Free Doctors by Erich Segal Page A

came. “Please, Barney,” she sobbed, “please help me.”
    In the quiet winter darkness, he stopped and whispered, “Take it easy, Laura. Let’s go back where it’s warm and talkthis whole thing over. Mom’s asleep by now, no one will hear us.”
    Back in the kitchen they began to pool their mutual ignorance of illegal medical practices and tried to rack their brains for a plan.
    It was almost as difficult for Barney to listen as it was for Laura to speak. In his mind, rage was fighting a pitched battle with compassion.
    Laura knew two other Midwood girls who had been in her predicament. Each had taken a different measure to solve the problem.
    One had paid fifty bucks to a shady character in a dingy two-room apartment on the fifth floor of a tenement near Red Hook. The experience had been horrible and she had been extremely lucky to end up in one piece. As she told Laura, the guy was so filthy she could see the dirt under his fingernails.
    The second girl had told her parents who, though horrified, had arranged for an abortion under sterile medical conditions. But this alternative involved going to Puerto Rico—and during the summer vacation, when her absence did not arouse any suspicion.
    “Barney, what the hell should we do?” Then, ashamed, Laura quickly corrected herself. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said ‘we.’ It’s my problem really.”
    “No, Castellano, just stay loose and we’ll find a safe solution. Now, first of all, are you absolutely sure you’re pregnant?”
    “I should have had my period two weeks ago. I’m usually regular as clockwork.”
    “Okay, then we’ve got to find a real doctor—closer than Puerto Rico. I sure wish to hell we could ask your father, I mean, pretend it’s for someone else—”
    “No, Barney, he would see right through it. I’d rather die than have him know.”
    She turned away. Her whole body began to shake with muffled sobs. Barney stood, walked around the table, and took her by the shoulders.
    “Laura, I told you I’d take care of this.” And he thought to himself, I only wish to hell I knew
how.
    All of Sunday, Laura’s problem drove everything else from his mind. By evening, he had managed to convince himself that he would be able to find someone at school the next day,somebody he obviously just hadn’t thought of, someone who knew the ropes.
    The two friends hardly exchanged a word as they rode to school Monday morning. Barney was struck by the fact that everything seemed normal. The girl sitting next to him was the same person he had known for so many years. Except now she had someone else’s baby growing in her.
    When they parted in the front hall, he began to stalk the corridors. After every class he was like a hunter seeking his prey, glancing intently at every passing face. At lunchtime he scoured the cafeteria, still to no avail. By one o’clock, he had made no progress at all.
    He arrived at the pharmacy and began sorting through the prescriptions already packed for delivery. As usual, Mr. Lowenstein came over and gave the future doctor a short discourse on the properties of each drug. Barney listened politely, then swept the packages into a small canvas bag and headed out into the piercing cold where he could at least be alone with his thoughts.
    It was only on his way back that it suddenly occurred to him. What about Mr. Lowenstein? I mean, he knows almost as much as any doctor and he’s in daily contact with dozens of them. Why not ask him?
    Because if he gets angry, and I’m pretty sure he will, I’ll lose my job.
    But then, as he was taking off his galoshes, he glanced at his employer. The pharmacist had a kind face, no question about it. And even though there was no apothecary’s equivalent of the Hippocratic oath, he knew the old man never gossiped. When there was a prescription for something potentially compromising, like the time one of his customers had contracted gonorrhea, he would have Barney watch the store while he