‘Shep. Take it easy, boy. I’m coming.’
Bergeron moved with small steps now, edging his way forward like a man on a ledge. He squinted into the fog.
‘Shep?’
He could just make the dog out, six feet away, down on his forepaws, clawing at something on the ground. Bergeron edged closer and took hold of the dog’s collar.
‘Easy, boy.’
The dog whined a little and licked his hand. Bergeron bent lower to see what was on the ground.
‘Oh my God.’
It lay there, fishbelly white, hair curling along one side. Toward the wrist end, the flesh still bore the zigzag impression of a watch with an expandable bracelet. Even though there was no hand attached, there was no doubt that the thing lying in Ivan Bergeron’s backyard was a human arm.
If it hadn’t been for Ray Choquette’s decision to retire, John Cardinal would not have been sitting in the waiting room with his father when he could have been down at headquarters catching up on phone calls, or – better yet – out on the street making life a misery for one of Algonquin Bay’s bad guys. But no. Here he was, stuck with his father, waiting to see a doctor neither of them had ever met. A female doctor at that – as if Stan Cardinal was going to take advice from a woman. Ray Choquette, Cardinal thought, I could wring your lazy, inconsiderate neck.
The senior Cardinal was eighty-three – physically. The hair on his forearms was white now, and he had the watery eyes of a very old man. In other ways, his son was thinking, the guy never got past the age of four.
‘How much longer is she gonna make us wait?’ Stan asked for the third time. ‘Forty-five minutes we’ve been sitting here. What kind of respect does that show for other people’s time? How can she possibly be a good doctor?’
‘It’s like anything else, Dad. A good doctor’s a busy doctor.’
‘Nonsense. It’s greed. A hundred percent pure capitalist greed. You know, I was happy making thirty-five thousand dollars a year on the railroad. We had to fight like hell to get that kind of money, and by God we fought for it. But nobody goes to medical school because they want to make thirty-five thousand dollars.’
Here we go, Cardinal thought. Rant number 27D. It was like his father’s brain consisted of a collection of cassettes.
‘And then you’ve got the government playing Scrooge with these guys,’ Stan went on. ‘So they become stockbrokers or lawyers, where they can make the kind of money they want. And then we end up with no damn doctors.’
‘Talk to Geoff Mantis. He’s the one who took the chainsaw to medicare.’
‘They’d make you wait, anyways, no matter how many of them there were,’ Stan said. ‘It’s a class thing. Class not only must exist, it must be seen to exist. Making you wait is their way of saying, “I’m important and you’re not.”’
‘Dad, there’s a shortage of doctors. That’s why we have to wait.’
‘What I want to know is, what kind of young woman spends her day looking down people’s throats and up their anuses? I’d never do it.’
‘Mr Cardinal?’
Stan got to his feet with difficulty. The young receptionist came round from behind her desk, clutching a file folder.
‘Do you need some help?’
‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ Stan turned to his son. ‘You coming, or what?’
‘I don’t need to go in with you,’ Cardinal said.
‘No, you come too. I want you to hear this. You think I’m not fit to drive, I want you to hear the truth.’
The receptionist opened the door to the consulting room and they went in.
‘Mr Cardinal? Winter Cates.’ The doctor couldn’t have been much more than thirty, but she rose from behind her desk and came round to shake hands with the brisk efficiency of an old pro. She had fine, pale skin that contrasted sharply with her black hair. Dark eyebrows knit themselves in a quizzical look now, aimed at Cardinal.
‘I’m his son. He asked me to come in with him.’
‘He thinks I can’t drive,’ Stan said. ‘But I know my feet are better, and I want him to hear it from the horse’s mouth. How old are you, anyway?’
‘I’m thirty-two. How old are you?’
Stan emitted a quack of surprise. ‘I’m eighty-three.’
Dr Cates gestured at a chair facing the desk.
‘That’s okay. I’ll stand for now.’
The three of them stood there in the middle of the room, Dr Cates flipping through Stan’s chart. Her hair was held in place by a clip; without it, it would be springing out all over the place, wild and black. She radiated a sense of enormous vitality, barely held in check by the seriousness of her profession.
‘Well, you’ve been a healthy guy up until recently,’ the doctor said.
‘Never smoked. Never drank more than a beer with dinner.’
‘Smart guy, too, then.’
‘Some people might not think so.’ Stan shot a glance at his son that Cardinal ignored.
‘And you have diabetes, which you keep under control with Glucophage. You’re self-monitoring?’
‘Oh, yeah. Can’t say I enjoy pricking my finger every five minutes, but yeah. I keep my blood sugar right in the normal range. You’re welcome to check it.’
‘I plan to.’
Stan looked at Cardinal. His expression said, ‘Is this woman being rude to me? By God, if this woman’s being rude to me …’
‘And Dr Choquette notes you had considerable neuropathy in your feet.’
‘Had. It’s better now.’
‘You were having trouble walking. Standing, even. Driving must have been out of the question, right?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. My feet just felt – not numb, exactly – but like they had sponges on ’em. It didn’t slow me up much.’
Please don’t let him drive, Cardinal was thinking. He’ll kill himself or somebody else, and I don’t want to get that phone call.
Dr Cates led Stan to a door off to the right. ‘Just take a seat in the examining room. Remove your shoes and socks and shirt.’
‘My shirt?’
‘I want to listen to your heart. Dr Choquette noted some arrhythmia and referred you to a cardiologist. That was six months ago, but I don’t see any results here.’
‘Yeah, well, I never got to see that cardiologist.’
‘That’s not good,’ Dr Cates said. There was a note of flint in her voice.
‘He was busy, I was busy. You know how it is. It just never happened.’
‘You have heart failure in your family history, Mr Cardinal. That is not something you ignore.’ She turned to Cardinal. She had the kind of cool gaze he found sexy in a woman, no doubt because it was meant not to be. ‘I think you’d better wait out here.’
‘Fine with me.’ Cardinal took a seat.
There was a rap on the door and the receptionist came in. ‘Sorry. Craig Simmons is here. He insists I tell you he’s still waiting.’
‘Melissa, I’m with a patient. I have patients lined up all day. He can’t just drop in like this.’
‘I know