Robert Liston - The Tower of Evil

“Strange, though. Not a cloud in the sky and it’s supposed to rain tonight.”

A few steps further along she said, “A chorus from Handel’s Messiah keeps going through my head, ‘Unto Us a Child is Given.’ Do you know it?”

“Sure, but only the bass part. I don’t think you got it quite right. It’s Isaiah, ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given’.”

“Same difference, I feel blessed.”

Was she already too attached? He decided to say nothing.

While Doreen fixed scrambled eggs for the boys, he went upstairs to shower. When he came down both were fast asleep on the couch in the den. “You finally did them in,” he said.

“Wearing out an old woman is hard work.” She looked in the fridge. “My night to cook. What will you settle for?”

“Oh, some rainy day fare.”

“What a love you are. How about a TV dinner?”

“I think our marriage is strong enough to withstand it.”

They sat at the kitchen counter swallowing the less than tasteless food. “Confess, love, did you really know Lorna Gould?”

“Must I confess?” She sighed. “All right, I knew her, more than slightly I think, enough to know she talked all the time about her son. As soon as I heard he was killed, I just had to go to her.”

“Very thoughtful of you, love-and typical.” He forked peas into his mouth, swallowed. “Among this vast circle of friends of yours, do you happen to know one Karl Kinkaid?”

“I know of him, who doesn’t?”

“I pride myself on being one of the select few. What do you know about him other than he is rich, powerful, mysterious and lives in a castle?”

“Lupe tell you that? It’s close to the mark. It seems Mr. Kinkaid owns this big estate in Montecito, but seldom uses it, largely because he’s rarely in town. I think he has something to do with politics-or maybe it’s oil, OPEC and oleomargarine.”

“Thanks a lot, I can do better on the internet. Do you happen to know a Mrs. Kinkaid?”

“I talked to his housekeeper once. She ordered flowers, roses and cymbidiums as I recall, lots of them.”

“The man can’t be altogether bad.”

“Why do you ask about him?” She listened. “If you know the ex-daughter-in-law, why not talk to her?”

“Why didn’t I think of that?”

Karen La Rocca came about 10, all dolled up and looking smashing. With her was a young man introduced as Marco Musante, dark, hirsute and bulging. He had muscles even God had forgotten, and he was proud of every one. Doreen took them into the sleeping children. Both were cooed over, then carried out to the car.

“That went well,” Doreen said. “Apparently Marco no longer minds if Karen keeps an extra child.”

“Tonight, anyway. Karen’s bod in a cocktail dress will do that to a man.”

“No accounting for lust.”

She went upstairs to shower, while he watched the news. It didn’t take long until he heard, “Got any more of that wine?”

“Just a sec. I want to hear this.” He listened a moment and laughed. “That idiot Justin Wright wants all unwed teenage mothers locked up in juvenile detention centers until they get their family values straight. Can you imagine him in the White House?”

When this earned no reaction from her, he turned in his chair and saw her standing there in a red raincoat, matching umbrella raised over her head. She twirled it like a vamp, a devilish grin on her fact.

“Don’t get wet, dear.”

He swallowed. “What do you have on under that raincoat?”

“Yours to find out.”

He slowly rose from his chair.

Byerly sat across from Phil Van Zant, wondering if all young doctors really looked alike or did it just seem that way. They all came with a certain smug self-assurance, probably a result of being young, handsome, slender and healthy. Cholesterol never accumulated in their arteries. Or maybe the smugness came from their power to force you to drop certain garments while they probed a seldom-shared orifice.

Phil’s desk was a barrier between them. Couldn’t have that. “Say, Phil-” He refused to call young doctors “doctor.” They didn’t call him “professor,” not that he wanted them to. If he was Walter to a near stranger, Phil was Phil to him. “How’d you get into urology, anyway?”

Phil Van Zant ignored him a moment while he perused a page of computer printout. “I was dating a girl in medical school. She was insatiable, near as I could figure, so I thought I ought to learn all I could about…” He let the sentence trail off.

“Plumbing the depths of manhood?”

“Good way to put it. Actually, it was a choice between urology and proctology.”

“Therefore easy to make.” He was surprised by Phil Van Zant’s wit. He always looked like an undertaker-hardly a mien to inspire confidence.

“How’s your urination, Walt? Is the new medicine working?”

“Pretty well, but I’m glad for indoor plumbing, especially at night.”

“How often do you have to get up?”

“Once always, occasionally twice. I can live with that.”

“That’s good news.”

Byerly eyed him. “Having you look for good news is hardly good news to me. Is there a problem?”

Phil Van Zant glanced at the paper in front of him. “Could be, Walt, your PSA is elevated.”

Fear stabbed at him. The words no man wants to hear: your PSA is elevated. Prostate Specific Antigen. The blood test was a major breakthrough in early detection of prostate cancer. Your PSA is elevated. What the words really meant was a major alteration in his lifestyle. That’s what frightened him.

“How high?” His voice sounded pretty good, considering.

“Enough for us to run some tests and see what we have.” Phil Van Zant actually smiled. “Walt, I hope you’re not going to ask how much time you have left. Elevated PSA can mean lots of things besides cancer. Even if you have cancer there are all kinds, ranging from-”

“You know that, Phil, and I know that. The problem and what scares me is does Doreen know that.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

“Heavens no, that will really scare her.”

Van Zant arose and snapped on a rubber glove. “Let’s start with what I believe is sometimes called-”

“A finger wave. I was afraid of that.”

“You shouldn’t be. Ever hear of Norman Schwarzkopf?”

“Who said, if a tough, four-star general can bend over and tell his doctor to take all the time he needs, I should, too-or something like that.”

“The general’s cancer was found early and he’s still with us.”

“Can’t have too many generals.”

“I met that doctor at a convention once. Quite a celebrity.”

“I hope you won’t be.”

A minute later Van Zant stripped off the glove saying, “It’s enlarged, as you know, and there may be a growth. I might as well biopsy some tissue right now.”

“And what does that involve?”

“We go up the rectum and-”

“Ouch!”

“You won’t feel a thing.”

He grimaced. “That’s what they all say. Just as long as Doreen doesn’t know anything until all the results are in. One of us worrying is enough.”

“It may well be nothing, Walt, but it’s best to stay atop these things

“And all this time I thought you liked to get to the bottom of things.”

It did hurt, but not too much really. As he left the office and headed for his Care Wheels van, Byerly told himself to take it in stride. It was a price of advancing years. Not to worry until he had something to worry about. Yes, mind over matter. Worked every time. He stopped on the sidewalk and looked around. Where had he left the van? Mind over matter. Sure. He’d walked right past the damn thing.