The Case of Lucy Bending [antikvár]

\ The office was half-nursery. One sunlit wall painted with moon-jumping cows and fiddle-playing cats. A deep bookcase jumbled with toys, games, puzzles, stuffed animals. And on the ceiling, pasted stars. The man planted behind the desk stared through percolator-top glasses. A snarled salt-and-pepper beard framed rosy lips. His nose was a smudge; dainty ears pressed close to a heavy skull. His hunched body loomed forward, neck sunken in rounded shoulders. Cigar ashes drifted across an atrocious tie and the lapels of a rumpled black suit so shiny it looked hke it had been oiled and polished. "Mrs. Bending," he said, his voice a throaty rumble, "Mr. Bending, suppose you sit there . . . and there. 1 must start off by confessing that 1 am a habitual cigar smoker. Of course, if it offends you, I won't light up. Ma'am?" "No, that's all right," the woman said nervously. "Go ahead, doctor." "You, sir?" "Fine with me, doc. Filter-tips are my vice." "Thank you." He took a dark cigar from an open desk drawer, began to strip cellophane carefully away. "My name is Doctor Theodore Levin. It is spelled L-e-v-i-n, but pronounced Levine, for reasons I have never been able to understand. You are Mrs. Grace Bending and you, sir, are Mr. Ronald Bending. Your daughter's name is Lucy, and you have been referred to me by Doctor David K. Raskob, pediatrician, of Boca Raton. Do I have my facts correct?" "Yes, doctor," the woman said stiffly. She was twisting her wedding band, around and around. Levin lighted his cigar with a wooden kitchen match scratched on the underside of his desk. He tumed the cigar