by Davis Bunn
The clinic’s waiting room was empty save for a few mothers holding preschoolers and one ancient black man seated at the reception desk. He fiddled with his cane and watched Val’s approach with rheumy eyes.
The receptionist asked, “Can I help you?”
“I was wondering if Dr. Martinez is working today.”
The woman was the color of oiled ebony and very large. She spoke words that had clearly been said a million times before. “The clinic’s doctors operate strictly on a rotating basis.”
“Right. I understand that. But I saw her a couple of days ago—” “Your name?”
“Adams.”
She tapped into the computer. “First name Jeffrey?”
“Yes.”
“She left you a prescription for Percodan. Is that what you wanted?”
“No. Thank you, but I really need to ask her something.”
The receptionist breathed disapproval. “Then you’ll just have to wait. Dr. Martinez is out on break.”
“When will she be back?”
She glanced at the wall clock. “Half an hour. But you’ll still have to wait for her turn in rotation.”
“Sure. That’s fine. Thank you.”
Val left the clinic and stood for a time on the street corner. The city’s clamor held a New York air of uncaring hostility. He spotted someone entering the orange street-front church’s doors and decided to follow.
Inside, however, Val was met by crowding thoughts, dangerous as any mugger. Val sighed his way into a pew at the back. Such places had once been a haven. But now he felt nothing. To pray for anything, even a return of what he could remember, would be a lie.
Here in this quiet space, Audrey’s words haunted him like the hounds of heaven. Val drew the letter from his pocket. Holding it raised a paradox of comfort and silent keening. He ached for this woman. Yet he had sent her away.
Val unfolded the letter and read,
You are gone and still I cannot stop this empty dialogue. How often have I argued with the empty space where you should be standing? How many letters have I written and burned in the past six months? But this letter will be sent. I shall lie to myself the best I know how, and say this medium reaches even beyond the grave. I have so much experience at tear-drenched lies. After all, I almost convinced myself that one day you would return and grant us that most joyful of titles, a couple.
Life’s wounds have never pierced me as they do this night. This dreadful, endless night, when I am reduced to writing to a past that no longer exists, a future that is now myth. Were it not forbidden me, I would use the dagger, I would drink the poison, I would join you. Wherever you are. Were it not forbidden.
Val folded up the letter and rose from the pew. The only answer that made sense lay with this half-remembered woman. That realization gave focus to his otherwise empty state. He looked inward now and took subtle comfort from the void. He had no interest in remembering anything more. Why bother with a man recently deceased?
He would go to England and rescue her. He had broken it off, no doubt for reasons that had made sense at the time. But that no longer mattered. He would get his money and steal her away. But not as Val Haines. That life was over. The world already thought he was gone. Why not make the vanishing act complete?
May the poor man rest in peace.
When the receptionist finally sent him back, Val found Dr. Martinez seated at a metal desk writing busily into a file. “Have a seat, Mr. Adams. I’ll be with you in just a second.”
“Thanks for seeing me.”
“Any of the other doctors could have given you what you needed.”
“Maybe.”
She gave him a momentary inspection, then went back to her notes. “You clean up good, Mr. Adams.”
“That’s not my name.”
This time she set down her pen and swiveled her chair around. “Say again.”
“I was carrying a false ID.”
“So your memory is coming back. Good.” The doctor’s air of unflappable weariness remained intact. The chair’s metal rollers scraped across the scarred linoleum floor. “How do you feel otherwise?”
“I’m moving easier and I don’t hurt so much.” Val leaned over so she could pull off the bandage over his temple.
“You’re certainly keeping your wounds clean. Let’s have a look at the back of your head.” Gently she swiveled his head around. “Things are looking good. So what can I do for you?”
“I want something to keep me from remembering.”
She moved back around to where she could see his face. “Give me that one again.”
“Is there a drug or something that can keep my memory from returning?”
She pushed herself back further. “Look . . . What should I call you?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“You don’t want to tell me your real name?”
“Jeffrey Adams has worked well enough so far.”
“Right. Okay. So you’ve started recalling certain portions of your past, and they have not been pleasant. Remember what I told you when you were first in here? The experience will be somewhat jarring.”
“It’s more than that.”
She crossed her arms. “Correct me if I’m wrong here. But running away is what got you into this mess.”
The air was thick with lemony disinfectant and the traces of all the reasons people like him came through those doors. “I asked you a simple question.”
“And I’m giving you a simple answer. Are there drugs that can erase memory? Certainly. Most have a temporary effect. But just keep in mind, after your last bout you wound up in here with your head bleeding.”
He was intensely aware of the gauzy curtain’s inability to keep this a private conversation. “Could you lower your voice a little?”
“Listen, Jeffrey or whatever your name is. You’re asking the wrong question. You don’t want to erase your memories. You want to escape your pain.”
His chest pumped as if he had entered the race of his life. “Whatever.”
