Dr. Knox (25 page)

Siggy cocked his head. “What the fu—”

“And before the smoke clears, I'll be on your side of the desk. And I bet I can find a piece back there, and if not, I'll have plenty of time to break your neck.”

Siggy squinted. He was quiet for a while, and then he shook his head. “Do you have any fucking idea what you're starting?”

Sutter smiled, and winked at him.

Siggy shook his head some more, and smiled nervously. “You're full of shit,” he said slowly.

Sutter grinned wider, and leaned in again. “Sure I am,” he whispered. “Or maybe not. Who the fuck knows? Should we find out?” He glanced over at Josef, who was gesticulating at the television and saying something to the soldiers, who laughed. The backpack was beside him on the sofa. Sutter put his keys on the desk. “Or maybe it's not worth it,” he continued, “having to explain to your missus how her big brother's head got turned into so much borscht.”

Red patches bloomed on Siggy's face, and his lips disappeared. His eyes flicked to me, to his desk, to his men across the room. My pulse spiked again, and adrenaline sizzled through every vein. “You fuck,” he said, his voice a low rumble. He took a deep breath and reached for his glass.

Siggy drank, hand shaking, and worked a hideous smile onto his mottled face. “You are so full of shit, Sutter—it's fucking funny. You're unbelievable.”

Sutter sat back, nodding. “Like I said, I'm a pain in the ass.”

Siggy smiled at Sutter for an endless minute. When he spoke, his voice was loud, and full of manufactured good humor. “Now get the fuck out, you and your pal both. I got more important things to do than screw around with you two.”

Sutter smiled back. “So we're done now, yes? I mean
done
done, Siggy.”

Siggy went back to a whisper. “I said
get out
—so go, before I change my mind.”

“Dr. Knox first,” Sutter said, and looked at me. He flicked his head toward the door. When I stood, one of the soldiers did too. He looked at Siggy, who nodded. I crossed the room on legs that were suddenly rubber, and opened the door, and stepped back into the sepia-toned saloon.

I made my way to the bar and found a stool and looked at the office door. One of the slinky bartenders came over and spoke to me, but I couldn't make sense of what she said. I must've looked as shaky as I felt, because she brought over a glass of ice water. I drained it in one swallow, and as I put the glass down, the office door opened and Sutter strolled out, the backpack on his shoulder. He walked over to the bar.

“I wasn't sure you were coming out,” I said. “And I wasn't sure what to do if you didn't.”

“Have a little faith, brother. But now we roll—unless you want another drink.”

I shook my head and climbed off my stool. “Was that for real—that business with the backpack?” Sutter smiled but said nothing. We crossed the room and made for the door, pausing only once, so that Sutter could exchange numbers with the hostess, who seemed surprised to see us again.

My pulse was thrumming all the way back to the clinic, and my left knee was bouncing. Sutter pulled his car into the alley.

“So that's it with Siggy, then?” I asked as he rolled up to my Dumpster. “He's going to leave Elena alone?”

“Us too, I hope.”

“
Hope?
I'd think a hundred grand would buy something more definite.”

Sutter shrugged. “Siggy's a dick, and his ego is bruised, but he's a businessman. He understands costs and benefits.” I nodded. Sutter watched me and chuckled. “You look disappointed,” he said.

“Me?”

“You. But not to worry, brother—the Brays have plenty of guns too. More than enough to keep you entertained.”

I flipped Sutter the bird and climbed out of his car. He laughed some more and drove away.

Lydia or Lucho had slipped my personal mail under the door, and it slid across the bare floor as I entered my apartment. There wasn't a lot—a couple of medical journals, a
donation, please,
letter from my college, catalogues of things I had no interest in and anyway couldn't afford, a postcard meant for someone else. I gathered it up and stood in my gloomy living room for a while before I switched on the lights and the television. I drank a beer and flicked through the channels.

It was the same old shit—a lot of noisy nothing. I stopped on a nature channel and sat, but couldn't sit still. Monkeys chattered and screamed at each other, and it felt like they were in my clothes. I got up and checked the answering machine. There was nothing.

The package Anne Crane had sent—the video and transcript of Elena's statement—was on the kitchen counter. I stood there and leafed through the transcript again. I paused at the section about her journey to the States—the truck ride into Greece, the repeated rapes. Then I skimmed backward, to the part about her grandmother's apartment—the smashed furniture, the blood. Then forward again, to the apartment in West Hollywood, where she met men. I took a deep breath. The transcript was the size of a small phone book, but you couldn't turn three pages in a row without a new horror. I went to the fridge for another beer.

I should have felt some comfort now that we'd dealt with Siggy—relieved that there was one less danger to worry about. But somehow I didn't. Somehow it made the Brays loom even larger in the landscape of threat.

It was time to call Amanda Danzig, I knew—time to meet with her and make my pitch for Elena's and Alex's freedom—but something stopped me. It wasn't Elena's story, which was awful and compelling, powerful and powerfully told. If that didn't convince the Brays to make a deal, it wouldn't be because it lacked in dreadfulness. And though I hadn't yet heard from Nate Rash at Jiffy-Lab, I was certain that the DNA results would bolster her tale. No, it wasn't what I knew of Elena's story that worried me, it was what I didn't know—the nagging sense that there was a chapter that I hadn't read yet, but which the Brays perhaps had.

