Last Call

by Matthew Nunes

  “Maybe more than a ‘tiny bit,’” I said, and felt myself grinning with her.

  Chapter 16

  It was after three-thirty by the time I got home. Mrs. Pina was asleep on the couch. I got undressed and put my clothes in the bag for laundry and dry cleaning. I wandered into the kitchen and saw that I was due back for work that night. After a quick check on ‘Sol, I staggered to bed, wondering where the guilt and pain were.

  I woke up four hours later, feeling refreshed. Marisol was still asleep, so I took a quick shower and dressed. Shaving could wait. I left a voicemail for Dana at her office.

  Once my bed was made and the house was mine, I sat down at the computer and logged on to the Internet. My email file was huge, filled with junk mail, because of all of the sites I’d been visiting. None were from my government acquaintance or anybody from the CIA, as far as I could tell.

  The last was a long letter from Dana. She didn’t mention the murder, the case or anything to do with it. The line that stuck with me was the one telling me that, “sensitive and generous lovers are as rare as diamonds.”

  It took me three tries to tell her how happy I was. I let it all hang out, and hit the “send” button before I could change my mind.

  I looked at my watch and headed for the bathroom to shave. I had some things to do, and I didn’t want to frighten women and children. It wasn’t even nine o’clock, and I felt virtuous. I knew I’d be in rough shape after work. A quick inventory of the kitchen showed a lot of things that weren’t there. Cursing softly, I grabbed my keys and headed out.

  It dawned on me on my way to the grocery store, that Debbie Fugazzi’s office wasn’t far, so I doubled back and walked into the lobby of a nice building. She probably was as good with money as she was with everything else. Her husband was also her partner in her practice.

  “Mrs. Doctor Fugazzi is with a patient, but Mr. Doctor can see you right away.”

  “That’s nice and I appreciate your help, but it’s ‘Mrs. Doctor’ I need to see,” I said. The receptionist asked for my name, and said that she’d try to squeeze me in. I read old magazine articles about the habits and hangouts of unfamiliar stars. I read brochures on heart disease, alcoholism and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Eventually, I was summoned to “Mrs. Doctor’s Office,” in tones of awe.

  Debbie’s skin had cleared up. She still had a lantern jaw and immense hands. Her glasses had never reached all the way to her ears, so the earpieces stuck into the tops of her ears and her glasses appeared to be falling off. She still kept shoving them back up her remarkably small nose. Apparently, she had no interest in cosmetics or taking care of her hair. It was cut short, and was going gray. She had a wonderful smile, and stood when I came in. She hugged me and then retreated behind her desk. “Sign here,” she said.

  “What am I signing?”

  “It makes you my patient, with any conversations being completely confidential.”

  “Will I have to turn my head and cough?”

  “Please do, I don’t want you coughing in my face, after all.” She was smiling. “Seriously, it’s a good idea, and keeps the whole thing private.”

  “Whole thing?”

  “Sign first, then we can talk.” I signed and dated and initialed and slid the paper across her desk.

  “And now for your physical,” she said, rising. I pressed back into my chair, trying to slide it away.

  “Paul, you should have seen your face,” she whooped, “Omigodomigod. Physicals get done in examining rooms, you idiot.”

  Once she was seated, and settled down, she pulled out the fax I’d sent her. “This was both interesting and routine. He had what appeared to be a routine heart attack that killed him. His liver was shot, and he had the beginnings of prostate cancer. He had his appendix removed, as well as his tonsils. He got himself snipped, pretty recently. You know, a vasectomy. He was otherwise a healthy man in late middle age.”

  “Routine so far?”

  “So far. Now, he had no signs of any heart or pulmonary disease except for the M.I. that killed him. That’s not too rare. The knife in his ear was inserted, probably several minutes post mortem, or possibly just moments before he died. At the absolute outside, he was in extremis, and the knife was a coup de grace, but given the histamine levels at the site, or rather their lack—”

  “Slow down, Mrs. Doctor. I’m but a lowly bartender. Histamine? Keep it simple, okay?”

