Haskill hadn’t called down for his breakfast by the usual time, so at nine-thirty she went up with the tray and found him sitting up in bed looking at the wall.
“Mr. Haskill, I have your breakfast.”
He turned and a string of drool swung along with his chin. Meeting her gaze, he betrayed no sign of recognition and she put the tray down.
“Oh, shit.”
His skin was ashy and cool to the touch, and she helped him back to a reclining position before calling 911. Then she called Rigby.
“Mr. Haskill’s feeling very poorly this morning. The ambulance is on the way and you’d better get here, too.” The old man was watching her, puzzled, and when she hung up he put his head down onto the pillow and let loose a loud sigh.
“I just don’t seem to have my usual get-up-and-go,” he said, closed his eyes and immediately began snoring.
She was in the kitchen with Rigby drinking coffee while the EMTs and his personal physician examined Haskill upstairs. “You need to put the painting somewhere safe.”
“This house is safe as anywhere in California. You know what the old coot spends on security a month?”
“If this is the end of the line, the nephew will be coming out. He can’t see the picture.”
“He doesn’t know which picture it is.”
“He’s bound to want to see it, and once he’s seen it we can’t give the fake to the school.”
Rigby nodded. “Okay. I’ll rent a safe-deposit box.”
“Just stash it in your office. You can tell him it’s in the bank.”
“You think this really is the end?”
“You should have seen him. Like Nosferatu with a pencil mustache.”
Dr. Pulliver came down with the EMTs, Haskill supine on a folding gurney. At the bottom of the stairs, they extended the legs and wheeled him out to the waiting ambulance.
“So what’s he got?”
The doctor pursed his lips and looked at the ceiling, and Nina had the distinct impression that he didn’t have any idea what was ailing Haskill. “He’s a very old man with multiple serious health conditions and they’re just catching up with him now. I’ll be honest, when I see a decline this rapid, I get a terrible feeling,” the doctor said. “You’d better call the nephew and tell him to come see him.”
“You’re the doctor,” she said. This clown had been Haskill’s doctor since the eighties, and the only thing Nina could see he had going for him was his willingness to make house calls to rich patients.
After Pulliver left, they went upstairs and Nina wrapped the Kushik in clear plastic, then placed it carefully in a suitcase filled with towels.
“I’ll take this to the office as soon as I’m done at the hospital,” Rigby said.
“Forget the hospital, take it to the office right now, or your house, or wherever. The old man’s not going anywhere.”
The next afternoon another ambulance brought Haskill home, and once the attendants had managed to get him up to the bedroom where the first shift nurse awaited, Dr. Pulliver explained to her and Rigby the rules of the house.
“He’s not to be left alone for any length of time. If the nurse registers any decline, she or he will call for you on the intercom, and you’ll call me and then him,” he said, pointing at Rigby.
The various and sundry tests performed at the hospital had revealed no new conditions, just a general worsening of the old ones. Maybe the doctor had been right. In any case he wasn’t talking much, which was the most alarming difference, and he showed no interest in anyone’s presence. The only thing he said to her that night when she spelled the nurse for a fifteen-minute break was that he wanted the needle out of his arm.
“That’s your IV, Mr. Haskill, it’s keeping you alive.”
“I don’t want it,” he said. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”