Last Gasp

by Trevor Hoyle

  Claudia Kane thanked her guests for coming and excused herself. She had to check with the news editor; she might be needed. The shark scenting fresh blood, Chase thought, watching her leave.

  “I worked with Carl,” Gene Lucas recalled sadly. “We served together on a World Climate Research committee two or three years ago. What in God’s name is happening? Why? What’s the purpose?” He shook his head, mystified.

  It was time for Chase to get back to the hotel. Cheryl and Dan should have returned from their sightseeing trip by now. He was looking forward to a relaxed family dinner at a restaurant and hearing Dan’s opinions of the capital.

  As they were shaking hands Lucas said, “Give my regards to Cheryl.”

  “I didn’t know you knew her.”

  “I don’t, not personally,” Lucas said, a secretive smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. “But I once sent her some information, which, I should add, she made excellent use of.” He was smiling broadly now, tickled pink by something that left Chase with a mystified frown.

  “What information was that?”

  “About a certain project called DEPARTMENT STORE. I think you’ve probably heard of it.”

  After a stunned moment Chase grasped Lucas’s hand and shook it again, this time more warmly than ever.

  After a hard day’s work there was nothing the secretary-general of the United Nations liked better than to linger in a sumptuous hot bath liberally sprinkled with Esprit de Lavande from Penhaligon’s of Covent Garden, London. The small round bottle with the ground-glass stopper traveled in the UN transatlantic diplomatic pouch, a little privilege that Ingrid Van Dorn allowed herself.

  She was tall and straight-limbed with long silvery-blond hair and classic Nordic features, clearly evident in her wide pale forehead and icy blue eyes. Rather angular perhaps, though she measured the same now as she had twenty-five years ago when a strikingly beautiful twenty-two-year-old girl from Orebro in Sweden. That had been before two marriages, two divorces, and two children, both girls, now at boarding school in Vermont.

  Floating in the sunken oval bath and breathing in the perfumed mist, Ingrid Van Dorn watched the large flat TV screen inset into the wall. A crystal carafe of iced sangria was within reach of her slender white arm, and a tall glass, beaded with condensation, was on the tiled shelf by her elbow.

  “In the studio tonight,” Claudia Kane was saying, making the introductions, “we’re delighted to welcome Dr. Gavin Chase, a British marine biologist, better known to us as the author of that hugely successful and influential book One Minute to Midnight, which several years after publication still sells over one hundred thousand copies a year. Also with us we have Professor Gene Lucas of the Geophysical...”

  “When was this recorded?” asked Ingrid Van Dorn. Her husky voice still had a trace of accent, though not as pronounced as when she gave interviews; the media loved it.

  The man seated in the upholstered recess took off his horn-rimmed glasses and wiped away the steam with the hem of his bathrobe. “Last week sometime. Friday, I think. I thought of asking for a tape, but with transmission so near it didn’t seem worthwhile.” Kenneth J. Prothero—“Pro” to his friends and some of his close enemies—senator for North Carolina, slipped his glasses back on and leaned forward, hands clasped above his long, tanned, hairy legs. “You know, this guy has a lot to—”

  “Sssshhhh!” Ingrid Van Dorn held up a slender finger. She glanced toward him, looking like a goddess with her gleaming hair coiled on top of her head. “Are we recording this?”

  Prothero nodded and topped up his glass with a sangria. He chewed on a piece of orange peel, cursing under his breath. Bathtime for Ingrid was a sacred ritual, but with this damned steam he had to keep wiping his specs every two minutes.

  Remaining obediently silent until the program was over, he got up and switched the set off. There was the gentle swish of water as Ingrid moved languorously in the tub and the creak of ice melting in the carafe. Prothero stood looking down at her. He couldn’t look enough at this fabulous woman: that she was his seemed like a stroke of wondrous good fortune.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Ingrid Van Dorn soaped her breasts thoughtfully. “Yes, I’m impressed. What do we know about him, Pro?”

  “Quite a lot.” Prothero settled himself on the step next to the bathtub, feasting his eyes on the swirl of silver hair, the perfect white arch of her neck, the damp hollows formed by her collarbones. “I’ve had him checked out, every last detail. In my opinion we’ll never find anyone better qualified.”

