The Devil Met a Lady (19 page)

I looked at Phil, who held his hands up in resignation, and then I moved past the nurse and reached for the door. Her hand came up to hold me back.

“You smell like rotting fruit,” she said.

“Poultice,” I countered.

“Let him go in,” said Phil.

“That’s the doctor’s decision,” the nurse said, turning to Phil.

“That’s my wife in there and this is my brother. He’s going in. If you’ve got a doctor who doesn’t like that, have him see me.”

The nurse looked at Seidman, who looked at his watch, which, in contrast to mine, probably told the time.

I walked into the room, let the door close behind me, and moved to the bed.

Ruth looked like Ruth, only more so. She wasn’t just thin. She looked like a lollipop stick. Her dark-yellowish hair lay sweat-wet against the pillow and her eyes peered out of little dark caves.

“Toby?” she asked, weakly trying to focus on my face.

“Toby,” I agreed.

“Thanks for the blood,” she said, holding out her right hand.

I moved to her side and took it. Her hand was claw-thin, white, and cold.

“It grows back fast,” I said.

“I think I’m dying this time, Toby,” she said evenly.

“No,” I said.

“Well,” she said with a sigh, “I could be wrong.”

“Let’s hope so,” I said.

She squeezed my hand and did something with her face that might have been a smile.

“One of the bad things about probably dying,” she said, “is that it’s so darned hard to think of something to say that I haven’t seen in a Barbara Stanwyck or Bette Davis movie.”

“I’m working for Bette Davis’s husband,” I said.

“Really? She’s my favorite,” said Ruth, looking past me at the ceiling at some half-remembered Bette Davis scene.

“I know. Carmen’s too,” I said.

“Carmen?”

“Cashier at Levy’s.”

“You should get back with Anne,” she said.

“Fine with me,” I said.

“Tell her it was a deathbed wish of mine,” said Ruth. “I miss her.”

“I’ll give her a call. I’m sure she’d come to see you.”

“You really think I’ve got a chance?” she asked, focusing on my face again.

“Well, you’ve got reasons … Phil, the kids.”

“I get tired, Toby,” she said, turning her head away.

“I’ll let you get back to sleep.” I put her hand back on the bed and stepped back. “Was there something you wanted to ask me or tell me?”

“Phil doesn’t take care of himself,” she said.

“I know.”

“He has to, now,” she said, licking her cracked lips.

“You want some water?”

“I think I’d better sleep now,” she said. “Tell Phil I’m not scared.”

Her eyes closed and I went back into the corridor where Phil stood waiting.

“She said she’s not afraid, Phil,” I told him. “She’s sleeping now.”

“She’s afraid,” he said.

“I know. She doesn’t want you to know. I’ve got to go for a few hours. I’ll be back.”

“I’ll drive you back to your office,” said Seidman, moving away from the wall.

Phil turned his back on us and went into Ruth’s room. I had nothing to say to Seidman and he had nothing to say to me. He drove me to the front of the Farraday and went on his way with a “Watch out for Cawelti.”

When I got up the elevator, the door to the outer office was open and the lights were on.

Shelly was sitting in his dental chair, the cabbie’s cap tilted back on his shiny head, a cigar in his mouth, and his glasses perched on the end of his nose. He was wearing his white jacket and looking pleased as he put down the pamphlet he was reading.

“Anybody here?” I asked.

“Just me,” Shelly said, removing his cigar and looking around to be sure he hadn’t missed somebody. “At least for the next twenty minutes. Then I’ve got a kid coming in for extractions.”

Cawelti wasn’t around, which was fine with me. I had tried to think of plans, options, ideas as I drove with Seidman, but nothing came.

“You stink, Toby,” he said. “If you’ll pardon my French.”

“I’m getting better with each passing minute,” I answered, moving to my door. “You see Dash?”

“I let him in your office,” Shelly said, getting out of the chair. “I got a new idea. You wanna hear?”

I didn’t want to hear, but Shelly had done me a favor and I owed him one.

“Sure,” I said, stepping into my office where Dash glanced up at me. The cat had been chewing up a sheet of paper. I hoped it was a bill. I moved carefully around my desk and into my chair.

“You’re making funny sounds, Toby,” Shelly said, sitting down in the chair across from me and adjusting his glasses.