  “And I’m the next Miss Universe. Okay. Let me try it this way. If you’re alive when you’re injured, histamines are rushed to the injury. If you’re dead, they don’t gather at the site of a wound, get it?”

  I nodded.

  “There were virtually no signs of life, or signs that he was alive at the time the knife went in. The M.E. is hedging, but if he had more nerve, he’d just say that it was a post-mortem wound. Minimal bleeding, mostly like a slow leak. Get it?”

  “Got it. Still it would take somebody cool, but angry to do it.”

  “Your department. Anyway, his stomach contained a lot of pineapple juice, and some kind of fruit derivative, and a helluva lot of alcohol. He was at least four hundred percent over the limit to drive. No matter what his tolerance, he was drunk.”

  “Yup.”

  “He’d had a roast beef dinner, with gravy, and some kind of pastry, as well as some coffee, less than three hours before he croaked.”

  “Is ‘croaked’ a clinical term?”

  “Did he croak?”

  “He croaked.”

  “So, may I continue?”

  I nodded.

  “The reason I’m going over his stomach contents is that they also found some tiny fragments of metal. It was a copper alloy, with remnants of a coating used on pills. You know, the ‘easy to swallow’ things?”

  I nodded. My painkiller had a shiny coating on it.

  “On to toxicology. This is where it gets weird. See, he had a high blood alcohol content, had taken Viagra, and had traces of something else that didn’t show on a normal tox screening. Being a congressman, he rated some extra attention, and they took sections of liver, kidney, heart and stomach as well as blood and urine, and sent it to the State Lab.”

  I was leaning forward. She was still a fine teacher, and her voice was drawing me in.

  “Did I mention that he’d recently had sexual intercourse? I should have, I guess. They found foreign pubic hair, and they checked his level of seminal fluid.”

  “Debbie,” I said.

  “Hey, this is clinical and kind of standard for a death like this. Did you know that men of his age have literally screwed themselves to death? That Viagra is potentially fatal, not from direct side effects, but from what it makes men who have no business—”

  “Debbie, please.”

  “Oh, right. Well, none of us are getting any younger.”

  “Debbie, I’m begging you.”

  “Okay. They did some heavy checks. Things that they usually don’t bother with. They booked and conducted gas chroma-tography,” She looked over her glasses, and started again. “There’s one that they bombard samples with radiation, crack it into its components and compare the signature they get with known substances.”

  “Never mind, Debbie. What did it show?”

  “Also they got enough with the foreign pubic hair to get good DNA for a match later on.”

  “Nice. The chemicals?”

  She was grinning. “He took some kind of derivative of digitalis. It’s synthetic, and immune to a normal tox screen. If they hadn’t gotten curious, they never would have found it.”

  “Does it occur in any way that could be explained?”

  “I said ‘synthetic’. And it isn’t medicinal, and he had no signs of existing heart disease. It resembled digitalis, but wasn’t exactly a match. Paul, the congressman was murdered, but he was poisoned, not knifed in the ear. The M.E. said so, and it isn’t exactly my field, but I’d agree. Any doctor would.”

  “How long would it take from the time he got it to
the time he had the heart attack?”

  “A few minutes after the metallic capsule melted. It would have hit his bloodstream with a bang, flooded him with cardiac stimulation. He would have been sweating, hyperventilating and feeling his heart pounding. There would have been immense pressure coming on within no more than ten minutes from the time it hit his blood stream.”

  “So he swallowed it?”

  “That’s the way it had to be done.”

  “And the copper in his stomach?”

  “I did some research on that. In some countries, they use metallic capsules to time doses of medication for release into the system. In Russia, they treat alcoholism with a drug that reacts with alcohol, and makes the person violently ill if they drink. It’s administered in a thin walled metallic capsule, of specific thickness. If the person doesn’t consume alcohol, the capsule should make it out of the stomach, and into the intestines where it won’t dissolve. Alcohol will dissolve it. You can make a drug sit in the stomach without entering the blood stream for a predetermined period of time. Here’s the cool part. If the person lives, for say, fifteen minutes, the metal melts and just becomes part of the goop in the rest of the alimentary canal.”

