The Sixth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  And all during this a cappella ballet he was explaining to me what a splendid fellow Thorndecker was. Salt of the earth. Everything the Boy Scout oath demanded. Absolutely straight-up in his financial dealings. A loyal contributor to local charities. And what a boon to Coburn! Not only as the biggest employer in the village, but as a citizen, bringing to Coburn renown as the home of one of the world’s greatest scientists.

  “One of the greatest, Mr. Todd,” Art Merchant concluded, somewhat winded, as well he should have been after that ten-minute monologue.

  “Very impressive,” I said, as coldly as I could. “You know what he’s doing at Crittenden?”

  It was a small sneak punch, but Merchant reacted like I had slammed a knee into his groin.

  “What? Why … ah …” he stammered. Then: “The nursing home,” he burst out. “Surely you know about that. Beds for fifty patients. A program of social—”

  “I know about Crittenden Hall,” I interrupted. “I want to know about the Crittenden Research Laboratory. What’s going on in the lab?”

  “Well, ah, you know,” he said desperately, limp hands flailing. “Scientific stuff. Don’t ask me to understand; I’m just a small-town banker. But valuable things—I’m sure of that. The man’s a genius! Everyone says so. And still young. Relatively. He’s going to do great work. No doubt about that. You’ll see.”

  He maundered on and on, turning now to what an excellent business manager Thorndecker was, what a fine executive, and how rare it was to find that acumen in a doctor, a professor, a man of science. But I wasn’t listening.

  I was beginning to feel slight twinges of paranoia. I am not ordinarily a subscriber to the conspiracy theory of history. For instance, I do not believe an evil cabal engineered the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, or even the lousy weather we’ve been having.

  I believe in the Single Nut theory of history, holding that one goofy individual can change the course of human affairs by a well-placed bomb or a well-aimed rifle shot. I don’t believe in conspiracies because they require the concerted efforts of two or more people. In other words, a committee. And I’ve never known a committee that achieved anything but endless bickering and the piling up of Minutes of the Last Meeting that serve no useful purpose except being recycled for the production of Mother’s Day cards.

  Still, as I said, I was beginning to feel twinges. I thought Agatha Binder had lied to me. I thought Art Merchant was lying to me. These two, along with the Thorndeckers, Dr. Draper, and maybe Ronnie Goodfellow and a few other of the best people of Coburn, all knew something I didn’t know, and wasn’t being told. I didn’t like that. I told you, I don’t like being conned.

  I realized Arthur Merchant had stopped talking and was staring at me, expecting some kind of response.

  “Well,” I said, rising to my feet, “that’s certainly an enthusiastic endorsement, Mr. Merchant. I’d say Dr. Thorndecker is fortunate in having you and the other citizens of Coburn as friends and neighbors.”

  I must have said the right thing, because the fear went out of his eyes, and some color came back into those clayey cheeks.

  “And we are fortunate,” he sang out, “in having Dr. Thorndecker as a friend and neighbor. You bet your life! Mr. Todd, you stop by again if you have any more questions, any questions at all, concerning Dr. Thorndecker’s financial affairs. He’s instructed me to throw his books open to you, as it were. Anything you want to know. Anything at all.”

  “I’ve seen the report of Lifschultz Associates,” I said, moving toward the door. “It appears Dr. Thorndecker is in a very healthy financial position.”

  “Healthy?” Art Merchant cried, and did everything but leap into the air and click his heels together. “I should say so! The man is a fantastic money manager. Fan-tas-tic! In addition to being one of the world’s greatest scientists, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said. “By the way, Mr. Merchant, I understand you’re the mayor of Coburn?”

  “Oh …” he said, shrugging and spreading his plump hands deprecatingly, “I guess I got the job because no one else wanted it. It’s unpaid, you know. About what it’s worth.”

  “The reason I mention it,” I said, “is that I haven’t seen any public buildings around town. No courthouse, no city hall, no jail.”

  “Well, we have what we call the Civic Building, put up by the WPA back in 1936. We’ve got our fire department in there—it’s just one old pumper and a hose cart—the police station, a two-cell jail, and our city hall, which is really just one big office. We have a JP in town, but if we get a serious charge or trial, we move it over to the courthouse at the county seat.”

