“The one who treated him back when they first suspected he had a problem.”
She nodded.
“How would I go about finding him?”
“He worked for the North Valley Clinic back then, but I think he moved to San Francisco. Following the craziness, I guess.” Her smile was thin and bleached. “They tore the clinic down a long time ago. There’s a taco place there now.”
“I’ll try to track him down.”
Ellen dipped into her mousse, and I sipped at my drink. “You were going to talk about yourself tonight,” I said after a minute. “So, did you collect paper dolls or toy soldiers?”
Her look was rueful. “I’m afraid I got you here under false pretenses—there’s so little to tell I could have covered it all at noon between bites of my sandwich. I’m a woman who’s done nothing with her life but dream.”
“Then tell me your dreams.”
Her descent into melancholy was steep and continuing. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of them. One tends to do that when they can never come true.”
“Then tell me some other things about yourself.”
“Like what?”
“What’s your favorite book?”
“Anna Karenina.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s sad and true and about love and longing and despair.” She blushed. “A life much like the one I lead myself. Not physically, of course—there are no counts and countesses out our way that I know of. But my mind is full of notions that no one even thinks about anymore.”
“So is mine.”
“You want me to believe you’re joking, but I know you’re not. That’s why I knew we could talk about things I never talk about.” She took another bite of mousse. “Does it bother you that you’re out of touch with the world?”
“Sometimes. How about you?”
“I feel horrible about it.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because what you think isn’t wrong, it’s just out of fashion. But fashion is a circle—sooner or later what’s out inevitably comes back in.”
“But what I think has made me shut myself up for twenty years in a sterile little house with my parents fighting and snoring in the next room while I think grand thoughts and tell myself that I’m purer and more noble than everyone else, when all I am is stranded.” Her attempt to grin was touching. “It’s easy to be pure when no one tries to make you otherwise.”
“Change that part. Move out. Circulate.”
“How?”
“Just do it. Call a mover and move.”
“But where? Houses are so expensive.”
“Rent an apartment. Buy a condo.”
“And then what?”
The blind began leading the blind. “Do things. Go places. Meet people.”
She looked around. “At places like this? Goodness. It would be like the Virgin Mary meeting Mick Jagger.” She colored while I laughed. “I’m sorry. That was profane.”
“That was funny. You don’t have to frequent joints like this. Go to concerts. Plays. Museums. It isn’t all garbage out there.”
“I know, but it’s … difficult. I spend all day in a basement and all night in what amounts to a cloister. I’ve gotten used to darkness.”
I took her hand. “It’ll be easier now that Tom’s dead.”
She dropped her head. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true—Tom’s dead. I’m sorry and you are, too. But he’ll never come knocking on your door and say he’s been a fool, he never should have left you, he wants to live with you forever. That’s not going to happen now. So you have to make something else happen.”
“It’s too late,” she sniffed. “It’s—”
“You’re already having dinner with a private eye, for crying out loud. Keep it up and you’ll be playing polo with a prince.”
She made a smile materialize. “I’d rather eat pizza with a private eye, I think.”
“See? I told you your ideals were solid. Let’s get out of here and hunt up that pizza. Pepperoni okay?”
“Is there any other kind?”
Which is exactly what we did, then spent the evening arguing politics: It turned out Ellen was more liberal than I was, which made me worry that one of my worst fears was coming true and I was getting reactionary with age. It only helped a little when I decided Ellen’s viewpoint was less a product of reason than naïveté.
On the way home, we didn’t say much. I had no idea what she was thinking, and she probably thought she had an all-too-sordid idea of what was on my mind. When we pulled into the drive, the houselights were out but a security light nailed to a tree branch made the yard as bright as a ball field.
I stopped the car and looked at her. After a moment of reverie, she looked back. “I had a wonderful time tonight.”
“So did I. Do you ever get to the city?”
“No.”
“Well, you should.”
“I know. I will. I just … it’s going to take some time.”
“Well …”
“Well …”
“I bet there are some eyes peeking out at us.”
She smiled. “Six, if you count cat’s eyes.”
“How many cat’s eyes equal one human eye?”
“That’s silly.”
“I hope so.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “I think we should give them a show. Kitty and all.”
She froze, then melted. “I think so, too.”
I got out of the car and went to Ellen’s side and opened the door. I reached for her hand and helped her out, then guided her to the exact center of the drive. In the glare of both the security light and the Buick’s horizontal halogens, I took her in my arms and kissed her.
Underneath her billowy dress, her body was surprisingly full and her undergarments surprisingly subtle, suggesting her sex life was subversive, in the form of sheer silk bras and tiny lacy panties that only she and the mirror would ever see. Tentative at first, the embrace lingered and contracted—it wasn’t something I did often enough to make it routine, and, for all I knew, Ellen hadn’t kissed a man in twenty years. Which was why, I guess, the kiss became something real and wanted to be a prelude to something more.
I finally pulled away.
