Not as a Stranger by Morton Thompson

Author:Morton Thompson [Thompson, Morton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

At seven-thirty Dr. Runkleman came in.

He stared at Lucas, amazed. His mouth opened.

“Hey! What—what—”

“Pneumonia,” Lucas croaked. He cleared his throat. “Pneumonia,” he said clearly.

Dr. Runkleman glanced at the still figure in the bed. He saw an old man, saw that he was breathing, saw the apparatus, stared again at the gray face of his assistant, remembered the long day before.

“My God!” he cried. “You been up all night?”

Lucas smiled tiredly.

“Never felt better in my life.”

They looked up. Dr. Snider had come in. Lucas stiffened. Dr. Runkleman watched his eyes fill with hate and loathing. Dr. Snider bent over Carlile Emmons.

“Morning, Dave . . .” He straightened. “Pulled him through, did you?” He looked at Lucas, saw his eyes., looked quickly away. He cleared his throat. He looked at Dr. Runkleman. “ ’Minds me of an old feller we had in here once,” he began deprecatively—“ ’member old Charley Fears? Swore to God he wouldn’t last the night and by Jesus—”

He stopped. His voice trailed.

Lucas had walked away, he was walking out of the ward.

Dr. Runkleman looked at Dr. Snider impersonally.

“I warned you,” he shrugged.

“Now, Dave—you know how we’re fixed here—you know good and well this old devil didn’t have a day in him—”

But Dr. Runkleman had followed Lucas out of the ward. He found him in the dressing room. They undressed silently. Lucas walked toward the shower.

“Why don’t you go home and sleep—”

“Me?”

“Go ahead! Go home and get some rest!”

“My gosh, Doctor! I’m all right! I’m used to—”

“You’re reeling. That’s how all right you are. Go on! I don’t need you this morning, anyway—just an appendix—the rest’ll keep.”

“There’s just one thing I want to know—”

“I’ve told him! I’ve warned him!”

“What are we going to do about him?”

“He’s old. He won’t be long, now. I thought he’d quit last year. I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“He’s not a doctor.”

“He’ll watch his step now.”

“He’s not a doctor.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Are we going to report him?”

“I thought you knew! When you said the other day—‘taking a lot of X-ray pictures’—I thought you knew.”

“Knew? Knew a thing like that was going on? Knew a doctor—a doctor of Medicine—was deliberately killing patients?”

“You have to be reasonable. I know how you feel. You’ve been up all night, all this is new to you, he’s almost always right, it’s only a question of hours, I don’t like it any better than you do, he’s got to make a good showing, they don’t give him money enough—”

“And he’s taking money from patients, isn’t he! He’s milking charity patients. On the sly.”

“I don’t know . . . I don’t know . . .”

“He’s dangerous. You see that, don’t you? He can do anything—anything—”

“I’ll see it doesn’t happen again. That’s the last of it! I promise you! I should have stopped him long ago. I’m just as guilty as he is. Now, go home. Please. Get some sleep. A couple of hours, even—”

“You’re not! That’s his job—you can’t be every place—you can’t do everything—he’s the head of the hospital—no, really, Doctor! I’m all right—a shower’ll fix me up.

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