God Save the Child

“Yeah, I’ll bet it is,” I said.

“It is, in fact. Robinson is oversexed, and he’s married to a woman who is undersexed. Nothing pathological, but it was making their marriage an armed camp. He came to me for help. You’d be surprised how many people come to their family doctor in time of trouble.”

I said, “Cue the organ.” Croft paid no attention.

“Fraser is not only a patient, he’s a friend. Most of my patients are friends too. It’s not all injections and take-these-pills-three-times-a-day. A lot of any family doctor’s task is counseling, sometimes just being a guy that will listen.”

“You may replace Rex Morgan as my medical idol, Doctor.”

“I know, Spenser, you’re a smart aleck, but the practice of medicine doesn’t come out of textbook. Fraser needed an outlet, a chance for sexual adventure, and I gave it to him. It has saved his marriage, and I would do it again in a moment.”

“How’d you happen to know about Harroway, Doctor?”

“I’d heard about him in town. Being a doctor in a town this size, the word gets around; you hear things.”

“You ever meet him?”

“Of course not. We hardly move in the same circles.” Croft looked at me steadily.

Candid. A modern Hippocrates.

“How’d you happen to have a card with his phone number on it?”

Croft’s eyes faltered, only for a minute. “Card? I’ve never had a card for Harroway.” He dropped his hands toward the middle drawer of his desk, then caught himself and folded them in his lap and leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah you did, and you gave it to Robinson — a little white card with a phone number printed on it and nothing else.” I got up and walked past the desk to look out the window. It afforded a nice view of Route 128. Two small kids were sliding down the grassy embankment away from the highway using big pieces of cardboard for sleds. I turned around suddenly and pulled the middle drawer open. He tried to jam it shut, but I was stronger. In one corner was a neat stack of little white cards just like the one Robinson had given me. I took one out and stepped back away from the desk and sat down. Croft’s face was red, and two deep lines ran from his Arabian nostrils to the corners of his mouth. I held the card in my right hand and snapped the edge of it with the ball of my thumb. It was very noisy in the quiet office.

He regrouped. “Well, naturally, it’s not the kind of thing you admit. But I ran into Harroway once or twice at a pub on the highway and one thing led to another and I spent an evening with one of the girls from his house. Afterward, Harroway asked me to take a few of these cards and give them to any of my patients who might be in, ah, the situation that Fraser was in.”

“Croft,” I said, “I am getting sort of mad. You are bullshitting me. A little discreet business card, printed up with just a phone number on it, for the sexually dysfunctional? Harroway? Harroway’s idea of a subtle pander would be to stand oil the corner near the Fargo Building yelling, ‘Hey sailor, you want to get laid?’ You thought of this, and you’re in it like an olive in a martini.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“I can prove that. The point is you don’t want me to. If I have to prove it, you’ll be giving enemas at Walpole for the next five to ten. Now we can get around that, but not till you’ve spoken to me the words I’m longing to hear.”

“What do you want?” Croft said. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“Where’s Kevin Bartlett?”

“He’s with Vic, in Boston. Vic’s got an apartment in there on the Fenway.”

“Address?”

“I don’t know.”

“You supply Harroway with drugs?”

“Absolutely not.” He wasn’t admitting what I hadn’t proved.

“He ever give you money?”

“Never.” The firmness of his denials seemed to give him confidence. He denied it again. “Never.”

“Silly old me. I thought two nights ago by the bandstand on the Boston Common that you gave him a briefcase full of Quads and he gave you an envelope full of money.” Croft looked as if his stomach hurt. “Probably not that at all though, huh? Probably buying your collection of Kay Kayser records so he and the gang out at the house could have a sock-hop. That what it was?”

Croft looked at the window and then the door and then at me. None of us helped him. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He rubbed both hands, palms down, along the arms of his chair. “I want a lawyer,” he said. The words came out in a half croak.

“Now that’s dumb,” I said. “I mean, I might let you off the hook on this if you help me find the kid. But if you get a lawyer, then all this is going to come out, and maybe you’ll end up being accessory to murder. You know how that’ll cut into a guy’s practice.”

“I told you everything I know about the boy He’s with Vic in Boston.”

“I need an address, and you have one. You’re too much involved with Harroway not to know. You give me the address and maybe I can keep you out of the rest.”

“On the Fenway. One-thirty-six Park Drive, Apartment Three.”