First, Do No Harm

by Larry Karp

  Unfortunately, the young lady giggled, which released all Mr. Raskin’s inhibitions. “Stealing rubbers—Godfrey Scissors! I’ll show you a thing or two, you young hooligan!” He raised the counter on its hinges, started through.

  What was I going to do, tell him I was really there to look at his poison register? Let him think I was a condom-thief. I grabbed a foil packet, stuffed it into my pocket, and in the same motion charged down the corridor behind the display racks. Mr. Raskin came hot after me. No exit ahead, just the front window. I could’ve turned around, thrown that little old man to the floor and run over his body to the open counter, but I didn’t want to risk hurting him. As I came to the end of the waist-high rack I put up a hand, vaulted over, landed in a shower of cough drops.

  Harmony was already out the door, running. We charged down Eleventh Street, ripped around the corner onto Fourth Avenue, tore along to Eighteenth Street, then turned right. Two men jumped out of our way. A leg shot into my path, and I tripped, sprawled, saw Harmony’s purse sail up, then plop to the sidewalk next to me. One of the men held Harmony by the arm; she looked like a fish just hauled into a boat. I was scrambling up to help her when she launched a punch to the man’s face. “Let me go.”

  “Take it easy, girlie, ain’t nobody gonna get hurt.” Familiar voice. Familiar face, thin red mustache. Wide snap-brim. Red Dexter, from the junkyard. He grinned at me as I got up. “Hey, young Dockie Firestone, where you goin’ in such a big hurry?” He let go of Harmony; she picked up her purse, glared at him.

  I forced myself not to look over my shoulder. If Mr. Raskin were to come barreling around the corner, nothing we could do about it. “Oh, hello, Mr. Dexter,” I said. “Sorry, didn’t mean to—”

  “No sweat, Dockie. An’ by the way, my friends call me Red.” He turned a leer on Harmony. “Ain’tcha gonna introduce me to your friend?”

  Nothing but to do it. “Harmony Belmont, Red Dexter.”

  “Please’a meetcha, Miss Belmont.” Red took Harmony’s hand, released it, then bowed ever so slightly. “Any frienda the Dockie’s is a frienda mine.”

  “I see Red at the junkyard sometimes when I’m working on the music box,” I said.

  That lit Harmony’s eyes. “Leo’s going to give it to me when he’s got it fixed,” she said to Dexter.

  “Oho!” Sly red fox. “Then you gotta be a real special friend.”

  Red’s companion fixed watery eyes on Harmony in a way I didn’t like. He was as ragged as Red was spiffy, a painfully thin man with greasy black hair who hadn’t held a razor in some time. Red made no move to introduce him, all right with me. “I’ll be at the yard later,” I said. “After we’re done running this errand for my father.”

  Red’s eyes glittered under the snap-brim. “Running’s the word, awright. Well, guess I better not hold you up any more, huh? See ya ’round the yard, Dockie.” He tipped his hat to Harmony again, then took the raggedy lecher by the elbow and walked him around the corner onto Fourth. Harmony and I took off in the other direction.

  Corner of Eighteenth and Third, vacant lot, all high weeds. We dove in, scurried toward the middle. Harmony rested her head on my shoulder. “All right, Leo. Don’t say it.”

  “Don’t say what?”

  “I feel bad about what we did to that nice old man.”

  “Would you feel better if I told you I saw a name in that register?”

  Obvious she would and did. Sparkling green gemstones, inches from my face. “You did find out—well, tell me. Who?”

  “Not Murray or Oscar,” I said, and watched disappointment and curiosity duke it out across her face. “George Templeton, their hired man. George wouldn’t’ve killed Jonas. He probably really did just buy strychnine for the yard rats.”

  Harmony shook her head. “Anyone from that junkyard buying strychnine the same day Jonas died from it…what if Murray or Oscar sent George? To keep their own name off the book?”

  I shrugged. “‘What if’ isn’t proof. We’re back to where we started, or close.” I got to my feet. “I was going to meet Samuel after lunch, do house calls and office visits, but I think I’ll get my bike and go to the yard. Work on the music box, talk to George. See what I can find out.”

  Mischief shot from Harmony’s eyes, danced across her face. “Those things, Leo—did you actually take any?”

