Robert Silverberg: The Pain Peddlers

The phone bleeped. Northrop nudged the cut-in switch and heard Maurillo say, “We got a gangrene, chief. They’re amputating tonight.”

Northrop’s pulse quickened at the thought of action. “What’s the tab?” he asked.

“Five thousand, all rights.”

“Anesthetic?”

“Natch,” Maurillo said. “I tried it the other way.”

“What did you offer?”

“Ten. It was no go.”

Northrop sighed. “I’ll have to handle it myself, I guess. Where’s the patient?”

“Clinton General. In the wards.”

Northrop raised a heavy eyebrow and glowered into the screen. “In the wards?” he bellowed. “And you couldn’t get them to agree?”

Maurillo seemed to shrink. “It was the relatives, chief. They were stubborn. The old man, he didn’t seem to give a damn, but the relatives—”

“Okay. You stay there. I’m coming over to close the deal,” Northrop snapped. He cut the phone out and pulled a couple of blank waiver forms out of his desk, just in case the relatives backed down. Gangrene was gangrene, but ten grand was ten grand. And business was business. The networks were yelling. He had to supply the goods or get out.

He thumbed the autosecretary. “I want my car ready in thirty seconds. South Street exit.”

“Yes, Mr. Northrop.”

“If anyone calls for me in the next half hour, record it. I’m going to Clinton General Hospital, but I don’t want to be called there.”

“Yes, Mr. Northrop.”

“If Rayfield calls from the network office, tell him I’m getting him a dandy. Tell him—oh, hell, tell him I’ll call him back in an hour. That’s all.”

“Yes, Mr. Northrop.”

Northrop scowled at the machine and left his office. The gravshaft took him down forty stories in almost literally no time flat. His car was waiting, as ordered, a long, sleek ’08 Frontenac with bubble top. Bulletproof, of course. Network producers were vulnerable to crack-pot attacks.

He sat back, nestling into the plush upholstery. The car asked him where he was going, and he answered.

“Let’s have a pep pill,” he said.

A pill rolled out of the dispenser in front of him. He gulped it down. Maurillo, you make me sick, he thought. Why can’t you close a deal without me? Just once?

He made a mental note. Maurillo had to go. The organization couldn’t tolerate inefficiency.

The hospital was an old one. It was housed in one of the vulgar green-glass architectural monstrosities so popular sixty years before, a tasteless slab-sided thing without character or grace. The main door irised and Northrop stepped through, and the familiar hospital smell hit his nostrils. Most people found it unpleasant, but not Northrop. It was the smell of dollars, for him.

The hospital was so old that it still had nurses and orderlies. Oh, plenty of mechanicals skittered up and down the corridors, but here and there a middle-aged nurse, smugly clinging to her tenure, pushed a tray of mush along, or a doddering orderly propelled a broom. In his early days on video, Northrop had done a documentary on these people, these living fossils in the hospital corridors. He had won an award for the film, with its crosscuts from baggy-faced nurses to gleaming mechanicals, its vivid presentation of the inhumanity of the new hospitals. It was a long time since Northrop had done a documentary of that sort. A different kind of show was the order of the day now, ever since the intensifiers had come in.

A mechanical took him to Ward Seven. Maurillo was waiting there, a short, bouncy little man who wasn’t bouncing much now, because he knew he had fumbled. Maurillo grinned up at Northrop, a hollow grin, and said, “You sure made it fast, chief!”

“How long would it take for the competition to cut in?” Northrop countered. “Where’s the patient?”

“Down by the end. You see where the curtain is? I had the curtain put up. To get in good with the heirs. The relatives, I mean.”

“Fill me in,” Northrop said. “Who’s in charge?”

“The oldest son. Harry. Watch out for him. Greedy.”

“Who isn’t?” Northrop sighed. They were at the curtain, now. Maurillo parted it. All through the long ward, patients were stirring. Potential subjects for taping, all of them, Northrop thought. The world was so full of different kinds of sickness—and one sickness fed on another.

He stepped through the curtain. There was a man in the bed, drawn and gaunt, his hollow face greenish, stubbly. A mechanical stood next to the bed, with an intravenous tube running across and under the covers. The patient looked at least ninety. Knocking off ten years for the effects of illness still made him pretty old, Northrop thought.

He confronted the relatives.

There were eight of them. Five women, ranging from middle age down to teens. Three men, the oldest about fifty, the other two in their forties. Sons and daughters and nieces and granddaughters, Northrop figured.

He said gravely, “I know what a terrible tragedy this must be for all of you. A man in the prime of his life—-head of a happy family…” Northrop stared at the patient. “But I know he’ll pull through. I can see the strength in him.”

The oldest relative said, “I’m Harry Gardner. I’m his son. You’re from the network?”

“I’m the producer,” Northrop said. “I don’t ordinarily come in person, but my assistant told me what a great human situation there was here, what a brave person your father is…”

The man in the bed slept on. He looked bad.

Harry Gardner said, “We made an arrangement. Five thousand bucks. We wouldn’t do it, except for the hospital bills. They can really wreck you.”

“I understand perfectly,” Northrop said in his most unctuous tones. “That’s why we’re prepared to raise our offer. We’re well aware of the disastrous effects of hospitalization on a small family, even today, in these times of protection. And so we can offer—”

“No! There’s got to be anesthetic!” It was one of the daughters, a round, drab woman with colorless thin lips. “We ain’t going to let you make him suffer!”

Northrop smiled. “It would only be a moment of pain for him. Believe me. We’d begin the anesthesia immediately after the amputation. Just let us capture that single instant of—”

“It ain’t right! He’s old, he’s got to be given the best treatment! The pain could kill him!”

“On the contrary,” Northrop said blandly. “Scientific research has shown that pain is often beneficial in amputation cases. It creates a nerve block, you see, that causes a kind of anesthesia of its own, without the harmful side effects of chemotherapy. And once the danger vectors are controlled, the normal anesthetic procedures can be invoked, and—” He took a deep breath, and went rolling glibly on to the crusher, “with the extra fee we’ll provide, you can give your dear one the absolute finest in medical care. There’ll be no reason to stint.”

Wary glances were exchanged. Harry Gardner said, “How much are you offering?”

“May I see the leg?” Northrop countered.

The coverlet was peeled back. Northrop stared.

It was a nasty case. Northrop was no doctor, but he had been in this line of work for five years, and that was long enough to give him an amateur acquaintance with disease. He knew the old man was in bad shape. It looked as though there had been a severe burn, high up along the calf, which had probably been treated only with first aid. Then, in happy proletarian ignorance, the family had let the old man rot until he was gangrenous. Now the leg was blackened, glossy, and swollen from midcalf to the ends of the toes. Everything looked soft and decayed. Northrop had the feeling that he could reach out and break the puffy toes off, one at a time.