"Siggy, baby. You just point out the dude who did that to you. We'll settle, baby. Nobody does that to one of my people," called out Jethro.
But Negronski could not see his president in the crush. Jethro was the smallest man in the elevator, and he was hidden somewhere, Negronski believed behind McCulloch and the Pig. Although Jethro would have to be visible because he had seen what happened with the pipe. Negronski tried to turn his head to see where Jethro was. His face was slapped back into place. Maybe the two of them would just get a beating and then go to jail. Maybe that would happen. Negronski told himself that all the way to the basement floor.
The elevator doors opened on a large room and the men burst into it like the exploding of a sausage skin.
McCulloch cast a disdainful eye at the large map with the strange union title, and demanded to know where Jethro's office was.
"Over there," said Jethro. McCulloch grabbed the smaller man by the back of his shirt collar and hustled him to the door at which Jethro had pointed.
"It's locked," said Jethro.
"We'll go through it," said McCulloch and pounded the smaller man into the door. It did not budge.
"It's got to be opened. Let me open it at least," said Jethro. His body was twitching from the blow, but he managed to turn the handle first right, then left, then right all the way around and the door opened.
McCulloch threw the body into the room. "I'll be out in five minutes, fellas," he yelled. 'Watch Siggy. No rough stuff yet. He's got stuff to tell us," yelled McCulloch.
With a hearty chuckle he went into the room and closed the door behind him. Negronski was quiet, avoiding the eyes of the other driver toughs. When he looked up finally, he noticed they were avoiding his eyes, too. If they waited long enough, Negronski hoped, maybe they wouldn't have the heart to finish him. Maybe not even work him over. They waited for what seemed a half hour. There was a good reason for this. It was a half hour.
Negronski felt his jaw, Pigarello handed him a handkerchief.
"Cold water would be good on that," said the Pig, shamefaced.
"Yeah," said Negronski. "Cold water would be good."
"You got any cold water down here? I mean not far."
"No water in the basement."
"You got water. Look at those pipes."
"They're not for water."
"What are they for?"
"I don't know. But they're not for water."
"Yeah. But they look like water pipes. Don't they look like water pipes, fellas? I mean those are water pipes. Right?" said the Pig.
"Shut up," said Connor. "Just shut up."
"They look like water pipes to me," said the Pig, resigned to the peculiar emotional outbreaks of his cohorts.
The door opened. Out popped the shaggy head of Gene Jethro.
"Uh, McCulloch wants to see you, Connor. You're the one who swiped Siggy."
"He had a pipe," said Connor.
"Right," said Jethro sweetly. "I understand. C'mon in. McCulloch has something to tell you."
Maybe, just maybe, Jethro's old charm had worked. Beautiful. Negronski didn't even feel any animosity towards Connor. These things happened. Negronski wasn't one to hold grudges. Everything would work out fine.
"Whaddya think happened?" asked Ryan.
"I don't know, maybe they made a deal," said Wolcyz.
"Nah. McCulloch ain't making deals with that fag," said another union delegate.
"He ain't not making any deals," said another.
"He's making a deal," said Wolcyz, suddenly smiling at Negronski.
"I know exactly," said Pigarello. "I know exactly."
Everybody looked at the Pig.
"Those are definitely water pipes," said the Pig. "Those are water pipes. They're even sweating."
"Drop dead," said Wolcyz.
"Jeez," said Ryan.
"Those aren't water pipes," said Negronski. Another half hour passed. The door opened.
"Won't you gentlemen come in, please?"
The group nodded, and like schoolboys lining up for their turns at bat, all filed into the office.
"We got a deal," whispered Wolcyz.
But there was no deal apparent. The room, about three times the size of the elevator, was bare but for an iron desk. One small bulb cast an inadequate yellow light in the room, making the pipe endings and nozzles on the wall seem like eerie extensions of shadows. McCulloch and Connor were nowhere around and there was no other exit. No window or door.
"McCulloch and Connor said they preferred Miami Beach. They didn't like modern ideas. They've left," said Jethro.
