The Gobbler [antikvár]

Julian couldn't believe that Doctor Sachs had swallowed the lie about his drinking. 'Oh, not a lot, half a bottle of wine a day, the odd bourbon,' he'd said, as beads of whisky perspiration broke out on his forehead. He'd lightly clenched his fists to hide the slight tremor in his hands as Doctor Sachs asked him how much he smoked. 'I'm cutting down at the moment, maybe ten or fifteen a day. A couple more on an opening night,' he'd added with an ingratiating smile. Julian Mann knew how to handle Sachs - a bronzed tailor's dummy in a Savile Row suit with more bedside charm than medical curiosity -Julian knew how to handle all the showbiz doctors whose surgery walls were chock-a-block with signed photos of the stars: you simply had to turn up on time, indulge in a bit of chit-chat about this or that gala premiere, answer a few simple questions to prove you weren't clinically dead, then give the doctor a quick flash of the teeth and 1