The Daisy Ducks (7 page)

And once again in my responsible, suburban life, I
wanted part of that action. Call it male menopause, midlife crisis,
what-ever you want . . . I wanted a little dirt and danger for a
change.

But I kept these thoughts to myself as we walked
along. Twice I slipped and almost fell. There was only spotty snow
cover, but it was cold and slick underfoot.

I was looking down Old Stone Mill Road, white-gray
with snow and ice, and at the low stone fence alongside it, when
Roantis did his big back flip. It was a beaut—right out of the
Keystone Kops. As I leaned down to help him up, the world seemed
strangely silent. Then, extending my hand to the man lying on the
frozen road, I realized why. There was a great noise just dying away.
An explosion. A fast-fading echo of a giant wallop.

Just off my left ear came a crack: flat, dry,
electric. A ferocious sucking of high-speed wind. A snapping crack
like a muleskinner's whip. Bullet. Then the endless cavernous echo.

I dropped down. Roantis had not moved. A geyser of
rock and ice erupted a yard from my head. The pieces flying from it
stung my face. Another one. Closer. Somebody was telling me to get
off the road. I jumped up and sprang over the wall. I don't remember
landing on the other side, but then there I was, in the bushes,
scared as hell.

I stumbled along the wall in a crouch. I was in a
dream; the cracks and crevices and mossy gray loaves of stone that
swept by my face were all the stuff that dreams are made on. I
stopped and poked my head up over the wall for a second. I saw a man
in a tan parka leaning against a great gray beech. His hood was up
and he wore a balaclava helmet and dark aviator glasses. His face was
totally hidden. He held a jet black rifle to his cheek. When he spied
me, he swung the muzzle fast and shot. He was so fast that I saw the
spark of flame before I moved. The slug whined off the top of the
wall not two feet away, spewing up a little gray shower of shattered
stone. I ducked down again and scampered toward the house as fast as
I could. Roantis had not moved, not even a little.

Twenty yards from the house, I stood up and sprinted
for the side door. I crossed the lawn and yanked at the brass handle.
When it gave, I turned and looked back down the hill. The man in the
tam parka was kneeling over Roantis. He had a knife in his right
list. A black knife. He looked up. The huge, shiny black lenses
stared up at me like the eyes of a gigantic praying mantis. In an
instant the rifle was up and sparking. A slug tore into the doorframe
above my head.

I yanked the door full open and skipped inside,
stopping just long enough to slam the bolt shut behind me, then
rushed into the kitchen to tell Mary to phone the police. But she'd
obviously heard the shots and looked out the window. She had the
phone to her ear, her face pale with shock. She drummed on the
receiver button and clenched and unclenched her fist.

"Nothing, Charlie! The line's dead!"

"Figures. He sneaked up here early and cut the
wire. Lock the front door, then lie down on the floor and don't
move!"

I was about to go upstairs when I remembered
Roantis's strange request of the night before. At least it had seemed
strange then. I dashed into the porch and grabbed the Browning from
the coffee table. When I drew the slide back, a cartridge flew out.
So Liatis had primed it. I ran back to the side door. Cautiously, I
leaned around and peered out the window. There was nobody in sight,
but I couldn't see over the stone fence to the road. I marched
through the entire downstairs, looking out all the windows. The man
in the parka didn't seem to be anywhere around. I opened the door and
went out. As I left, I heard Mary scream at me. It almost made me
change my mind. I knew the pistol was no match for a rifle,
especially in the hands of an expert like the fellow in the parka.
But Roantis was in trouble.

I crept to the big oak that stands in our front yard
and edged my face around it. I still could not see far enough down
the road. I ran back to the house and told Mary to run through the
orchard to the Burkes' and use their phone. She didn't like the idea,
but when she heard Roantis had been hit she threw on her parka and
skedaddled out the back. I crept back to the oak, then went on down
to the stone fence. I saw Mr. Parka jog-trotting down the road. I
stood, ready to go over the wall and help Roantis. I looked at the
prone form. Hell, Liatis Roantis was dead.

