Pitfall (5 page)

Tugging the photo gently from his fingers, I kept my voice steady, filled with resolve. “Listen to me, Jacob. You’re not alone in this. Not anymore.”

Chapter Five

S
o that’s how the day had gone. I’d agreed to help the Cahills; now all that was left was strategy.

I’ve always been a proponent of laying the proper groundwork before an op, so with that in mind I called my friend Seth Delacroix to see if he’d be available to help. Seth and I go back a long way, growing up as boyhood friends in Gibbs, albeit on different sides of town; his black skin probably had a little something to do with that.

We’d played sports with each other, fished and hunted together, and even stood up for each other at our respective weddings. Years later we spent time in the same Ranger unit, where Seth worked as my jumpmaster for almost six years, serving well and with distinction.

But two weeks before we got orders deploying us to our third tour in Iraq, he’d been shot in the right lung by a street punk for the contents of his wallet. That snowy December night Seth had taken his wife Janine out for their anniversary at a fancy downtown restaurant that no longer offered valet service. After dinner he’d gone around the corner to get their car, and that’s where that robbing, coked up killer  blindsided him.

I stayed with him in the hospital as much as I could, only leaving when our orders came through to ship out overseas again. I really hated not being there for him while was laid up, but he understood: orders were orders. By then he was doing much better, although I know his missing that mission hurt him worse than the round they’d taken from his chest.

He was convalescing at home a month later when he got the news we’d been caught in an ambush, and that, except for me, everyone else in the unit was dead.

When Seth had healed enough the Army offered him a desk job, but he told them to screw that, and took his papers. He then did as he’d always promised he’d do when he retired, and opened a skydiving school out in rural Butler County.

It takes a lot of cash to get one of these off the ground—so to speak—what with having to buy a plane (used), rent hanger space, and pay for upkeep and maintenance. But after a shaky start with me and another friend, Walt Solomon, a former Navy pilot and SEAL, as his partners, now we’re doing pretty well for ourselves. Walt was our pilot until he joined the FBI, but he still flies for us when he can. He also helps me out from time to time on my clandestine work, but right now he was in Hawaii with his family on a well-deserved vacation.

Seth and I both coach Madison’s urban league football team, and that still leaves us time to get together every so often for hunting, fishing, or grilling steaks and lively conversation. Truth to tell, I suppose the two of us are more like close brothers than anything.

But when I reached him on his cell, he was a no go.

“We aren’t back yet, John,” he responded after I explained what was going on. “We’re still at Janine’s mom’s place up north. She had that gall bladder surgery I told you about, and at her age we thought it’d be best if we stayed until tomorrow. That’s when the nurse we hired can start. But if it’s urgent I can leave Janine and Kenny with her, rent a car, and come back now.”

“No, that’s all right,” I said. “So far this seems pretty standard. I don’t think anything will come unglued. Hope not anyway. I just wanted you to be aware of the situation.”

“Okay. Just let me know.”

We hung up, and I dry washed my face with both hands. Somewhere in the world the sun was far gone over the yardarm. My eyelids felt packed with grit, and I was getting an ominous feeling that in the hours to come I was going to need strength. A lot of it.

But I ignored it, because I thought the experience I’d undergone with the weird “farsight” crap had exacerbated my susceptibility to Jacob’s raw emotions, based on my own dark past.

Again, and not to put too fine a point on it, Sarah was an adult, and regardless of Jacob Cahill’s fretting, there was probably a very simple explanation to all this. At any rate, there’s an unwritten rule in the service that a solider should never pass up a chance to eat a meal, move his bowels, or grab some sleep. Those are wise words because they’re true.

Pershing Avenue grew narrower as I approached the Beulah Apartments. I pulled the Mustang into the first on-street slot I came to (no driveway or garage), and shutting the car off I got out I glanced up, stifling a laugh. Old Beulah, like most dowagers her age, had certainly seen better days since her birth in the art deco thirties. Even though I could easily afford to live in a better place, I don’t. I chose the Beulah because of its small-town sense of community, something I’d missed since I was a boy.

But last year it had been bought by some investors and was undergoing a much-needed renovation, with a new roof and glazed red-brick facing. The interiors were next, and when completed, we’d been promised the building would be a gem. Well, maybe. If they did jazz it up, that would probably mean most of the tenants couldn’t afford to live there any more and would have to move. And that would truly suck. I love this friendly, low-key neighborhood and its denizens. Change that, and everything changes.