“Don’t dismiss me here.” A crucial intensity burned through her weary veil. “Knowing which question to ask is vital to finding the right answer. Think what would happen if a doctor inspected you for a cold when you had an intestinal problem. To achieve the proper solution, first you have to know what it is you’re really hunting. Which in your case is a way to leave your pain behind. Not forget. Never forget. What you want to know is, how can you turn what you’ve been running from into something you can properly use?”
He was acutely aware of how quiet the chamber had become out beyond the wraparound curtains. “Can we get back to my original question?”
“No problem at all. Here’s what you do.” The doctor rose, swept back the curtains, and pointed to the exit. “Head out that door. Go fifty feet in any direction. Find the nearest bar and fill your own prescription. Take up where you left off.” She stepped away from him. “See you on your way back down, Jeffrey.”
THEY LEFT THE CAR AT SOUTH PARK AND EAST THIRTY-SIXTH. THE area was mixed, like a lot of Manhattan. Two blocks further east, the air was concussed by traffic pouring in and out of the Queens Midtown Tunnel. Their destination was a decrepit brownstone poised above the tunnel’s maw. The fumes were worse than the din. The building’s front door was locked, but Wally pulled a switchblade from her pocket and easily flipped the latch.
“A woman of many talents.”
“Stay close.”
Through partially open elevator doors emerged a stench from garbage dumped down the shaft. Wally took the stairs to the fifth floor. A chemical odor worse than the garbage filled the corridor as they reached the top landing. Terrance was about to complain when he caught sight of Wally’s smile. “What’s that foul smell?”
“A good sign.” She knocked on the door at the corridor’s far end. “You mind if I run the show?”
“By all means.”
The smiles came more easily now. “You married, Terrance?”
&nb
sp; “For all intents and purposes, I suppose I am.”
“Shame.” She knocked harder.
“I never mix business with pleasure.”
“Yeah? Well, I do it all the time, baby.” She pounded the door. “All the time.”
A querulous voice said through the door, “Go away!”
She stowed the smile away and called back, “Horace, this door is coming down one of two ways. One, you turn the key. Two, I bust it down.”
“Who are you?”
“We’re people standing out here with your money burning a hole in our pocket.”
A pause, then, “Who sent you?”
“Ben Franklin, Horace. Fifty of them. Five large. Now open the door.”
Three bolts crashed back. The door opened the length of the final chain. “Show-and-tell time.”
Wally fanned the bills, then pulled back when he reached through the crack. “You need my boot to help you with the chain, Horace?”
He studied the both of them for a moment, then shut and unlatched and reopened the door. “What do you want?”
“Five thousand buys us a minute inside, Horace.”
A clown. That was Terrance’s first impression upon entering the apartment and seeing the man clearly. A short, little clown with orange hair and a potbelly. A caricature who could only exist in a place like New York City.
“Shut the door.” When Terrance had done so, the little man said nervously, “You’re inside. So what is it you want?”
“A name, Horace.”
“I don’t divulge—”
“No. We give you a name. You give us either a yes or a no. If it’s the right answer and you can back it up, we give you the five grand.”
“What are you, a cop?”
“Come on, Horace. Does this guy here look street to you?”
“DA, then.”
“We’re not trouble, Horace. Not unless you want us to be.”
“What I want is for you to get out of my life.”
She did that thing with her face. From crudely feminine to wickedly severe without moving an inch. Her feral rage forced Horace back. He tripped over a lighting tripod and almost went down. Wally said softly, “I made the connection, Horace. I’m here. I’m offering cash. I could just as easily offer you something else. It’s your choice. But you’re going to tell me in the end.” She lifted her hand. Horace flinched. “Which is it going to be, Horace? Rough or smooth? Your call.”
The man quavered, “What do you want to know?”
“You’re selling paper, right?”
His swallow was audible where Terrance stood by the door. “Yes.”
“Passports?”
“Sometimes.”
“See, we’re making progress.” She crossed her arms and leaned back a fraction. The room’s fissured stress eased slightly. “Over the past day or so, have you done a passport for a guy?”
“Couple.”
“One of them about the age of my guy here, name of Adams?”
His trembles formed a nod.
“First name?”
“I don’t . . . Wait, no, I remember. Jeffrey. He was a mistake, right? I knew it the instant I laid eyes on him. I told myself he was trouble. But hey, a guy’s got to make a living.”
“Describe him for me.”
Terrance had not moved. But Horace had somehow sensed his eagerness. Horace said, “For another thousand, I’ll go one better and give you a photograph.”
“Don’t look at him, Horace. He’s nobody. I’m the one standing here with your fate in my hands.”
“An extra thousand’s not too—”
“Thirty seconds, Horace. Then I’ll assume you need a demonstration to understand we mean business.”
Horace scuttled away. Or started to.
Wally was on him like a striking snake.
Terrance gasped. He had never seen anybody move that fast.
Wally’s hand gripped Horace’s wrist as he reached inside a drawer. “What you got in there?”