Just then I saw a flicker of motion from the corner
of my eye. Old insect eyes had turned to cover his retreat. He now
saw me and swung the rifle low, shooting from the hip. There was a
great popping and crashing among the stones of the wall, and I found
myself down on the ground again, eating dirt for safety. An automatic
rifle. I lost my temper then. Within two seconds I was hidden in a
holly bush that was right behind the wall, the automatic held up in
both hands. Aiming low, I pumped off two quick shots at the departing
figure. As he turned again I pumped off two more, and saw him grab
his thigh. He spun around like a ballerina and began a spastic
hopping and jumping up the hill. I squeezed a careful one, aiming
low, and took a big divot of turf just in front of his feet. He was
hopping around like crazy now, plenty scared. Leave it to a bully to
panic once the tables are turned. He finally disappeared into the
woods, and I knew it would be stupid to follow.

I went to Roantis. He raised his right arm, then
dropped it. He moaned once, then again. He wasn't dead . . . yet.
Within a minute I heard sirens. Two police cruisers swung around the
curve, lights flashing. They were followed by an ambulance. The
ambulance attendants and I knelt over Roantis as the two cruisers
sped away to search for the rifleman. Although I had no doubt slowed
his departure, I had a feeling he was long gone. Mary came down in
time to see them place Roantis on the litter and carry it toward the
ambulance. Her face was all puckered up and her eyes were wet. She
clutched the down coat around her throat; her hair was blowing all
around her head. Just then Roantis reached out and grabbed her
sleeve. He squinted his half-open eyes at Mary.

"Daisy!" he whispered. "Daisy."
 
 

4

I LISTENED to Mozart's "
Little
G Minor
" symphony as I drove home the
syringe plunger, injecting a full cc of lidocaine into Arnold
Lutzak's lower jaw. He was listening to the music too, through
earphones. I've found that the earphones distract my patients. This
is helpful, particularly during any procedure that results in what we
physicians euphemistically call "discomfort."

Although my patient received two hefty jolts of the
local, I wanted the distraction of the music as well. My psychiatrist
friend Moe Abramson—who is crazy—likes to lull his patients with
music too. And if that isn't enough, he has a tank full of hideous
fish to ensure distraction.

It had been almost two weeks since Roantis had taken
the rifle slug in his chest, and he was still alive. Not only that,
he was recovering nicely. Why? God only knows. Considering the life
he's led and the fact that he's still hanging around this planet, he
must have a guardian angel somewhere up there. Or maybe down there.
But there was another reason: he was wearing a leather jacket when he
was shot, and he had stuffed a pair of thick leather mittens in the
inside breast pocket. All that leather and fleece lining had helped
to slow the slug. But mainly, I guess, Roantis survived because he's
as tough as old hunting boots.

After the lidocaine took hold, I tapped the floor
switch with my foot and summoned my assistant, Susan Petri. She
appeared, complete with surgical mask and smock, and stood at my side
holding the suction tube ready. I took the elevator and tweaked
Arnold's third molar, then fastened the HuFriedy "Cowhorn"
forceps around it and rocked it right out of its cradle. Blood flowed
from Lutzak's mandible like the Hoover Dam had burst. I had almost
finished suturing when Susan popped her head around the corner to
inform me that Chief Brian Hannon was on the phone. I finished the
suture and inserted the gauze packing. Susan handed me the phone.

"Hey Doc, I'm here outside the Emerson Hospital
OR. Doctor Nesbit—you know him?—who just finished working on
Roantis, just gave me the slug they finally dug out of his rib cage.
He says it's a good thing they waited; it was lodged right up against
his spine. Our ballistics man says it's a three-o-eight slug. That's
the same as the seven-point-six-millimeter round. It's the NATO
round."

"Makes sense, Brian. It was an automatic rifle,
and it looked like military issue to me, even from the fleeting
glance I got of it."

