by Rex Miller
“Hey, Doc! What-chew doin’ out here in the rain?"
“Evening, Keith,” the older man said, in his friendly tone of voice.
“Doc Royal?” came a loud call from behind the young, bearded man. “Get yourself in here, man. Keith, get outta the way!" his father bellowed cheerfully.
“I can't. Let me stand here. This heat feels good.” He took off his rain hat and hung it up on one of the pegs by the door, taking a handkerchief out to mop his face. “I love a good old wood stove."
“Come on in here!" J. G. Glenn extended his hand and Royal shook it. The man put his arm around Royal as if he weren't wearing a dripping raincoat. “Gladaseeya! We didn't hear your car.” He pulled the doctor into the living area.
“I'm down the road a ways.” Royal gestured vaguely.
“Come in and watch TV with us,” the son said.
“I can't, Keith. My boots are muddy and—"
“Get yourself in here. Keith, get that blamed thing off.” J.G. hopped around turning on lights, pushing a chair over. “Sit here. Get outta that coat.” The man issued an incessant stream of orders to anyone within earshot, as was his habit.
“Go on and watch your program. I thought I'd drop in just for a second. Don't let me interrupt. Keep your program on."
“We wasn't watching nothing,” Glenn the elder said, scurrying around putting water in a pot and setting it over the flame. “Keith, get in here and scare up something for the man to eat."
“I'm not—"
“How about some Girl Scout cookies? Daddy just bawt ten boxes off of Andy Henry's girl and ain't no way in hell we gonna eat ‘em all. Here, take a box home.” He placed a box of unopened cookies in front of Royal on the nearby table.
“You two been doing all right?” the white-haired man asked, hoping the answer would not be drawn out. He was rather in a hurry to go about his business.
“We been getting along fine, me and the boy,” J.G. Glenn said.
“Time helps heal."
“It surely does.” The man got moist eyed as he talked about Myrtle Glenn, who'd eventually died from a number of debilitating diseases including disseminated sclerosis, for which Royal had treated her the last eight years of her life. It was easy for the doctor to commiserate. He'd shared the loss.
There hadn't been a day of those years she'd been entirely free from severe pain, and this expert in manufactured anguish, this man who knew and comprehended the complexities of the nervous system and the mysterious codes of the brain, had made her into a pet. Watching, measuring, testing, savoring her days of tremors, killing headaches, pneumonia, paralysis, and finally the death that came to mercifully claim her.
Mistaking his motives and never knowing his secret brutalities, the men thought of him as a saint, who'd given of his time selflessly to help their loved one.
“J.G., I wonder if I could impose on your kindness?"
“Whatcha need, Doc?"
“I know this is a big imposition, but I was wondering, could I ask Keith to give me a lift into town?” He could as easily have asked to borrow five hundred dollars, the man's best suit, anything imaginable, and the answer would have been an immediate, unconditional yes. They'd both told him often enough how they would appreciate it if he'd ask for something—anything—to help lessen the sense of debt they felt toward Doc Royal.
Even as he made his gratuitous thank-yous he was being escorted to the truck, helped into the front seat, a cup of coffee and a box of Girl Scout cookies in his hands. Keith was putting the key in the ignition and J.G. was yelling instructions and orders from the front door.
“Say, by the way,” he added as a smiling afterthought, “don't say too much about me being around here at night like this. I get yelled at by everybody when they find out I drive after dark.” Both men chuckled knowingly.
“You come here any time, Doc, night or day,” J.G. hollered, giving a big stage wink, a clowning co-conspirator, “and we won't say nothin!" They waved a fond good-bye and Keith Glenn pulled onto the darkened blacktop. “Don't be so long before you—” he could hear the man still shouting from his doorway as they drove off into the wet night.
