John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

For a few minutes Marg stared at him with indignation and exasperation. And then suddenly she grinned at him. “If I ever have to tell somebody a secret, Mike, I’ll look you up. It would stay a secret, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs. Laybourne. You gave me that last-outpost-of-gracious-living routine, and I figured you for phony through and through.”

“So you put on an act too, didn’t you?”

“Sure I did. So my opinion is revised. Consider this an apology.”

“Thank you. But I certainly don’t know why I should feel pleased. I wasn’t looking for your good opinion, Mike. And I am, in many respects, a phony. Right, Charlie?”

“You’re always right, dear.”

A huge young doctor with a bland round face and an eighth of an inch of bright orange brush cut appeared in the doorway, filling it.

“I’m Doctor Pherson. Which of you belongs with the Hunter woman?”

“Hunter?” Mike said blankly. Then he remembered that was the name Marg had given them, Debbie Ann’s married name. The pause gave Marg an opening that she could easily have taken. “We’re neighbors and close friends and this man is just a house-guest.” But she didn’t take it. She waited. “I brought her in,” Mike said.

The huge young doctor took him fifty feet up the corridor. “First I’ll give you the scoop, and then you’ll answer some questions. We just read the wet plates. Shock is under control. She’s semiconscious. She was hurting so bad, I deadened the areas of trauma. Sedation isn’t indicated so soon after shock. She’s got a cracked vertebra in her neck, a crushed left antrum, the cheekbone mashed back in, and the skin split over it, a simple jaw fracture, one molar knocked clean out and three loosened. There’s no skull fracture, but there’s indication of a dandy concussion. And I nearly forgot, a fracture of the middle finger of the right hand. The nurse caught that. I was about to miss it. She’ll need to be watched close. I’ve ordered a special. We’ve fastened the jaw in place temporarily. We’ll have to see if she’s well enough to work on tomorrow. Who are you and what’s the relationship?”

“Mike Rodenska. I’m just a house-guest.”

“ Her house-guest?”

“No. Her parents’. Her mother and her stepfather, that is. He’s Troy Jamison.”

“Oh. The builder. That place on Riley Key. Sure enough. That answers the question about the room. We’ve got a private room open right now, which is unusual, and we’ll move her there from emergency. Who’s their doctor?”

“Dr. Sam Scherman.”

“I’ll let him know. Where are her people?”

“Her mother should be getting here pretty soon. Will she be able to see her?”

“No reason why not, after we move her, but there won’t be any conversation going on. Now we come to the bonus question. How did it happen?”

“She fell.”

“Is that right?”

“She tripped and fell and... hit her face against the bumper guard on her car.”

“She was standing by the car?”

“Yes.”

“The car wasn’t moving?”

“No.”

“My friend, you can have a nice little chat with the cops. Your story is feeble. I’ll list this one as assault with a deadly weapon and let them worry about the lies you’re telling.”

“All right,” Mike said wearily. “I assume you’ll keep this to yourself. Somebody hit her.”

“With what? You’re doing better.”

“With his fist.”

Mike received a stare of cold contempt. “Look, my friend. I’ve got more to do than stand around here trying to pry the facts out of you. If you hit her, phone a lawyer. But stop wasting my time.”

“I’m telling you the truth, damn it! I saw it happen. He hit her with his fist.”

Pherson started to turn away and then turned back, dubious, skeptical. “You really mean that?”

“I swear it’s the truth.”

“His fist! Who is this joker? King Kong? Floyd Patterson?”

“Doctor Pherson, if a man is disturbed, if he’s on the edge of some sort of a breakdown, can he — be more powerful than he ordinarily would be?”

“How big is this guy?”

“Six two. Maybe close to two hundred pounds. But not in good shape. Forty years old.”

Pherson frowned. “When the normal man smacks a woman he almost always instinctively pulls his punch. If a man that big got crazy mad enough... and her bone structure is fragile, small... you’re not kidding me?”

Rodenska, with a trained reporter’s skill, told Pherson exactly what he had seen.

Pherson shook his head. “Okay. I believe. But you better get hold of the cops right now and have them pick that boy up. He came awful damn close to killing her with one punch.”

“I’d rather not.”

“So you still want to talk to the law.”

“Doctor, this is a family thing. It was her stepfather. Her mother doesn’t know that yet. I told you, I’m just a house-guest. I’d really like to leave it up to Mrs. Jamison. Maybe she’ll want to sign a complaint. I wouldn’t know. But it’s her — little problem.”

The big doctor whistled softly. “My, my, my!” he said. “Any other witnesses?”

“Two. A retired doctor and his wife. He didn’t seem talkative.”

“Well, she did fall off the front end of that car. That’s when she popped the finger. I’ll put it down as a fall. I’m going off now, right away. Soon as I arrange the room and phone Sam Scherman. Should I tell Sam the score?”

“He’ll believe you quicker than you believed me. And I guess he ought to know.”

“Okay. And I’ll leave the mother to you.”

“Thanks so much.”

“Sam will have some ideas about who should work on that face. Is she a pretty girl? It’s hard to tell.”

“Very pretty.”

“They’ll watch her close tonight. You couldn’t call her critical, but concussions are tricky.”

Mike thanked him. Apparently the heavy traffic delayed Mary. Mike was glad it did, because it gave Dr. Scherman a chance to get to the hospital and check on Debbie Ann before Mary arrived. Sam Scherman was in his fifties, an irascible little man who spoke his own brand of shorthand in a quick, light, bitter voice.

“Delivered that girl child,” he said to Mike privately. “Third delivery in career. Postpartum hemorrhage. Lost Mary, almost. Beautiful baby. Lovely girl. Damn Jamison. Used a rock or a club, clean job. Mary due?”

“Overdue,” Mike said, feeling as if he was catching the shorthand disease.

“Jamison?”

“Packed and left.”

“Why Marg and Charlie?”

“They helped bring her in. It happened almost in front of their house.”

Scherman stared at him thoughtfully. “Man slugs a woman, it isn’t politics, cheating at bridge. Emotions. Sex. And Mary away?”

“Doctor, I’d rather not make any guesses about—”

“First I’ll settle her down about the girl, tell her we’ll get Hanstohm from Tampa, put her face back together. Then with the pressure off, you better tell her who, where, how, why. She’ll find out anyway. Gutty woman. Deserves whole score. Keep her away from that damn Marg. Here she is now.”

Mary hurried to Sam Scherman, giving Mike the absent glance she would give a stranger. “Sam! Where is she? How is she? What happened?”

“Come along. Talk on the way up.”

Mike went back to the waiting room and told the Laybournes Mary had arrived and had gone up with Scherman to take a look at Debbie Ann. It was fifteen minutes before she came back, accompanied by the doctor, arguing with him.

“But I want to stay with her, Sam! Really!”

“Nonsense. No danger. Go home. All you people go home.”

“But Sam!”