I drank more beer and went back to the television. The monkeys were gone, and in their place was a sea turtle, dragging through the sand of an empty beach to lay her eggs in the moonlight. The ocean was flat and black behind her, and she herself was inky and gnarled against the pristine sand—scarred, barnacled, and exhausted, but still grinding through the ancient dictates of her genes. Her eyes were black and shining, at once dogged and resigned, and I walked closer to the screen to look at them. There was something familiar there, I thought. I knew that look somehow, but from where? The bottom of a beer bottle, I thought, and my laugh echoed stupidly off the bare walls. Then, suddenly, Mandy's voice was in my head:
What wouldn't a parent do for a child?
What indeed.

I paced some more, trying and failing to slow the racing engine of speculation and suspicion in my head, and soon it felt as if the monkeys were going through my pockets again. My watch said almost eleven, and I knew Nora would be home from an evening clinic at UCLA but not yet asleep. I reached for my car keys.

Nora's Lexus was in the driveway, so I parked farther down the hill, on Berendo Street. There were deep shadows on the sidewalks as I walked back to Nora's house. Porch lights were on outside many of the bungalows, and windows were dark or glowing blue with television. A little wind blew in the trees, no more than a sigh, and then I heard the faint throb of an engine behind me. I turned and saw headlights rounding a far corner.

I turned left on Cromwell Avenue, walked past three dark houses, and stopped at Nora's brick path. There were ground lights along its edge, and big cactus plants in terra-cotta pots, and it curved up to three brick steps and the front door of her Mission-style cottage. Her lights were on, and an angular shadow moved across the big window. I texted her—
Out front—
and sent a smiling frog too. In a minute, the door opened and Nora was there. She was barefoot, in black yoga pants and a black tank top, and she was holding her phone.

“You don't call first?” she said, as I came up the path. “And, seriously, an emoji? What are you—in middle school?”

I stood at the bottom of the steps. “Middle school kids are too cool for that. Besides, I wasn't sure you'd take my call.”

“I'm not sure either,” she said, smiling ruefully. “It wasn't exactly the perfect date.”

“No, it wasn't.”

Nora's smile broadened. “Come on—I've got Chinese.”

I smiled back. “Cold noodles?”

“Yes, cold—” Then there was sound behind me—footsteps on brick—and movement, and Nora Roby's eyes went wide. I crouched reflexively and spun, and something like a bowling ball glanced off my right shoulder. My arm went numb and then burned, and my feet went out from under me. I was on my ass on the bricks, looking up at a broad-shouldered silhouette.

“You fuckin' pussy—you had to go cryin' to him! I talk to you on the street, and you get scared and cry like a fuckin' baby to him.” Kyle Bray's voice was shrill and drunken, and his face was a mask of rage. His arm swung down and there was a whipping sound, like a golf club cutting air. I scuttled backward, and stumbled on the steps.

“You want more, you fuck—or you want to tell me where the kid is?” There was a metallic scrape, a line of sparks on the bricks, and then something lashed at my calf and left it first numb and then burning. Kyle held what looked in the dark like a stubby golf club—a putter, maybe. He raised it above his head again, and I saw that it was a telescoping metal baton.

“Tell me where he is or I'll split your fucking head,” Bray said, slashing the air, and then I threw one potted cactus at him, and then another. The first, a quilled softball, caught him in the center of his tee shirt, and stuck there. He yelped and stepped back. The second cactus was like a spiked baguette, and it caught him full in the face. Bray yelled and dropped the baton, and I kicked out and swept his ankles. He fell backward, screaming, into another cactus pot, and then screamed louder.

“Stay still or it's going to hurt worse,” I told Kyle Bray, and I pulled his hand away from his face.

“Get 'em out! Just get them the fuck out of me!”

He was squirming on the tiled floor of Nora Roby's entrance foyer. His shirt was spattered red, front and back, and still bristling with brown needles, but the real problem—and the real pain—was in his face. The cactus had caught him on the right side, on the eyebrow, eyelid, nose, cheek, and upper lip. The barbs had gone deep, and his clawing had made things worse. The side of his face was like a road stripped for paving.

Nora had an orange backpack with all the essentials in it, and she dropped it, along with a white trash bag, at my feet. Then she walked into the living room, sat on the sofa, and glared. I opened the pack, found forceps, alcohol, sterile gauze, tape, and gloves.

“Keep still,” I told Bray again, and batted his hand away. I took the forceps and pulled a spine from his right nostril and dropped it in the trash.

“Fuck!” he yelled.

“Fuck yourself,” Nora muttered from the sofa.

Bray tried to focus with his one good eye. The smell of liquor mixed with sour milk came off him in waves, and I was pretty sure he didn't understand much of what anyone was saying. Sweat soaked his tee shirt and beaded on his face. I pulled two spines from his cheek, and he cried out twice more.