  “Goop?”

  “Another clinical term. Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Do you have the stuff on the Russian usage on paper?”

  “Attached to my report and summary. Oh, yes, and my bill.”

  “I hate doctors.”

  “We like bartenders.” We were smiling at each other. “I have to tell you, this is a lot more interesting than my next patient’s phlebitis.”

  “Probably not to him.”

  “His insurance pays well and promptly. Here’s the file, with your fax and my report. And bill.” I paged through it.

  “No bill.”

  “Oops. Watch for it in the mail.”

  “I’d never have made it to the Academy without your help. I think I thanked you, but not as well as I should have. Thank you. For this,” I gestured at the file, “thank you, again.”.

  “I’d never have made it through High School without you, so I think we’re even.” She came around the desk, hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Be well. It’s not good advice, but I hope you get the bastard.”

  The woman at the front desk looked impressed when I left. No bill, a file, and a half hour with “Mrs. Doctor.”

  The grocery store was filled with lots of elderly people, a scattering of women with small children and not enough clerks. I spent an hour there.

  ***

  I ignored my answering machine until the food was put away. There was only one message that interested me. I called Dennis Pereira back, and asked him if he wanted a couple of free drinks.

  “Is a duck’s ass watertight?” he answered.

  “Must be,” I said,

  “Or it would sink,” we said together. We’d been telling each other the same bad joke for nearly forty years, but we still laughed.

  “I have stuff to tell you, but in person.”

  “Nine o’clock?”

  “Nine,” I confirmed and gave him the address and name of the hotel. “Casual dress, so you fit in.”

  “Fit this. I drink scotch.”

  Marisol came through the door in a jumble of backpack and jeans and sneakers and long dark hair and an unbroken monologue. She left a note from Mr. Davis on the table for me to read. Her day was filled with friends and boys who were “so immature and gross.” There was a birthday party coming up for Terri. She got serious and asked if we could talk.

  “Daddy, you know Miss Kilroy?”

  It took me a minute to shift gears, “Yes, I do, honey.” I said it slowly and carefully.

  “While you were away, she called to tell me she was sorry for being part of all the trouble. We talked for a long time because we both were so worried about you. Then she told me how much she liked you and asked if I was upset about that. Of course I was, but I told her no, and then she asked if she could come over. Then she talked to Mrs. Pina, and after a while, Mrs. Pina was smiling, then she laughed and said something in Portuguese.”

  “Then she came over and we played cards and chess and backgammon, and we talked and she ordered pizza. She likes linguica, and I thought it would be okay if she liked you. So I told her so. Anyhow, when you went out with her, I was really happy, and she’s nice and I like her. I know it isn’t like she’s going to be ‘Mom.’” The last was said with near defiance.

  “Honey, easy. It’s okay. Okay? I like her too, and I’m glad you got to know her.”

  “So it’s okay that I knew all about it?”

  “Muffin, it’s okay, it makes it easier. I was wondering how to tell you so it wouldn’t hurt you or scare you?”

  “Scare me?” She seemed outraged. “I’m not a baby, Daddy!”

  “I guess you’re right, ‘Sol. I sometimes think that you’re littler than you are, and I’m sorry. I should have just talked to you about it like you did. I have a lot to learn from you.”

  Her eyes shone. She got up and put her arms around my neck. I smelled mint, and pineapple from her shampoo. The shower was filling up with her “stuff” and I was dreading the next few years, with all of the girl paraphernalia that I remembered from my time with Isabel.

  “Daddy,” she said, “you’re walking and talking better, you know? The gun scares me, but Mamacita said that it was okay, before.”

  “Gun?”

