"I know the story. I'm after the truth."
He gave me something that was supposed to be a smile but played as a grimace. "Mr. Hammer, if you don't mind, I need to have a shower."
I wasn't going anywhere. "Be my guest."
We spoke as he got out of the clothes. I'll skip the details—this was not a striptease worth recording.
"I think Davy was a druggie," I said. "A user. And maybe even a pusher at school."
"Why do you make these assumptions?"
"Just from digging. He was pals with Jay Wren—the Snowbird, remember him? Maybe that's why you were so familiar with Wren—your surrogate nephew was tight with him. Wren was an upperclassman, and might have set Davy up in business. Maybe Davy was Wren's high school connection."
The fat little man, naked now, tromped into the nearby showers. I stayed put on the bench a while. He was in there, clouded in steam, and the sound of water needles discouraged conversation. But not me.
I got up, leaned a hand against the wall where it opened into the shower room, and called out, "The kid was gifted! He was a good athlete, maybe a great one—but not a great kid."
"You don't know that!" His voice echoed, rising above the driving spray.
"Davy died of an overdose, didn't he?"
Nothing but spray now, and the doc soaping himself.
"What was it, Dr. Sprague—heroin? He started out early on the daddy of gateway drugs—booze. Arrested for drunk and disorderly at a tender age, right?"
He came trundling out, feet slapping against the wet tiles. I had a towel ready for him. Thoughtful of me, but also I prefer naked fat men to cover up.
I gave him room while he toweled off. And I said nothing as he got into shorts and T-shirt and socks. Then I asked, "Who are you protecting? A kid who died stupid?"
He turned to me with such speed, the water on his bristly hair flecked me. Anger turned to regret, and then to full-bore sadness. Still in his skivvies, he sat heavily on the bench, his back to the shower, head bowed and almost bumping his locker.
"Talent unbridled," he said, "can be a dangerous thing in a boy. He was an only child, and his mother spoiled him terribly, and his father ... his father was a doctor, and doctors are around for everybody who needs them, except their families."
"So he turned into an arrogant little prick."
He swallowed, turned to me with a ghastly expression, and said, "A ... very arrogant little prick. But such potential. He might have grown out of it. Only, he ... he wasn't as smart as his father, was he?"
"You tell me."
"He wasn't. He had charm, which he got from his mother, and his father had been a high school and college athlete, as well—baseball. But Davy was merely an average student, and he didn't try hard at all. Of course, the teachers passed him, padded his grades—he was the star player, you know, football, basketball, track."
"I suppose he started out on speed. Most athletes do."
Sprague said, "Do we have to belabor this?"
"Was he a pusher, Doc?"
"I ... I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised."
"Does his father know all this?"
"Certainly."
"Have you ever discussed it?"
"Never." Then he added, "Not directly."
I let him get his suit on—he deserved to gather a little dignity. Two more doctors entered during this phase, and when he was dressed, Sprague said, "Let's have some coffee in the doctors' lounge."
Soon we were seated quietly at a table near a window.
"There's something else we should discuss," he said.
"Okay."
He was putting a third sugar packet into his coffee. What would his doctor say about that?
"The last time we spoke," he said, "I expressed my frustration with the way Dr. Harrin has fraternized with the likes of Wren and Evello."
"Graduates of your celebrity suite."
"Indeed. I have a suspicion, Mr. Hammer. It is based on observation, and is not ungrounded ... but I caution you that it is a suspicion only."
"All right."
Very quietly, glancing to make sure we weren't being overheard in the good-sized but near-empty lounge, he said, "Do you know what a 'Dr. Feelgood' is, Mr. Hammer?"
"Sure. A medic who prescribes drugs to patients without regard to actual need—essentially, a pusher with a medical degree, dispensing illegal recreation, not required medication."
He smiled faintly. "Very well put, sir. Would it shock you to hear that I think my colleague, my trusted friend, has become just such a practitioner ... and to the most unsavory clientele imaginable?"
"Little shocks me, Doc." I frowned at him, though, as if trying to pull him back into focus. "You're saying Dr. Harrin has become a Dr. Feelgood to the Syndicate?"
"I am."
I thought it over. "We'd be talking Evello, not Wren. The Snowbird is close enough to the street action to use his own product, if he's so inclined. A guy like Junior Evello, though, has layers of protection—he insulates himself from the nastier aspects of his business. Syndicate guys like him don't dare use street product."
"Why not, Mr. Hammer?"
I shrugged. "Their lives are too carefully watched."
"But why would David do it? He hardly needs the money. David Harrin is one of the wealthiest doctors in Manhattan."
"Yeah?"
Sprague nodded. "You're aware he's a rare-diseases specialist. He's heavily involved in research and testing, and has been for years. He was on Salk's polio vaccine team, and had a hand in the development of half a dozen other vital vaccines. He's done a great deal of public good, certainly, but also has amassed something of a fortune doing it."
I was still frowning. "So he doesn't exactly need to play Dr. Feel-good to anybody."
"No! And why would he befriend the likes of Evello and this Snowbird character? These men were indirectly responsible for his son's death!"
I didn't bother responding. Dr. Sprague was in the business of saving lives. But I worked the other end of that equation. I came in when a victim was beyond help, and the only thing even approaching a remedy was taking vengeance.
Was Dr. Harrin ingratiating himself with Evello and Wren, to get close enough to take them out?
But those two slobs had been under Harrin's care at the hospital—he'd had the perfect opportunity to murder them in some medically undetectable fashion.
Dr. Sprague said, "Perhaps I should apologize, Mr. Hammer. I may be sending you down a blind alley. And the notion that Dr. David Harrin could have any affiliation with the likes of Junior Evello and Jay Wren, why ... it defies credulity."
"That's okay, Doc," I said. I put on my hat and got up. "I've had my credulity defied before."
In the hospital lobby, I used a phone booth to check in with Velda. I figured she deserved to know that her hours at the Weekly Home News had paid off, Sprague confirming that Davy Harrin had been a user and possibly a pusher.
But I hadn't started getting my news out before she blurted hers: "I got him!"
"Who, kitten?"
"Jay Wren—I got through to him at the Pigeon. He has an office there. And he was very nice, gracious even. Wanted very much to speak with you."
"Great. I can head over there now...."
"No, he has meetings. He said he'd be glad to see you at the club tonight. He'll have a table reserved for us."
"Us?"
"Yeah ... I think I deserve a night out. Come on, Mike—the Pigeon is the latest thing. The new 'in' spot. Throw a girl a crumb."
"Crumbs don't throw crumbs," I said, but she stayed at it and I finally said yes.
Somebody called it the City That Never Sleeps.
And although plenty of honest working folk snooze away in the dusk-till-dawn hours, nightlife has been a part of New York since not long after the Dutch screwed over the Indians.