After the usual raucous greeting by Smedley, I fed him and gave him some water, and nuked some pizza for myself. An hour or so later, dinner done, I pulled up the website for The Embers on my laptop.

But once I was there I found a notice saying the place “went dark” every Thursday night, I suppose to give the actors and musicians a chance to rest up. It also said the restaurant didn’t open tomorrow morning until eleven thirty. And the Brighter Day Clinic didn’t even
have
a website, which is hard to believe in this day and age, and when I called, no machine came on listing their hours. If that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t even find them listed on the local cross-reference site put out by the city, which admittedly was last year’s edition. So what the hey; I’d use these hours for a little rest.

Mixing myself a Seven and Seven in a tall highball glass, I sat down on my overpriced, camel-brown leather sectional sofa. And then, drink in hand, I picked up Dean Koontz’s latest offering from the coffee table, figuring to enjoy my drink and catch up on the plotline a bit. But I must have been even more tired than I thought, and I felt my eyelids growing heavy even as I sipped and read.

Pausing, I put the glass and book down on the table and picked up the framed five-by-seven candid picture of my late wife Megan and two-year old daughter Colleen. I’d found it in a box in my storage area a couple weeks earlier when I’d been getting out some IDs for another job. I’d brought it home, and here it’s stayed.

After all these years I’ve tried to move past their deaths, even going so far as accepting blind dates from time to time set up for me by my friends; they never work out. I’ll always love Megan, but with the passage of time I’ve come to realize I have room in my heart for someone else someday. I know my wife wouldn’t want me to be alone the rest of my days. Still though, it’s hard.

Leaning back, I gazed longingly at the picture, my heart stabbing with fresh ache. Sweet Colleen. She’d looked so much like her mom. I lightly traced their faces with my fingertip. Whoever said time heals all wounds has never suffered great loss. Like a flood my emotions overwhelmed me, my defensive armor dropping away.

I closed my stinging eyes, and then somewhere in there, I slipped into a dream.

*

Megan and I had taken a day trip on my birthday, only two months away from our third wedding anniversary. The date was October 18, late fall, our favorite time of year, and we’d spent the crisp, clear afternoon at the preserved 1880s canal town of Metamora, Indiana. Megan preferred the art shops, I, the junk stores, while little Colleen liked feeding and chasing the ducks. The only thing that mattered was we were together.

The day had been perfect. We’d walked and laughed and shared hot apple cider and corndogs, and I’d taken tons of still pictures and video; by then Colleen was talking up a storm and was faster than greased lightning.

Later that night, after reading
The Wind in the Willows
to our daughter and singing the
Mockingbird Song
to her, we tucked her into bed. Megan and I then went downstairs, where I built a fire in our white stone fireplace. That done, I took a seat on the sofa’s far end. Megan sat on my lap and put her arms around my neck, and we began kissing. And it was there, in that sweet time, that she sprung her best gift: she was pregnant again. With our son.

Needless to say I was ecstatic. After carrying her up to bed, we grew lost in each other as if the world and its joys would never end. The last sight I’d seen that evening were my wife’s huge, long-lashed soft brown eyes, flecked with gold and glowing with tender love under frosty autumn skies. We went to sleep held in one another’s arms, her head nestled in the perfect spot on my shoulder …

*

So Smedley and I, both well lubricated with our respective drinks and content with each other’s company, dozed and dreamed our happy dreams, avian and human, while outside the early evening sun gently lapped in through the slatted blinds.

We slept until morning. And don’t you know the rest did me good.

Chapter Six

T
he Beulah is on the west side of Madison, and as luck would have it, the Brighter Day Clinic was located over on Main Street, only a few blocks away as the crow flies. I’d just called them, pretending to be an office supply salesman, and was told the place had opened at eight. After showering and shaving, I stopped at a local car rental agency (it was time to step into character) and picked up a red Toyota Camry for a week under a false identity.

I made it to Brighter Day by eight-twenty, and pulling into the newly recoated parking lot, I found the clinic shared the space with a state liquor store, a dry cleaner’s, and a rather crummy pony keg. Crazy name, pony keg. That’s what people around here call a carryout. Why? Who knows? I always thought that with a moniker like “pony keg” I might expect to see Mr. Ed or Seattle Slew behind the counter selling beer and Lotto tickets.

