Free Final Notice by Jonathan Valin

furniture and some very unhappy-looking people.
    The autumn morning and the sweet voice and silent feet of Dr. Howell's elegant establishment hadn't done much good for the man and the two women who were sitting there, in silence, one on each wall, as if they were bent on keeping their miseries separate and to themselves. I took the fourth wall, beneath a framed lithograph of a blue horse chewing red grass under a black sun, and tried smiling at one of the women -a very fat lady in a sack dress with a blue parrot design. She eyed me with naked curiosity, as if she were asking herself what my problem was. I didn't have to guess about hers. Or about that of the frail-looking, blondish man sitting across from me and studying the carpet as if the floor were the proper place for his eyes to rest. The third one, a pretty teenage girl dressed in tight jeans and a low cut top that barely held her breasts, was harder to figure out. From the boredom on her face I guessed she was either waiting for someone or that she'd been ordered to come to Dr. Howell by the Juvenile Court. When I looked her way, she tossed her head with a snippy flip and fixed her eyes on the exposed-brick wall across from her chair.
    A couple of minutes passed. Very slowly. Then the receptionist, a youngster with lank blonde hair and a country girl's wan, sunken face, came through an opening in the east wall.
    "Mr. Stoner?" she said.
    I got to my feet and the fat lady gave me an ugly look. "Do you think I could speak to the doctor for just a second?" she said in a cranky, indignant voice.
    "He's very busy, Mrs. Morris," the girl said automatically.
    "It'll only take a second," Mrs. Morris said and her voice got a little panicky.
    "I'm sorry. It'll be a few minutes more."
    The fat woman slapped her thigh with her palm and pressed her lips together as if she were afraid to utter another word.
    As the receptionist and I walked through the portal, I said, "Do you think she'll be all right?"
    The blonde girl laughed. "Connie's been coming to the doctor for ten years, Mr. Stoner. Three times a week. And every time she comes, she asks if she can see him for a moment. I think it's her way of letting us know that she's out there."
    The girl led me down a hallway to a big oak door.
    "Just go in," she said. "He's expecting you."
    I walked into Howell's office. It was glassed-in on the north and west walls and paneled in redwood on the south and east. Howell was seated in a leather chair, gazing out the north window at the maple trees that fell away down a hillside behind the office building. From the doorway all I could see of him was the top of his head, which was thick with kinky brown hair, save for a little white baldspot the size of a silver dollar at the crown.
    "Come in, Mr. Stoner," he said in a lively, high-pitched voice. "George DeVries told me you were going to stop by."
    He turned in his chair and I got my first look at his face. His thick brown hair was combed back from the forehead in an old-fashioned pompadour that made his head look as square as a picture frame. His features were coarse -nose like the bill of a toucan, green eyes set so closely together they looked crossed, skin lumpy with acne scars. He wore thick gold-rim glasses, a tiny black bow tie, and a tweed suit. All in all, he looked like a small, neat, nervous George S. Kaufman.
    Benson Howell looked me over, frowned, smiled, then switched his gaze to a bookshelf built into the paneling on the east wall. He kept right on frowning, smiling, and looking away for the half hour or so that we talked. I got the impression that that was his way of showing off; for Benson Howell was a prima donna, and the little tics and nervous glances weren't involuntary. They were deliberate assertions of his powers of mind, as if he'd never yet found a subject enormous enough to engage his full attention. I didn't know how that act worked on patients like Mrs. Morris. Maybe it gave them a sense of confidence to know that