The Godfather - Puzo Mario - Страница 84

Fontane was not so charming now. He gave Jules a long cool look. “That’s the first thing I did nearly two years ago. Best specialists. My own doctor who’s supposed to be the top guy out here in California. They told me to get a lot of rest. Nothing wrong, just getting older. A man’s voice changes when he gets older.”

Fontane ignored him after that, paying attention to Lucy, charming her as he charmed all women. Jules kept listening to the voice. There had to be a growth on those vocal cords. But then why the hell hadn’t the specialists spotted it? Was it malignant and inoperable? Then there was other stuff.

He interrupted Fontane to ask, “When was the last time you got examined by a specialist?”

Fontane was obviously irritated but trying. to be polite for Lucy’s sake. “About eighteen months ago.” he said.

“Does your own doctor take a look once in a while?” Jules asked.

“Sure he does,” Johnny Fontane said irritably. “He gives me a codeine spray and checks me out. He told me it’s just my voice aging, that all the drinking and smoking and other stuff. Maybe you know more than he does?”

Jules asked, “What’s his name?”

Fontane said with just a faint flicker of pride, “Tucker, Dr. James Tucker. What do you think of him?”

The name was familiar, linked to famous movie stars, female, and to an expensive health farm.

“He’s a sharp dresser,” Jules said with a grin.

Fontane was angry now. “You think you’re a better doctor than he is?”

Jules laughed. “Are you a better singer than Carmen Lombardo?” He was surprised to see Nino Valenti break up in laughter, banging his head on his chair. The joke hadn’t been that good. Then on the wings of those guffaws he caught the smell of bourbon and knew that even this early in the morning Mr. Valenti, whoever the hell he was, was at least half drunk.

Fontane was grinning at his friend. “Hey, you’re supposed to be laughing at my jokes, not his.” Meanwhile Lucy stretched out her hand to Jules and drew him to her bedside.

“He looks like a bum but he’s a brilliant surgeon,” LUCY told them. “If he says he’s better than Dr. Tucker then he’s better than Dr. Tucker. You listen to him, Johnny.”

The nurse came in and told them they would have to leave. The resident was going to do some work on Lucy and needed privacy. Jules was amused to see Lucy turn her head away so when Johnny Fontane and Nino Valenti kissed her they would hit her cheek instead of her mouth, but they seemed to expect it. She let Jules kiss her on the mouth and whispered, “Come back this afternoon, please?” he nodded.

Out in the corridor, Valenti asked him, “What was the operation for? Anything serious?”

Jules shook his head. “Just a little female plumbing. Absolutely routine, please believe me. I’m more concerned than you are, I hope to marry the girl.”

They were looking at him appraisingly so he asked, “How did you find out she was in the hospital?”

“Freddie called us and asked us to look in,” Fontane said. “We all grew up in the same neighborhood. Lucy was maid of honor when Freddie’s sister got married.”

“Oh,” Jules said. He didn’t let on that he knew the whole story, perhaps because they were so cagey about protecting Lucy and her affair with Sonny.

As they walked down the corridor, Jules said to Fontane, “I have visiting doctor’s privileges here, why don’t you let me have a look at your throat?”

Fontane shook his head. “I’m in a hurry.”

Nino Valenti said, “That’s a million-dollar throat, he can’t have cheap doctors looking down it.” Jules saw Valenti was grinning at him, obviously on his side.

Jules said cheerfully, “I’m no cheap doctor. I was the brightest young surgeon and diagnostician on the East Coast until they got me on an abortion rap.”

As he had known it would, that made them take him seriously. By admitting his crime he inspired belief in his claim of high competence. Valenti recovered first. “If Johnny can’t use you, I got a girl friend I want you to look at, not at her throat though.”

Fontane said to him nervously, “How long will you take?”

“Ten minutes,” Jules said. It was a lie but he believed in telling lies to people. Truth telling and medicine just didn’t go together except in dire emergencies, if then.

“OK,” Fontane said. His voice was darker, hoarser, with fright.

Jules recruited a nurse and a consulting room. It didn’t have everything he needed but there was enough. In less than ten minutes he knew there was a growth on the vocal cords, that was easy. Tucker, that incompetent sartorial son of a bitch of a Hollywood phony, should have been able to spot it. Christ, maybe the guy didn’t even have a license and if he did it should be taken away from him. Jules didn’t pay any attention to the two men now. He picked up the phone and asked for the throat man at the hospital to come down. Then he swung around and said to Nino Valenti, “I think it might be a long wait for you, you’d better leave.”

Fontane stared at him in utter disbelief. “You son of a bitch, you think you’re going to keep me here? You think you’re going to fuck around with my throat?”

Jules, with more pleasure than he would have thought possible, gave it to him straight between the eyes. “You can do whatever you like,” he said. “You’ve got a growth of some sort on your vocal cords, in your larynx. If you stay here the next few hours, we can nail it down, whether it’s malignant or nonmalignant. We can make a decision for surgery or treatment. I can give you the whole story. I can give you the name of a top specialist in America and we can have him out here on the plane tonight, with your money that is, and if I think it necessary. But you can walk out of here and see your quack buddy or sweat while you decide to see another doctor, or get referred to somebody incompetent. Then if it’s malignant and gets big enough they’ll cut out your whole larynx or you’ll die. Or you can just sweat. Stick here with me and we can get it all squared away in a few hours. You got anything more important to do?”

Valenti said, “Let’s stick around, Johnny, what the hell. I’ll go down the hall and call the studio. I won’t tell them anything, just that we’re held up. Then I’ll come back here and keep you company.”

It proved to be a very long afternoon but a rewarding one. The diagnosis of the staff throat man was perfectly sound as far as Jules could see after the X rays and swab analysis. Halfway through, Johnny Fontane, his mouth soaked with iodine, retching over the roll of gauze stuck in his mouth, tried to gait. Nino Valenti grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him back into a chair. When it was all over Jules grinned at Fontane and said, “Warts.”

Fontane didn’t grasp it. Jules said again. “Just some warts. We’ll slice them right off like skin off baloney. In a few months you’ll be OK.”

Valenti let out a yell but Fontane was still frowning. “How about singing afterward, how will it affect my singing?”

Jules shrugged. “On that there’s no guarantee. But since you can’t sing now what’s the difference?”

Fontane looked at him with distaste. “Kid, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You act like you’re giving me good news when what you’re telling me is maybe I won’t sing anymore. Is that right, maybe I won’t sing anymore?”

Finally Jules was disgusted. He’d operated as a real doctor and it had been a pleasure. He had done this bastard a real favor and he was acting as if he’d been done dirt. Jules said coldly, “Listen, Mr. Fontane, I’m a doctor of medicine and you can call me Doctor, not kid. And I did give you very good news. When I brought you down here I was certain that you had a malignant growth in your larynx which would entail cutting out your whole voice box. Or which could kill you. I was worried that I might have to tell you that you were a dead man. And I was so delighted when I could say the word ‘warts.’ Because your singing gave me so much pleasure, helped me seduce girls when I was younger and you’re a real artist. But also you’re a very spoiled guy. Do you think because you’re Johnny Fontane you can’t get cancer? Or a brain tumor that’s inoperable. Or a failure of the heart? Do you think you’re never going to die? Well, it’s not all sweet music and if you want to see real trouble take a walk through this hospital and you’ll sing a love song about warts. So just stop the crap and get on with what you have to do. Your Adolphe Menjou medical man can get you the proper surgeon but if he tries to get into the operating room I suggest you have him arrested for attempted murder.”