"How'd they go out? There's no other exit," said Wolcyz looking around the one-door, windowless room.
"They've gone. Now, lets get down to business. You gentlemen are the blocks to my presidency. Do you want to be rich or do you want to be left behind in the moribund, reactionary, penny-pinching practices of the previous regimes?"
"We ain't voting without McCulloch and Connor," said a driver president from Maine.
"Then you'll never vote, baby," said Jethro sweetly.
This proved not to be so because suddenly it became obvious to all what had happened. Immediately, the motion was unanimously passed, by voice vote, that the New England bloc did not wish to be left behind in the moribund, reactionary, penny-pinching practices of the old regime.
"The best throw is Jethro," shouted one of the delegates, repeating a slogan he had seen on a batch of circulars he had thrown away the week before. He wished he had them now.
"Go with Jethro. The best throw is Jethro," chanted the other delegates.
Gene Jethro quieted his new admirers. "Gee, fellas. I don't know what to say. I guess a new consciousness has come to the International Brotherhood of Drivers."
Pigarello had one question. It still bothered him.
"Mr. Jethro," he said. "Are they or aren't they water pipes coming into this office?"
"They're water pipes, Pig," said Jethro.
Pigarello beamed. "See. I told you." He was so happy he even offered to take out the garbage since there didn't seem to be any janitors around the building as yet, and Mr. Jethro had two big plastic Garby bags sitting by the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
The doctor stared at the dying man who lay on a white padded table breathing faintly, the surgical lamps casting a pale glow on his trim body. If one were to look at him like this in the white tiled room with the surgical sinks and medical instruments, one would think he was looking at a normal human being about to undergo an operation.
One would also think he was in a hospital. But Dr. Gerald Braithwait knew better. He stared at the patient who in occasional moments of consciousness called himself Remo.
If this were a normal person, he would say the man was in shock. The pulse was irregular. The temperature was down. And the breathing was chaotic. Shock. But the patient recovered briefly every so often, as if he were not in shock, and the proper medical treatment for shock had only produced in this person a dangerous closing in on death.
Dr. Braithwait shook his head. He started to say something to the nurse, to tell her, to tell someone, anyone in this insane Alice in Wonderland madhouse, the problems this patient faced. The beginning of a word came out, then nothing. That would be useless also. The nurse did not speak a word of English.
But why should Dr. Braithwait be surprised? This wasn't even a hospital. Nothing was what is seemed. From the outside, this was a coal barge anchored in the mouth of a river in some southern state. He believed it was southern because he had seen the stars before the plane landed at a small airport which had not signs and no other airplanes. Just a helicopter to take him to a coal barge in the mouth of a river. When one walked through an opening in the pile of coal, one was immediately in a small hospital. One should have started complaining then, but when one is greedy for a cherished dream one does not start questioning until it is too late.
Dr. Braithwait looked at his nurse, an eastern European of some sort. He
could not place the language.
The patient moaned. Dr. Braithwait signalled that the steel-belted straps on the ankles and wrists should be replaced. One did not want to witness another performance by this patient. Yesterday, he had fallen off the table. That was bad. He could have hurt himself. He did not. That was shocking. The patient was semi-conscious, and in midair, like a cat, turned his body to land on his hands and feet. Human beings did not do that. They did not turn like cats in midair.
But why should Dr. Braithwait be surprised? Only the body looked human. The nervous system, as Dr. Braithwait had discovered when he first stepped into this bad, bad dream, was not that of a human. The cells were human. The structure was human. But so enlarged were some aspects of the nervous system, so supersensitive, that it was not the human nervous system at all.
Dr. Braithwait pointed to the straps again. He smiled, not a sincere smile, but an indicator that he wished something done. The nurse smiled back. She applied the straps. The steel straps were on hand. Dr. Braithwait didn't have to order those. They were shown him by that Dr. Smith first day on the barge during a tour of the hidden hospital with room for twenty and a staff of three: Dr. Smith, the nurse who did not speak English, and that incredible, insane old Oriental.
"The normal restraining straps are already on this table," Dr. Smith had said. "But we have others that are stronger."
