Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy (15 page)

"How about Walter Strock?"

"Walter?"

"He was there tonight, both at the lecture and
the signing when Inés opened the labeled book."

"Oh, my, John. Perhaps one of us has seen too
many movies. Walter Strock is an anachronism. A foolish, petty man
whose last refuge from real world inadequacy is a law school faculty
where he can play his little mind games. He had to leave practice
because the pressure got to him. Anything outside the school itself
is now beyond his horizons."

"The Rabb is 'outside the school'."

"True, but Walter's performance at the library
was a real stretch for him. Believe me."

"Strock seems pretty bitter toward you."

"No doubt. Walter thinks I'm somehow the reason
he didn't get the deanship, an opportunity to turn Mass Bay into a
kind of legal Levittown, his dream of how academia should work."

"How about your stepson?"

"My stepson?"

"Ramon, or Ray'?"

Andrus shook her head. "No, no. Ramon and I may
not care much for each other, but all that was resolved years ago.
Besides, if I were to die, he gets nothing."

"Except the satisfaction that you wouldn't be
enjoying all this anymore."

"John, Ramon is just not interested in me now."

Andrus seemed to flush a little.

I said, "Was he ever interested in you?"

"That's not material here. Believe me, Ramon
cannot be part of this." She softened a bit. "John, I
remember what you said this morning about psychopaths, and I'm not
trying to cover old ground. But tell me, this . . . warning in the
book tonight. Does it change your view of the situation?"

"According to the bookstore manager, anybody
could have doctored that copy anytime in the last week. Whoever did
it probably knew you wouldn't be likely to see it until tonight. If
you want my opinion, our friend is trying to escalate, to move in
closer to you. Maybe a better question would be, does tonight change
your view of the situation?"

"No. No in the sense that I'm not about to back
down from my positions on the issues. But I have to admit I'm taking
the possibility of danger more seriously now. And, consequently, I
have to admit that I'm also more interested in what you're going to
do next."

"I went through the box of letters Inés gave me
at the school today, and I talked with the cop on the case. I'm going
to approach some people who might know something. You have any
objection to my seeing the Reverend Givens and Dr. Eisenberg'?"

"Really'? They couldn't be involved, John."

"Not directly. But someone who hates you might
have sidled up to one of them at some point."

"I suppose that's possible. So you want to know
if I object to your telling Givens and Eisenberg about the notes?"

"Yes."

Andrus thought about it. "No, no objection. I've
met both of them before, and I know each by reputation. I would trust
them to hear what you have to say and to help without publicizing my
concern about it."

"In that case, I'll let you get back to work. Or
sleep."

I was up and turned when she said, "John?"

"Yes?"

"I must confess. I really asked you to step in
here because I'm curious."

"Curious?"

"About what you thought of the debate tonight."

The debate. "First time I ever watched three pep
rallies in the same room."

A throaty laugh. "You ought to spend more time
with Tuck. You'd like each other."
 

=12=

"JOHN?"

I'd almost reached the bottom of the staircase,
watching Manolo sitting in a chair near the front door while Manolo
watched me descending the steps. When I turned around, Alec Bacall
was holding open the swinging door to the kitchen.

"Yes, Alec?"

"Are you on your way out?"

"Uh-huh."

"Let me walk with you."

Bacall got our coats from the entry closet, and we
bundled up as Manolo unlocked the front door to let us into the cold.

I said, "Where's Del?"

"I phoned a cab for him. He has an early call
tomorrow."

"Early call?"

"Del's an office temp. Knows three
word-processing programs by heart. That's how we met, actually,
although not really."

"I don't get you."

"Well, I met him when he came for an interview —
I'm Bacall Office Help. On Boylston, across from the Common? But I
didn't really say anything to him then."

"Why not?"

"Because he was hoping for a job, and I've
always thought it a little unseemly to put the move on potential
employees."

"Sounds like a good rule for any business."

"It is, believe me. About two months later,
though, we ran into each other at a First Night party — last New
Year's Eve — and that got us started."

We'd reached the intersection of Beacon. "Well,
this is where I turn."

Bacall said, "The meter still running?"

"I charge by the day, not the hour."

"There's something I want to talk over with you.
How far is your car?”

I pointed up Beacon. "Six blocks that way."

"A little closer than mine. Can we take a
drive?"

"A drive? Where?"

"South Boston?"

* * *

"So that's the famous Powerhouse Pub?"

We were passing the gigantic Edison plant on our
left, the tavern on the right across Summer Street as it becomes L
Street. Bacall was swiveling his head like a kid at the circus.

I said, "You've never been to Southie before?"

"How could you tell?"

"Most people would come by car, and this is the
most typical route. You can't miss the Edison, and the pub's pretty
obvious."

"Well, you're right. I moved to Boston in 1974.
Can you imagine the impression I had of Southie from the bussing
controversy?" In the seventies a series of federal court orders
desegregated the Boston public schools. No white kids from South
Boston were bussed out, but black kids from other parts of the city
were bussed in. The television cameras captured white mothers and
fathers throwing curses and rocks at innocent black children, local
politicians taking stands that would have made Lester Maddox blanch.

I said, "Not Southie's finest hour."

"No. But it all looks so . . . I'm sorry, but
ordinary."

