re behind schedule today. Do you mind waiting a few minutes?”

I said I didn’t mind. She took down my address.

“Were you in an accident, Mr. Archer?”

“You could call it that.”

I sat in the chair nearest her, and took a folded newspaper out of my jacket pocket. I’d bought it on the street a few minutes earlier, from a Mexican newsboy crying murder. I spread it out on my knees, hoping that it might make a conversation piece.

The Hallman story had Eugene Slovekin’s by-line under a banner heading: Brother Sought in Shooting. There was a three-column picture of the Hallman brothers in the middle of the page. The story began in a rather stilted atmospheric style which made me wonder if Slovekin had been embarrassed by the writing of it:

The story was continued on the second page. Before turning over, I took a close look at the picture of the two brothers. It was a stiffly posed portrait of the sort that photographers make to commemorate weddings. Both brothers wore boiled shirts and fixed smiles. Their resemblance was accentuated by this, and by the fact that Jerry hadn’t grown fat when the picture was taken. The caption was simply: “The Hallman brothers (Carl on the right).”

The dark girl coughed insinuatingly. I looked up and saw her leaning far out over her counter, slightly cross-eyed with desire to break the silence.

“Terrible, isn’t it? What makes it worse, I know him.” She shivered, and hunched her thin shoulders up. “I talked to him just this morning.”

“Who?”

“The murderer.” She rolled the “r’s” like an actress in melodrama.

“He telephoned here?”

“He came here, personally. He was standing right here in front of me.” She pointed at the floor between us with a fingernail from which the red polish was flaking. “I didn’t know him from Adam, but I could tell there was something funny. He had that wild look they have in their eyes.” Her own look was slightly wild, in a girlish way, and she’d forgotten her receptionist’s diction: “Jeeze, it bored right through me.”

“It must have been a frightening experience.”

“You’re not kidding. Course I had no way of knowing he was going to shoot somebody, he only looked that way. ‘Where’s the doctor?’ he said, just like that. I guess he thought he was Napoleon or something. Only he was dressed like any old bum. You’d never think he was a Senator’s son. His brother used to come in here, and he was a real gentleman, always nicely dressed in the height of fashion – cashmere jackets and stuff. It’s too bad about him. I feel sorry for his wife, too.”

“You know her?”

“Oh yes, Mrs. Hallman, she comes in all the time for her sinuses.” Her eyes took on the waiting birdlike expression of a woman naming another woman she happens not to like.

“Did you get rid of him all right?”

“The crazy-man? I tried to tell him doctor wasn’t in, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. So I called out Dr. Grantland, he knows how to handle them, Dr. Grantland hasn’t got a nerve in his body.” The birdlike expression subtly changed to the look of adoration which very young receptionists reserve for their doctor-employers. “ ‘Hello, old man, what brings you here?’ the doctor says, like they were buddy-buddy from way back. He put his arm around him, calm as anything, and off they went into the back room. I guess he got rid of him out the back way, ’cause that was the last I saw of him. Least I hope that’s the last. Anyway, doctor told me not to worry about it, that things like that come up in every office.”

“Have you worked here long?”

“Just three months. This is my first real job. I filled in for other girls before, when they went on vacation, but I considered this the real start of my career. Dr. Grantland is wonderful to work for. Most of his patients are the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.”

As though to illustrate this boast, a fat woman wearing a small flat hat and a mink neckpiece emerged through the inner door. She was followed by Grantland, looking professional in a white smock. She had the vaguely frightened eyes of a hypochondriac, and she clutched a prescription slip in her chubby hand. Grantland escorted her to the front door and opened it, bowing her out. She turned to him on the threshold: “Thank you so much, Doctor. I know I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”