Читать книгу The Money Man - Carolyn McSparren - Страница 10

MARK SIGHED. “Okay. Hit me.”

“Believe me, I wish I could. But let’s get to my list. Bear in mind this is the basic equipment we need. We already have a portable ultrasound. It’s a thousand years old, but it will do for the moment.”

“Oh, goodie.”

“However, we are missing the mobile fluoroscopy machine and the portable X ray…”

“To the tune of eighty thousand bucks or more.”

“And the endoscope and laser. Shouldn’t run more than about twenty-five each for the bare bones. I can share the X-ray developer with the dogs and cats for the moment, but I’ll really need it to stay in my area. The small-animal technicians can come to me to develop their plates rather than the other way around. Of course, a second developer would solve that problem.”

“Another twenty-five thou, if we’re lucky.”

“Be lucky.” Sarah ticked off on her fingers. “I was promised an anesthesia machine. You may be able to find one of those from a ‘human’ medical supply house for about forty-five or fifty thousand.”

“Oh, you’re too kind.”

“That leaves a portable laser, which you can probably pick up for around ten thousand dollars used, and a blood chemistry analyzer. We have an autoclave. I won’t ask for a nuclear cytography machine yet, but I do need a laptop computer with Internet and fax capability that I can carry in my car so I can fax ultrasounds and fluoroscopes either back here to the office or to the vet school at Mississippi State. Oh, and the vet cabinet in my truck is too small. Jack said he’d stock the one I have, but I don’t have enough room for all the equipment and medication I’ll need to take with me on off-site calls. And I need keys to the Schedule 2 drug storage cabinet—both keys, please.”

“Is that all?”

“For the moment. Eventually, we really will need an MRI. And that will involve training at least one employee to use it. Oh, one more thing—a really good pair of surgical clippers for large animals. I can have one sent overnight for four or five hundred dollars. And I’ll have a list of additional medications and supplies I’ll need, as soon as I check what you already have.” Sarah started to get up. “That’s it for now.”

“Whoa, there, Doctor. You’ve just given me a list that runs over two hundred thousand dollars.”

“That’s what I was promised.”

“I’m not a miracle worker. I can’t pull two hundred thousand bucks out of the air.”

Sarah took a deep breath. “Look, I know I sound peremptory. But surely Rick had a budget for the things he promised me.”

This time Mark sank back in his chair. “I haven’t looked at the original equipment list lately. Frankly, I’ve been too damn busy putting out fires. The truth is that Coy Buchanan gave Rick and Margot this piece of land. He could have put up several more mansions on it and made a great deal more money. He’s been in on the plans for the building from the beginning, and we’ve given this place every break on construction we could give.”

“But?”

“You’ve met Margot.”

“And?”

“And Margot has continued to make the building more and more elaborate. The changes have cost much more than originally budgeted. Then the weather, the damage we’ve had—it all adds up. We’re at least a month away from a grand opening, when it should have taken place in February. I think Rick—no, make that everybody—I’m as guilty as he is—has been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and now Peter is presenting his bill. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is—at least for the next six months, maybe longer.”

“You do think you’ll eventually be able to pull things together?”

“I’m dancing as fast as I can. Will you work with me?”

Sarah stood. “I understand your problems, and I’ll try to be as patient as I can. But remember, this is lives we’re talking about, here.”

“Animal lives. Animals can be replaced.” The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He’d done something he seldom did—speak first and think second. She’d gotten to him.

From the look on her face, Sarah wasn’t about to let him get away with it.

“Tell that to the teenage girl who loses her very first pony because we have to take it four and a half hours away to Mississippi State for colic surgery. You might as well say you should avoid an expensive procedure to save your grandmother because she’s old and ill.”

“A grandmother is a human being, and most people don’t have but two. You can’t put a price on human life.”

“You certainly can put a price on animal lives, Mr. Scott. Farmer A knows precisely what his prize Angus bull is worth. If we screw up through negligence, or because we don’t have the right diagnostic and operating equipment, we’ll have to pay that price. You might add that to your two hundred thousand.”

“That’s what we have liability insurance for.”

“Liability insurance won’t cover that teenage girl’s heartbreak. Do you think Mrs. Jepson would prefer to have the value of George and Marian so she could buy a pair of puppies to take their place?”