  “The Civic Building?” I said. “I’d like to see that. How do I find it?”

  “Just go out Main Street to Oakland Drive. It’s one block south, right next to the boarded-up A&P; you can’t miss it. Not much to look at, to tell you the truth. There’s been some talk of replacing it with a modern building, but the way things are …”

  He let that sentence trail off, the way so many Coburnites did. It gave their talk an effect of helpless futility. Hell, what’s the point of finishing a sentence when the world’s coming to an end?

  I thanked him for his kind cooperation and shook that popover with fingers. I claimed hat and trenchcoat, and got out of there. No customers in the bank, and the people at the desks marked New Accounts, Personal Loans, and Mortgages didn’t seem to have much to do. I began to appreciate how much a big, active account like Thorndecker’s meant to First Farmers & Merchants, and to Mayor Art Merchant.

  Having time to kill before my visit to Crittenden at 1:00 P.M., I spent an hour wandering about Coburn. If I had walked at a faster clip, I could have seen the entire village in thirty minutes. I made a complete tour of the business section—about four blocks—featuring boarded-up stores and Going Out of Business sales. Then I meandered through residential districts, and located the Civic Building. I kept walking until vacant lots became more numerous and finally merged with farms and wooded tracts.

  When I had seen all there was to see, I retraced my steps, heading back to the Coburn Inn. I had my ungloved hands shoved into my trenchcoat pockets, and I hunched my shoulders against a whetted wind blowing from the river. I was thinking about what I had just seen, about Coburn.

  The town was dying—but what of that? A lot of villages, towns, and cities have died since the world began. People move away, buildings crumble, and the grass or the forest or the jungle or the desert moves back in. As I told Constable Goodfellow, history is change. You can’t stop it; all you can do is try to keep from getting run over by it.

  It wasn’t the decay of Coburn that depressed me so much as the layout of the residential neighborhoods. I saw three-story Victorian mansions right next to leaky shacks with a scratchy yard and tin garage. Judging by homes, Coburn’s well-to-do didn’t congregate in a special, exclusive neighborhood; they lived cheek-by-jowl with their underprivileged brethren.

  You might find that egalitarian and admirable. I found it unbelievable. There isn’t a village, town, or city on earth where the rich don’t huddle in their own enclave, forcing the poor into theirs. I suppose this has a certain social value: it gives the poor a place to aspire to. What’s the point of striving for what the sociologists call upward mobility if you have to stay in the ghetto?

  The problem was solved when I spotted a sign in a ground-floor window of one of those big Victorian mansions. It read: “Rooms to let. Day, week, month.” Then I understood. All of the Incorporated Village of Coburn was on the wrong side of the tracks. As I trudged back to the Inn, the sky darkening, the smell of snow in the air, I thought this place could have been the capital city of Gloom.

  I went into the bar and asked the spavined waiter for a club sandwich and a bottle of beer. While I waited, I looked idly around. It was getting on to noon; the lunch crowd was beginning to straggle in. Then I became aware of something else about Coburn, something I had o
bserved but that hadn’t really registered until now.

  There were no young people in town. I had seen a few school kids on the streets, but no one in the, oh, say 18-to-25 age bracket. There was Miss Dimples in the Sentinel office, but except for her, Coburn seemed devoid of young people. Even the gas jockeys at Mike’s Service Station looked like they were pulling down Spanish-American War pensions.

  The reason was obvious, of course. If you were an eager, curious, reasonably brainy 20-year-old with worlds to conquer, would you stay in Coburn? Not me. I’d shake the place. And that’s what Coburn’s young people had done. For Albany, New York, Miami, Los Angeles. Or maybe Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Karachi. Anyplace was better than home.

  On my way out, I stopped at the bar for a quick vodka gimlet. I know it was a poor choice on top of my luncheon beer. But after the realization, “Anyplace was better than home,” I needed it.

  Once again I drove to Crittenden through that blasted landscape, and was admitted by the gate guard. He was pressing a transistor radio against his skull. There was a look of ineffable joy on his face, as if he had just heard his number pulled in the Irish Sweeps. I don’t think he even saw me, but he let me in; I followed the graveled road to the front of Crittenden Hall.