"No need," Dr. Braithwait had said. "Nobody can break out of one of those straps. Veterinarians have even used them for gorillas." Oh, how foolish he had been. The normal straps had broken the first day.
Dr. Braithwait stared at the shiny steel webbing being snapped to the large wrists. Dr. Smith was behind all this. Dr. Smith's reputation would be mud when word of this… this kidnapping got out.
It was a kidnapping, dammit, even if Dr. Braithwait had agreed. It was a kidnapping across state lines if ever there was one. Dr. Braithwait clenched his fists. He noticed that the nurse looked worried. He forced a smile to indicate he was not mad at her.
Dr. Harold Smith, director of Folcroft Sanatorium in Rye, New York, had a fine reputation. And this reputation would not be so fine when Dr. Braithwait got out of this hospital that was disguised as a barge. He would tell the whole world what had happened to one of the nation's foremost internists.
It had all seemed so harmless, and yes, well, profitable, too. If Dr. Smith hadn't known about Dr. Braithwait's special plan, or hope, or even a dream one could call it, Dr. Braithwait would never have agreed to examine a special patient right away, a patient who was 'Just a short hop from Folcroft." But Dr. Smith had known of the dream. He had known and had promised to make it come true. An entire medical school built around the concepts Dr. Braithwait knew were valid, needed, and sure to be successful—concepts that had yet to be tried by others. Concepts that Dr. Braithwait, in his thirty years as one of the country's leading internists, had formulated. Dr. Braithwait should have been suspicious when Dr. Smith phoned his office in New York City and immediately, or almost immediately, offered him the hospital. Oh, wouldn't it be nice if Dr. Braithwait could drop up to Folcroft this afternoon for a little chat about the medical school? Oh, wouldn't it be nice if preliminaries could be worked out right away, because Folcroft was interested in this new concept also?
How did Dr. Smith hear about the new concepts for a medical school when Dr. Braithwait had told only a few friends? That's a long story. That's something Dr. Braithwait should talk about when he got to Folcroft. And Dr. Braithwait wouldn't even have to drive. There was a driver in New York City who worked for the sanatorium and would be happy to take Dr. Braithwait right now.
Did Dr. Braithwait stop to think? Did Dr. Braithwait become suspicious? Did Dr. Braithwait respond like a mature, intelligent human being? No. Dr. Braithwait thought only about the medical school, wrapped his plans in a giant paper bundle, and canceled his appointments for the afternoon.
That was the first step. The second, for some unexplained reason, was a medical examination. Dr. Braithwait agreed to it. Another internist of equal rank was having an examination also.
"Hey, Gerry. Gerald Braithwait. How are you doing?"
"Fine. Fine," Dr. Braithwait had said.
"This Folcroft is some place. They've got money coming out of their ears."
"Is that so?" said Dr. Braithwait. "Is that so?"
Dr. Smith seemed incredibly interested in the new hospital. He even talked dates of construction. But he was in a rush. Could the sanatorium’s private plane take Dr. Braithwait back to New York City? They could discuss the new medical school on the airplane.
Of course, agreed Dr. Braithwait. That was the third step. The plane did not land in New York City. Almost as soon as it took off from the small Westchester airport, two things happened. One, Dr. Smith promised the medical school. Two, would Dr. Braithwait examine a patient Dr. Smith was very concerned about. He was just south of New York, and if Dr. Braithwait could look at him now, Dr. Smith would be ever so grateful.
Fourth and final mistake.
"Yes, Dr. Smith. I would be delighted."
Just south was a two and a half hour trip with night falling rapidly. At the airport, it was just a few minutes by helicopter. The copter landed on top of a broad pile of coal. Dr. Braithwait could smell the swampiness of the nearby lands. Breezes brought salt water air. It was a river near the ocean.
And then into the hole in one of the coal piles and the door locked behind him, and Dr. Smith was not all that friendly anymore.
"You will cure this patient," said Dr. Smith. "I can be reached through a telephone you will find in a room down the hall."
