The manitou by Graham Masterton Page A

to need some cash. Dr. Snow, can I
ask a favor of you?”
    “Certainly,”
said Dr. Snow. “This case is fascinating, and I’d feel privileged to help.”
    “Could you call
your friend in South Dakota and ask him to start looking for the most powerful
medicine man he can find? Then if Karen Tandy’s parents do agree to bring
someone in, at least we’ll be ready. Could you do that?”
    “With
pleasure,” said Dr. Snow.
    We left the
Snow’s house around five o’clock. It was already night, and the wind hit us in
the face like a bucketful of razor blades. We drove off into the weird
half-light of icebound landscape, tired and chilly, but even more determined to
save Karen Tandy from the mysterious enemy which had invaded her body. The
first thing I wanted to do when I got back to New York was to check up on how
she was, and ask Dr. Hughes just how much time he thought we had left. There
was no point in going to all the expense of bringing an Indian medicine man
from South Dakota if Karen was already dead, or just about to die.
    “You know something,”
said MacArthur, resting his legs across the Cougar’s back seat, “I think
there’s something like historic justice in all this. I mean, I feel sorry for
Karen, but as you sow you certainly shall reap, don’t you think?”
    Amelia turned
round and smirked at him. “MacArthur,” she said, “I love your beard and I love
your body, but your philosophy stinks.”
    I dropped
Amelia and MacArthur in the Village, and then I drove up to the Sisters of
Jerusalem to check on Karen. I was pretty exhausted by the time I got there,
and I went into the men’s room to wash up and tidy my hair. When I looked at
myself in the glass, I looked pale and tired and frail, and I began to wonder
how the hell I would summon up the strength to battle with a medicine man from
the golden age of Indian magic.
    I found Dr.
Hughes in his office, reading a pile of reports by the light of his desk lamp.
    “Mr. Erskine,”
he said, “you’re back. How did it go?”
    I flopped down
in the chair opposite him. “I think we know what’s going on, anyway. But whether
we’ll be able to fight it or not – well, that’s another question.”
    He listened
seriously while I explained what Dr. Snow had said. I also told him that we
were trying to find a rival medicine man to fly into New York.
    Dr. Hughes got
up from his chair and went over to the window. He stared down at the crawling
lights of traffic, and the first spinning flakes of a fresh snowfall.
    “I just hope to
God that none of this leaks out to the newspapers,” he said. “It’s difficult
enough keeping it quiet from the rest of the specialists and surgeons involved.
But just think about it –
    the world’s second or third leading specialist on tumors has
to bring in a redskin from the plains of South Dakota, some mumbo-jumbo artist
with warpaint and bones, because he can’t manage to deal with a tumor by
himself.”
    “You knows well as I do that this isn’t any ordinary tumor,” I
said. “And you can’t fight a magic tumor with ordinary methods. The proof of
what you’re doing will be in the cure.”
    Dr. Hughes
looked away from the window. “And supposing she doesn’t get cured? What do I
say then? I brought in a redskin medicine man, but that wasn’t any use,
either?”
    “Dr. Hughes...”
    “ It’s okay, Mr. Erskine. I don’t really have any qualms about
this. I’ve seen enough tumors in my life to know that this isn’t anything like
an ordinary condition. And I believe your theory, about the Indians. I don’t
know why I believe it, but I can’t see any other rational explanation. None of
my colleagues has even got as much as a wild guess.”
    “How is she, doctor?”
I asked him. “Is the tumor still growing?”
    “Do you want to
see for yourself?” he said. “It’s got worse since you last saw her, yesterday.”
    “If it’s okay. I’ll try not to upset her, like last time.”
    In silence, we
took