The manitou by Graham Masterton Page B

the elevator to the tenth floor. In silence, we put on masks and robes. In
silence, we walked down the corridor to Karen Tandy’s room, and opened the
door.
    It was
grotesque. Karen Tandy was lying on her front now, her
face as white as the sheet it was resting on. The tumor lay bloatedly on her
back, a fat white bladder of swollen skin. It was as big as a pillow, and it
seemed to shift and bulge and ease itself from time to time, a great pulpy
growth with a malignant life of its own.
    “God,” I said
softly. “It’s grown enormous.”
    “And it’s
getting bigger all the time,” said Dr. Hughes. “Come here, feel it.”
    I stepped
cautiously up to the bedside. The tumor was so big that it was hard to believe
it was actually part of the girl who lay under it, carrying it on her back like
a sickening hump. I gingerly reached out with my fingertips and pressed it. It
seemed firm and distended, but there was a sensation of something slithery
inside. In fact, it felt exactly like the stomach of a pregnant woman.
    “Can’t you just
kill it?” I asked Dr. Hughes. “It must be the size of a small child by now.
Can’t you just stick a scalpel into it?”
    Dr. Hughes
shook his head. “I wish I could. I’d like to chop it off with a meat cleaver,
if you want to know the truth. But every X-ray shows that the nervous system of
this creature is inextricably bound up with Karen’s nervous system. Any
surgical attempt to remove it would kill her at once. They’re not so much like
mother and child – they’re more like Siamese twins.”
    “Can she talk
at all?”
    “She hasn’t
said anything for several hours. We took her out of bed to weigh her this
morning, and she spoke a couple of words then, but nothing that any of us could
understand.”
    “You weighed
her? Is she in a bad way?”
    Dr. Hughes
tucked his hands in the pockets of his robe and looked sadly down at his dying
patient. “She hasn’t lost any weight at all – but she hasn’t gained any either.
Whatever this tumor is, it’s taking all its sustenance directly from her. Every
ounce it grows, it takes from Karen.”
    “Have her parents
been in touch?”
    “They came in
this morning. The mother was very upset. I told them that we were going to try
for an operation, but naturally I didn’t say anything about the medicine man
stuff. They were angry enough at me as it was, because I hadn’t been able to
operate already. If I’d started telling them about oldtime red Indians, they
would have thought I was off my head.”
    I took one last
look at Karen Tandy, lying white and silent under her sickening burden, and
then we left the room and went back to Dr. Hughes’ office on the eighteenth
floor.
    “Do you think
her parents will be hard to convince? I asked him. “The problem is that all
this is going to take money. We’re going to have to bribe the medicine man, and
we’re going to have to pay for his plane fare and his hotel, not to mention
what the hell might happen if he gets hurt in the battle. I’d love to help, but us clairvoyants are not exactly Rockefellers. I doubt
if I could raise more than three or four hundred bucks.”
    Dr. Hughes
looked glum. “I could get the money out of the hospital under normal
circumstances, but I don’t see how I possibly can for the use of a medicine
man. No, I think her parents have a right to know what’s going on, anyway, and
make the choice for themselves. After all, the life of their daughter is at
stake.”
    “Do you want me
to talk to them?” I asked him.
    “You could, if
you want to. They’re staying at Karen’s aunt’s place, on Eighty-second. If you
get into any trouble, ask them to call me and confirm that you have my support.”
    “Okay,” I said. “Now, how about a drink?”
    “Good
thinking,” said Dr. Hughes, and fetched out his bottle of bourbon. He poured
out a couple of large ones, and I swallowed mine just as it came, fiery and
revitalizing after a weary day’s drive to Albany