He wheeled a machine with a big lens and a shield in it up in front of my face. He said, “Rest your chin on this strap. Look directly at this point of light. Hold your eyes steady.”
He took up a position behind the machine. I slipped off the glasses. He turned various attachments. Lights appeared on each side of the big disc. He spun them slowly, and said, “Now, let’s have a look at the other eye,” and swivelled the lens over towards my left eye, and went through the process all over again. He made some notes on a pad of paper which he held in his hard and said, “There s considerable irritation apparently, but I see no serious defect in vision. I can’t understand why your eyes have been bothering you. Perhaps it’s just a momentary muscular fatigue. There’s a bruise over the right eye, but the eye itself seems not to have been damaged.”
He swung the machine to one side, and said, “Now we’ll take a look—” For the first time he got a good look at my face. He stopped in mid-sentence and stared at me with sagging jaw.
I said, “Your wife was in Oakview yesterday, Doctor.”
He sat looking at me for the space of ten seconds, then he said in that calm, precise voice of his, “Ah, Mr. Lam. I should have seen through your little ruse. Are you at the— Come into my private office.”
I got up out of the chair and followed him into his private office. He closed and locked the door. “I should have expected this,” he said.
I sat down and waited.
He paced the floor nervously. After a moment, he said, “How much?”
“For what?” I asked.
“You know,” he said. “What’s your price?”