The Man Who Shot Lewis Vance by Stuart M. Kaminsky Read Free Book Online

desk. My favorite, and the one I knew best, was through the Emergency Room, partly because I had had so much business with that part of the establishment. This time, however, I didn’t have to sneak in. I had a legitimate reason for being there, so I stopped at the main desk behind a sailor and waited while the woman who looked like Edna May Oliver playing Hidegarde Whithers handed the gob a pass.
    When the sailor stepped out of the way, I put on my best Monday morning smile and said, “Merit Beason.”
    Something about me did not please the woman, who gave me a prunish look and checked through her list of patients.
    “Barish, Barbier, Beason, yes,” she said.
    “Yes,” I repeated, reaching for the card.
    “No,” she said, pulling the card back. “No visitors.”
    “I’m his brother.”
    “No visitors,” she repeated. “Not today. He was shot.”
    “I didn’t do it,” I said, putting my hand to my chest, ready to cross my heart and hope to die.
    “No one said you did. No visitors,” she repeated, pointing to the card and looking over at the brown-uniformed guard chatting to a nurse about a dozen feet away.
    “I’m his son,” I tried. “I made a mistake about being his brother. I was nervous.”
    “No,” she said. “Sorry.”
    “I get the impression here that you don’t like me,” I said looking pained.
    “That’s true,” she agreed, looking past me at the young woman holding the hand of a little boy and waiting to cope with the keeper of the gate. “But like you or not, the card says no visitors.”
    “Why don’t you like me?” I said. “I’m nice to my family, pay my taxes, honor my parents memory, want to visit my uncle in the hospital.”
    “You remind me of my husband,” the woman said. “Now, if you please, you’ll have to stand out of the way so I can take care of the lady.”
    “But—” I began, but she put her finger to her lips just the way my third-grade teacher Mrs. Rothcup used to do and I immediately shut up.
    “I’m a volunteer here,” she whispered. “I do not get paid. I am filling in for the duration of the war to free the regular receptionist, my daughter, to do more essential war-related work. I am, actually, in quite a good mood today, possibly because my husband is in Phoenix on business and partly because I just heard on the radio that the Japanese fleet has been trounced at Midway. I should hate to call that guard and have you escorted out.”
    “You used to be a teacher, didn’t you?” I whispered even lower.
    She nodded, pleased that her lifetime of work had so clearly molded her personality. To prove her persona, she pointed an index finger at the door. To prove my conditioning by the California school system, I turned and left the hospital.
    Someone must have thought that the Japanese were planning a sneak attack on the hospital, probably intent on eliminating all the dangerous appendectomy patients before they could mobilize. The two side doors were locked. Even the window off the fire escape near the mental wing was locked, though someone had put up a colorful crayon drawing of a smiling round face with three wisps of hair sticking up. The name “Dagwood” was printed in black crayon on the picture. I wondered if it was the comic strip character or the nickname of the mental ward artist.
    It was time to try the Emergency Room door. That was always open, and probably only admitting a flow or trickle on this Monday morning. Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were the rush hours for the Emergency Room. On Saturday night they came in drunk and bleeding from fighting over who was winning the war. On Sunday, they came in after accidents and battles. How much of the Sunday funny papers could you read? Quick as a Flash and That Brewster Boy could only keep you busy for an hour, and another hour in church, in bed, or on a blanket in the front yard listening to the kids only made the natives crankier, reminding them that the next day was work and that