Pot of Gold

by Judith Michael

  "Roosevelt." He was checking the flow from the bottle into the tube.

  "W'e'll meet you there," Alex said to Claire. He kissed her

  forehead and held his arm tightly around her shoulders as they took a back elevator and walked through a bare corridor at the rear of the hotel. He tightened his arm briefly. "There's a lot of love around here, and if that does it . . ."

  Claire nodded. "I know. I know there is. Thank you." She was crying. She touched Alex's hand and then walked beside Emma, trying to hold her head to keep it from rolling back and forth, and they went through a back door, down a ramp, and into the ambulance.

  At exactly seven o'clock in the morning, Brix rang Emma's room. He let the telephone ring a dozen times, then, his voice worried and anxious, he called the front desk and spoke to the assistant manager. "This is Brix Eiger, in room fifteen oh nine. I'm worried about my friend, Emma Goddard, in room ten twenty-one; she doesn't answer her phone and I'm afraid she might be ill. I think someone ought to go there and find out."

  "She's not in the hotel, Mr. Eiger. She—"

  "What.'* Of course she's there, you idiot; she couldn't—" He stopped himself. "She was in no condition to go anywhere last night; that's why I'm worried about her."

  "She was taken to the hospital by ambulance; she was indeed very ill. Her parents arrived; it was fortunate they got here when they did."

  Brix sat frozen in the desk chair. Ambulance. Hospital. Her parents. Who the hell was that.-' She only had a mother; how could she have parents.'' And why would they come looking for her.'' How did they know where to come.''

  "Mr. Eiger.''" said the assistant manager.

  Ambulance. Hospital. Brix stirred. "Is she all right.'' I mean, is she alive.''"

  "We don't know, Mr. Eiger. She was taken to Roosevelt Hospital."

  Suddenly, Brix was engulfed in waves of fear; he was drowning in fear. Something was going on and he didn't know what was happening or who was making it happen, or where it was going or how it would end. Everything seemed beyond his control. Last night he'd had it all mapped out; he'd been on top of everything. Now he didn't know anything, he didn't even know

  how he could find out anything so he could figure out what to do next.

  Hospital. They pumped people's stomachs in hospitals; they'd find out she took an overdose of Halcion. But that was all right; that was how he'd planned it in the first place; that was why he'd left the empty bottle next to her bed. They'd think she tried to kill herself. He'd be in the clear.

  The assistant manager was asking him something. Brix hung up the telephone. He'd be in the clear, except that Emma would be alive. And she would know she hadn't taken any Halcion that night. If she remembered. If anybody believed her.

  Her mother would believe her.

  And his father might believe her. If he did, he'd know that Brix had fucked up. Again.

  He felt sick to his stomach and bent over, his head in his hands. Everything had been so clear the night before, so straightforward and easy. She was such a simpleton; he always knew how to get her to react the way he wanted. She called it love, but he knew it was weakness. His father didn't fall in love and neither did Brix; it was the way they stayed in control.

  I have to call him, Brix thought. But maybe not. Not until he knew. If Emma died, he wouldn't have to say anything; he'd taken care of her before she talked to anybody; all his problems would be solved. He wondered what time they'd gotten to her. He thought Halcion acted very fast in the body, but he wasn't sure. And there was no one he could ask. He couldn't call the hospital; he couldn't walk in there and come face-to-face with Emma's mother and God knows who else; he couldn't ask a doctor about Halcion because that would be remembered.

  He couldn't do a damn thing except go home and wait.

  No, he thought. My girl had a photo assignment today and she's sick. I should call Hale and tell him she won't be there.

  But he'll ask how she is and I'll have to say I don't know.

  He'll ask where she is, and if I say she's at the hospital, he'll ask if I'm there with her, and I'll have to say no.

  He might want to go to see her at the hospital.

  And if she didn't die, he had to call his father and tell him . . . something. Tell him he'd tried, tell him he'd had it all figured out but something had happened, tell him he'd fucked up. Again.

  God damn it! Shaking with frustration, he fumbled with the combination lock on his briefcase, and when it was open, he took out the innocuous-looking case that held his supply of coke. "Have to think about this," he muttered in the silent room, and snorted it deeply and fiercely. He sprawled in his chair, staring vacantly at the window. The minutes passed. If she didnt die, he had to call his father and tell him . . . something.

  "Christ!" he blurted, and stood up, looking wildly around the room like an animal seeking a place to hide. The coke hadn't helped; nothing had changed. It wasn't enough, he thought; I ought to know by now what it takes. . . . He laid out the coke and leaned over the table again to snort it in, feeling the tickling sensation in the back of his throat. Now he could think about things; figure them out.

  Tell him he'd fucked up. Again.

  With a long howl, Brix hunched over. Nothing helped. His head was buzzing but he still didn't know what to do. Go home. He couldn't. All he'd do would be to sit around waiting, and he wasn't good at waiting. In other times, like that time at college, he'd called his father, but he couldn't do that now, not until he knew what was happening. There was nobody he could call, nothing he could do. Still hunched over, he paced the room. Nothing, nobody, nothing, nobody.

