Endgame by Bill Pronzini

Author:Bill Pronzini [Pronzini, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2017-06-12T23:00:00+00:00

13

The Prime Medical Group was located in a large complex on Ygnacio Valley Road not far from the John Muir Medical Center. It shared space with a number of other physicians’ practices, most of which seemed to offer specialty medical services. The waiting room was large, pristine, and about a quarter full when I walked in a few minutes ahead of my three o’clock appointment with Dr. Paul Nesbitt.

Like most people, I have an aversion to hospitals and doctors’ offices. Too many visits to both over the course of my life, all too often the result of one crisis or another. Invariably, just walking into a place like this scrapes my nerves and raises my blood pressure, so I stay out of them as much as possible. Which is why I keep putting off annual physicals. It had been eighteen months since my last checkup and Kerry had been nagging at me to bite the bullet and get it done. I’d promised her I would, and I don’t break my promises, but I still hadn’t made the damn appointment. All right, then, I told myself as I sat twitching in the Prime Group’s waiting area, if you don’t do it soon the next time Kerry brings it up she’ll do it for you and how will that make you feel? Like a promise breaker after all. Like a big baby.

Fortunately, Dr. Nesbitt didn’t keep me hanging long. A plump nurse or nurse practitioner—you couldn’t tell which these days, uniforms being a thing of the past and casual dress the new norm—came out to fetch me. She led me along a couple of interior hallways, past cubicles containing blood pressure machines and scales and the like, past open and closed consulting room doors, and finally into a medium-sized private office where she shut me in with Dr. Paul Nesbitt.

He stood waiting in front of a desk covered with papers, medical journals, X-ray photographs, and one of those handheld computers doctors and nurses use these days. He gave me a stone-faced once-over, shook my hand in a perfunctory manner as if I might be a germ carrier, and invited me to sit down. Maybe it was his manner or where we were, but he didn’t need a stethoscope around his neck or a white smock or green scrubs to look exactly like what he was. In fact, he could have played the lead role on one of those TV doctor shows, perfectly cast according to Hollywood standards. Full head of wavy brown hair dusted with gray at the temples. Kirk Douglas cleft in his chin. Symmetrical features and large brown eyes that radiated intelligence and cool competence.

I didn’t like him. He made me feel old, fat, semi-ugly, and even more of a cowardly delinquent for putting off my annual physical. Irrational reaction, but even though I knew it was first-impression nonsense, I could not seem to work through it. The words sounded pinched when I said, “Thank you for seeing me, Doctor. I wasn’t sure you’d agree to an interview.

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