The Adjustment - By Scott Phillips Page 0,15

for him.”

“All right. You don’t want morphine, it’s too hard to administer properly. I’ve got something new, just as good and not as addictive.”

“The prescription needs to be in my name, for discretion’s sake.”

He nodded, eyes closed. His eyelids were veined and purplish. “Of course.” He grabbed a pad and started writing. “It’s called Hycodan, what we call a semi-synthetic opioid. Cross between codeine and thebaine, if that means anything to you.”

“Thanks, Dr. Groff.”

“Your mother was in for woman trouble a couple of weeks ago. She says your wife is expecting.”

I winced. I didn’t want to hear about my mother or any kind of woman trouble she might be having. I didn’t want to think about the pregnancy, either, for that matter. “That’s right.”

“Hope it doesn’t ruin that pretty figure of hers. She’s quite a gal.”

I smiled, or tried to. “Sure is.”

“How’s she taking her new condition?”

“How do you mean?”

“Moods. Morning sickness. All that.”

“She’s taken to crying. She never used to do that. She’s quicker to anger.”

“Get used to it. A baby in the womb sets off a whole string of chemical and hormonal reactions in a woman’s body that you and I can be thankful we’ll never have to deal with.” He started scribbling on a pad of paper. “Now, you might mention to Mr. Collins that I’m angling for the position of County Coroner next year.”

“I’ll do that.”

“I’m not asking for a quid pro quo. You know that. All I’m saying is I wouldn’t mind having some powerful people in my corner when the time comes.”

I took the prescription from his hand. “I don’t think he’ll forget this.”

THE PHARMACIST ON Hillside across from Wesley hospital filled the scrip without comment or question. “Take that up to Mrs. Perkey at the cash register and she’ll ring you up.”

Mrs. Perkey beamed as she took the prescription from me and rang it up. “Wayne Ogden, isn’t it nice seeing you.”

“Nice to see you, too, Mrs. Perkey,” I said, only vaguely aware of ever having known her and grateful to the pharmacist for having supplied the name.

“Your mother and I were just talking about your blessed event.”

“She’s beside herself,” I said, though this was just a guess. I hadn’t seen or spoken to the old bird since I found out about it. I guessed Sally must have told her. “She’s got step-grandchildren, but this is the first of her own.”

I paid her and walked out. “Hope you get to feeling better right quick,” she called after me.

THE BOSS GLOWERED at me when I walked into his office, his shoulders hunched and hangover tense, a condition that had to exacerbate the pain in his ribcage. Before he had a chance to snap at me I dropped the bag with the Hycodan on the blotter that sat atop his massive mahogany desk. “Instructions are written on the side of the bag.”

It was as though a state of grace washed over him just then. His musculature relaxed visibly, and he exhaled as though he’d been holding it in all morning. His torn ear got redder, his eyes brightened and he opened the bag like a little kid digging into his Christmas stocking. “Morphine. Hot diggetty.”

“Isn’t morphine. Something new. Better than morphine.”

“The hell you say.”

“Fix you right up, is what the doc says.”

Without reading the directions he unscrewed the bottle top and tossed one into his mouth and crunched it. On the desk was an elaborately detailed model of the Collins L-120, the biplane that had put the company on the map in the twenties. Lindbergh flew one of the first, and later Wiley Post and Amelia Earhart did too. I nearly bought a used one in the days after I finished college and before I got my first job at Collins, even though I didn’t have an aviator’s license. These days I couldn’t have been more indifferent to the whole business of flying, but the sight of the dark blue fuselage and the robin’s-egg blue wings by the light of Collins’s desk lamp brought forth a little twinge of innocent nostalgia. I almost wished I could make myself care about the damned things again.

“The old fishcunt was pretty sore at me this morning, Ogden,” he said with a grin.

“How’s that?”

“Mr. Fish is dunning her for his medical bills. She says I ought to pay them. I told her I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about.”

“She ought to hire somebody better than that to follow you around.”

“I think she just likes that pretty