Plague Read Free Page B

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 teetered around the clinic on silver stilettos.
    For all her
ritz, though, Esther was trained, cool and practical. Dr. Petrie had seen her
comfort an old woman in pain, and he knew that words didn’t come any warmer.
    Apart from
that, he enjoyed Esther’s hero-worship, and the suppressed rage of his medical
colleagues whenever he attended a doctor’s convention with her in tow.
    ‘Good morning,
doctor’, said Esther pertly, when he walked in. ‘I looked for you in your
bedroom, but you weren’t around.’
    ‘Disappointed?’
he said, perching himself on the edge of her desk.
    Esther pouted
her shiny red lips. ‘A little. You never know when
Nurse Cinderella might get lucky and catch Dr. Charming’s eye.’ Dr. Petrie
grinned. ‘Any calls?’
    ‘Just two. Mrs. Vicincki wants to drop by at eleven. She
says her ankle’s giving her purgatory. And your wife.’ Dr. Petrie stood up and took off his jacket. ‘My ex-wife,’ he corrected.
    ‘Sorry. Your ex-wife. She said you’d have to pick your daughter up
tonight instead of tomorrow, because she’s going to visit her mother in Fort
Lauderdale.’
    Dr. Petrie
rubbed his eyes. ‘I see. I don’t suppose she said what time tonight.’
    ‘Seven.
Priscilla will be waiting for you.’
    ‘Okay. What
time’s my first appointment?’
    ‘In ten
minutes. Mrs. Fairfax. All her records are on your table. There isn’t much
mail, so you should get through it all by then.’
    Dr. Petrie
looked mock-severe. ‘You really have me organized, don’t you?’
    Esther made big
blue eyes at him. ‘Isn’t that what clinical assistants are for?’
    He patted her
shoulder. ‘I sometimes wonder’, he said. ‘If you feel like making me some very
strong black coffee, you may even find out’.
    ‘Sure thing’. said Esther, and
stood up. ‘Just remember, though, that a girl can’t wait for ever. Not even for
Prince Valiant, M.D’.
    Dr. Petrie went
through to his clinic. It was built on the east side of the house – a large
split-level room with one wide glass wall that overlooked a stone-flagged patio
and Dr. Petrie’s glittering blue swimming pool. The room was richly carpeted in
cool deep green, and there were calm, mathematical modern paintings on every
wall.
    By the fine gauzy drapes of the window stood a pale marble statue
of a running horse.
    Dr. Petrie sat
in his big revolving armchair and picked at the mail on his desk.
    Usually, he
went through it fast and systematically, but today his mind was thrown off. He
sipped his orange juice and tried not to think about David Kelly’s flour-white face,
and the anguished shivers of his grieving father.
    There wasn’t
much mail, anyway. A couple of drug samples, a medical journal, and a letter
from his attorney telling him that Margaret, his ex-wife, was declining to
return his favorite landscape painting from the one-time marital home. He
hadn’t expected to get it back, anyway. Margaret considered that the home, and all of its contents, were fair pickings.
    Esther came
teetering in with his coffee. The way her breasts bounced and swayed under her
white jacket, she couldn’t be wearing a bra. Dr. Petrie wondered what she’d
look like nude; but then decided that the real thing would probably spoil his
fantasy.
    She set the
coffee down on his desk, and stared at him carefully. ‘You don’t seem yourself
this morning.’
    ‘Who do I seem
like? Richard Chamberlain?’
    ‘No, I don’t
mean that. I mean you don’t look well.’
    Dr. Petrie
stirred Sweet ‘n’