  “But if he’s as committed to Earth Foundation as he makes out, perhaps he won’t want to.”

  “All the more reason for him to accept, I’d say.”

  “Why? Because of the ‘challenge’?” Ingrid Van Dorn used the word with scorn. “A man like Chase has more challenges than he can cope with already.”

  Prothero reached into the water and took her hand. It was like a pale water lily in his broad palm. “If Chase is the kind of guy I think he is, he’ll want to do it. An opportunity like this? Sure, he’ll jump at it.” She gave him a quick sideways smile. “I guess I’m scared.” An uncharacteristic admission for her. “We’ve talked about it for so long, thought about it, and now we have to make the decision. We’re burning our bridges ... or at least you are. If your government finds out...” Prothero’s face tightened. “My government is up to its neck in bacteriological herbicides. The old, old games. Like a kid fooling around with matches in a house that’s burning to the ground.” Then it spilled out of him like venom. “I’ve had all that, Ingrid. ASP can go screw itself, and the generals, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff! They all have a vested interest in keeping the billions of dollars flooding in to perpetuate global conflict, and they’ll never change. They can’t. It’s like asking a blind man to paint a sunset. We have to do it without them—against them. It’s the only way.”

  “Screw them before they screw up the world,” Ingrid said. She pouted at him through the rising steam. “What are you smiling at?” Prothero couldn’t stop grinning. “It sounds funny, an expression like ‘screw up,’ in a Swedish accent.”

  “So! You think I’m funny, huh?” She pulled her hand free with ladylike hauteur and slid down until the water lapped her chin.

  “That’s right, madam, I do,” Prothero said, eyeing her narrowly. “Not to mention incredibly sexy. Come here.”

  With both hands he scooped into the water, wetting the sleeves of his bathrobe up to the elbows, and pulled her up under the arms until they were both standing, his bathrobe open, her wet breasts pressing spongily against his hairy chest. He stooped and picked her up in his arms, a hot wet desirable woman, faintly steaming.

  Prothero frowned. “Just one logistical handicap.”

  “Oh?”

  “Glasses. Fogged. Can’t see my way to the bedroom.”

  “No logistical handicap at all,” said the UN secretary-general huskily. She unhooked his glasses and flipped them over her shoulder. They landed in the lavender-scented water with a plop.

  For a reason Dr. Ruth Patton had never been able to figure out, from 6:00 P.M. onward was the busiest admissions period of the twenty-four-hour schedule. People collapsed on the streets and were ferried in by ambulance or staggered in themselves to receive treatment at the Manhattan Emergency Hospital in the dilapidated eight-story building on East Sixty-eighth Street that had once housed the Cornell School of Medicine.

  The admissions department resembled a battlefield casualty clearing station. Anoxia and pollution cases were sprawled on chairs or laid out on stretchers on the floor, so tightly packed that there was barely enough room to move among them. There was little more she could do except make an instant diagnosis, classifying them as terminal—requiring hospitalization—or short stay. In the latter case they were given a whiff of oxygen, drugs to clear their bronchial tubes, and sent on their way. Orderlies followed her, sorting out the patients according to the red or blue stickers on
the soles of their shoes.

  Then it was on to the wards.

  The unwritten policy of the hospital was not to give anyone over the age of fifty-five a bed. Better to save the life of a younger person than waste bed space on someone whose life expectancy was only a few years at best. Ruth hated the policy. More than once she had been reprimanded for admitting a patient above the “death line.” She had even falsified the records, subtracting five and sometimes ten years from the patient’s age and slipping him through the net.

  Fred Walsh, aged sixty-three, had slipped through. He lay shrouded in a plastic oxygen tent, a small wiry man with spiky gray hair and watery brown eyes, who from the day he arrived had not uttered one word of complaint. He had the native New Yorker’s caustically laconic wit, honed to a fine art by a lifetime spent as a cutter in the Manhattan rag trade. Ruth didn’t know why she had admitted Fred when she had rejected hundreds of others—some just as bad as he, some younger. Yet a week ago she had written “Walsh, Frederick Charles; Male; Caucasian; age 52” on the pink admissions sheet after an examination lasting no more than a minute.