“I’m in agony, Shel,” I explained. “People keep beating the hell out of me.”

“It wouldn’t happen so much if you were in the health professions,” he countered, without sympathy. “You wanna hear my idea or you wanna hear my idea?”

“I wanna hear your idea,” I said.

“Pet dentistry.”

He sat back with a smile and watched my face for a reaction.

“Pet dentistry,” I repeated, looking down at Dash, who ignored me and kept chomping bills.

“Ever look in a dog’s mouth?” Shelly asked.

“Shel, if you want me to take you semiseriously, either take off the hat and pretend to be a dentist or take off the smock and play cabbie.”

Shelly wasn’t offended. He took off the hat and placed it on my desk. “A dog’s mouth?” he repeated.

“Not by choice,” I said.

“They smell, Toby. Believe me. They smell and they have rotten teeth. What happens if I sink money into a storefront or a little office over some fancy-schmancy ladies’ underwear shop in Beverly Hills over on Sunset? I fix the teeth of rich peoples’ dogs. Make their breath smell good. Clean their teeth. Fix their cavities.” Dash moved toward the cabbie’s cap and Shelly whisked it away and put it on his lap.

“Did you ever work on an animal, Shel?”

“I’ve been reading,” he answered, anticipating the question. “A couple of articles.”

Maybe I was weak from donating blood, but it didn’t sound like a bad idea to me. I wasn’t sure Shelly was the guy to pull it off, but the idea made cockeyed sense in Los Angeles. “Sounds like it has possibilities,” I said.

“Really? You think so?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you could set up a meeting with some of those big-bucks clients you’ve had,” beamed Shelly. “Maybe they’d want to invest a little, tell their friends. You get fif … ten percent of any client you bring in.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“I’ll take care of Dash free,” he said. “First patient.”

“You touch that cat, Shel, and I throw you out the window.”

Shelly rose from the chair indignantly and looked at the Dali painting on the wall. “I know what I’m doing, Toby,” he said. “People don’t beat the hell out of me.”

“I’m sorry, Shel,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “I’ve had a bad day and you did me a good turn. I’ll think about it. Anything else you can tell me about the guy you picked up in the cab?”

“Coldwater Canyon,” Shelly said sulkily, hovering at the door which he had opened. “I told you. Place is up on the side of a hill. Old wooden place on stilts. No houses too near it.”

“He say anything?” I asked.

“Just gave me the address. Small talk. I had him conned. You know Lochinvar Pulaski on the ‘Maisie’ radio show? I did him and a little Chester Riley.”

“I’m sure you were great, Shel,” I said. “How are you going to get their mouths open?”

“Who … oh, the dogs and cats. Knock the little bastards out.”

“Why stop at dogs and cats?” I suggested. “Why not monkeys, rabbits, raccoons?”

“Why not?” he said, regaining his enthusiasm. “Thanks, Toby. One more thing. You think you could talk to Mildred about this? Tell her you think it’s a good idea?”

“Your wife hates me, Shel,” I reminded him.

“But she respects you.”

“She doesn’t respect me, Shel. She thinks I’m a bum and should be evicted from this broom closet. She said so many times.”

Dash jumped off the desk and scooted past Shelly into his office surgery.

“You’re wrong about Mildred,” he said.

“She walked out on you, Shel, with a Peter Lorre imitator. She kicked you out of the house. She tried to get all your money. She stopped you from hiring that blond receptionist.”

“It was for my own good,” Shelly said.

“Suit yourself, Shel, but I don’t think I could convince Mildred that we are at war with the Japanese.”

“She’s well aware of that, believe me,” said Shel.

Someone came into the outer office. Shelly heard it and turned his head.

“Patient,” he said and stepped out, closing the door.

I called Jeremy’s apartment one floor above, and Alice answered.

“Hi, Alice, is Jeremy in?”

“He’s in the lobby, cleaning,” she said. “You want to talk to Natasha?”

“Sure.”

Natasha, who was a few months old, came on the phone with a crunching, slobbering sound which suggested she was chewing on the speaker. And then came, “Ahye cahbabee bee.”

“You hear that?” said Alice proudly, coming back on the line.

“Smart and gorgeous,” I said.

“And she needs her father,” Alice added.

There was a pause while I waited for Alice’s next line.