Shutting my vehicle off I got out, and as I did the brutal heat nearly slammed me to the pavement. Sometime during the night the plug had been pulled on the cooler, dryer air of the last few days, and once again the climate had reverted to the sticky August blast furnace all of us here know and love.

The humid sky above me was already bone white at this early hour, the heat waves shimmering off the asphalt and the road it fronted looking like a waterfall turned on edge. Across the way I could hear thousands of cicadas tuning up for their daily free concert in the trees, building to a crescendo and sliding away, over and over.

Underneath my light blue short sleeve Oxford shirt, hot sweat was forming a small lake in my navel, even though I’d left the collar open. I could sense my deodorant already starting to break down, and idly I wondered if I’d need to change before long. But my miseries were just part of the price we pay here for enjoying summer weather that would make a Louisiana shrimper cry for mercy. Of course it’s not always like this. In winter we sometimes get snowfalls so deep and icy the citizens of Buffalo gaze upon us with ill-disguised envy.

Walking up to the clinic’s pebbled glass door, I heard the wet, sticky sound soft tar makes when it clings to your shoes, but there was no avoiding it. It was everywhere.

I noted the place’s hours were posted on a white, plastic sign, which listed them in jet-black letters as Monday through Saturday, eight a.m. to six p.m. closed Sunday. So far so good. Wiping off my feet as much as I could, I opened the door and entered.

Last night I’d considered how best to do this, and I chose the role of being a reporter. It wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. I’d minored in journalism in college, so I know the language, and a while back I made up some press cards and IDs stating that I was, depending on the need, Stanley Niles, special affairs correspondent for the
Indianapolis Democrat-Advocate
, or Thomas Ballinger, political beat editor for the
Lexington Beacon
. I’d only used this a few times in the past; when I had, thankfully, no one involved had ever thought to check to see if those newspapers even existed.

They didn’t, of course, except in the fevered brain of yours truly.

I gave the interior of the room I’d entered a quick scan. The place was nothing fancy, just a square, beige-painted, drywall-clad waiting area dotted with the same type of crappy artificial rubber plants and plastic fichus trees I kept at my own office. Against the wall squatted four or five uncomfortable-looking, mustard-yellow plastic chairs, and placed in front of them was a low, scarred, wooden coffee table covered by last year’s magazines. All in all, fairly mundane.

But it wasn’t just the room’s cold air that made me start as I did a double take at what passed for art around here. Hung all around were graphic posters of VD-encrusted genitalia, all of them in searingly full color. In other words, have safe sex. Or else.

At the back of the room stood a counter topped by a frosted-glass wall stretching from its surface to the ceiling, with an open sliding glass window occupying its center. Behind it sat a bristly, fiftyish nurse-type, capped with short unnatural-looking electric red hair and sporting enough mascara to shame a raccoon. She scowled as I strode up.

“Yes? May I help you?” Her face was marred by a deep frown, as if helping me was the last thing on earth she wanted to do. Her frown deepened as she stared down at my shoes. I did the same, following her gaze, then looked behind me. Wups. Six well-defined footprints showed I’d tracked in some of the gummy tarred parking lot with me. Oh well.

“Hi there, Miz …” I read her nametag. “Blutarski.”

Blutarski? I swallowed a laugh at her handle, only keeping my face straight with difficulty. The only person I’d ever heard with the last name Blutarski was John Belushi’s character Bluto Blutarski in the movie
Animal House
. But looking at the woman again, it fit. She could have been him in drag.

Her reply was frosty, and held an edge. “My name is
Mrs.
Blutarski.” Married in a weak moment, no doubt. “And I asked you if you needed help.” Her watery brown eyes glared coldly at me as above her lip a faint furze of brown mustache quivered in annoyance. My goodness, what a pleasant woman. Mr. Blutarski, whoever you are, you’re a lucky, lucky man.

Okay, time to load up the charm gun. Diving right in, I went into my John Brenner, cub reporter mode. “Yes, you can help me, ma’am. At least I hope so. And I’m sorry about messing up your floor.” I handed her a card. “My name is Stanley Niles. I’m special affairs correspondent with the
Indianapolis Democrat-Advocate
.” As the nurse looked at my card I craned my head around, grinning. “This is a nice place you have here.”

Sure it was. If you could get past those disgusting posters on the walls, the waiting area looked like nothing more than the tension room at a third-rate dentist’s office. But I kept that to myself.

