Augustus Tulare: Painful paradise

When the second patient was completely under the control of the anesthetic, and Grafton began the mastectomy, she happened to look up at the small audience seated behind the glass which separated them from the sterile amphitheater of the operating room.

Paul Harshman was staring intently at the procedure, and for a brief moment before he noticed her watching him, she got the strange impression that he was morbidly relishing the way Grafton's scalpel had started to sever the breast from the young patient's torso.

But after he met her startled gaze, he seemed to change his expression to one of humorous camaraderie. When he winked at her, she forced a smile, then realized he couldn't see it behind the mask.

Quickly, she turned her head to watch the surgeon. At any time, he might finish the commentary being picked up by the overhead microphone for the instruction of the interns and other members of the viewing audience. She didn't dare be a fraction of a second late in her reaction when he called for something and held out his hand.

When the wound was dressed and the bloodied mound of creamy flesh had been covered and sent off to pathology, Pal looked up at the big window again. Paul Harshman was gone.

By the time she had finished the post-op duty and removed the bloody-sleeved surgical gown, Grafton and his assistant had left the scrub-room. While she washed up, she could hear the intern who had attended the operation – Jack something-or-other who was Grafton's current protege – talking to Matthews, the anesthetist.

"Did you notice that lean, tanned cat in the expensive suit? He was licking his chops as if he wanted to dive through the glass and eat that meat before the pathologists got their hands on it. And the hungry look in those cold, steely eyes! Man, I'll bet he'd have gnawed off the other breast before anyone could stop him if he'd been down below with us!"

"Kee-rist, Jack!" said the anesthetist, disgusted with the way the intern's mind worked. "How could you interpret all that by a couple of looks at an observer during such a short operation? Sure you aren't a bit of a sadist, yourself? He was probably just straining to get a good view, like any doctor might, in case he ever has to perform the same operation himself."

"Not him, friend!" protested the intern. "He's not a surgeon. He's a field rep for Boswell Bio-Ceuticals. I know, because he had lunch with Grafton and me. And different things he talked about gave me the feeling he wasn't exactly normal in his attitude toward the physiology of surgery."

"I still think you've got a sick mind, Jack," said the anesthetist. "You'll have to excuse me. I'm on standby for O.R. Two. Some chick who wants a natural delivery just might scream for a little help at the last minute when those pains get real bad."

Pal hurried out into the hall before she could be noticed. By the time the two men appeared, she was busily pretending to drink at the hall fountain. When they separated, she slowly followed the intern, who was headed for the coffee room, she knew. She wanted to see if he was going to spread any more of his sick slander.

She wasn't quite sure why she felt the urge to protect Paul Harshman's reputation. After all, even if she did have a date with him, she hadn't known him longer than three hours, and their meeting had been awfully brief. Of course, she had eyed him several times in the last few months.

So he was on the road for a pharmaceutical manufacturer. No wonder she saw him so seldom here at Good Sam. But those tall, lean good looks had intrigued her every time she had glimpsed him. In fact, he made her maidenly juices flow a little each time she saw him. She tried to think cooler thoughts as she pushed open the door to the coffee room.

Jack of the sick mind was in a huddle with Juanita Peron and Isabel Marcy, the two goof-offs of the current crop of nurse's aides. But his smart mouth, Pal noticed, was devoted to the type of talk he always used around the more impressionable females of the staff. As long as he was busy trying to maneuver someone into his bed, he wouldn't be likely to reopen the subject of Paul Harshman.

Pal lit a cigarette, took three puffs, and put it out. Then she left the room before anyone could get her into a conversation.

For the rest of the day, whenever she had some time for her own thoughts, she pondered on the strange complexity of Paul's personality. By the end of the day, she had solved nothing, but she had determined to use her feminine wiles to probe this masculine mystery when she met him in the evening.

Of all the things about him – at least all of the few things she knew or could guess – the one which bothered her most was that indescribable quality which seemed to magnetize her whenever he was around her.

She began to think that maybe it was a case of the bird hypnotized by the serpent. But she shrugged that off as prejudice which must have been caused by the intern she was comma to think of as Sick Jack.

After all, even if she was a virgin, and still lacked experience in some phases of the male-female relationship, she had managed to take care of herself pretty well so far. Paul Harshman couldn't be a danger to her. No matter who or what he was, she was only going to "repay" him for his lunch-time courtesy by acceding to his wish for her company during a single evening.

What harm could come of that?

Whatever else might be said of Paul Harshman, Pal decided, he couldn't be called cheap. Their drinks and dinners cost him over one hundred dollars, and he was going to drive them in his rented car to a road company performance of a current Broadway production. Having checked ticket prices the previous week, Pal knew that the seats Paul had reserved added another sixty dollars to the evening's tariff.

As he tipped the doorman of the exclusive club, where they had dined, Paul shifted his wallet under the blue-white light of the neon sign, frowned, and then tucked the obviously expensive leather folder in his jacket pocket.

Their car was driven up to the door, Paul helped Pal in, and went around to get behind the wheel.

"Hang on tight, beautiful," he told her. "Have to stop at the hotel on our way to the theater. It seems I forgot to change the tickets from my card case to my wallet. If we don't waste any time on the way, we'll still make the curtain."

He was also a good driver, Pal learned, as the car sped through traffic at magnum speed limits, maneuvered deftly in and out of lanes to avoid delays by slower vehicles. But she closed her eyes a few times, as they came close to brushing other cars during the frenzied race against time.

Though Paul had used the term "hotel" to describe his lodgings, when they wheeled into the beautifully landscaped driveway, Pal saw that it was more truly a motel. The larger part of the rooms and suites were separate units, with maximum privacy assured by the ingenious layout and judicious use of shrubs and trees.

Paul parked the car behind the end unit – the most distant from the central facilities of the complex. He excused himself, and started to go inside. Then he halted, turned, and came back to the car. He leaned to place his head at the level of Pal's eyes, and opened her door.

"I don't like to leave you out here alone while I rummage around for those tickets," he told her. "It's too dark here, and there's too much shrubbery for concealment. Come on and wait for me in the doorway."

Pal had eyed the dark environment when they first parked, and it didn't take any coaxing to keep her as close to her escort as was properly permissible. She climbed out and accompanied him to his door. A faint glow from a recessed light illuminated the keyhole, but there was no overhead lamp at the entrance. Pal was not greatly surprised, knowing the secret nature of many comings and goings at motels.