37
Bayou City
Ray Meara came across the levee road slower than usual, trying not to think about the water that seemed to draw closer by the hour as he splashed through the punishing potholes. But what would he do? If he lost this crop he'd owe for last year and this one as well. It took thirty to forty large just to get fifty to sixty back. How could he make it? He'd end up going to the man and putting his farm up. Wouldn't that be a bitch? Gamble with his ground just to pay debts? What was the point of thinking about it? He flipped the radio on.
“—woman looking through a trash bin in north St. Louis found the body of her twelve-year-old daughter this morning, according to police. The mother of the girl had found a trail of bl—” He flipped to a station playing music, and mashed the gas medal.
He supposed he could do something with Sandy. Make a major move of some kind. The mere suggestion of it jabbed him in the guts.
He went about ninety all the way to town and pulled up across from the bank in an awful mood, shaken from angst and his own driving. He was in an even worse mood when he came out of the bank, and decided he might as well go in Pete's Hardware next door and take care of that, too. He could look at all the tools and mellow out.
Sharon Kamen woke up irritated with herself. She hadn't been coping well. She was being paranoid and realized it, and she'd taken everything that happened as a personal defeat. She was mad at her fears, mad at the cops who were probably making jokes about the gun-slinger with the big boobs by now. Mad at her father. Mad at herself for being mad at her father, but when she looked at his things neatly spread out in the room, she knew she had to get moving, get out of there and do it now.
She threw some clothes on and set out to find the local post office, which was all of ten blocks away. The Bayou City post office smelled like the motel room, a lovely aroma of tobacco, disinfectant, and carpet cleaner. She stood in line behind what must have been every other soul in the town.
The sound of a drum beat made her turn and look back in the direction of her car. A parade of sorts—a dozen or so people in uniform, Bayou City cop cars, probably every one the town owned, fore and aft. She left the line and went out on the sidewalk, wondering if she should try to move her car.
Young men with shaved heads. Someone carrying a bright red Nazi flag and wearing armbands. One of them was shouting something over a bullhorn. She caught the word Jews and it exploded inside her head as she saw the dreaded symbol on their flag. Her mounting anger, paranoia, fear, anguish, sadness, worry, confusion, and irritation blew up in a furious rage as she ran to pull the awful obscenity down. This nonviolent woman, once again, had been pushed over the edge by circumstance into an act of violence.
Meara was getting into his pickup parked in front of the hardware store when he saw a fabulous-looking woman come running out in the street and grab at the pole supporting a large Nazi flag one of the skinheads was carrying. Nazi flags didn't do anything to Ray one way or the other, but when the woman grabbed at the flagpole the kid holding it put his hand into her face and pushed her down into the street. The people watching from the sidewalk roared with laughter.
He couldn't believe it. These jerks thought they were at a damn circus! They laughed at a woman getting hurt as if it were a clown act. He churned out into the makeshift parade like a madman, a newly purchased shovel at port arms, smashing through skinheads to try to reach the woman, who was still down on the pavement.
As is the case with all violence it happened too quickly to sort out. Later, he'd retain an impression of people coming into the streets blocking off the cops on either side of the Nazis.
“Come on,” he said, roughly, “I'll get you outta here,” pulling her through the crowd of milling bodies and noise. He saw the face of that grinning kid, the one with Sandy out at the barrow pit, the kid trying to gra
b at him as he pulled her through the mob scene, and he brought that hardwood handle sharp into the kid's solar plexus, the two of them running through the screams.
“Slide over,” he said, throwing her halfway across the front seat. No time for social graces as he pulled out into the alley next to the bank, watching the mirror for cops, who'd almost certainly be hard on their tail. He mumbled something about getting her to a hospital.
“No!” she yelled, with startling force. “No hospital. Please.” She had a vision of The Woman Who Shot The Guy, complaining her father was missing, talking of Nazis, now starting a fight at a parade. My God! They'd lock her in an asylum.
“You sure?"
“I'm all right, really.” She felt a drafty shiver of worry blow through the truck. He glanced over at her. A real stunner, but kind of folded in on herself, hunched over, legs pressed together, clothing torn and dirty, hair a mess. But she was captivatingly gorgeous, scared body language or not.