  I reached automatically into my pocket, thought better of it, but too late. Harmony grabbed. “Let’s see.”

  “Forget it.”

  “No.” She tugged at my arm. “Come on, Leo, I want to see it. I’ve never seen one, have you?”

  Another world then, not yet out from under Anthony Comstock’s shadow. In some states it was still against the law to sell birth control devices. I shook my head. “No.”

  “Well, then, take it out and let’s see.” She squeezed my hand viciously, just below the thumb. I yelped, dropped the little foil package into her hand. She stared at it. “Hmmm. For the prevention of disease only, huh?” She ripped the foil, unrolled the rubber. “Hey, Leo, it doesn’t take very much to fill this thing up.” She put the open end to her mouth, blew a couple of puffs, pinched the end between two fingers. “That’s more like it.” She snickered, then went into a full-fledged giggle-fit, rocked, bent double.

  “Not that funny,” I said.

  She straightened, wiped at her eyes. “Your face, Leo. The look on your face. That’s what’s so funny.”

  Chapter 9

  I sat in the patch of shade behind the office shack, fidgeting as I polished brass. Outside the junkyard, a whistle, the two o’clock Pennsy westbound out of New York. I should’ve been on rounds with Samuel, but he could see patients just fine without me, I told myself. And if he wouldn’t do a postmortem on Jonas Fleischmann, I would.

  When I put down the last piece of shining brass, Murray wasn’t there to show me reassembly. Oscar wasn’t around either. The office radio played tune after tune to an empty auditorium. Halfway between the smoldering garbage fire and where I sat, George worked over an automobile body.

  I threw the tarp across the table, started walking across the yard. Scrap reflected sun into my eyes. Piled refrigerator carcasses, stoves, radios, all irretrievable, beyond Murray’s genius for resuscitation. Parts-machines, organ donors.

  George was head-down beneath the hood of a Model-T Ford, screwdriver in one hand, pliers in the other. Muscles bulged where I didn’t think I had any at all. Sweat streamed over his face, dripped onto the engine. I hesitated, then said, quietly, “George?”

  He looked back at me, smiled. “Hey there, Leo. Doin’ more work on that music box?”

  My opening. “Yeah. Me and the rats.”

  “You an’ the—”

  “Rats. When I pulled back the tarp, one of them was underneath, big as a cat. Then while I was sitting there polishing, I felt something on my shoes, another one, even bigger. He took off soon as I moved.”

  “Mmm-mmm.” George shook his head. “Can’t never get rid of ’em all. Junkyard’s right on the river.”

  “You put out poison, don’t you?”

  George nodded solemnly, then pointed past the entrance to the yard, beyond the pocked, scarred corrugated-metal fence. “I go down to Raskin’s drugstore, over on Eleventh, buy strychnine. That’s supposed to be the best, makes ’em die in turrible pain. Other ones see, they figure they better go live some other place.”

  “When’s the last time you put poison out?”

  George half-closed one eye, rubbed his chin. “Been what, five days now? Yeah, July six. I was gonna do it July fif’, day after the holiday, but we were real busy all that day.”

  “Do you put the poison out right away, or do you sometimes leave it around for a while?” Which earned me a curious look, so I quickly added, “I sure don’t want to get into it by accident.”

  George smiled. “Don’ worry. I leaves it out on the table there in the office. Big brown bottle wit’ skull and crossbones. Cain�
��t miss it.”

  In other words, the bottle could’ve sat for hours on that table five days before. If Murray or Oscar or Red Dexter had taken out just enough to kill one man, George never would’ve noticed. My adventure at the drugstore was wasted time and embarrassment.

  “Don’t be puttin’ your fingers in your mouth after you been in the yard,” George said. “An’ before you eat supper, wash real good.” He chuckled. “Otherwise maybe I ain’t never gonna hear that music box play. You be lookin’ for Murray, now, right?”

  I nodded.

  “’Fraid not today. Him and Oscar went over to Ryerson Street, guy with a pile a stuff died.” George made a face. “Widow decide to sell it all to us.”

  “You don’t look very happy about it.”