“No, but she would replace them.”

“Not replace them. She’d bring other dogs into her life, but she’d never forget them or stop grieving for them. And that’s not one bit different from the way you feel about your grandmother.”

“Both my grandmothers are alive and very well, thank you.”

“Dammit!” Sarah snapped. “Don’t play games with me. So long as you don’t see the value of animal lives, you and I will never be able to communicate.” She walked out of his office.

“Hey…” he said, “I didn’t mean…”

The woman always put him on the defensive, made him say stupid things he would never say to anyone else. The problem was, he liked her. He wished he could give her everything she wanted. But there was no way—not if the clinic was to survive. Drat Margot Buchanan, anyway. If she hadn’t been able to wrap Coy around her little finger, if she hadn’t been able to con Rick…Hell, if Mark hadn’t been in Texas building a mall for three months last year, he could have headed her off. Now his job was doubly difficult.

Because Sarah Marsdon stirred his blood.

Even in the loose scrubs he could see the outlines of her body. He liked the way she moved with an easy swing that was more than a little cocky. He grinned. She might have been put on this earth to complicate his life, but at least the complications made him feel more alive than he had for years. Now, if he could only figure out some way to accommodate everybody’s needs without either bankrupting the clinic or giving himself an ulcer, he’d be fine.

Maybe for some lonely people animals did fill an unfillable gap in their lives, but that still didn’t compare with the loss of a grandmother, say, or a father.

Or did it?

Suddenly, his mind flashed back to the only animal he’d ever owned. Okay, so Mickey had been different. But when Mark and his mother had been forced to move into the apartment after his father’s death, he’d done what everyone had told him was the best thing for Mickey—he’d given his dog to Uncle Greg, who had a farm and young children for Mickey to play with. Uncle Greg had told Mark he’d always be welcome to visit the big black Labrador when he was home from school.

He’d only visited once. Seeing Mickey, playing with him, then driving away had been too painful to endure a second time. Mickey—now long dead and buried under the wild dogwoods at Uncle Greg’s farm.

He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the dog for years. Hadn’t trusted himself to think about Mickey. How come he still felt as deep an ache of emptiness as he did when he thought about his father’s wreck? That was stupid. They weren’t the same thing at all. Were they?

Obviously the point was that he must never allow himself to care that deeply about anyone or anything again, whether it was a Mickey or a father. Building the walls to keep out the pain of inevitable loss took too much effort.

He took out his notebook and reached for the spike impaling a half-dozen telephone messages. Both his temples throbbed. How could such a beautiful woman have such a devastating effect on him?

SARAH POPPED the top of a diet soda with so much force that it spewed all down her front. Obviously Mark was one of those people who simply didn’t recognize the relevance of animals in people’s lives. The kind of person she used to despise. Now she simply felt sorry for them. She’d long since learned that animals gave their humans far more than they took.

Mark’s attitude might be fixable. Once she was settled and knew her way around, she would try to convince him to come with her when she went to the local old folks’ home with one of the visitation dogs, or to a Special Cargo class, in which developmentally delayed children rode horses. Simply watching a sheepdog herd sheep wouldn’t do it. He’d be impressed with the dog’s skills, but not with its ability to provide emotional support.

She’d lay out her strategy carefully. It might take a few months, but before she was through, she’d have Mark as passionately committed as she was to Creature Comfort and its clients.

As she finished her soda, Bill came in, got himself a drink, opened it and drank deeply. Then he plopped his body down in the chair opposite Sarah’s.

“So he’s screwed you, too.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Scott. I’ve been out supervising the workmen finishing up my flight cage. He cut back the dimensions. He told me we’ll enlarge it when there’s more money, but I know he’s hiding money that we could use right this minute.” He sounded on the verge of angry tears.

“What makes you think he’s hiding money?”

“He’s noted for it. He’s overcautious, and in this case, he’s not really committed to the clinic.”

“He doesn’t want it to fail, surely.”

“Who knows? Maybe he’s got his own agenda. We go under, he and Buchanan sell this place to a medical group or bulldoze it and put up apartments.”

“Bill, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m just as annoyed about his tightfistedness as you are, but I don’t think he has any deep and sinister plot. He probably thinks he’s doing the right thing. I don’t agree with him, and I intend to change his mind, but he does have a right to his opinion.”