  Dr. Kenneth Draper came out to greet me. I took a closer look at him. You know the grave, white-coated, eye-glassed guy in the TV commercials who looks earnestly at the camera and says, “Have you ever suffered from irregularity?” That was Draper. As a matter of fact, he looked like he was suffering himself: forehead washboarded, deep lines from nose to corners of mouth, bleached complexion, and a furtive, over-the-shoulder glance, wondering when the knout would fall.

  “Well!” Draper said brightly. “Now what we’ve planned is the grand tour. The nursing home first. Look around. Anything you want to see. Meet the head staff. Then to the lab. Ditto there. Take a look at our setup, what we’re doing. Meet some of our people. Then Dr. Thorndecker would like to speak with you when we’re finished. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds fine,” I assured him. The poor simp looked so apprehensive that I think if I had said, “Sounds lousy,” he would have burst into tears.

  We turned to the left, and Draper hauled a ring of keys from his pocket.

  “The wings are practically identical,” he explained. “We didn’t want to waste your time by dragging you through both, so we’ll take a look at the west wing. We keep the door locked for security. Some of our patients are mentals, and we try to keep access doors locked for their protection.”

  “And yours?” I asked.

  “What?” he said. “Oh yes, I suppose that’s true, although the few violent cases we have are kept pretty, uh, content.”

  There was a wide, tiled, institutional corridor with doors on both sides.

  “Main floor”: Dr. Draper recited, “Doctors’ and nurses’ offices and lounges. Records and admitting room. X-ray and therapy. Clinic and dispensary. Everything here is duplicated in the east wing.”

  “Expensive setup, isn’t it?” I said. “For fifty patients?”

  “They can afford it,” he said tonelessly. “Now I’m going to introduce you to Nurse Stella Beecham. She’s an RN, head nurse in Crittenden Hall. She’ll show you through the nursing home, then bring you over to the lab. I’ll leave you in her hands, and then take you through the Crittenden Research Laboratory myself.”

  “Sounds fine,” I said again, trying to get some enthusiasm into my voice.

  Stella Beecham looked like a white stump: squat, straight up and down. She was wearing a short-sleeved nurse’s uniform, and I caught the biceps and muscles in her forearms and thick wrists. But nurses are usually strong; they have to be to turn a two-hundred-pound patient in his bed, or lift a deadweight from stretcher to wheelchair.

  Beecham wasn’t the prettiest angel of mercy I’ve ever seen. She had gross, thrusting, almost masculine features. No makeup. Her complexion was rough, ruddy, with the beginnings of burst capillaries in nose and cheeks. To me, that signals a heavy drinker. She had a faint mustache. On the left side of her chin, just below the corner of her pale mouth, was a silvery wen with two short, black hairs sticking out. It looked for all the world like a transistor, and I consciously avoided staring at it when I talked to her.

  Dr. Kenneth Draper cut out, and Nurse Beecham took me in tow, spouting staccato statistics. It went like this, in her hard, drillmaster’s voice:

  “Fifty beds. Today’s occupancy rate: forty-nine. We have a waiting list of thirty-eight to get in. Seven addicts at present: five alcoholics, two hard drugs. Six mentals. Prognosis: negative. All the others are terminals. Cancer, MS, emphysema, myasthenia gravis, cardiacs, and so forth. Their doctors have given up. About all we can do is try to keep them pain-free. A hundred and fifty meals prepared each day in the main kitchen, not counting those for staff, maintenance personnel, and security guards. Plus special meals. Some of our guests like afternoon tea or a late-night snack. We have a chef on duty around-the-clock. These are the nurses’ offices and lounges. The doctors’ are across the hall.”

  “You have MD’s in residence?” I asked—not that I was so interested, but just to let her know I was listening.