Her expression turned skeptical. “You’re a reporter?” Sharp as a razor, this gal. Didn’t I just say that?

“That’s right. May I ask you some questions?”

Bluto narrowed her eyes. “What about?” Her cordiality had dropped another ten points, and she couldn’t spare it.

“My paper is developing a story on health issues and family planning in the twenty-first century. I was hoping to speak to your boss about that.” Reaching into my shirt pocket, I pulled out my small Sony voice recorder. I flipped it on, casually holding it in my left hand. “May I have his name please?”

“I’m sure he won’t want to speak with you. He’s a very busy man.”

I sighed. “That’s discouraging.” Then I brightened. “But how about letting the doctor decide that?” I smiled in what I hoped was a boyish way. Sometimes it works with these types.

“No.” Bluto continued glaring, boring neat, round holes into me. “And unless you have legitimate business with this clinic, I suggest you leave. Now.”

It seemed my Jimmy Olsen persona had just gone down in flames. Time to punt. I turned away from her. “Say, are any of these posters for sale?”

“What?”

I motioned toward them. “These posters. I was just wondering if they were for sale. Only last week we had to move my Granny into a rest home in Florida. Poor old lady. She’s really not happy there, and I’ve been wracking my brains for a house-warming present.”

I wished with all my heart she really was in a nursing home. Granny’s been gone for the better part of twenty years, leaving a hole in my life as big as the moon.

“She likes hospital dramas. The gorier the better. Any of these would do.” I leaned closer to one, a particularly oozing putrescent thing that looked like seafood gone bad. “How do you pronounce this? Is it gonor
rhe
a or go
nor
rhea?” Before the nurse could answer, I plopped down in the nearest cheap plastic chair. “Oh man, that’s better. Hotter than a Teamsters’ meeting outside. The AC in here feels great.”

Bluto plainly had had enough. Her knitted eyebrows made one long, black caterpillar of distaste as she stood and pointed at me. “What do you think you’re doing? Get out!”

I shut off the recorder and put it back in my shirt pocket. Then lacing my hands behind my head I stretched back, my grin devilish. “No, I don’t think I will.”

“You will or I’ll call the police.”

“Do that.” My grin faded. “Better yet, let me. I’m sure your employer will love the publicity. Especially the way I’ll write it. Can you see the headline?” I waved my hand. “‘Reporter arrested in neighborhood clinic. Many issues raised. Doctor questioned.’ ”

She stared in disbelief as I sat up, folding my hands loosely in my lap. “Ma’am, I’m not your enemy. Truly I’m not. And if you don’t want to tell me your boss’s name, that’s all right. I’ll just get it from public records. I was simply hoping that in the interests of general goodwill, if nothing else, you’d see your way clear to help me out a little.”

Bluto’s lips were a thin compressed line—thin-lips!—and you could tell she just hated it, but she was stuck. I had her by the short ones, well and truly, and we both knew it.

“What do you want to know?” she hissed.

“Same as before. Your boss’s name, and what time he comes in.”

“Very well.” If dirty looks were bullets, I’d be as perforated as the earthen berm at a gun club. “His name is Manfred, Doctor Ernst Manfred. He comes in at nine.”

I stood. “There now, Mrs. Blutarski, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Taking a chance, I tried amping up the charm again. “Could I make an appointment with him? Could you set that up for me?”

She sighed, the fight gone out of her. It’s terrible to see a foe humbled. “As I said, he’s due in at nine. That’s when he usually goes over the daily files. I suppose he could see you for a few minutes then.”

“Thank you.” I glanced down at my watch. It was ten till the hour. “Mind if I just wait for him here?”

“Suit yourself,” Bluto answered, and she snorted a coarse laugh. “That’s what people usually do in a waiting room.”

Maybe she wasn’t as humbled as I thought.

*

The nurse was as right as rain. At nine a.m. straight up the outside door opened, admitting a tall, stooped, older man wearing a wrinkled gray suit fifteen years out of date; I pegged him as Manfred. Sitting up in my chair, I laid down the ancient magazine I’d been reading. No doubt about it, the day I’m elected emperor there’ll be some changes made.