  He could not stand it. He had to move, he had to think. He grabbed his coat and left the room. A walk, he thought. Maybe a cup of coffee. Oh . . . don't forget this. He grabbed the case of coke and slipped it into the inside pocket of his sports jacket. A little more of this, and a little time, and I'll think of something. It'll all work out; pretty soon I'll know what to do, and everything will be fine.

  "Coffee," Gina said, and held steaming cups in front of Claire and Alex. "And doughnuts. Probably a long way from the world's best, but I think we should eat."

  "Did you call Hannah.''" Claire asked.

  "She's on her way." Gina sat across from them and blew on her coffee and stared unseeing at the stack of tattered magazines none of them had read. It was seven-fifteen in the morning, and beyond the door of the waiting room the hospital was bustling with the changing of shifts and the arrival of doctors on their

  rounds. Everyone moved purposefully through the white corridors, everyone had tasks and schedules and goals to reach. Everyone except the people in the waiting room, groups too withdrawn into their own fears to talk to each other. On one side, on a blue leather couch, Alex and Claire and Gina sat as they had all night, except for forays to the intensive care unit, seeking news of Emma, any news at all. But there had been none.

  "We're doing our best," the nurses said each time; it was said in kindly but absent voices; they were thinking of their patients, and Claire or Alex or Gina, whoever had gone, would return to the waiting room with its soothing blue carpet and blue walls, and a television set no one turned on and magazines no one read and a philodendron in the corner, its heart-shaped leaves drooping over a round table.

  "Why would she do it.^" Gina asked, as she had a dozen times that long night. "Why would she want to kill herself.^"

  "She didn't," Claire said again; she had not wavered in that belief all night. "I don't believe Emma would ever kill herself. She loves life too much. It was an accident; she took something and she had a bad reaction to it. She'll tell you that when she . . . when she wakes up."

  "Who prescribed the Halcion.^" Alex asked Gina.

  "Some doctor Brix knew."

  "Do you know his name? Damn, I should have read the label before I gave that bottle to the paramedic."

  "She mentioned the name, but I don't think I . . ." Gina frowned. "Something weird, something like an Arab . . . Saracen!" she sai
d triumphantly. "I think he's in Greenwich."

  "I'll be back," Alex said, and went to a pay telephone in the corridor. He was so tense his steps were stiff, and the back of his neck ached. He took into himself Claire's agony, and it seemed to him the worst kind of agony because there was nothing they could do with it. It was not like the anguish he had felt when his wife died; he had known then he had to accept it, live with it, and somehow get past it. But there was nothing they could accept now; they could only pray and wait and help each other through the hours.

  But as he lifted the handset of the telephone, absently watching the nurses at their station, busy with the work of the hospital, Alex knew that by making Claire's agony his own he had at last

  taken the final step in breaking through the bubble of loss and anger and loneliness that had made him feel cut off from everyone else for so long; he had become engrossed in other lives, other fears, other kinds of pain. He had learned to love, and so he had learned to live again.

  Now he could write. He no longer was afraid of what emotions he might dredge up when he created, and so now he could create freely. And because he was no longer afraid of feeling love and pain and fear, he could be a lover again, and a husband to Claire and a real father to David. And to Emma, he thought, and then thought, please, God, please, God, let Emma live. Let this new family have a chance to love, and to thrive.

  Meanwhile, he had to do something with the tension inside him, and he did what he always did when driven by pain: he did research. He tracked down Dr. Saracen, calling his home, his office, and finally the Greenwich hospital, where the operator paged him. In a few moments the doctor answered the page.

  Alex tried to put everything into a few sentences. "My name is Alex Jarrell; I'm a friend of the mother of a patient of yours, Emma Goddard. I'm with her now; she's in Roosevelt Hospital in New York; she's taken an overdose of Halcion—"

  "An overdose!" exclaimed the doctor. "I can't believe— How is she.^"

  "We don't know yet. She's not conscious. We're trying to find out where she got the drug, and we know she went to you."

  "She did, about a couple of months ago, I think. But I wouldn't have prescribed more than half a dozen pills; as I recall, she was very agitated and I wanted to see how she reacted to it."

  "We found the emprv' bottle. It was labeled for ten pills."

  There was a silence. "It may be that she said she'd be traveling and wouldn't be able to come in for another prescription; I have a number of patients who do that. I'm sure the label said no refill."

  "It did. Would ten pills plus alcohol be life threatening.''"

  "She probably didn't have ten. I told you, she came to me a couple of months ago. She'd probably taken at least a few of them between then and now."

  "Well, would five be threatening,'' Or seven.''"

  "It's unlikely. I don't know how much alcohol she had. She told me she drank ver little."

  "Could she have gotten another prescription anywhere else.-^"

  "She could have gone to ten doctors in ten cities; I wouldn't know about that. She didn't get it from me."

