The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [92]
“Do you want me to listen to your heart or not?” I asked, brandishing my stethoscope.
Haggens dropped his bravado, as he had done in the room on Wharf Lane. “Yeah. I do,” he replied meekly. Swagger did not hold up well against the prospect of a medical examination.
I instructed him to remove his vest and shirt. Haggens seemed slight in clothes, but bare-chested, he was deceptively broad across the chest and his arms were thick cords of muscle.
“I was a prizefighter, Doc,” he said, noticing me notice. “Gave it up, though. Much better ways of making a dollar.”
“I’m sure you were quite adept,” I said, breathing on the stethoscope’s diaphragm to warm it.
“I can still go a round or two.”
I was certain he could. I instructed Haggens to take deep breaths as I auscultated front and back. There was a soft rumble directly over the heart during the resting phase of the heartbeat, which became more distinct just before contraction. With Haggens’ history of rheumatic fever, it was a simple matter to determine the problem. I told him to dress.
“Is it serious, Doc?” he said, a look of genuine fear passing across his face. What power physicians possess!
“Have you had a cough? Was there blood in it?”
“I had a cough a while back,” Haggens answered softly. “No blood, though.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Do you ever get a constriction … tightening in your chest?”
Haggens shook his head. “That good too, Doc?”
I nodded. “Are you ever tired?”
“All the time,” he said.
“No, I mean very tired.”
“Sometimes,” he said. “Do you know what I got?”
“I think so,” I said. “You have the symptoms of a condition called mitral stenosis, which is a narrowing of one of the valves in your heart. It prevents adequate blood flow between the chambers.”
“That sounds bad,” he said.
“Not necessarily. In many cases the condition doesn’t progress. If you can tolerate the symptoms and they don’t worsen, you should be fine.”
“What if they do worsen?”
There was no point in lying. Haggens was far too savvy to be taken in by platitudes. “If your symptoms worsen, you could eventually develop either blood clots or an infection of the heart muscle called endocarditis.”
“Bad?”
“Either can kill you.”
Haggens digested the information, sizing up the alternatives as he had when I had asked to borrow Mike. Like many patients, now that he knew the facts, he was able to consider his condition coolly and rationally. “How long is eventually?”
“There is no way to know. But most of the time the condition will stay as it is.”
“Anything I can do for it?”
“Well, you might want to drink less. Coffee won’t help you, either. And you might want to try to avoid nervous stress.”
Haggens guffawed. “Avoid stress? Down here?”
“Well,” I said, “do your best. We have another matter to discuss, however.”
Haggens dropped his eyes in mock shame, as he buttoned his shirt. “I know, Doc. I was a bad boy.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “How many people have tried it?”
“The stuff?”
“Of course, the stuff. I didn’t mean the revolver.”
“I heard rumors that some of it has gotten around.”
“What did these rumors say as to the effects?”
“Rumors said that this is the best stuff anyone has ever tried.”
“Not everyone thought so, I’ll wager. I would venture to say that some who tried it received an unpleasant surprise.” The patient I had seen earlier in the hospital, for one, I thought.
“Unpleasant surprises are everyday happenings down here, Doc.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “I’m sure. Has anyone died?”
Haggens turned his palms up. “Do I look like the town undertaker?”
I took a breath. I was about to take my association with Haggens into dangerous territory. “I need whoever is selling it to stop selling it. If they don’t stop selling it, people are going to keep showing up at either the hospital or the morgue with symptoms of poisoning that will force me to tell the police what I know about this mysterious substance.” Haggens began to speak, but I put up my hand. “And please don’t tell me how dangerous it would be for me to do so, or that I would be in just