Doctor Jams looked wiser than any one man could possibly be. His head was as round and white and bare as a cue ball; his nose was a long bony hook and his eyes were pale, immensely shrewd.
He jabbed forceps gently into Kells’ leg, said: “Hurt?”
Kells stuck out his lips, shook his head slightly. “No. Not very much.”
“You’re a damned liar!” Janis straightened, glared.
Bright sun beat through the wide east windows; the old instrument case against one white wall glistened. Kells was half lying on a small operating table. He stared at the bright point of sunlight on the wall, tried not to think about the leg.
“God deliver me from a sadistic doctor,” he said.
Janis grinned, bent again over the leg, probed deeper. “That Was a dandy.” He held a tiny twisted chunk of lead up in the forceps’ point, exhibited it proudly. “Now you know how a rabbit feels.”
“Now I know how it feels to be a mother. You’re as proud of a few shot as a good doctor would be of triplets.”
Janis chuckled, jabbed again with the forceps.
At a little after eight-thirty, Kells left Janis’s office in the Harding Building. It had rained all night; the air was sharp, clear. He limped across Hollywood Boulevard to a small jewelry store, left his watch to be repaired and asked that they send it to him at the hotel as soon as possible. He went out and bought a paper and got a cab, said, “Ambassador,” leaned back and spread the paper. Then he sat up very straight.