  “I saw it, but I remembered not to touch it from when I was little.”

  “Good job, sweetie. Another thing I should have just told you about.”

  “Yup, but you’re still learning.”

  I smiled into her hair and held onto her.

  I started supper just before Mrs. Pina came downstairs. I was dressed and out on time, with the gun in the car. I couldn’t wear it at work, but I wanted it nearby. I had limits that I usually didn’t. Things still hurt, and I was slower than usual. It was good that the hotel was going to provide security that night.

  I thought about the conspiracy of women in my life, and how it wound up with Dana and me on her living room floor. That thought sent an erotic charge through me.

  ***

  It was early, and most of my orders were coming from the dining room, with a few people in the bar waiting for tables. Diane had traded shifts, so Sarah arrived dressed for work, except for her battered running shoes with white socks. Mike was with her, and they walked straight up to the bar.

  Mike stuck out his hand, and I automatically took it. “I’m sorry about the attitude after he, um, died,” he said. “Sarah was in tough shape.”

  “Thanks. We’re still okay?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry, Paul,” came Sarah’s soft voice, “Marisol will still get the talk from me, just like we agreed.”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  They were both smiling.

  “Oh, you were kidding.”

  Right on time, Dennis walked in, dressed in a nice pair of slacks and a golf shirt. The slacks were tailored to disguise the bowed legs.

  Dennis was at the bar shaking my hand, “Paul, how they going?”

  I poured a healthy-sized single malt into Dennis’ chilled snifter, and dug into my tip jar to pay for it. I turned back, and mixed a couple more orders before I got back to him.

  Dennis grinned. “I contacted some friends, and friends of friends.”

  I nodded.

  “Anyhow, the congressman was a client of an escort service out of Providence. He had a preference for the exotic, the offbeat. He liked twins and couples. Sometimes he hired someone for his son or a friend, or his servant. He paid extra to watch or film them.”

  “The night he died,” he went on, “one of the girls, Miranda, came here to meet him. The fee was five hundred dollars, a straight date.”

  I had to pause to take care of a large order for Sarah, who was staring over at us between waiting on tables. When I returned, Dennis continued, “Mirand
a called the service when she arrived, like a good little call girl, and when she left the man’s room. Nobody’s heard from her again. Her driver didn’t see her come out, and called to tell the madam so. He came in to the hotel to find her, but couldn’t. As far as he knew before he called, she was fine and on her way out to the car.”

  “What time was their date?” I asked.

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “And she was on time?”

  “According to both her and her driver, she arrived at ten minutes before ten.”

  “What time did she call in to tell the boss that she was done?”

  “Eleven forty.”

  “And the driver’s first call?”

  “Midnight.”

  “Did the Congressman make the appointment himself?” I asked.

  “No, an aide. Pre-paid for the appointment.”

  “Did they know the aide?”

  “No, the Congressman usually makes his own arrangements.”

  “So for all you know, it could have been anyone making the date.”

  “True. Still, the person knew enough to be accepted at face value.”

  “May I restate what you just told me?”

  Dennis nodded, and made a regal “go on,” gesture with the hand holding his drink.

  “Okay, somebody made a date for the Congressman, paid for it, and arranged for Miranda, the call girl to arrive at ten. She did so, whatever happened privately, happened. She called in that she was done and ready for any more work.”

  He nodded.

  “At eleven forty. She’s never heard from or seen again, as far as anyone can determine, right?”

  Dennis nodded.

  I broke away, mixed, strained, poured and drew a couple of drafts. I fixed Dennis another drink, jotted the cost down to pay later on, and took away his empty.

  “What can you tell me about Miranda?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Let me try this. If she could do her work, and still make more, would she?”

  “Dress it up as pretty as you like. She was a hooker. Would she try to make more if the opportunity came her way? Yes, any of them would.”

  “I don’t know Miranda. She is some man’s daughter, though. Perhaps we can find her. I can’t promise a thing, but I will make her a part of this.”