Vergil reminded him now of Dr. Rabun. They were obviously cut from the same cloth. Rabun was a crank, an eccentric, a doctor who had never practiced but had a wide reputation as an inventor of medical devices: valves and filters for kidney machines, a system for computerized blood testing, storage equipment for glands awaiting transplant, an absurdly effective prosthetic device for men made impotent by severe diabetes and other biological rather than imaginary causes, and several pediatric improvements. There was a trace of irony to Dr. Rabun’s severe foot problems. All this Warlock learned at the barbecue dance. Evidently Rabun’s appearance was a rare one and doctors who are ordinarily close mouthed to those outside their magic circle of affluence and power spoke to Warlock rather freely. Of course he realized this was due to his connection to the center of attention that evening—Diana, whose soft clinging pale green sheath dress and athletic dancing mannerisms were a show stopper. The middle-aged medics who had seen far too many fat ladies in the stirrups edged toward her all the while trying to maintain some decorum like deferential iron filings to an implacable magnet. Many crafty souls conversed with Warlock as a ploy but they were all beat to the target by a stud proctologist, famed as sort of an AMA Don Juan. And all the dowdy wives muttered, covered with bogus looking jewelry that was actually real. Warlock danced with these pre- and postmenopausal birds, some of surprising though fading loveliness. He liked older women for the simple reason that they were less likely to be dumb. Ripeness is all, he remembered someone saying, the deceptive joy of the windfall apple. From these he learned that Rabun was much disliked by the medical fraternity, despite their obvious toadying on this particular evening. In his rare statements to the press Rabun was outrageous: on a recent occasion the inventor had stated that most doctors were bloodthirsty boobs that should be practicing out of barbershops like they did in the Middle Ages. The last dance of the evening was a shock to everyone. Rabun got up from the chair he had spent the entire evening in, being nasty and drinking endless cups of champagne punch. He cut in on the flashy proctologist and claimed the traditional waltz with Diana. It was rather touching; Rabun’s tall, knobby, saturnine figure in a well-cut tuxedo, but in shoes that looked like weirdly inflated Hush Puppies, draped around the regal Diana, painfully but somehow arrogantly out of step, his eyes blind to the audience.

Chapter 15