"It is ordinary. Just a stable neighborhood in
an era when most people move around a lot. You've still got at least
two and sometimes three generations under the same three-decker
roof."

"Fascinating. "

I didn't think demographics were the reason for the
ride, but I gave him time.

Bacall squinted at a street sign. "Broadway.
This is where the St. Patrick's Day parade goes?"

"That's right. They march between Broadway
station and Andrew Square. Not as big a deal now as when I was
little."

"You grew up here?"

"No, but I used to think so."

"Good line to remember. I'm from New Jersey
myself, near the George Washington Bridge. When they built the lower
level, they called it Martha. That was pretty much the humor when I
was little."

When I didn't respond, Bacall said, "John, does
my being gay bother you?"

I glanced away from the traffic. He was staring at
me. I said, "It keeps me from being completely at ease."

"How do you mean?"

"Having to be careful what I say."

"In the sense that . . . ?"

"At the Rabb tonight, I enjoyed you and Wonsley
joking. But I didn't jump in."

"Why?"

"I was afraid I might say something you'd take
the wrong way."

"You don't know many gay men, do you?"

"A few. No real close friends so far as I know."

Turning left onto Day Boulevard, I glanced at Bacall
again. He was smiling, but not in a condescending way. "You put
things very well, John."

"Is there a reason you're asking me all this'?"

Bacall looked ahead. "Is that Castle Island?"

The old stone fortress loomed out of the moonlit
water. "That's it."

"Can you pull in and park?"

"Sure."

We went over the curbstone, the only car in the lot.
I killed the engine.

Bacall unfastened his seat belt so he could face me.
"I was raised Catholic, John."

"Me too."

"It wasn't till junior high that I realized I
was interested in other boys rather than girls. I didn't do anything
about it, not even those gross circle jerks that stupid boys do. I
went to church a lot, and to confession about the unclean thoughts. I
played basketball, a good small forward. I even dated one of the flag
twirlers to look right, though I obviously didn't feel right. I came
out sophomore year of college, and I haven't regretted it one day
since."

Not knowing what I was supposed to say, I didn't say
anything. "It was difficult, but life's difficult. Any life, all
life." He lowered his voice. "Have you been following the
AIDS epidemic?"

"Just TV reports on the victims."

" 'Victims.' Not a good word, John."

"It isn't?"

"No. Victims shrivel up and die. Persons with
AIDS, or PWAs, fight back."

"With these new drugs?"

"There are only a couple of approved ones, like
alpha interferon or azidothymidine, which you hear called AZT.
Accordingly, most PWAs take other drugs against the opportunistic
infections AIDS allows, like pentamidine against pneumonia. I'm not a
doctor, John, but we're years away from even a vaccine, much less a
cure."

"Which is why you support Maisy Andrus on the
right to die."

"Partly. Most of those infected can and will
live a long time. Productively too. But for some, there has to be a
way out."

Bacall cleared his throat. "In the early
eighties, before we knew a great deal about AIDS, a friend of mine
contracted it and . . . withered terribly. He begged me to help him
end his suffering, but I couldn't . . . see it that way, then. I
couldn't do for my friend what Maisy had the courage and compassion
to do for her husband in Spain. That's really why I support Maisy,
John. She's living proof of the need to convince society that
everyone has the right to end the fight mercifully and honestly.
Without having to hoard pills from valid prescriptions and before
descending into blindness and madness and . . . diapers, goddammit."

Bacall lowered his voice again. "Tommy — Tommy
Kramer — told me you served in Vietnam?"

"That's right."

"I have a reason for asking this, John. In the
war, how many friends did you lose?"

I looked away. "You didn't . . . When you were
over there, you didn't keep some kind of tally."

"Between five and ten?"

I whoofed out a breath. "Ten, twelve. Around
there."

"John?"

I looked back at Bacall.

His eyes were wet and glowy, but he wasn't crying,
just twitching a little. "John, in the last twenty-four months
I've buried twenty-eight friends."

"Jesus."

"They were older, younger, every color. They
were the best people and the worst, the most fun and the least. But
they were friends, and no matter how careful they thought they'd been
before they even knew they needed to be careful, they got taken.
Opportunistically, horribly, slowly."

I thought back to being in-country, mostly as a
street MP, once in a while in the bush. The way people died, the
randomness of it. Bacall cleared his throat again, then shook his
head like a fighter who'd had his bell rung. "Maisy is trying to
help us her way. In helping her, you're helping us your way. And if
there is anything I can do, you've got it."

"Understood."

Bacall's twitches became spasms.

"Alec, are you all right?"

"No, but I will be." He dug through his
overcoat to the side pocket of his suit jacket. "Sorry about
this."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm diabetic, John. More a nuisance than
anything else, but the last few . . . with all the excitement. I'm a
little off my insulin schedule, I guess."

Bacall drew out a leather case. He opened it to
reveal an ampule of liquid and a hypodermic needle. Reaching down to
his sock, he pulled up his trouser leg past mid-thigh. Even in the
faint light I could see the track marks on his skin.

"You want the courtesy light?"

"No. Believe me, I can do this with my eyes
closed. The double pleats keep me from having to drop my pants."
He took out the syringe and, after two false starts, filled it from
the ampule. I turned away to see a cruiser stopping, the uniforms
inside readying themselves to step out and over to us.