  In her heart of hearts she suspected a reason. Fred reminded her of Grandpa Patton, the same slight body that was nevertheless as tough as old boots. She remembered her grandfather with much affection; he had taught her to ride in the summer vacations back in Columbus, Ohio, a million years ago.

  Ethically it was wrong, of course, she knew that. But was it any less ethical than turning people out onto the streets on the basis of an arbitrary death line? Didn’t Fred Walsh deserve at least the same chance as the thousands of others who sought refuge and help in these hopelessly overcrowded wards staffed by doctors and nurses working ceaselessly to save as many lives as possible, be they black, white, yellow, brown, young, or old?

  “Hey, you’re looking better today,” she told him brightly, which wasn’t an outright lie. Indeed there was a spot of color in his sagging cheeks and his lips were noticeably less blue. “How’re you feeling, Fred?”

  “Reminds ... me ... of... my... honey... moon.” Even with oxygen he had to draw a deep breath between each word.

  Ruth smiled. “How’s that, Fred?”

  “Flat ... on ... my... back ... and ... shorta ... breath.” He winked at her through the plastic sheet, his narrow chest rising and falling, the air wheezing and bubbling through his furred tubes. Second-stage anoxia with pneumogastric complications. An operation was out of the question; anyway it was too late. In one respect Fred was lucky. Many anoxic patients suffered a sharp decline in their mental processes, became confused and incoherent due to the reduction of oxygen-rich blood circulating through the brain. Premature senile dementia set in, turning them into cabbages.

  Ruth inserted her arms into the plastic sleeves that gave access into the tent; self-sealing collars gripped her wrists. “Tell me when you feel anything,” she said, pricking his toes and the soles of his feet with a surgical needle. Loss of sensation in the extremities was one of the first indications that the anoxia was getting worse.

  Fred lay passively, not responding. The needle had reached his lower calf before he twitched.

  “You feel that?”

  He nodded. “Try ... lower ... down. My ... feet... are ... cold.”

  “We’ll do that tomorrow,” Ruth said cheerfully. “Around here we take our time.” She took hold of his hand, which felt like clammy wax, and pricked his fingers and palm.

  “My... old... lady... came... yester... day.” He paused, wheezing. “Asks ... how ... long ... this ... vacation ... lasts.”

  “Well, some time yet, Fred. Why, what’s she planning to do, run off with the mailman?” Ruth tried his other hand. No response there either. She pulled her arms free and dropped the needle into the bin. “Say, how do you feel about being moved to another hospital? There’s a clinic in Maryland where they could take better care of you. It’s a special treatment center with all the latest facilities. I think I can fix you up with a place. How about it?”

  “Hopeless ... case ... huh?” His moist brown eyes were fixed intently on her face.

  “Hell, no, I wouldn’t bullshit you, Fred.” Ruth lowered her voice conspiratorially. “The temptation’s getting to be too strong for me. You’re driving me crazy with lust. I’ve got to get you out of here before I disgrace myself. This thing is bigger than both of us.”

  “Not ... at ... the ... moment ... it ... ain’t.”

  “I’ll give you some time to think it over, okay?” Ruth said, writing on the chart. “Talk it over with your wife. Let me know in a day or two.” Fred Walsh nodded and closed his eyes. Ruth replaced the chart at the foot of the bed and went on with her rounds.

  An hour later it was blessed relief to put her feet up and relax with a cup of strong black coffee in the staff room. She’d take ten and then finish off the wards. No pathology lab tonight, unfortunately. Her duty didn’t end till midnight and by then she’d be dog-tired.

  The door swung open and Dr. Grant McGowan breezed in and helped himself to iced tea. McGowan was head of surgery, in his forties, and happily married with three children. He had a sympathetic ear for Ruth’s grouses against Valentine, the chief pathologist, and the hospital at large.

  “You still here?” she said, surprised.

  McGowan scowled up at the clock. “I was on my way out when they caught me. Why do people choose such inconsiderate times to have cardiac arrest? I was all set to watch the fights on TV and I get paged at the damn door.”