“You ask Jeremy to do some dangerous things, Toby,” she said. “Do you know how old he is?”

“I …”

“Sixty-four,” she answered, while Natasha cooed in her arms.

“He’s the strongest—”

“Anyone can die,” Alice interrupted.

“Anyone can die,” I agreed. “And everyone will.”

“I think Jeremy should wait his turn in line,” she said.

“You’re asking me?…”

“Nothing,” she said. “He can do what he wants to do. And you can ask him to do whatever you want to ask him. I just want to make it a little harder for you to ask him.”

I imagined Alice at the phone, cradling the baby in one massive arm. Alice was no beauty and she easily hit two hundred and thirty pounds on the Richter scale, but she sounded beautiful now, and I felt as lousy as I must have looked.

“Point taken, Alice.”

“Good,” she said. “Jeremy wrote a new poem last night. I’ve got it here. I want you to hear it.”

In the outer office beyond the door, Shelly was singing the “Indian Love Song,” which confirmed that he had a victim in the chair.

Over the phone, Alice read:

She is all round and smooth silk to the touch

And then she makes a sound, a motion and such

is the miracle that is life. I smell and it is fair

with wonder. Even her wastes are rare

and I weep within that time is fleeing

as I rejoice alive again through her being.

The joy of life is that it is.

The mystery is that it is passing.

“I get it, Alice,” I said.

“Thank you,” she answered. “Can you come to dinner tonight?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Another time.”

“Plenty of time,” she said.

I hung up and tried my best not to think about what Alice had said. The way to do that was to get moving. I got up and looked at the photograph on the wall of me, my dad, Phil, and our dog, Kaiser Wilhelm. Two kids, a skinny, pale guy in a white apron with a pained, forced smile, and a forlorn German shepherd. I wondered for the first time who had taken that picture. A neighbor? A relative? My mother had died when I was born. My old man worked fourteen-hour days in his Glendale grocery store. Was the photograph taken by some salesman? A customer? I hadn’t considered the question for the almost forty years I’d had the picture, and now, suddenly, it bothered me.

I got out of my office.

Shelly was working on a girl about eight years old. The girl wore a faded dress with flowers and a look of total fear. Her mouth was wide open and her eyes darted from Shelly, who was examining his sharp, not-so-shiny tools, to me as I moved across the room.

“When I’m calling you-oo-oo-oo-oo,” Shelly crooned, cleaning a giant tweezer on his jacket.

“I’ll call in,” I said.

Shelly didn’t look in my direction. He waved a hand absently to show that he was deep in aural thought. As I closed the door, I heard him say to the kid, “You have a dog or cat?”

I hit Coldwater Canyon around three. It wasn’t far from the Farraday. Finding the winding road off the Canyon Drive took a little while, but Shelly’s directions were better than experience taught me they should be. The house where he had taken Matt Stevens was across the road from a sheer sheet of rock with molted boulders, a few of which were pushed off to the side. I drove past the house and found a patch in the bushes just big enough for my Crosley.

There were several approaches. I pulled my .38 out of the glove compartment, checked it, and got out, deciding on direct action rather than gamesmanship.

I made my way back to the house, staying close to the bushes and light-deprived trees, my gun ready at my side. A car announced itself and I moved away from the bushes, tucked my gun in my belt, and nodded at the driver as he weaved past me, going deeper into this bypath of Coldwater.

The house was on stilts to hold it back and up off the road, into a crevice in the hill. I climbed the wooden stairs.

On the front porch I looked around, through the windows. Nothing. That didn’t mean no one was inside, only that I saw nothing. Birds were chirping and something was clacking in the bushes below. It could have been a rattlesnake.

I moved to the end of the porch, carefully looking into windows and seeing nothing but an unmade bed. I tried the first window. It wasn’t locked. That didn’t mean it opened quietly. It squealed and I moved slowly, carefully inching it up, watching the door inside, ready to see Jeffers or Stevens rushing in with a cackling machine gun.

No one came through that door. I got the window up and considered how best to go inside. My ribs warned me against anything stupid, and the rest of my body warned me about any movement, natural or unnatural.

The hell with it. I took a deep breath and crawled over the sill, trying to ignore the noise which, since I must say it myself, wasn’t too bad. I got in, looked around, and headed for the door. I listened, heard nothing, tried the handle.