“My name's Raymond Meara.” He said it in as calming a voice as he could, putting a smile on his scarred face. “Don't worry,” he said, because it was the only thing he could think of.
Everything was spectacular. He didn't let himself really look over at her yet. The long neck. The beautiful face. The shapely body. Long, fabulous legs. A high-class woman sitting beside him.
Sharon just wanted to go back to the motel and sleep. She was halfway through framing her demand that he stop the truck when the man's name found its way through her fog.
“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she said. “Did you say your name was Raymond Meara?"
“That's me."
“I'm Sharon Kamen."
“Sharon,” he said, obviously not making the connection. “It's real good to meet you. You're not from here, are you?"
“I'm Aaron Kamen's daughter, Mr. Meara."
He didn't say anything for a moment, then said, too brightly, “Oh!” Clearly he didn't know her dad.
“I guess I may have the wrong name. My Dad said he was talking with a man named Meara about this missing woman he was looking for."
“Oh, sure! I'm sorry,” Meara said, snapping out of it. “I'm not too good on names. Yeah, sure. Mr. Kamen. Yeah, I just saw your dad a few days ago. How's he doing?"
“I don't know,” she said, in a hollow, pained voice. She told him everything, and he listened carefully, sympathetically, not paying attention to where he was going as he automatically headed back toward the farm. She stopped her running narrative, finally, and realized that she was more addled than she'd thought, and also had no idea where they were.
“Where are we, Mr. Meara? I need to go back,” she said.
“Uh, we're on the way to my farm. I didn't know where else to go.” He shrugged. “Listen, could I make a suggestion?"
“Okay."
“I know you don't want to go to the hospital but I don't think you should—That is, why don't we go on to the farm? We're not that far away, you can take it easy for a bit, we can talk about Mr. Kamen, and when you feel up to it I'll run you back anywhere you say. How's that for a plan?” he asked. He took her shrug and sigh for a yes.
Sharon Kamen did pretty well until Meara escorted her inside the house. She tried to protest when he wrapped her in a heavy quilt and tucked her into a big easy chair, but she was very ill all of a sudden and she felt both nausea and a terrible chill that had her visibly shaking under the warm cover.
“I'm so c-c-c-cold,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Um,” Meara said, thinking it might be shock as he examined her head gently. “I don't think you busted anything. ‘Course, the sidewalk was cracked pretty good.” The house was uncomfortably hot, if anything.
“Thanks a lot,” she said, laughing through a shudder.
“Just sit here and relax,” he said, moving into the kitchen and putting water into the coffee pot, “you'll be okay."
“What was all that about back there?” Sharon asked.
“Huh?"
“Nazi flag ‘n’ stuff?"
“Skinheads. They got a permit to demonstrate. I don't follow politics much."
“Can I use your bathroom?” she asked in a small voice.
“Sure. Right through there and the first door to the left."
She struggled up out of the quilt and found her way into the bathroom, which was surprisingly clean and homey, with cattails-and-ducks wallpaper.
She came out in the kitchen without the quilt, a bit warmer, but still shaking inside. “I appreciate you helping me like that. It was kind of you."
“Sure,” he said. The swirling hair and lovely face had him speechless, as if his ideal woman had materialized out of nowhere.
“As long as I've forced myself on you this way,” she said, “I'd be grateful if you'd let me pick your brain a little more, Mr. Meara."
“Please, it's Ray."
“Thanks. I'm Sharon,” she said, smiling in a matter-of-fact way. “Ray, I'm at loose ends with Dad being missing. The police don't seem to know anything.” She gestured with only her fingers, the pressures evident in every aspect of her demeanor.
He nodded. “I already told the cops what little I know. I had a call yesterday from our police chief. He said Mr. Kamen had been tracking a guy who was a wanted war criminal from the Nazi era. He asked me a bunch of questions and that was about it. Sure a lot of Nazis all of a sudden. Nazi demonstrators, a Nazi flag, a Nazi war criminal."