“Oh God. I can’t believe he’s conned you, too.” Bill threw his empty can in the general area of the trash can and stomped out.

She finished her soda, picked up Bill’s can, and tossed both into the trash container. Then she went to find her next appointment.

A monumental woman in a flowered print dress stood behind the examining table with a gigantic black-and-white Maine coon cat, who began to yowl the instant Sarah walked in the door. The cat sounded hoarse. “Mrs. Pulaski, the desk says that Sweetums has a cold.”

BY THE TIME Mark worked through the telephone messages, his stomach was rumbling.

So was the weather, as it turned out. His cubicle was so insulated that he didn’t hear the thunder until he walked into the hall. The yaps and meows seemed to have increased in volume to vie with the cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning—although the waiting room was nearly empty.

Alva Jean on the desk had been replaced by Mabel Halliburton, fiftyish and comfortable. She cocked a motherly eye at Mark and said, “You look like you been rode hard and put away wet.”

“I was hoping it didn’t show.”

“Well, it does. Go home, have a nice glass of wine and a decent dinner. Can you cook?”

“Can but don’t. My idea of a gourmet feast is takeout Chinese.”

“Then take out. You need a good woman, Mark. Somebody to look after you.”

Mark laughed. “My mother gives me a decent dinner most Sundays when she’s not traveling. That’s as close to a good woman as I’m likely to get.”

Mabel shook her head and picked up the ringing telephone. “Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic,” she trilled as she waved her fingers at Mark.

Damn! He’d forgotten to order that headset. He’d call Beth first thing tomorrow.

He stood for a moment in the doorway of the clinic and watched the rain sluice down. The wind drove it against the building and the cars. He looked at the flapping tarps that covered the remaining piles of building materials and fence posts, and hoped that whatever was underneath stayed dry.

The temperature had dropped about thirty degrees since he’d arrived at the clinic several hours ago. A night for neither man nor beast, as his grandfather would have said.

He took a deep breath and raced toward his car, clicking the button on his remote door lock as he went. As he yanked the door open, he saw a flash of dirty gray that looked like the head of an old mop skitter behind his front wheel.

“What the—”

The mop slid farther forward, flattened under the car. Some damn animal must have gotten loose from its owner. The last thing he needed was to drive over somebody’s pet tabby.

Rain ran down under the collar of his coat and dripped off his eyelashes. He was about as wet as he could possibly get. He hunkered down, and saw only the end of a matted behind. Didn’t look like anybody’s pet anything. But whatever it was, was shivering and soaked, much like Mark, himself.

He moved around to the front of the car and squatted to look under the bumper—and came nose to nose with a small, wet, gray face with shoe-button eyes rimmed in white.

A dog. Something resembling a dog. A terror-stricken little creature. Mark called to it. It stayed flat. He could see the water pouring under its belly. He couldn’t drive off with the thing under his car.

“Come on out of there,” he said.

The button eyes held his. The shivering continued. Damn thing must be half frozen. No way could that matted coat provide any protection.

Lightning flashed, and the dog whimpered, turning its head slightly in the direction of the flash.

It was wearing a collar. Oh God, it was somebody’s lost pet. Long lost, judging from the condition it was in. He’d heard that abandoned dogs tended to go feral, became frightened of human beings. Maybe this one was too cold and too wet and too frightened to run.

But probably not too frightened to bite Mark’s hand if he reached out for it. And it might be rabid.

For a moment he considered going back into the clinic and hunting up Jack Renfro or one of the kennel cleaners to capture the pup. But it might disappear in the meantime. The animal might not be Mark’s problem, but he couldn’t leave the poor thing to suffer.

He took a deep breath and reached out a tentative hand. “Come on, boy,” he whispered. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

He expected the dog to snarl or back away. For a moment nothing happened, then it began to wriggle its body forward toward Mark’s outstretched hand.

Mark ignored the water streaming into his eyes. Suddenly the only thing that mattered was that he win this creature over. He kept talking.

The dog kept inching.

Mark was afraid that if he made a grab for the dog, it would spook, so he kept up his soft patter, kept his hand out there while the rain ran down his arm.