“You followed me from the clinic?” I asked.

“The PRP boys did.”

“And they called, and you came over?” I pulled a spine from the bridge of his nose.

“Ow! Yeah, they called.”

Nora snorted. “And you came to do what—kill us?”

Kyle Bray squinted at her and shook his head and winced. “Should I just call
911
, and get you to an ER?” I said. “Then you can explain all this to the cops.”

“No,” Bray moaned. I pulled out another spike, sunk deep in his eyebrow. He screamed.

“What
did
you think you'd do—besides bash my head in?”

Bray sighed a boozy cloud at me. “I wanted to get the kid back. You know where he is, and I couldn't stand listening to that shit anymore.”

“Listening to what shit?”

“All his shit. About
half-measures,
and
half-right is all wrong.
About how I can't even hang on to my own kid, much less raise him. All his usual shit.”

“Who says all this?” I asked.

Kyle Bray furrowed his brow, which must've hurt. Still, it stayed puckered as he spoke. “Cap—who else but Cappy? Who else can go on forever about what a fuckup I am?”

Bray made a swipe at his face again, and I caught his wrist and pushed it down. “Who is Cap?”

“Cappy? That's
Captain
Bray.”

“He was in the military?”

Bray snorted. “Connecticut Air National Guard. He spent the end of Vietnam on his ass in fucking Windsor Locks. I'm not sure where that is, but I bet there weren't a lot of VC around. He likes for everybody to call him Cap, though. Like he's fucking Captain America.”

“And Captain Bray would be your father?” Nora asked.

“Of course my fucking father. Who else?”

Nora looked at me. “He's crazy drunk.”

I stood, and my knees creaked. “That's part of it,” I said softly. I pointed at his neck and face and mouth. “See the acne there, and what's going on with his teeth and gums? And you catch that smell coming off him?”

She stood, walked over, and squinted. Then she nodded. “You think—what—methamphetamine?” I nodded.

Nora looked at me. “And you bring him into my house. Great. Thanks for that, Adam.” She shook her head and turned on her heel and went into the kitchen.

I sighed and crouched by Bray, who was pawing at his face again. I pushed his hands down. “Open your mouth for me, Kyle. I want to make sure none of these punctures went all the way through.” He nodded vaguely and opened up, and I swabbed the insides of his cheeks.

It took me another twenty minutes to finish cleaning Kyle's wounds and dress the worst of them with gauze. Bray's fidgeting lost steam, and his yips of pain were fewer and softer by the time I taped the last dressing to his forehead. I was just standing when Nora's doorbell rang. Nora came in from the kitchen and looked at me. Kyle made a moaning sound that turned into a snore.

Nora's voice was a tense whisper. “Who the hell is that?”

I shook my head. “You expecting anyone?”

“I wasn't expecting
you,
for chrissakes!”

The bell rang again, and I stepped across Kyle and picked up his metal baton.

“Jesus,” Nora whispered.

There was a speakeasy panel set into the front door, and I opened it and peered through the wrought-iron grill. I saw a blond pixie cut and button-bright eyes, diamond stud earrings, and a very white smile. Amanda Danzig looked up at me and waved.

“Hey, doc! Sorry if I'm interrupting your fun, but I need to collect my cousin. I understand you've got him in there.” As she spoke, two large men appeared behind her. Mandy watched me watch them and smiled. “Don't worry—they're just here to lift, if Kyle needs lifting. Which I suspect he does.”

“Last we spoke, you said you'd give me some time to think things over. What happened to that?”

Mandy smiled. “You're right. I made you a promise, and Kyle and his antics tonight were strictly out of bounds.”

“I guess that happens a lot with him.”

Mandy shrugged. “Do we have to talk through this door, or is it okay with your girlfriend if I come in?”

I closed the speakeasy panel, and opened the front door. Mandy stepped in. She barely glanced at Kyle, but scanned Nora's house—and Nora—with interest. Then she looked at me.

“So this is your thing? The yoga MILF? You don't think she's a little old?”

I laughed. “She's my age, Mandy. And she's a doctor.”

Nora snorted. “Who
is
this, Adam?”

“Her name is Amanda,” I said, “and she's just here for a second, to pick up her…lost property.”

“You know this isn't the lost property I'm interested in, Dr. Knox,” Mandy said, and kicked Kyle's leg lightly with the toe of her black pump. “Still, he's what I'm here for.” She glanced behind her at the two men on the porch, and pointed down at Kyle. They lumbered in and hoisted, supporting him between them, his arms across their shoulders, his head lolling. They paused in the doorway, and Mandy inspected Kyle's face.

“What'd you do to him?” she asked.

“He fell on a cactus.”

Mandy smirked. “
Fell
—I bet. Nice patch job, though—makes him look like a Picasso.”

“He could probably use a tetanus booster. He should also think about rehab.”

Mandy nodded, and the big men carried Kyle out. She looked at me and shrugged. “Yeah—rehab—that might be a good idea. But you know how it is. You can lead a horse to water….It's hard to get Kyle to listen, which is why you shouldn't let this linger much longer, doc.”