  George studied me a moment, must’ve approved of what he saw. “Truth, I’m not. Mr. Broomall was a nice fella, did good business, but not with the right people. Man wasn’t even fifty, an’ best I know, he wasn’t sick. But he die all of a sudden, wit’ his li’l junkyard fulla scrap metal. Now his Missus sell to Murray and Oscar even before he be buried.”

  George’s face was a picture of disgust. I thought he had more smarts than to talk that way, but then it hit me—I was Dockie, son of Dr. Samuel Firestone. A young doctor, but a doctor nonetheless, someone to be trusted implicitly. Without intending, I’d pulled a powerful extraction instrument from my father’s black bag. I caught my breath, then asked, “What did he die of?”

  George shook his head. “Nobody say.”

  At dinner that evening Samuel seemed fine, as if his behavior at the Crosbies’ the night before never happened. From the radio in the living room came the voice of a newscaster, reporting on the O.P.A. crackdown on Sunday pleasure drivers. “It’s beginning to look good for the Allies,” the newscaster droned. “But the war is far from over, and we can’t afford complacency. There’s no room in this country for Optimistic Olivers.”

  Samuel blew a loud Bronx cheer. “Slogan time,” he snapped. “Loose lips sink ships.” He extended a hand toward me. “Your turn, Leo. Come on. Quick!”

  “You’re out of order, Mr. Hoarder,” I said.

  “Five points for Leo.” Samuel wheeled his finger toward Ramona, her turn. She reddened, stammered. “Now, Samuel…they are right, you know.”

  “I can teach a parrot to say, ‘No optimistic Olivers,’” Samuel snapped. “First, people swallow a slogan, then they grab guns. Somewhere in this world they’re shouting, ‘Deutschland uber alles’ and ‘Heil Hitler’.” On the edge of dark territory he clamped his jaw, reached for his fork, dropped it, grabbed again.

  Ramona jumped away from the table, ran into the living room, tuned the radio through a high-pitched squeal to vibrant clarinet music. Benny Goodman, “Jersey Bounce.” As she came back into the room she trailed a hand across Samuel’s shoulder. “That’s better,” she said.

  Samuel jabbed his fork into a piece of mackerel as if the fish had called him an insulting name.

  By the time we washed and dried dishes, Samuel seemed himself again. Work done, we all strolled into the living room. Samuel and I sat, but Ramona stretched and said, “Such a nice evening, and I haven’t been outside all day. I think I’ll take a walk.” She bent to kiss Samuel lightly on the forehead. He reached up to pat her cheek. “See you later.”

  Ramona was a lousy actress. I readied for assault.

  The door barely closed behind her when Samuel said, “Sit down, Leo.” He might’ve been inviting a new acquaintance to make himself comfortable. I sat, waited.

  Samuel smiled. “I hear you made a house call this morning.”

  Only one thing to say. “Yes.”

  We sat for a few seconds, eyes locked. Samuel didn’t speak, ball still in my court. “I didn’t think that girl, Shannon, was really Lily Fleischmann’s niece. And then last night, when you sent me with the envelope, I met another girl at the Fleischmanns’, Teresa. She was pregnant too. I couldn’t help wondering—”

  “How many nieces Lily had, all of them pregnant and with no husbands.”

  We both smiled. I nodded. “Yes.”

  “And you couldn’t very well ask me because when you came home I was asleep, then in the morning I’d already gone. Why didn’t you wait ’til I came back?”

  I shook my head. “Just wanted to see for myself.”

  Samuel’s smile widened. “I’ll never argue with that.” He leaned forward. “Tell me what you learned.”

  “You and Lily Fleischmann run a kind of home for girls and women with unwanted pregnancies. You either adopt the babies out or you…uh…”

  “Or I do abortions. Why is that so hard to say?”

  “It’s against the law,” I blurted.

  Samuel pursed his lips, then pounded a fist into an open palm. “Against the law of conventional morality? Sure it is. But what about the law of human decency? The law of common sense? Why isn’t birth control out on drugstore shelves in plain view instead of being hidden down behind counters?”

  I held my breath. Did Mr. Raskin recognize me, or find out who I was? Apparently not; Samuel went right on. “Bad enough that a girl who doesn’t want to get pregnant does, but an accident shouldn’t ruin the rest of her life. There are people who want a child desperately, who’re more than happy to pay for a pregnant girl’s obstetrical care. They come in for the delivery, take the baby home—”

  “With a faked birth certificate.”