“Nothing!”
“You going for a gun, Horace?”
“Ow, you’re hurting me! It’s just a picture!”
“So open the drawer. Nice and slow. Okay. Good.” She backed off. “What is this, your personal rogue’s gallery? You do a little blackmail on the side, Horace?”
“What do you care?” The man’s sullen tone was contradicted by a serious case of the shakes. He flipped through the pictures. “Here. This is the guy.”
Wally took the photograph. She gave it a cursory examination. She flipped it onto the counter and said to Terrance, “It’s not him.”
Horace grabbed it back, studied it intently. “That’s Adams! That’s the man!”
“Sorry, Horace. Not our guy.” She turned away. “Unless you got something else to show me, we’re all done here.”
He wailed, “What about my money?”
“What can I say? You didn’t come up with the goods.” But Wally stopped in the process of reaching for the door. She gave Terrance a look, then turned back. “You good at keeping secrets, Horace?”
“Like the grave.”
She reached into her pocket, came up with the cash, and set it down on the camera. “We were never here.”
Terrance waited until they were back on the street to say, “The picture you saw.”
“Hmmm.”
“It was our guy, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Val Haines. You’re absolutely certain?”
“Positive ID, Terrance. Five by five.” She reached for her phone.
“Alerting your friends?”
“Yes.” Wally punched in the number, then gave him the eye. “The money better be there, Terry.”
“I told you not to call me that.”
“These guys, they may talk funny. But you don’t want to mess them around.”
“Soon as we return to the hotel, I’ll arrange the transfer.” He waited until she had finished her call, then walked with her back toward the car. “If they’re anything like you, I don’t need further convincing.”
She gave him that smile of hers, the one that was equal measures feminine appeal and molten shrapnel. “You sure what you told me, about being tied up?”
THE TRAVEL OFFICE WAS LIKE MUCH OF THIS PART OF THE CITY, threadbare and grim and utterly lacking in frill. The agent was Asian and proud of his ability to find Val the absolute lowest price on a one-way flight to England. He pushed Val to take a return ticket. The second leg was only $119 more, plus taxes and fees. But Val was not listening.
Val returned to the Internet café and was directed to the pay phone. He called the number in England that Audrey had given him. But the phone just rang and rang. He returned to the counter and paid his deposit to yet another metal-studded attendant. This time Val was on and off the Internet in a flash. It was not because of Audrey’s warning that her brother might be watching that he hurried. Val had no interest in triggering further memory flashes. That life was all but buried. He wrote Audrey a quick note that he was coming and would call. Then he retrieved his deposit and fled the café as he would a morgue.
He walked back to the police station and mounted the precinct stairs. He pushed through the scarred swinging doors and entered the front room’s bedlam. He took a number and seated himself on the hard wooden bench running down the wall opposite the reception counter. To his left, a transvestite cuffed to the bench’s arm rubbed toes blistered by too-tight high heels. Val leaned his head against the wall and fingered the airline ticket in his pocket. Another set of unwanted memories began taking shape, these starring his nemesis, Terrance d’Arcy. Val fought them down and wondered why he had not disappeared long before.
“Number seventy-three.”
“Here.” Val approached the counter.
“Name?”
“Jeffrey Adams.”
“ID?” The policeman reached over without looking up from his metal-backed pad. He copied down the false details, then handed it back and said, “Ok
ay, what can I do for you?”
“I was arrested the night before last. There was a man in lock-up with me. Reuben somebody. An African American.”
“You were locked up here?”
“Two nights ago.”
“Charges?”
“Dropped.” He found himself adopting the cop’s terseness.
“And?”
“I want to know if he’s still here.”
“The reason being?”
“I want to bail him out. If I can afford it.”
“Say again?”
“The guy probably saved my life.”
“Probably?”
“Look. I don’t know for certain what would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there. All I know is, I owe him.”
The cop turned to one of his own. “You believe this?”
The other policeman shook his head and returned to his paperwork.
The cop said to Val, “What’s this guy’s last name?”
“I have no idea. He just introduced himself as Reuben. He’s probably six-seven and three hundred pounds. Heavier.”
“Reuben James,” said the guy working the files. “Yeah, he’s still in the lockup. Couldn’t make bail.”
The cop gave Val a long look, then went back to a desk and tapped into the computer. “James is in on D&D. Drunk and disorderly. Bail is set at $900.”
Val counted out the bills. His roll was thinned down to $470. It would have to be enough. He waited while the cop wrote him out a receipt, then moved back outside.
He stood on the precinct’s front stoop, ignored by passing officers and offenders alike. An old woman made hard going of the six concrete steps, but fended away his offer of help with an upraised hand. Val retreated to his corner position and breathed the diesel-infected city air. Perhaps it didn’t matter whether his memories fully returned or not. Maybe their imprint remained wrapped around his body tight as cellophane tape. There for all save himself to see.
