Mr. Murder

entirely to amuse patients and put them at ease. Like Marty, Guthridge seemed morally offended by the very fact of death. As a younger man, perhaps he'd been drawn to medicine because he saw the physician as a knight battling dragons incarnated as illnesses and diseases.
        Young knights believe that noble intentions, skill, and faith will prevail over evil. Older knights know better-and sometimes use humor as a weapon to stave off bitterness and despair. Guthridge's quips and Mickey Mouse sweatshirts might relax his patients, but they were also his armor against the hard realities of life and death.
        "Panic attack? You, of all people, suffering a panic attack?"
        Paul Guthridge asked doubtfully.
        Marty said, "Hyperventilating, heart pounding, felt like I was going to explode sounds like a panic attack to me."
        "Sounds like sex."
        Marty smiled. "Trust me, it wasn't sex."
        "You could be right," Guthridge said with a sigh. "It's been so long, I'm not sure what sex was like exactly. Believe me, Marty, this is a bad decade to be a bachelor, so many really nasty diseases out there.
        You meet a new girl, date her, give her a chaste kiss when you take her home-and then wait to see if your lips are going to rot and fall off.
        "That's a swell image."
        "Vivid, huh? Maybe I should've been a writer." He began to examine Marty's left eye with an ophthalmoscope. "Have you been having unusually intense headaches?"
        "One headache over the weekend. But nothing unusual."
        "Repeated spells of dizziness?"
        "No."
        "Temporary blindness, noticeable narrowing of peripheral vision?"
        "Nothing like that."
        Turning his attention to Marty's right eye, Guthridge said, "As for being a writer other doctors have done it, you know. Michael Crichton, Robin Cook, Somerset Maugham-' "Seuss."
        "Don't be sarcastic. Next time I have to give you an injection, I might use a horse syringe."
        "It always feels like you do anyway. I'll tell you something, being a writer isn't half as romantic as people think."
        "At least you don't have to handle urine samples," Guthridge said, setting aside the ophthalmoscope.
        With squiggly ghost images of the instrument light still dancing in his eyes, Marty said, "When a writer's first starting out, a lot of editors and agents and movie producers treat him as if he is a urine sample."
        "Yeah, but now you're a celebrity," Guthridge said, plugging his stethoscope ear tips in place.
        "Far from it," Marty objected.
        Guthridge pressed the icy steel of the stethoscope diaphragm against Marty's chest. "Okay, breathe deeply… hold… breathe out… and again." After listening to Marty's lungs as well as his heart, the doctor put the stethoscope aside.
        "Hallucinations?"
        "No."
        "Strange smells?"
        "No."
        "Things taste the way they should? I mean, you haven't been eating ice cream and it suddenly tasted bitter or oniony, nothing like that?"
        "Nothing like that."
        As he wrapped the pressure cuff of a sphygmomanometer around Marty's arm, Guthridge said, "Well, all I know is, to get into People magazine, you've got to be a celebrity of one kind or another-rock singer, actor, smarmy politician, murderer, or maybe the guy with the world's largest collection of ear wax. So if you think you aren't a celebrity author, then I want to know who you've killed and exactly how much damn ear wax you own."
        "How'd you know about People?"
        "We subscribe for the waiting room." He pumped air into the cuff until it was tight, then read the falling mercury on the gauge before he continued, "The latest copy was in this morning's mail.
        My receptionist showed it to me, really amused. She said you were the least likely Mr. Murder she could imagine."
        Confused, Marty said, "Mr. Murder?"
        "You haven't seen the piece?" Guthridge asked as he pulled off the pressure cuff, punctuating his question with the ugly sound of a Velcro seal tearing open.
        "Not yet, no. They don't show it to you in advance. You mean, in the article, they call me Mr. Murder?"
        "Well, it's sort of cute."
        "Cute?" Marty winced. "I wonder if Philip Roth would think it was cute to be "Mr. Litterateur' or Terry McMillan "Ms. Black Saga."
        "
        "You know what they say-all publicity is