“We’ll both wind up with pneumonia,” he whispered. The rear end of the small body gave an answering wriggle—as though the dog were trying to wag a tail that was no longer there.

The small triangular head had almost touched Mark’s knee. He reached down and touched the wet fur between the ears. The little dog sighed softly and came all the way out to lean against Mark’s leg.

“What the hell am I going to do with you?” he asked as he stroked the pitiful body. His hand felt lumps under the matted fur.

Ticks. The dog was covered with them, buried deep in his fur. Mark hated ticks. He’d had to pull them off Mickey after they’d spent an afternoon in the woods. Pulled them off himself, as well. Fat, bloated, disgusting things. He closed his eyes.

“Okay, up you go,” he said. “But if one of those things comes off on me, you’re in big trouble.”

The animal couldn’t have weighed more than eight or nine pounds. When Mark lifted it, he felt its ribs and heard its heart fluttering. Mark held it against his chest.

He walked back to the clinic, pushed the door open with his hip and walked in.

“Car won’t start?” Mabel asked as she looked up from her registration sheet. “Oh my God, what on earth…?” She came around the counter at a run.

“Stray, found him under my car. Can you take him?”

He held the dog out, but it struggled to remain in his arms.

“Wait, I’ll call Dr. Marsdon.”

Two minutes later, when Sarah reached across the steel examining table to take the dog, he whimpered again and buried his head under the shoulder of Mark’s jacket.

Mark cupped him possessively. “You’re scaring him.”

“I know,” Sarah said. She came around the table. “Hey, sweetie, it’s okay.” She stroked the small body.

Her gentle voice, the soft hand that touched his chest as she reached for the dog, made Mark’s whole body tense.

She took the dog and set it carefully on the table. “Hand me some of those towels over there,” she said, pointing to the corner of the room.

Mark complied. She began to dry the dog gently. It cowered on its belly, eyes never leaving Mark’s face.

“We’ve got to get these ticks off,” Sarah said. “Lord knows how much blood she’s lost.”

“She?”

“She. Didn’t you check?”

“Who could tell under all that matted hair?”

“Well, she’s a she, and…” Sarah raised the corner of the dog’s mouth. “Her gums are pretty red. That’s a good sign. It means she’s not as anemic as I thought she might be, with all the fleas and ticks.”

“Fleas?” Mark began to feel itchy at the very suggestion.

Sarah glanced up. “Don’t worry. They prefer dogs when there’s one available. Just hold her, while I take some blood and fecal samples for a workup.”

The dog cowered deeper against him. He put a hand protectively around her head.

Sarah sighed. “I won’t hurt her, I promise. But we need to see whether or not she has heartworm.”

She picked up a needle and syringe. Mark tensed.

“Oh, come on,” Sarah said as she stuck the needle into the flesh of the dog’s neck and drew a vial of dark blood. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” She disappeared from the room for a moment with the vial.

When she came back, she said, “We can get quick results on the heartworm test. In the meantime, give me a hand bathing her. She trusts you. After that, we’ll get the vermin off, trim off all that hair, then we’ll give her another bath—and by that time we may see what kind of a pup we’ve got here.”

“Pup?”

“Probably less than a year old. Mostly Jack Russell terrier would be my guess, but with something furry mixed in. Maybe Lhasa apso or shih tzu. Whatever gave her all this hair, it’s got to go.”

“So do I,” Mark said. “She’s in good hands.”

“No, you don’t,” Sarah said. “She’s your responsibility. Some idiot abandoned her or lost her, and she’s found you. You try to walk out that door, buster, and I will personally lock it and throw away the key.”

“All I did was find her.”

“That’s all it takes. Give me those scissors—we need to cut this collar off her and start cutting some of the worst stuff off before we stick her in the washtub.”

“If she’s lost, we can call her owners.”

“No address on the collar. I’ve got Mabel checking the want ads we keep on the computer—but the dog doesn’t have a registration tag, and I can’t feel a microchip under her skin. There may not be owners looking for her. Somebody may have simply tossed her out with the garbage. People do it all the time.” Sarah’s voice was suddenly hard.

Over the next hour, the pup had a flea and tick bath, and was personally deloused by Sarah—and Mark, at Sarah’s insistence. Then the matted hair was snipped, clipped and shaved. Finally the little dog had another bath, but this time the bathwater was clean and not crimson from her blood.