  Samuel’s eyes widened. He laughed. “Call it faked if you like, but don’t the spaces on those forms say MOTHER’S NAME and FATHER’S? What are the adopting couple going to be? And as for abortions, I hear you also met Angela Gumpert, the woman across from Shannon.”

  “Yes.”

  “She came in less than three months pregnant, terrified, and with good reason. If her crazy Neanderthal family ever found out, they might’ve killed her. Would you have forced her to take a chance like that?”

  I tried to answer him, couldn’t. He watched me struggle, then finally said, “Leo, the law just tells you what’s prohibited. Only you can say whether something is wrong. Now try answering my question.”

  I took a huge breath, let it out slowly. “I wouldn’t want to force her, no. But I don’t think I could’ve done…what you did.”

  “At least say the word, Leo. Abortion.”

  “I don’t know if I could do an abortion.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. Would you send a woman who needs an abortion to a doctor who would do it?”

  “No…no, I wouldn’t. That seems even worse, asking someone else to do what I wouldn’t do myself. I’m sorry—”

  “No reason to be sorry. You just need to know if you become a doctor, you’re going to find yourself in the middle of one situation after another that can’t be tied up in a pretty little package with a red ribbon. If anyone should apologize, I should, for not telling you the whole story. But I wanted to see whether you’d swallow that silly niece bit; I hoped you’d challenge me on it. Didn’t think you’d go off on your own to investigate, but…” He got out of his chair, walked over, rested a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t fault you for wanting to get your information firsthand. In your place, that’s what I would’ve done. What I’m really sorry for, Leo, was my behavior last night, at Erskine’s.”

  His voice faded. I looked up and saw something I’d never seen before. Samuel’s eyes were brimming. “A better man, a better friend, never lived. I didn’t save him.”

  I saw Erskine on the bed, writhing in ghastly pain, fatal heart attack. But after he died, not a hint of rigor mortis. Instead of the sympathy I might’ve felt for Samuel, rage filled my head. I was on the point of coming out with it, insisting Jonas Fleischmann died of strychnine poisoning and demanding to know why Samuel called it a heart attack. But looking at my father’s grief-twisted face, all I could manage was, “You did your best.”

  As lame to my own ears as it must’ve been to his. Fury flashed in Samuel�
�s eyes, so short a burst I wondered whether he’d really felt the emotion or I’d only seen a reflection of my own anger. He swallowed, then said, almost casually, “You’re spending a lot of time at the junkyard.”

  No question mark but definitely a question. “That old music box I’m trying to repair—remember, I told you the other night? Murray says it’s probably from about 1880, more than sixty years old! I’ve taken it apart, cleaned and polished it. Now Murray’s going to show me how to get it back together.”

  Samuel seemed to hang on my every word, his face in constant change. Like wind-blown clouds and sunshine passing over a grassy hill. Easy to see why he was so good at getting information from his patients—the intensity of his attention drew words out of people that they never intended to say. I braked my tongue, held firm. Samuel waited. Finally, he said, “That junkyard’s a rough place, Leo. Nasty business goes on down there. Be careful.”

  I let up on the brake pedal enough to say, “All right.”

  Samuel smiled, returned to his chair, picked up his newspaper. Interview over.

  I wanted to go find Harmony, tell her what I’d learned from George Templeton that afternoon, but I couldn’t, not right then. I had a pressing obligation, and it’d be dark inside an hour.

  I went to my room, shook five dollars out of my bank, a buck for the condom, four bucks’ penalty for stealing it and making a mess. Then I got on my bike, pedaled hard down Roosevelt. At the corner of Madison, in the middle of a cluster of little shops, a painted sign swayed in the evening breeze. HATS CLEANED AND BLOCKED, neat black letters surrounding a snap-brim that could’ve been Red Dexter’s. I scanned the sidewalk, hoped I wouldn’t run into Dexter on this trip. Enough complications already.

  A few minutes later I pulled up in front of Raskin’s Pharmacy, rested my bike against the front of the building, peeked around the corner of the doorway. No customers. Just Mr. Raskin behind the counter, reading a newspaper. I took a couple of deep breaths and went in.