  “Two assigned to each wing. Plus, of course, Dr. Thorndecker and Dr. Draper. They’re both MD’s. Two RN’s around-the-clock in each wing. Plus a pharmaceutical nurse for each wing. Three shifts of aides and orderlies. Our total staff provides a better than one-to-one ratio with our guests. Here’s the X-ray room. We have a resident radiologist. Therapy in here. Our resident therapist deals mostly with the addiction cases, particularly the alcoholics. Spiritual therapy, if desired, is provided by the Reverend Peter Koukla of the First Episcopal Church. We also have an Albany rabbi on call, when needed. Examination room here, dispensary here. Combined barber and beauty shop. This is handled by a concession. Dietician’s office here. We send out all our laundry and drycleaning. I think that about completes the main floor of this wing.”

  “What’s in the basement?” I asked, in the friendliest tone possible.

  “Storage,” she said. “Want to see it?”

  “No,” I said, “that won’t be necessary.”

  It was a short, brusque exchange—brusque on her part. She had the palest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, almost as colorless as water, and showing about as much. All they did was glitter; I could read nothing there. So why did I have the feeling that my mention of the cellar had flicked a nerve? Just a tensing, almost a bristling of her powerful body.

  “Now we’ll go upstairs,” she said. “The vacant suite is in this wing, so I’ll be able to show it to you.”

  We had passed a few aides, a few orderlies. But I hadn’t seen anyone who looked like a patient.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “The place seems deserted.”

  She gave me a reasonable explanation:

  “It’s lunchtime. The dining room is in the rear of the main entrance hall. Most of our guests are there now, except for those who dine in their rooms. The aides and doctors usually eat in the dining room also. Dr. Thorndecker feels it helps maintain rapport with our patients.”

  “I hope I haven’t interrupted your luncheon,” I said.

  “Not at all,” she said. “I’m on a diet. I skip lunch.”

  That sounded like a friendly, personal comment—a welcome relief from the officialese she had been spouting—so I followed up on it.

  “I met an acquaintance of yours,” I said. “Agatha Binder. I had a talk with her yesterday.”

  “Did you?” she said. “Now you’ll notice that we have no elevators. But during Dr. Thorndecker’s refurbishing program, the stairways at the ends of the corridors were made much narrower, and ramps were installed. So we’re able to move wheeled stretchers and wheelchairs up to the top floors without too much trouble. Actually, there’s very little traffic. Non-ambulatory guests are encouraged to remain in their suites. What do you think of Crittenden Hall so far?”

  The question came so abr
uptly that it confused me.

  “Well … uh,” I said. “I’ll tell you,” I said. “I’m impressed,” I said, “by how neat and immaculate and sparkling everything is. I almost suspect you prepared for my visit—like sailors getting ready for a white-glove inspection on a U.S. Navy ship.”

  I said it in a bantering tone, keeping it light, but she had no humor whatsoever—except, possibly, bad.

  “Oh no,” she said, “it’s like this all the time. Dr. Thorndecker insists on absolutely hygienic conditions. Our cleaning staff has been specially trained. We’ve gotten highest ratings in the New York State inspections, and I mean to keep it that way.”

  It was a grim declaration. But she was a grim woman. And, as I followed her up the narrow staircase to the second floor, I reflected that even her legs were grim: heavy, thick, with clumped muscles under the white cotton stockings. I wouldn’t, I thought, care to be given a needle by Nurse Stella Beecham. She was liable to pin me to the goddamned bed.

  “I won’t show you any of the occupied suites,” she said. “Dr. Thorndecker felt it might disturb our guests unnecessarily.”

  “Of course.”

  “But he wanted you to see the one vacant suite. We have a guest arriving for it tomorrow morning.”

  “Was it occupied by a man—or maybe it was a woman—named Petersen?” I asked.

  I don’t know why I said that. My tongue was ahead of my brain. I just said it idly. Nurse Beecham’s reaction was astonishing. She was standing on the second-floor landing, three steps above me. When I said, “Petersen,” she whirled, then went suddenly rigid, her lumpy features set in an ugly expression that was half fear, half cunning, and all fury.

  “Why did you say that?” she demanded, the “say” hissed so that it came out “ssssay.”

  “I don’t know,” I told her honestly, staring up at her transistor-wen. “But I was at the Thorndeckers for dinner last night, and late in the evening Dr. Thorndecker was called away by Dr. Draper. I got the impression it involved some crisis in the condition of a patient named Petersen. Dr. Thorndecker said he was afraid Petersen wouldn’t last the night.”