Dark Maze

know.”
    I paused, looked at my flowers and grinned at him. “Oh, you mean these.”
    “Yeah. You taking them up to a patient?”
    I grinned.
    “Please, mister, you got to tell me what you want.”
    I grinned some more, stalling for time to improvise a response. “Oh, I’m not here to see a patient. Well, not exactly.”
    “What then?”
    “Didn’t they tell you about me?”
    “Who?”
    “Say now, you weren’t so wrapped up doing those crossword puzzles you didn’t get the word, were you?”
    His face flushed deep red. He stammered, “Hell, I been doing my job here like I’m supposed to.”
    “Say no more, brother. I understand how it gets down here. A man’s got to do something to relax. You got the public to deal with, you got doctors to deal with. Us doctors, we’re the worst. Am I right?”
    “Well, yeah... ”
    “God bless you. What’s your name?”
    “Stanley.” He was suddenly worried. “Hey, you ain’t going to say I been cooping!”
    “You got no problem with me, so don’t worry. I’m Dr. Neil, from up in White Plains. Anybody asks me, I’ll tell them you knew that. Have you got a cigarette, Stanley?” He fumbled in his pants pockets and one hand came up with a pack of Kools. “You can’t smoke except for in the special lounges.”
    “Hey, I know that. We got the same rules up in White Plains. It’s for later.”
    “Oh, yeah. Sorry, Dr. Neil.”
    “You like these flowers?”
    “They’re okay.”
    “You think my wife’s going to like them?”
    “Yup.”
    “Good. It’s our anniversary and she’s waiting for me up there in Westchester and here I am stuck in the city on a consultation up in the Zoo. You think they’ve got a vase and water up in the Zoo, Stanley?”
    “I don’t know about that.“
    “Gosh, I sure hope so. I want to keep these fresh for the missus. You know.”
    “Yup.”
    I grinned at Stanley for a second or two. And he waited for me to say something. And waited. “I’d better get up there now, don’t you think, Stanley? What do I need from you, a pass or something?”
    “Oh—a’course.”
    Stanley could not move fast enough to tage me with a badge that said visiting physician. I said, “Thanks a lot, Stanley—from one blinkard to another, right?”
    His face brightened, and as I started moving toward the elevator restricted for doctors only I heard him saying, “ Blinkard —one with bad eyes, a stupid or obtuse person, someone who ignores or avoids something.”
    Up on the Zoo floor, I followed my ears to the sound of gum-chewing at the receptionist’s station and beheld the woman I had spoken to earlier on the telephone. This one was plump and cross-eyed and her name tag said she was Desiree. I stood there with my flowers looking at her.
    Desiree read my visiting physician badge and stared at my flowers and waited. I finally said, “Dr. Neil, to see Dr. Ronald Reiser.”
    “Well, um, he’s gone.”
    “That’s odd. He’s expecting me.”
    “We just been looking for him ourselves. ’Bout a half hour ago, maybe forty-five minutes. We couldn’t find him nowhere.”
    I gave her the flowers. “He said you liked daisies.“
    “What you talking ’bout Doc Reiser say I like daisies?”
    I shrugged.
    “What time you supposed to see Doc Reiser anyhow?”
    I looked at my wristwatch. “Oh, I’m a little early.”
    “Oh, so he must be coming in tonight.”
    “That must be it. I guess he didn’t tell you? Us doctors, we’d forget everything if it wasn’t for the staff, am I right?”
    “That’s the truth.” She found a vase in a cabinet under the reception desk and started arranging the daisies in it. “You want to take a seat?”
    “Well, actually, Dr. Reiser told me he might be a little late and that I should ask for Freddy to show me right on into his office.”
    “Okay. I’ll get him.”
    She hollered for Freddy and in about five minutes I found myself inside Reiser’s private office, thanks to the accommodating Freddy and his special keys to the double electromagnetic locks on the psychiatrists’ office doors.
    “You want any coffee, or a sandwich with it? Or anything?” Freddy asked.
    I took a look around Reiser’s cluttered little office, with the picture of Freud on the wall and the you-toucha-my-cup, I-breaka-you-face mug on his desk. It was a quick look, but long enough so I could see that nothing violent had happened in there. The mug could have used a rinsing. I grinned at Freddy standing in the doorway,