“Do you think the one my dad's looking for could be involved with the ones in town?"
“I don't know.” He shrugged. “Possible, I guess. Kinda’ doubt it. They don't trust anybody over twenty-five. Nah, I don't think so.” He couldn't think much of anything with her up close. The epitome of a woman: velvety-looking skin that would feel like the finest silk or the most expensive cashmere. He imagined what it would be like to kiss her, to run his hand up those long legs.
“Please tell me exactly what he asked you,” she said, conscious of his eyes burning her and fighting to ignore it. She was used to the hot stares of men, but not under these conditions. She tried to ignore his frank gaze, and fought the impulse to stereotype him.
“He thought he'd located this dude who was some kind of a doctor during World War II, that he was around here somewhere. He thought the man was around seventy years old but could look a good deal younger."
As Meara talked, Sharon noticed how he positioned himself at an angle, sitting so that the deep scars across the side of his face and head would be hidden. He was one of those men she'd never want to meet on a darkened street. He gave off something, an aura of potential violence or crudeness. Whatever it was, she found it distasteful.
“He wanted to know about Mrs. Purdy,” Meara said, “the old gal who'd written him or called him about spotting the German. I told him what I'd heard around town and so on. Nobody knew where she was.” His large shoulders went up. “Everybody figured she'd gone off to visit relatives or something. She didn't come into contact with other people that much."
“But didn't she have anybody here, neighbors or someone, who would worry about her sudden absence?” Sharon asked.
“Not that I know of. Like I told your father, she kept to herself."
“I mean, it seems like the sort of thing that would have made the papers. Maybe the police wouldn't say anything, but I'd think the gossip, the local grapevine, whatever you call it, would be buzzing about missing persons, you know?"
“I'm sure there was some concern, Sharon, but I don't think people really knew, outside the cops and one or two others. I doubt if anybody outside local law enforcement, me, and the folks at the motel where he was staying even knew your father. Only those he had contacted. Jimmie Randall, he knows to keep his mouth shut about stuff, and I ‘magine anybody wants to hold a job with him does likewise.” Ray Meara was in his forties, deeply tanned, and might have been a decent-looking man except for a day's growth of wiry beard and the thick ropy scar that disfigured the side of his head and disappeared down the n
eck of his T-shirt. Perhaps he only looked mean. She knew not to judge a person by his physical appearance.
“What type of questions did Dad ask you about Mrs. Purdy, Ray?” She kept her eyes on his stare, working not to be defensive. She needed this man's input and his help, but she could already feel herself starting to dislike him.
“He didn't ask that much. Just what contacts did she have around town ... I told him it would be like delivery guys, some box-boy at the grocer's.” He stopped a yawn in time. “Milkman. The mail carrier. Guy at the post office. The bare minimum. Mostly what he wanted was for me to make a list of names."
“Do what, now?” she asked.
“Names of guys who'd be old enough to fit who he was tracking. He wanted a list of who worked in hospitals in Cape, Sikeston, uh, the nursing homes like Bayou City, East Prairie, Charleston, Bertrand, or New Madrid. Physicians. I remember he said that word, you know, not doctors but physicians, who were over fifty and working either as vets, dentists, chiropractors, eye doctors, anything that had a medical tie-in. He wanted to know who all the coroners or medical examiners were, who worked in the funeral homes, and he asked weird stuff, too.” He smiled a dangerous smile.
“What do you mean?"
“Oh, off-the-wall things. Like he asked if I knew anybody bought cats and dogs."
Sharon just stared at him. The statement was totally out of left field. “Bought cats and dogs?"
“Yeah. To experiment on,” he explained patiently, in the tone one might use with a slow child. “I told him there are some old boys round up van loads for the labs in St. Louis. There was this guy at the pound used to sell ‘em, too. He was interested in all those names, and wanted me to make up a list for him."
“You made the list?"
