ROBBINS Harold - The Carpetbaggers

He felt a moment's embarrassment at the impersonal manner in which she scrutinized his private parts. After five wives, countless mistresses and more than forty children that he was sure about, only eight of whom were the result of his marriages, it seemed strange to him that anyone could look at him in such a detached manner. So much life had sprung from that fountain.

She let the covering fall around him again and looked up. A glint of humor flickered in her intelligent gray eyes and he knew that she understood.

She came around to the side of the table and reached for his pulse. He looked up at her as she studied her watch. "Where's Dr. Colton?"

"He'll be along in a minute. He's washing up."

She let go of his wrist and said something to someone behind him. He rolled his eyes back and caught a glimpse of another nurse. Feeling the prick of a needle in his arm, he turned his head back quickly. Already, she was taking the small hypodermic out of his arm. "Hey, you're fast," he said.

"That's my job."

"I am, too."

Again that smile in her gray eyes. "I know. I read the papers."

Just then, Dr. Colton came in. "Hello, Mr. Standhurst," he said in his jovial manner. "Did we pass any water today?"

"Maybe you did, Doc, but you know damn well I didn't," Standhurst said dryly. "Or they'd never have got me back in this slaughterhouse."

Dr. Colton laughed. "Well, you've got nothing to worry about. We'll have those kidney stones out in a jiffy."

"All the same, Doc, I'm glad we've got a specialist doing it. If I left it up to you, God knows what you'd cut out."

His sarcasm didn't disturb Dr. Colton. They'd known each other for too long. It was Charles Standhurst who'd advanced him most of the money to start this hospital. He laughed again.

The surgeon came in and stood beside Dr. Colton. "Ready, Mr. Standhurst?"

"Ready as I’ll ever be. Just leave something for the girls, eh, Doc?"

The surgeon nodded and Standhurst felt a prick in his other arm. He turned his head and saw Jennie standing there. "Gray eyes," he said to her. His second wife had had gray eyes. Or was it his third? He didn't remember. "I suppose you wouldn't take your mask off so that I could see the rest of your face?"

Again he saw the glint of humor. "I don't think the doctors would approve," she said. "But after the operation, I’ll come visit you. Will that do?"

"Fine. I've got a feeling you're beautiful."

He didn't see the anesthetist behind him nod. Jennie leaned over his face. "Now, Mr. Standhurst," she said, "count down from ten with me. Ten, nine, eight- "

"Seven, six, four, five, two, nine." His lips were moving slowly and everything seemed so comfortable and far away. "Ten, eight, one, three… six… four… one… two…" His voice faded away.

The anesthetist looked up at the surgeon. "He's under," he said.

They all saw it at the same time, looking down into the cavity the surgeon had cut into his body – the mass of brackish gray covering almost the entire side of one kidney and threading its way in thin, radiating lines across the other. Without raising his head, the surgeon dropped the two pieces of matter he'd snipped away onto the slides that Jennie held under his hand. She gave the slides to a nurse standing behind her without turning around. "Pathology," she whispered.

The nurse left quickly and Jennie, with the same deft motion, picked up two hemostats. The assisting surgeon took them from her hand and tied off two veins as the surgeon's knife exposed them.

"Aren't you going to wait for the biopsy?" Dr. Colton asked from his position next to the surgeon. The surgeon didn't look up. His fingers were busy probing at the mass. "Not unless you want me to, Doctor." He held out his hand and Jennie placed a fine curette in it. He was working quickly now, preparing to remove the infected kidney.

Colton hesitated. "Charles Standhurst isn't just an ordinary man." Everyone around the operating table knew that. At one time or another, the old man quietly lying there, could have been almost anything he'd wanted. Governor, senator, anything. With more than twenty major newspapers stretched across the nation and a fortune founded from oil and gold, he'd never really wanted anything more than to be himself. He was second only to Hearst in the state's pride for its home-grown tycoons.

The surgeon, a comparatively young man who'd rapidly become one of the foremost GU men in the world and had been flown out from New York especially for this job, began to lift out the kidney. The nurse behind Jennie tapped her on the shoulder. Jennie took the slip of paper from her and held it out for him to see. She could see the typed words plainly.

Carcinoma. Metastasis. Malignant .

The surgeon sighed softly, and glanced up at Dr. Colton. "Well, he's an ordinary enough man now."

Mr. Standhurst was awake the next morning when the surgeon came into his hospital room. If he paid any attention to the teletype clicking away in the corner, it wasn't apparent. He walked over to the side of the bed and looked down. "I came in to say good-by, Mr. Standhurst. I'm leaving for New York this morning."

The old man looked up and grinned. "Hey, Doc," he said. "Anybody ever tell you that your old man was a tailor?"

"My father was a tailor, Mr. Standhurst."

"I know," Standhurst said quickly. "He still has the store on Stanton Street. I know many things about you. You were president of the Save Sacco-Vanzetti Society at City College when you graduated in twenty-seven, a registered member of the Young Socialists during your first year at P. and S., and the first surgeon ever to become an F.A.C.S. in his first year of practice. You're still a registered Socialist in New York and you'll probably vote for Norman Thomas for President."

The surgeon smiled. "You know a great deal about me."

"Of course I do. You don't think I'd let just anybody cut me up, do you?"

"I should think you'd have worried just a little knowing what you do about me," the doctor said. "You know what we Socialists think of you."

The old man started to laugh, then grimaced in pain. "Hell! The way I figure it, you're a doctor first and a Socialist second." He looked up shrewdly. "You know, Doc, if you voted the straight Republican ticket, I could make you a millionaire in less than three years."

The doctor laughed and shook his head. "No, thanks. I’d worry too much."

"How come you don't ask me how I feel, Doc? Colton's been in here four times already and each time he asked me."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Why should I? I know how you feel. You hurt."

"I hurt like hell, Doc," Standhurst said. "Colton said those stones you took out of me were big as baseballs."

"They were pretty big, all right."

"He also said I’d be wearing this bag you hooked into me until the kidney healed and took over again."

"You'll be wearing it quite a while."

The old man stared at him. "You know, you're both full of shit," he said calmly. "I’ll wear this in my grave. And that isn't too far off, either."

"I wouldn't say that."

"I know you wouldn't," Standhurst said. "That's why I'm saying it. Look, Doc, I'm eighty-one years old. And at eighty-one, if a man lives that long, he gets to be a good smeller of death – for anyone, including himself. You learn to see it in the face or eyes. So don't bullshit me. How long have I got?"

The doctor looked into the old man's eyes and saw that he wasn't afraid. If anything, there was a look of lively curiosity reflected there. He made up his mind quickly. Colton was all wrong in the way he was handling it. This was a man. He deserved the truth. "Three months, if you're lucky, Mr. Standhurst. Six, if you're not."

The old man didn't blink an eyelash. "Cancer?"