“My,” she murmured as she straightened her dress. “I’d almost forgotten how … I’d almost forgotten.”
“If you get forgetful again, give me a call.” In the warmth of her heaving breaths, I glanced at the house. “Are you going to get in trouble?”
“Probably,” she said. “It’s about time, don’t you think?”
FIFTEEN
On the way back to the city, I took a detour, up Fish Ranch Road to Tilden Park, then over to Grizzly Peak Boulevard, the road that snakes along the top of the Berkeley Hills and, when the fog’s not in and the clouds aren’t low, affords the best view of San Francisco you can get this side of a blimp. The conditions were ripe and the view didn’t disappoint, so I pulled off at a wide spot to let the perspective sink to my marrow.
At this time of night, the glory was all you saw, of course, not the filth but the shine, not the contagion but the vitality, not the rags but the riches of a city that was still, after the earthquake and AIDS and the rest of the modern urban horrors, next to New York and Los Angeles the most favored destination of anyone in America with ambition and an idea. I wished it were always only thus, but some of those lights were police stations and emergency hospitals and homeless shelters, and some of those buildings housed con artists and money launderers and child molesters, and some of those bridges led to people with lives like Ellen’s—suffered rather than lived, received rather than earned, acceded to rather than fought for. I lived such a life myself, periodically; that I hadn’t lived it for a lifetime I attributed chiefly to the decision, made a dozen years ago, to earn my living helping people whose troubles, in every single case I’d ever taken on, were far greater than my own.
With that
small solace sloshing through my mind, I put the Buick in gear and curled down the hill toward the bay. By the time I crossed the bridge and eddied through the Financial District and climbed Telegraph Hill to the rented room I called my home, I was too exhausted for either dreams or nightmares.
The next morning I looked up Dr. Marlin. It wasn’t as easy as I expected—he wasn’t in the Yellow or White Pages, nor the city directory either. I had to refer to my files, in the form of a listing of the membership of the San Francisco County Medical Association, before I got a line on him—Leonard R. Marlin, Psychiatrist; Healthways Clinics, a division of Healthways, Inc., 222 Van Ness Avenue.
I knew a little about Healthways. Its clinics were part of a statewide organization that was designed to provide low-cost, walk-in medical services to the low and middle classes on a cut-rate basis. The clinics were no-frills storefronts, staffed mostly by nurses and physicians’ assistants and paramedics and others with less-than-M.D. levels of training, but M.D.s were rotated through the system as well—doctors in private practice working with Healthways on a pro bono basis or members of the Healthways staff who had presumably gone into medicine for something other than wealth or prestige.
I’d seen a couple of the clinics around town but had never dealt with any of them, either personally or professionally. My own medical needs are taken care of by Dr. Clinton on a trade-out basis—he gives me free care, I put heat on the deadbeats who haven’t paid his bills, at least those who have the wherewithal. Since I’ve been generally healthy except when someone with a weapon has made me otherwise, so far the doctor’s ahead of the game. But doctors always are.
Since the only listing for Marlin was in care of the Healthways operation, I assumed he was a member of the staff. When I gave the headquarters a call and asked to speak to him, they were reluctant to pay me much mind. To save time, I came up with a ruse—I told them I was making inquiries on behalf of L. Arthur Wilkers, Esquire, Attorney-at-Law. L. Arthur happens to be the city’s preeminent specialist in the defense of medical malpractice cases—savior of scrub nurses and anesthesiologists and hospital boards of directors, nemesis of the maimed and the mangled. I’d never met the man myself, but I figured the people at Healthways would know who he was. I also figured there was little likelihood that Wilkers would ever learn I’d used him as a passkey if I made this the only time I used it.
As I hoped, Wilkers’ name was a tonic. Helpful if not unctuous, the woman on the phone informed me that Dr. Marlin did indeed have an office at the Healthways building, but this was the day for him to be in residence at the clinic on Turk Street. I asked for the address of the clinic, then asked the woman to call and say I’d be there in about an hour and would appreciate a few minutes of the doctor’s time. She told me she’d see what she could do. Which turned out to be enough—I spent fewer than ten minutes confined to the waiting room in the company of a mélange of battered wives, feverish infants, rheumatic elders, and scrofulous dope addicts, along with a couple of people pretty much like me, whose aches had their origins in less visible afflictions.
The clinic was in the heart of the Tenderloin District, flanked by a check-cashing outlet on one side and a sex shop on the other and a plasma center across the street: payday all around. Although the clinic itself was new and well maintained, the neighborhood was its opposite—if you didn’t need medical help when you set out for the place, the odds were that you would need some by the time you got there, at least if you were old and alone and walking after dark.
It was just before noon when the receptionist—as white as gauze in her starchy uniform—declared that Doctor could see me now. The news didn’t please my fellow sufferers, most of whom had been awaiting an audience a lot longer than I had. My consolation was that they wouldn’t be put out long—I suspected Doctor wouldn’t have much truck with me once he learned what I was up to.