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't know too much about
rifle ammunition except the old stuff. Your friend's come around now
and he wants to talk to you. Can you stop over when you're finished?"

"Uh-huh. I'll be there within the hour."

I stopped in to see Moe before I left the Concord
Professional Building; his office is two doors down the hall from
mine. I found him reclining in one of his Eames chairs. Two grand a
crack. He was swiveling back and forth, back and forth, like the
inertia wheel on one of those air clocks, humming Haydn to himself.
His first patient had just departed.

He stared at me, head bowed slightly forward so he
could see me over his half glasses. His face was covered with a
close-cropped dark beard streaked with white. He had a high forehead
that was straight and made more prominent by the thinning hair. Lots
of gray matter in there. A bit warped, but plentiful. I was amazed
that he made his living unwarping other people's heads.

"Yeah well?" he said.

"Just thought I'd pop in. My move?"

He swiveled ponderously in the great chair, pointing
it in the direction of the chessboard like the gun turret of a
battleship.

"Your move," he answered. "You lose in
six."

"Bullshit. You're cooked, Moe, and you know it."

I examined the board closely for several minutes. I
had been very cautious in this game because I was sick to death of
losing to him. This time it was not going to happen. After several
more minutes I advanced my knight. There. A nice cautious move.
Offensive, but not bold. My pieces controlled the center and
protected each other. I was in good shape. I grabbed the big beach
stone with the arrow painted on it and turned it to face his side of
the board. Moe leaned over and moved his bishop without studying the
board. Then he turned the rock around.

"You lose in four," he said.

"Hmmmmmmmm," I said. It was the only
comeback I could think of. "What makes you so sure?"

"Simple. Bishop to king four. You counter with
pawn to king four. Knight to bishop six, check. King to bishop two.
Bishop to knight six, check and mate."

During this quick discourse, his thin fingers raced
nimbly across the crowded board, picking up pieces and rearranging
them like lightning. He laid out several scenarios in a twinkling,
then took the game back to its present position. He had memorized it
all, of course, just the way he had memorized all the previous
twenty-some moves. He made me sick. All the scenarios he demonstrated
looked very bleak for yours truly.

"So I lose in four, eh?"

" 'Fraid so. You should've kept that bishop's
pawn back a rank earlier. That's where you blew it."

I kicked his desk, shaking all the pieces on the
board, and cussed. Then I cussed because my foot hurt. Then I cussed
him, saying I wasn't going to play anymore. So there.

"Now c'mon Doc. No need to be immature about
it."

"Who's being immature?" I shouted. Then I
told him if he called me immature one more time, I was going to hold
my breath.

"Where are you going gin such a huff?"

"I'm going gah, " I said, "to see my
friend Liatis Roantis, who's recovering from a bullet wound in his
chest."

"Oh yeah. Him. Heinrich Himmler's nephew. You
hang around wit' some weird guys, Doc."

"Uh-huh. Like the present company."

"Hmmmmph! You should be so lucky." He
sniffed with his nose elevated. He rose and went over to the enormous
tropical fish tank. He dropped in a pinch of Tetramin food and the
tank boiled to life with scores of darting fish. They winked and
glowed in the light and spun around the tank quicker than the eye
could follow, grabbing the food flakes off the surface and diving
back down among the plants and rocks. The plants and rocks held some
loathsome sea creatures. I looked in warily.

"Now where the hell's that ugly thing? That
bottom-feeder sea snake. Where?"

"You mean Ruth? My loach?"

"That's the one. jeez Moe, even the name's
repulsive. Loach. Sounds like a cross between leech and roach.
Ugliest damn thing I ever —"

"Ruth died," he said plaintively.

"Well, hot damn. First good news I've had in
weeks."

"I got a replacement. Of course he'll never take
her place . . ."

"What's he look like?"

"Uh, interesting."

I rose to leave.

"Wait Doc. Here he comes now. See, behind dat
coral fan? Here he comes. C'mon Charlie . . . C'mon boy . . . He's
shy."