"I should have let him write you up," Dillon said. "You can be a sarcastic sonofabitch, McCoy, in case nobody ever told you."

"Excuse me, Sir," Corporal Easterbrook said, turning around in the front seat, his voice suddenly weak and shaky, "but I have to go to the head."

"Christ, why didn't you go at 'Diego?" McCoy asked. But then he looked closer at Easterbrook and said, "Oh, shit!"

"Meaning what?" Dillon asked.

"Meaning he's got malaria," McCoy said. "Look at him." He leaned forward and laid his hand on Easterbrook's forehead. "Yeah," he said, "he's burning up. He's got it, all right."

"Goddamn," Dillon said.

"Sir, I got to go right now," Easterbrook said.

"Find someplace," McCoy snapped at the driver. "Pull off the road if you have to."

The driver started to slow the car, but then put his foot to the floor when he saw a roadside restaurant several hundred yards away.

With a squeal of tires, the PFC pulled into the parking lot, stopped in front of the door, then went quickly around the front of the car, pulled the passenger door open, and helped Easterbrook out.

"He's dizzy, Lieutenant," the PFC said. "He's got it, all right."

"Let's get him to the toilet," McCoy said.

"Shit!" Major Dillon said.

"Hey, he's not doing this to piss you off," McCoy said.

Supported by McCoy and the PFC, Easterbrook managed to make it to a stall in the men's room before losing control of his bowels. Then he became nauseous.

"Let me handle him, Lieutenant," the PFC said.

"Sir, I'm sorry to cause all this trouble," Easterbrook said.

"Never apologize for something you can't control," McCoy said. "I'll be outside."

Major Dillon was waiting on the other side of the men's room door.

"Well?"

"He's got malaria. Half the people on the 'Canal have malaria," McCoy replied.

"What do we do with him?"

"He needs a doctor," McCoy said.

"You want to take him back to 'Diego and put him in the hospital?"

"I said a doctor," McCoy said. "General Pickering told me you know everybody in Hollywood. No doctors?"

"You mean treat him ourselves?"

"Why not? All they do for them in a hospital is give them quinine, or that new stuff..."

"Atabrine," Dillon furnished, without thinking.

"... Atabrine," McCoy went on. "And rest. If we put him in the hospital, they'll just lose him. Christ, he probably couldn't get into the hospital.... How's he going to prove he's a Marine without a service record?"

"I'm not at all sure-" Dillon began and then interrupted himself: "I think they'd take my word he's a Marine, even if those personnel feather merchants won't pay him."

"Have you got someplace we can take him, or not? He'll be out of there in a minute."

"Goddamn you, McCoy. Why did you have to tell me he was about to go over the edge?"

"Because he was."

"Dr. Barthelmy's office," Dawn Morris said into the telephone receiver. Miss Morris, who was Dr. Harald Barthelmy's receptionist, was a raven-haired, splendidly bosomed, long-legged young woman. Though she was dressed like a nurse, she had no medical training whatever.

"Dr. Barthelmy, please. My name is Dillon."

"I'm sorry, Sir, the doctor is with a patient. May I have him return your call?"

"Honey, you go tell him Jake Dillon is on the phone."

Dawn Morris knew who Jake Dillon was. He was vice president of publicity for Metro-Magnum Studios... the kind of man who could open doors for her. The kind of man she'd planned to meet when she took a job as receptionist for the man Photoplay magazine called the "Physician to the Stars."

"Mr. Dillon," Dawn Morris cooed. "Let me check. I'm sure the doctor would like to talk to you if it's at all possible."

"Thank you," Jake Dillon said.

She left her desk and walked down a corridor into a suite of rooms that Dr. Barthelmy liked to refer to as his "surgery."

After his undergraduate years at the University of Iowa, and before completing his medical training at Tulane in New Orleans, Dr. Barthelmy spent a year at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. As a result, he'd cultivated a certain British manner: He'd grown a pencil-line mustache, and acquired a collection of massive pipes and a wardrobe heavy with tweed jackets with leather elbow patches. And he now spelled his Christian name with two 'a's and addressed most females as "dear girl" and most males as "old sport."

The surgery was half a dozen consulting rooms, opening off a thickly carpeted corridor furnished with leather armchairs and turn-of-the-century lithographs of Englishmen shooting pheasants and riding to hounds.

Dawn knew immediately where to find Dr. Barthelmy. One of his nurses, a real one, an old blue-haired battle-ax, was standing outside one of the consulting cubicles. This was standard procedure whenever Dr. Barthelmy had to ask a female patient to take off her clothes. A woman had once accused Dr. Barthelmy of getting fresh while he was examining her; he was determined this would never happen again.

"I have to see the doctor right away," Dawn said to the nurse.

"He's with a patient," the nurse said.

"This is an emergency," Dawn said firmly.

The nurse rapped on the consulting-room door with her knuckles.

"Not now, if you please!" a deep male voice replied in annoyance.

"Doctor, it's Mr. Jake Dillon," Dawn called. "He said it's very important."

There was a long silence, and then the door opened. Dr. Barthelmy looked at her.

"Mr. Dillon said it's very important, Doctor," Dawn said. "I thought I should tell you."

"Would you ask Mr. Dillon to hold, my girl?" Dr. Barthelmy said. "I'll be with him in half a mo."

"Yes, Doctor," Dawn said.

The consulting-room door closed.

"He's on line five, Doctor," Dawn called through it, and then went quickly back to her desk.

She picked up the telephone.

"Mr. Dillon, Dr. Barthelmy will be with you in just a moment. Would you hold, please?"