“I hate you.” He spoke softly to keep the noise level down.
“Should hate yourself.” She also spoke softly, bless her. “Don’t know what you were trying to prove last night, Bunny, but I hope you proved it.”
He had; had proved that he could be as irrational as a fundamentalist preacher when something struck at his core beliefs. But they’d probably have the sense not to get plastered.
He eased himself into one of the cold white vinyl chairs and leaned on the cold tabletop; he was going to choke that fucking decorator.
Mary set a plate of dry toast and a cup of tea in front of him.
“What’s this?” he croaked. “I need aspirin. I’ll die without aspirin.”
He really needed that hair-of-the-dog drink. But just the thought made him dizzy and nauseous all over again.
Mary said, “Aspirin’s acid, Doctor, and you consumed enough acid last night to eat through a vault. It’s time to soak some of it up. Eat the toast.” He bit into it gingerly, chewed for a long time and swallowed. It felt like it would stay down and he took another bite.
“Try some tea,” she said. “I put honey in it.”
He did, then another bite of toast. Mary sat down across from him.
“I’ve had a very strange morning, Bunny. Isabelle from the service called at eight thirty to make sure you were okay. Seems a nameless woman called last night and again this morning, saying something terrible was going to happen to you. Isabelle’s not a fanciful woman, to put it mildly, but the woman spooked her, and Isabelle finally spooked me. Then Dave showed up, wanting to know the same thing.”
“What time’s Pete coming home?”
“Don’t change the subject. What happened?”
A woman who claims to be psychic made a dire prediction. But the prediction had not been dire; she’d merely said, “Don’t go.” Maybe she knew what shape he’d be in this morning.
“Bunny, what’s going on?”
“Change of season makes everyone a little nuts,” he said.
“What an incisive psychiatric diagnosis, Doctor.”
She got up, put another slice of bread in the toaster, and the phone rang. The sound ripped through his head and he gagged and put his hands over his ears. Mary leaped up and grabbed it as it started its second ring and he uncovered his ears.
She kept her voice low so he could barely hear her and his innards calmed down. No, she told the caller. Dr. Bunner couldn’t come to the phone right now. He wasn’t feeling well, try the office in the morning and so on. Then he realized that she was repeating herself, arguing with whoever it was. Stick to your guns, Mare, he urged silently. Please stick to your guns.
She did for about five minutes, then she took the phone away from her ear, covered the mouthpiece, and looked at him. “He won’t take no for an answer, Bunny. And he sounds... agitated. I’m a little afraid to just hang up on him.”
Hang up on him, Bunner thought, hang up on the slimy nut. It’s Sunday morning, I’ve got a hangover... I’ve got a life, too.
“He sounds weird, too, Bunny. As if he’s got something in his mouth or something. I think you better...” She held the phone out. He struggled to his feet and made his way along the counter. The top was freezing—he was going to sue that pansy decorator for every extra cent it cost to heat this Bauhaus monstrosity next winter.
He took the phone from her. It was pleasantly warm from her touch and he nestled it against his ear.
“This is Doctor Bunner,” he said. His voice sounded as if he’d been swallowing sand.
“Bunny... oh, Bunny, thank God!” He didn’t recognize the voice, but whoever it was knew him well enough to call him Bunny.
“Who is this?”
“I can’t tell you, don’t make me tell you. I can’t—please, don’t make me.” A low quivering sob came through the phone. It sounded real enough but he suddenly thought of Olivia De Havilland in the Snake Pit. He said, “You’ve got two seconds to come up with a name, or I’m hanging up.”
“Whoever I am, I need help, Bunny. Your help.”
Someone’s help, Bunner thought. The voice was muffled and garbled as if he were talking through a mouthful of marbles into a receiver with a handkerchief over it to disguise his voice. But that was pretty paranoid, even for a shrink with a hangover.
Then he thought of her and wondered if she could possibly disguise her voice to this extent. But that was worse than paranoid. She had shown no interest in tormenting him and the voice was definitely masculine.
“Please,” the caller moaned, “I’ve got to see you now.” The madness might be feigned, but not the need, and Bunner felt the tug of that compassion that was his greatest weapon against the sadness, confusion, fear, and sometimes terror that afflicted his patients.
But he didn’t want to feel compassion or anything else now. He wanted to eat more toast, take a shower, put in more sack time. He felt it anyway, and gently said, “Look, whoever you are, I’ve got the hangover from hell and I’m in no shape to see you or anyone else. Call Mrs. Meeker in the morning, tell her I said to fit you—”
“Nooooooo!” the caller shrieked, and Bunner dropped the phone. It hit the freezing stone counter, bounced off, and dangled at the end of the cord. Bunner bent to get it, and ice shards of pain slashed through his head. He staggered and grabbed the counter to keep from falling. Man- leaped forward to help him but he waved her away, reeled in the phone, and put it back to his ear. Now he was furious; “Listen to me, you son of a bitch—I said not today, I am sick today. I’m a person, too,” he raged softly. “People get sick and you can call Mrs. Meeker tomorrow or you can sit on it. You got that?”
“Oh, yes,” the muffled garbled voice said slyly, “I’ve got it. Now you get this, Doctor Bunner. I’ll be at your office door in exactly an hour and a half. You can be there too and give me the care and succor a physician is supposed to give his patient, or you can stay home and nurse your hangover. But, if you do, I’m going to jam a gigantic gun in my mouth—I’m looking right at it—and blow the back of my head all over your office door. You got that, Dr. Bunner?”
Then came a click, then silence. Bunner kept the phone to his ear, not believing the bastard had hung up on him until the dial tone kicked in. Then he put the phone down and looked at his wife.
“He said he’d kill himself,” he said wonderingly.
“Oh, Bunny.”
“Said he’d blow his head off if I won’t see him.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No... yes... I don’t know.”
The lot was empty when Bunner got there, but it was twenty of, and the caller wasn’t due yet. Bunner let himself into the lobby and left the door unlocked so the caller could get in, then he rode up to the fourth floor, past the silent floors of the office building. No one was there on Sunday except Marsh Todd in his watchman’s cubbyhole in the basement.
The doors opened on four and Bunner got out.
They’d turned the blowers off for the weekend, none of the windows opened and the air was very stale. You couldn’t even breathe in here without using oil, gas, electricity, or whatever fired the works in the basement. At least they could build these monstrosities with windows that opened. The decorator, or whatever he called himself, had tried to put fixed windows in the new kitchen, but Mary had put her foot down. When Mary put her foot down, you didn’t argue. The decorator would have totally ignored Bunner.
He reached the jog in the wall that hid his office at the end of the hall, and got a sudden attack of what his mother used to call the screaming meemies.