His office was like the rest of the place—clean, functional, aggressively impersonal, as if the clinic were treating widgets, not people, as if the patients were plagued with faulty disk drives rather than broken bones and septic tissues. I’m sure it was efficient, and in some sense effective, and much better than what had been there before, which if memory served was a joint called The Chicago Club. But if this is the brave new world, why do so many people want to live forever?
Dr. Marlin was making notes in a red file folder when the receptionist ushered me into his presence. He was six feet, stocky, square-shouldered, blondish, and well groomed—beneath his short white coat his camel sweater and navy slacks made a sporty and luxuriant foundation. The half-glasses on the end of his nose added a hint of intellectualism to the mix. As he flipped through the file, his movements were smooth and liquid, equally suited to palpating tissue or selling snake oil.
With a final flourish, Marlin put down his pen and pushed his glasses atop his head and regarded me with careful interest. “Nurse said something about Art Wilkers,” he began affably, unbuttoning his white coat to free his sweatered chest. “Has some poor soul filed a claim?” His tone was bland and unconcerned, implying that only a crazy person would have a gripe against him, which, given his specialty, was no doubt true.
“Not that I know of,” I said.
He frowned. “Then what is this about?”
“Nicky Crandall.”
He raised a brow and scratched his nose. I was sure the glasses were going to fall off what with all the movement, but somehow they didn’t. “Nicky? What’s Nicky got to do with anything? Surely he hasn’t complained—without me, Nicky Crandall would be …” He stopped himself before he committed an indiscretion. “What about Nicky?” he retreated.
“I’m trying to find him.”
The stench of malpractice behind us, the doctor regained himself: His movements became benign, his voice dropped an octave, and he seemed to double in size and sovereignty. “What makes you think I can help you?”
“I understand you treated Nicky during the early stages of his illness.”
Marlin shrugged easily. “That was a long time ago.”
“You’re saying you haven’t seen him since?”
He rubbed a palm across his forehead, but the half-glasses still didn’t dislodge. “I’m not saying anything—such information as I might possess would constitute a doctor-patient communication and be therefore confidential.”
“I’m not asking about Nicky’s medical condition, Doctor. I’m just asking for his address.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“First, about the state of his health. Second, about his brother.”
Dr. Marlin sighed, as though the subject were as weighty as himself. “Tom.”
“Yes.”
“A fascinating individual.”
“Yes.”
“A tragic figure in many respects.”
“Yes.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair. “How is Tom?”
“He’s dead.”
That brought Marlin off his high horse. He sat up straight and took the glasses from his head and laid them on the desk beside him, as though they constituted some strange offertory. “Are you serious?”
“Very much so.”
“My God. I didn’t know. When did it happen?”
“They found his body Friday morning.”
“Where?”
“Not far from here, actually. The old bus terminal on Ellis.”
“How did he die?”
I picked at random. “The prevailing thought is suicide.”
The doctor became inscrutable. “I see.”
“Do you concur in the finding?”
“How would I know without seeing the postmortem? I’m not a pathologist in any event.”
“I just mean that based on what you know of him, and your training in psychiatry, do you think Tom Crandall was capable of taking his own life?”
Marlin closed his eyes in deference to the concept. “Anyone is
capable of self-destruction given sufficient provocation, Mr.… ah.…?”
“Tanner.”
His eyes glazed with the sheen of officialdom. “And you are … what? An insurance agent of some kind? Trying to void a policy through the suicide clause?”
I bristled. Marlin was someone who assumes the motive for everything is money; I’m someone who hopes that money means nothing to me. “I’m just a friend of Tom’s who happens to be a private investigator. Over the past few days, I’ve been talking to some of Tom’s other friends and family, and—”
“For what purpose?”
I opted for a benign response. “To see if they knew of any reason Tom would take his own life.”
A brow lifted. “And do they?”
“They know of a hundred things that would be reason enough for some people. But none of them think they’d be reason enough for Tom.”
Marlin’s hands became a steeple beneath his chin. “And Nicky? What does he have to do with it?”
“That’s what I want to talk with him about.”
Marlin preened with expertise. “One seldom talks with Nicky. One learns simply to listen to him.”
“When’s the last time you saw him, Doctor?”
He started to say something, then stopped. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss it.”
“Then you’re currently treating him?”
He shook his head impatiently. “I’m sorry. I really can’t pursue the matter.” He got to his feet. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to—”
“Just tell me this,” I interrupted. “Is Nicky here in San Francisco?”
“I … yes. I’ll give you that much.”
“Does he know about his brother’s death?”
“I have no idea.”
“So he hasn’t mentioned it to you?”
“Please. I’ve said too much already. There are ethical strictures in this area—severe ones. I, for one, take them seriously.”
The doctor had the look of a huckster more than a physician, which means he had the look of someone to whom ethical strictures were bagatelles. “If Tom didn’t kill himself, then he must have been killed by someone,” I said evenly. “It occurred to me that Nicky might be a candidate for the role.”
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