The first decree I plan to enact will be directed at every doctor, dentist, orthopedist, ophthalmologist, proctologist, oncologist, head shrinker, boil lancer, joint cracker or worse. Every student of Hippocrates will be included, all medicos of the human condition of whatever stripe, head to toe, skin to bone, or horn to hoof. My edict will be that they must provide big comfortable chairs, built by humans for humans, and lay in plenty of pristine, non-wrinkled, up to date reading materials for their clientele.

Or face death.

I figure with this simple act I’ll endear myself to the ailing and suffering populace of the human race forever, especially the male patients. Because I’ll also ensure those offices will be stocked with the latest fishing and car magazines, so the guys can have something to read besides all those
Better Ladies’ Home
and sassy
Mademoiselle
journals.

Manfred—and that’s who he turned out to be—frowned. “Who are you?”

He was a wizened old croc, in his late seventies or so, and beneath his brown-spotted forehead he wore black plastic spectacles with lenses so thick they could have been used as drink coasters. The slack skin covering his face hung loosely enough that I wondered if the nerves underneath had been severed. South of Manfred’s chin his wattles jiggled unnaturally, like he was packed with nightcrawlers.

The doctor’s purplish lips were full, but it didn’t seem he possessed the muscle tone to lift them very high. Smiling appeared to be as alien to this boy as marital fidelity had been to Bill Clinton. His great big, old brown, buggy eyes slowly took my measure, plainly not liking what he found. And as he gazed, the unsettling thought came to me that I knew this guy from somewhere. Then I realized I did; I remembered him from childhood.

He was the boogieman.

I began to answer, but Bluto beat me to it. “Doctor Manfred, this man’s name is Niles. He’s a reporter.” The way she’d said that word, I should have been clanging a bell and yelling “unclean!”

“Yes, but what does he
want?”

She curled her lip in unabashed disdain. “He says he has some questions for you.”

“Regarding what?”

“I have no idea. He’s quite adamant.”

I cleared my throat. “Excuse me? You two seem to have me confused with one of your potted plants. But I’m not. Really.”

Manfred pursed his lips together in annoyance, with the unfortunate result making them look like two pieces of old liver caught between pinch rollers. Snapping his head once in the direction of a closed door next to the counter, he sighed, “All right, if you insist on wasting my time, let’s get it over with.” He fairly spat the next word. “Reporters.”

Now on top of everything else, a big, bluebottle fly had somehow gotten in. It was leaving me alone, but Manfred’s eyes followed it warily. One bug to another, huh?

Stalking off with aggravated strides, the doctor left me to follow as best I could. I’ll bet he wondered why his graduating class hadn’t voted him Mr. Congeniality of 1946.

I entered Manfred’s office behind him, the fly following. As I did, something inside there immediately made me sneeze. Whether it was dust, mold, pollen, or recycled B.O. I have no idea, but the one I let go was a sinus-clearing, gold medal winner.

Manfred scowled. “Do you mind?” I don’t know if he was talking to me or the fly. It sat on his desk, rubbing its legs together like a used-car salesman with a hot prospect.

Figuring he was addressing me, I shrugged. “Not at all. That one kind of took me by surprise too. But haven’t you heard it said a good sneeze temporarily stops, and then restarts your heart? It’s better than a vacation.”

“That’s as may be.” The doctor took a seat in his black leather chair behind his immaculate oak desk; it fit in well with the surprising elegance of his office. As he sat down the fly lifted off, and then dive-bombed him. He swatted it away in annoyance. I felt like rooting for it. Go, fly. “But I really don’t feel like discussing your nasal problems, Mr. Niles.” With a gesture Manfred motioned to a hard-looking matching visitor’s chair in front his desk. “Please sit and do what you’ve come here for. Then leave.”

“Thanks.” Enough bantering with this ghoul. Sitting down, once more I pulled out my trusty recorder and turned it on. “Exactly what do you do here, sir?”

“Didn’t Mrs. Blutarski tell you that?”

“No. Frankly this is the first walk-in clinic I’ve visited. All my paper did was give me a list of several for the story.”

“Oh?” He jerked his head up, examining me closely. “What are the others?”

Wups, struck a nerve with that one. Unfortunately, I didn’t know of any others. I hadn’t planned on being asked this. Frantically I sought mental traction. “I can’t tell you that, Doctor. I’m afraid that’s privileged information.”

“What in the world does that mean? That makes no sense.”

You’re telling me. “What I mean is, other reporters are covering the other clinics. My editor gave me this one because it’s closest to where I live.” That sounded lame, even to my own ears.