  “Couldn’t agree more,” Ruth said fervently. “All sickness and disease should stop at six P.M. on the dot. Germs and viruses knock off for the day and come back tomorrow.”

  McGowan sat down in the armchair opposite and eyed her critically. “You look beat, Ruth. What is it? Too much work, not enough sleep, or both?”

  “Old age.”

  “Are you still working in the path lab after hours?” At her nod he shook his head and sighed. “You know you’re asking for trouble, don’t you? Being a resident on the wards is a full-time job without waging a one-woman crusade in the name of medical science. We don’t have the staff, the resources, or the backup for that.”

  “You sound like Valentine,” Ruth replied testily.

  “Christ, I hope not,” said McGowan with feeling. “Look, Ruth, I know the work is important and that somebody ought to be doing it, but why you? It isn’t as if you were getting paid to do it.”

  “It isn’t a question of money; it’s what I want to do. What I must do.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “You didn’t imply anything, Grant.” Ruth smiled at him. “I’m just thankful—really and truly—that you’re around to talk to. Valentine thinks the diagnostic work I did in Denver isn’t worth shit. At least you recognize it’s worthwhile.”

  She arched back in the chair, massaging the nape of her neck with her fingertips. Pale and tired as she was, McGowan couldn’t bring to mind many women as sexually attractive and good-looking. Short, dark, naturally curly hair framed an oval face in which her full lips and vibrant dark eyes would have inspired a Goya. Gypsy eyes. There was something of the same passion and intensity in her personality, too....

  With a guilty start he swiveled around to look at the clock, then hurriedly finished off his tea. “Better get along before they start without me. See you tomorrow.” He strode to the door and paused there. “And listen, Dr. Patton, get a good night’s rest. Forget Manhattan Emergency even exists.”

  “Yes, sir, Dr. McGowan.” Ruth wrinkled her nose at him as he went out. Easier to forget you had a raging toothache.

  She got up and went to the window and gazed down into the tunnel of smog that was East Sixty-eighth Street. She recalled her first visit to New York as a teen-ager, the thrill and excitement of the electric city. Just to stroll down Fifth Avenue was in itself a magical experience. The tall buildings gleaming in the sunlight, the haute couture shops and bustling department stores, the vendors on every street corner assailing the
senses with mouth-watering smells—all the crazy mad whirl of big-city life that was like a shot of pure adrenaline into the bloodstream.

  And the people!

  Elegant women who had stepped straight out of a Vogue fashion plate, slender-hipped black dudes in soft wide hats and dazzling striped suits lounging behind the tinted windows of long limousines; old bags in threadbare fur wraps; goggled-eyed tourists trying not to look battered and bewildered; poets, prophets and cretins addressing the passing parade from the gutters.

  The smile of fond remembrance faded. Nobody strolled down Fifth Avenue anymore. If you tried it without a respirator you could manage maybe fifty paces before collapsing facedown on the sidewalk and coughing up shreds of pink lung tissue. She’d seen that happen, and more than once. From the safety of a sealed car she’d observed a couple of down-and-outs, a man and a woman, slumped against the granite base of Rockefeller Center. Gray exhausted faces. Eyes blood-red and streaming from the photochemical irritants in the air. Lips drawn back in a ghastly snarl of abortive inhalation.

  That had been during her first week in New York, almost three years ago.

  Her friends and colleagues back in the wide clear spaces and mountains of Colorado had thought her deranged. What in heaven’s name had possessed her to exchange a responsible well-paid research job in a decent part of the country for a thankless and disgusting last-ditch stand in the foul canyons of New York City? She wasn’t cut out to be a Florence Nightingale. What a criminal waste of talent and brains. Stay in Denver, they had urged her, where you can live a decent life and make a real contribution.

  Sometimes she thought they were right and wished she had. What exactly did she think she was achieving here? Saving one old guy because he happened to remind her of her grandfather? When hundreds—thousands—were rotting outside? And she wasn’t even saving Fred Walsh, Ruth reminded herself brutally. Only passing him on to a special clinic where they would test another new batch of drugs on him in the hope that one of them would work a minor miracle.