Thinner

Chapter Thirteen

He thought restlessly for the rest of the week of calling Ginelli at Three Brothers – Ginelli seemed like an answer of some kind -just what kind, he didn't know. But in the end he went ahead and checked into the Glassman Clinic and began the metabolic series. If he had been single and alone, as Hopley was (Hopley had made several guest appearances in Billy's dreams the night before), he would have canceled the whole business. But there was Heidi to think about … and there was Linda – Linda, who truly was an innocent bystander and who understood none of this. So he checked into the clinic, hiding his crazy knowledge like a man hiding a drug habit.

It was, after all, a place to be, and while he was there, Kirk Penschley and the Barton Detective Services would be taking care of his business. He hoped.

So he was poked and prodded. He drank a horrid chalky-tasting barium solution. He was given X rays, a CAT-scan, an EEG, an EKG, and a total metabolic survey. Visiting doctors were brought around to look at him as if he were a rare zoo exhibit. A giant panda, or maybe the last of the dodo birds, Billy thought, sitting in the solarium and holding an unread National Geographic in his hands. There were Band-Aids on the backs of both hands. They had stuck a lot of needles in him.

On his second morning at Glassman, as he submitted to yet another round of poking and prying and tapping, he noticed that he could see the double stack of his ribs for the first time since … since high school? No, since forever. His bones were making themselves known, casting shadows against his skin, coming triumphantly out. Not only were the love handles above his hips gone, the blades of his pelvic bones were clearly visible. Touching one of them, he thought that it felt knobby, like the gearshift of the first car he had ever owned, a 1957 Pontiac. He laughed a little, and then felt the sting of tears. All of his days were like that now. Upsy-downsy, weather unsettled, chance of showers.

I'd kill him very slowly, he heard Hopley saying. I will spare you the details.

Why? Billy thought, lying sleepless in his clinic bed with the raised invalid sides. You didn't spare me anything else.

During his three-day stay at Glassman, Halleck lost seven pounds. Not much, he thought with his own brand of gallows joviality. Not much, less than the weight of a medium-sized bag of sugar. At this rate I won't fade away to nothing until … gee! Almost October!

172, his mind chanted. 172 now, if you were a boxer you'd be out of the heavyweight class and into the middleweight … would you care to try for welterweight, Billy? Lightweight? Bantamweight? How about flyweight?

Flowers came: from Heidi, from the firm. A small nosegay came from Linda – written on the card in her flat, sprawling hand was Please get well soon, Daddy – Love you, Lin. Billy Halleck cried over that.

On the third day, dressed again, he met with the three doctors in charge of his case. He felt much less vulnerable in jeans and a MEET ME IN FAIRVIEW T-shirt; it was really amazing how much it meant to be out of one of the goddamn hospital johnnies. He listened to them, thought of Leda Rossington, and suppressed a grim smile.

They knew exactly what was wrong with him; they were not mystified at all. Au contraire, they were so excited they were damned near making weewee in their pants. Well … maybe a note of caution was in order. Maybe they didn't know exactly what was wrong with him yet, but it was surely one of two things (or possibly three). One of them was a rare wasting disease that had never been seen outside of Micronesia. One was a rare metabolic disease that had never been completely described. The third – just a possibility, mind you! – was a psychological form of anorexia nervosa, this last so rare that it had long been suspected but never actually proven. Billy could see from the hot light in their eyes that they were pulling for that one; they would get their names in the medical books. But in any case, Billy Halleck was definitely a rara avis, and his doctors were like kids on Christmas morning.

The upshot was that they wanted him to hang in at Glassman for another week or two (or possibly three). They were going to whip what was wrong with him. They were going to whip it good. They contemplated a series of megavitamins to start with (certainly!), plus protein injections (of course!), and a great many more tests (without a doubt!).

There was the professional equivalent of dismayed howls -and they were almost literally howls – when Billy told them quietly that he thanked them, but he would have to leave. They remonstrated with him; they expostulated; they lectured. And to Billy, who felt more and more often lately that he must be losing his mind, the trio of doctors began to look eerily like the Three Stooges. He halfexpected them to begin bopping and boinking each other, staggering around the richly appointed office with their white coats flapping, breaking things and shouting in Brooklyn accents.

'You undoubtedly feel quite well now, Mr Halleck,' one of them said. 'You were, after all, quite seriously overweight to begin with, according to your records. But I need to warn you that what you feel now may be spurious. If you continue to lose weight, you can expect to develop mouth sores, skin problems . . .'

If you want to see some real skin problems, you ought to check out Fairview's chief of police, Halleck thought. Excuse me, ex-chief.

He decided, on the spur of the moment and apropos of nothing, to take up smoking again.

'. . . diseases similar to scurvy or beriberi,' the doctor was continuing sternly. 'You're going to become extremely susceptible to infections – everything from colds and bronchitis to tuberculosis. Tuberculosis, Mr Halleck,' he said impressively. 'Now if you stay here -'

'No,' Billy said. 'Please understand that it's not even an option.'

One of the others put his fingers gently to his temples as if he had just developed a splitting headache. For all Billy knew, he had – he was the doctor who had advanced the idea of psychological anorexia nervosa. 'What can we say to convince you, Mr Halleck?'

'Nothing,' Billy replied. The image of the old Gypsy came unbidden into his mind – he felt again the soft, caressing touch of the man's hand on his cheek, the scrape of the hard calluses. Yes, he thought, I'm going to take up smoking again. Something really devilish like Camels or Pall Malls or Chesterfoggies. Why not? When the goddamn doctors start looking like Larry, Curly, and Moe, it's time to do something.

They asked him to wait a moment and went out together. Billy was content enough to wait – he felt that he had finally reached the caesura in this mad play, the eye of the storm, and he was content with that … that, and the thought of all the cigarettes he would soon smoke, perhaps even two at a time.

They came back, grim-faced but looking somehow exalted -men who had decided to make the ultimate sacrifice. They would let him stay free of charge, they said: he need pay only for the lab work.

'No,' Billy said patiently. 'You don't understand. The major medical coverage pays for all of ^that anyway; I checked. The point is, I'm leaving. Simply leaving. Bugging out.'

They stared at him, uncomprehending, beginning to be angry. Billy thought of telling them how much like the Three Stooges they looked, and decided that would be an extremely bad idea. It would complicate things. Such fellows as these were not used to being challenged, to having their gris-gris rejected. He did not think it past possibility that they might call Heidi and suggest that a competency hearing was in order. And Heidi might listen to them.

'We'll pay for the tests too,' one of them said finally, in a this-is-our-final-offer tone.

'I'm leaving,' Billy said. He spoke very quietly, but he saw that they finally believed him. Perhaps it was the very quietness of his tone that had finally convinced them that it was not a matter of money, that he was authentically mad.

'But why? Why, Mr Halleck?'

'Because,' Billy said, 'although you think you can help me … ah … gentlemen, you can't.'

And looking at their unbelieving, uncomprehending faces, Billy thought he had never felt so lonely in his life.

On his way home he stopped at a smoke shop and bought a package of Chesterfield Kings. The first three puffs made him feel so dizzy and sick that he threw them away.

'So much for that experiment,' he said aloud in the car, laughing and crying at the same time. 'Back to the old drawing board, kids.'