He waits in a hallway outside her modest office, through two cycles of patients: a college-age student, female, kohl-eyed and hostile, then what appears to be a bag lady, who leaves with several waiting-room magazines. Richard politely asks a wire-rimmed young man in a suit and ponytail—the doctor’s four o’clock—to tell her she has an official visitor from the Commonwealth. The patient looks suspicious, then annoyed: It’s his fifty minutes with Dr. Hornick, so fuck off, pal. As the ponytailed four o’clock leaves, Richard slips into the beige waiting room. At five past five, he calls out, “Hello?” and gets no response. At eight past five, a plain woman with lank brown hair, parted in the middle, comes out carrying a briefcase and a lumbar-support pillow. “Dr. Deborah Hornick?” Richard asks with a pleasant smile. She hesitates—a strange man in her waiting room, after all. But she has done enough psych rotations in jails and hospitals to feel that this rather dashing man in the camel-hair overcoat and leather watch strap is no threat; is merely a new detail man, possibly a regional manager for Burroughs or Pfizer.