A cursory tour of this hospital and then Dr. Smith was gone, and here was Dr. Gerald Braithwait for nearly a week, trapped in a madhouse with a nurse who did not speak English, a patient who only resembled a human being, and an Oriental who spoke English but made no sense.
Dr. Gerald Braithwait watched the body twitch.
"I think the straps will hold," he said.
The dark-eyed nurse looked at him, puzzled. He pointed to the straps, made a tugging motion and smiled. The nurse smiled back. Wonderful. Sign language.
If only that peculiar old Oriental, obviously three breaths from the grave, also failed to speak English. That would be a help. He was a nuisance from the first day, when he hovered over the body, watching, probing with his long fingernails, staring at the doctor with distrust. He had explained to Braithwait what happened.
"Hamburger," the old man had said. "An impurity in his essence."
"Will you get out of here?" Dr. Braithwait had said. "How can I examine a patient with you poking him?"
"My son took an impurity into his essence," insisted the ancient Oriental. "It must be removed."
Dr. Braithwait had called for an orderly to remove the old man. There was none. He tried to do it himself. He pushed. The frail creature did not move. He grabbed a shoulder. The shoulder seemed to slip from his hands. Dr. Braithwait pushed on the chest. The old man couldn't have weighed a hundred pounds, but he did not move. Dr. Braithwait weighed a middle-aged 195 pounds, or about that. He had been losing weight for the last month. Dr. Braithwait had shoved again, and again no movement.
Then, feeling the rising anger coupled with the ever present frustration of the situation, he had hurled himself into the frail wisp of a man. And bounced off. Backside on floor. Bounced off.
"You are most fortunate that I need your services," said the old man. For the next few days he stayed beside the table upon which the patient rested, watching the doctor, watching the patient, asking questions about this instrument or that.
"All right," he said finally. "Perhaps you will be able to save him." And with that he was out of the room and down the corridor and had not been seen since.
The patient was a horror of reflexes. A touch on one muscle produced a whole series of responses, as if the muscles had been given a memory or had been programmed. A tap on the knee generated a flurry of hand movements so fast they appeared to
be a blur.
And the semiconscious babbling. If one were to believe the delusions, this man had been publicly electrocuted so that he could be transformed into a sort of super-weapon without a past, without an identity. There were fragments of statements such as "Chiun."
"That's the biz, sweetheart."
"Jam the heart."
The patient was obviously suffering from guilt through the delusion that he had killed scores of people. The patient babbled about balance and thrusts and peaks. The muscles twitched, the eyes opened, some consciousness, and then back to sleep.
Dr. Braithwait stared at the evenly breathing patient. What on earth was wrong with him? This defied medical knowledge.
The only clue available came from the old Oriental on the first day. Hamburger. Hmmm. Hamburger.
Dr. Braithwait absentmindedly touched the steel straps. Hamburger. He checked his watch. He had been warned not to disturb the Oriental until after 4.30 p.m. It was that now. Hamburger. That nervous system.
Dr. Braithwait strode quickly out of the room with the surgical lights and went down the corridor. He knocked on a door. He waited. Inside the mellifluous organ of a daytime soap opera whined its heavy tune. Then someone was selling soap. The door opened.
Draped in a saffron kimono, the aged Oriental indignantly inquired about Dr. Braithwait's manners, upbringing, and by what right he, Dr. Braithwait, felt he could destroy moods of artistry?
"That hamburger you claim did the damage. Where did the patient get it."
"From filth, ignorance and stupidity."
"No. The name of the place which sold him the hamburger."
"The name is dog and son of dog. The name is Halloran's Happy Hamburgers."
"That's it. Of course. Now I understand," said Dr. Braithwait. "With his nervous system, naturally he would become semi-comatose."
"Because of the impurity of the essence."
"No. No. No. Monosodium glutamate. These hamburgers are nationally made for the entire Halloran chain. They're made of gristle and the worst sections of beef. They sell cheaply and to make them edible they're loaded with monosodium glutamate. Even some normal people have nervous system difficulties from it. That nervous system… well, it just went into a semi-sleep."
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