Jack Renfro stuck his head in the door, as they were toweling the dog off for the second time. “The test says no heartworm. Lucky.”

“Thank God,” Sarah said. “But we’ll give her her shots and start her on dewormer and flea stuff and everything else she needs. Bring me a couple of cans of dog food and a water dish. She’s been damn patient with us, but I suspect she’s starving, and I know she’s dehydrated.”

“Shouldn’t we have fed her first?” Mark asked, rubbing the small head with the towel.

“Judgment call. I wanted to see what we had to work with.”

Mark guessed that Sarah wanted to see whether the little dog was too sick to be saved. He gave a small prayer of thanks that apparently the tiny dog wasn’t.

She was, however, hungry. She devoured a can of food and drank half a bowl of water, while Sarah and Mark looked on, smiling like happy parents.

“She’s really a precious little thing,” Sarah said as she stroked the newly fluffy white head, with its black circles around the eyes and over one ear. “How could anyone toss her out to die like that?”

She glanced up at Mark, who saw tears in her eyes.

“She would have died, you know. If not tonight, then tomorrow or the next day. Run over by a car, eaten by a coyote or a bigger dog. Or she’d have starved to death eventually. It makes me so angry!” Sarah said.

“If the people who owned her couldn’t look after her any longer and couldn’t find a home for her, why wouldn’t they take her to the Humane Society?”

“Because people have this crazy idea that letting an animal, a pet animal like this, out into the world to fend for itself is all right. I would love to throw those people out into a totally unfamiliar environment and see how well they do.”

“Harsh.”

“Not really. We understand what we’re doing. They—” she touched the pup “—don’t.”

“So what happens now? You put her up for adoption?”

Sarah stared at him. “Why? She already has an owner—you.”

“Oh—no, you don’t. I do not have time or room in my life for a dog. She’s probably not housebroken, she’s probably sick, and I’m away all the time.”

“Take her with you. She can stay here during the day if you like, then you take her home at night.”

“Why not let her stay here all the time, and find somebody else to take her?”

As though she understood that her fate was being discussed, the pup wriggled over, sighed, and laid her head on Mark’s gloved hand. Her ragged little rear wagged gently as she closed her eyes.

“There, you see—” Sarah said. “She is your dog. Besides, somebody has to pay for all the treatment we’ve given her—isn’t that what you say, Mr. Scott? If she’s your dog, she’s your responsibility, and you get the bills.”

“Whoa.”

“No whoa. You brought her, you worked with me, you saw what we did. It all costs money—isn’t that what you say? That we have to make money? Well, Mark, you have just spent about two hundred bucks, and by the time I get through loading you up with all the things you’re going to need for her when she goes home with you tonight, you will have spent a bunch more.” She rubbed the pup’s ears. “Sweet baby, Mommy loves a paying client.”

Sarah raised her blue eyes, and batted her eyelashes at him in a parody of sweet innocence.

For a moment he hesitated, then he began to laugh. The pup woke up for a moment to stare at him, then obviously assumed everything was fine and went back to sleep.

“Okay, Doc, I’ll pay the freight. But I still can’t manage a dog.”

“Didn’t you ever have a dog?”

He glanced away. “Yeah, once.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’m off in about—” Sarah glanced at her watch “—twenty minutes. Good thing it’s been quiet tonight. Dr. Grayson can take over from here. If she needs me, she can page me. I think it’s stopped raining, so we’ll get the pup a new collar and leash. You can take her out to go to the bathroom, while I collect what you’ll need for her. Then I’ll follow you home and help you get set up.”

“What about food? I just realized I haven’t had anything to eat.”

“Me, neither. We can order a pizza. Deal?”

“You, Doctor, are a monster, you know that?”

“Where animals are concerned, you bet. Deal?”

“Yeah, at least for tonight. Deal. And you can order your clippers. After tonight, I realize you do need them. But I’m not agreeing to keep this thing.”

“Thanks. Stay here. I’ll send Mabel in with a collar and leash.” Sarah walked out of the examining room and softly shut the door behind her. “But you will, Mr. Mark Scott,” she murmured to herself smugly. “You will. You’re the proud owner of a dog.” She pumped her arm up and down. “Yes!”