  "Thanks—"

  "Will you let me know how she is.'' I liked her ver' much. She was a lovely girl."

  Is. She is a lovely girl. "I'll let you know," Alex said, and returned to the waiting room. "Did she go to any other doctors that you know of.'"' he asked Gina. She shook her head. "Claire.'' You must have a doctor."

  "Paula Brauer," Claire said. "She's in Danbury."

  Once again Alex went to the telephone, and called Dr. Brauer. "My God, my poor Emma," she said when he told her why he was calling. "Why in the world— What do they say about her chances.'"'

  "They're not saying. We don't know how long it will be."

  "But it isn't like Emma to do something like this. She's not a quitter; in fact, she's a very stubborn young woman. I've known her for most of her life, and I don't believe she took an overdose of anything. zre you sure it's not something else,''"

  "The doctors here seem sure. And we found an emprv' pill bottle. Did you prescribe Halcion for her.'"'

  "Absolutely not. I don't like the drug, and I certainly wouldn't prescribe it for a teenage girl. If Emma was agitated—and I didn't know^ she was—there are milder drugs she could take. You found a pill bottle.'* Who was the doctor.''"

  "Robert Saracen. In Greenwich."

  "I don't know him." There was a silence. "I didn't know Emma went to any other doctors. I don't know why she would. She's a healthy, vigorous young woman; she isn't a hypochondriac, and she wouldn't be spending her time in doctors' offices. It's possible that she's been having terrible problems that I never heard about, but even so, I can't imagine that she'd try to kill herself; it just doesn't fit with anything I know about her. Poor Claire; she must be going through hell. Tell her to call me anytime; if she wants me to come to New York, I will. And tell her I'd bet on an accident before I'd talk about Emma committing suicide."

  Or something else, Alex thought. If it wasn't suicide, and it wasn't an accident—and we don't have any evidence of an accident—then that leaves murder.

  He had begun thinking about it driving into the city from

  Darien. They had gone to look for her because they thought she might be in danger, and the danger they feared would come not from herself but from someone else. He had been swayed by the way they found her: alone, her dress crumpled up as if she had crawled into bed and pulled the quilt over her, and the empty pill bottle on the nightstand near her head. But of course all that could have been arranged. That's the first thing that ought to occur to a novelist.

  And he had wondered about her shoes, set side by side under the chair near the bed. If she was too sick to worry about her dress, would she have worried about her shoes.''

  And where was her purse?

  Alex re-created the room in his mind. Still standing at the pay telephone in the hospital corridor, he saw the chair with black high-heeled shoes under it. The dresser with something on it, a blouse, he thought, folded up. The desk with an empty can of grapefruit juice, the kind Emma would have found in the courtesy bar in her room. One nightstand with a lamp and an issue of Mirabella magazine. The other nightstand with a telephone, lamp, radio, and empty pill bottle. The bed, with a quilt pulled smoothly to Emma's chin.

  He had taken a quick look in the bathroom, to see if there were any other pill bottles. There had been nothing but Emma's makeup, organized in neat rows on the marble vanity.

  He called the hotel. "This is Alex Jarrell; I was with Emma Goddard's mother last night when we took her to the hospital. Did anyone find a purse in Miss Goddard's room.^"

  "Not that I know of, Mr. Jarrell. If you'll wait, I'll call housekeeping." In a moment the clerk was back on the line. "There was no purse. Miss Goddard's suitcase has been packed and we're holding it at the desk."

  Alex stood beside the phone. He took a pencil from his pocket and held it as if he were about to write. I forgot about the bellhop; he took her to her room. He probably took off her shoes. But why? Where was Brix?

  He went to the doorway of the waiting room. "I'm going out for a while. I'll be back in an hour or so."

  Claire looked up. Her eyelids were heavy, her face drawn. "Where are you going.''"

  "To find out where they had dinner. By the way, I could use a picture of Emma."

  "I have one," Gina said, and took out her wallet. "Oh, wait a minute. I'll bet there's a better one, bigger anyway." She shuffled the magazines on the table, pulled out a December Vogue, and leafed through it until she came to the full-page Eiger advertisement. "How's that.'"'

  "Perfect. Thanks, Gina. Do either of you need anything.^ I can get it while I'm out."

  "No," Claire said. "Just come back."

  "I'll always come back." He saw the shadowy smile that touched her lips and then he walked along the corridors they had walked through the night before. He left his car where it was and took a taxi to the hotel. The night clerk had gone home, but the cler
k on duty found his home number and dialed it for Alex. "I'm sorry to bother you," Alex said, "but I'm trsing to find out what happened to Miss Goddard last night. When she came in alone, had she come in a taxi.'*"

  "I don't think so," the clerk said. "The doorman told me she fell on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, and he thought she'd run across the street. He wasn't sure, but that's w^hat he thought."

  Alex stood in front of the hotel, looking across the street. There was an Italian trattoria in the block to his right, a Japanese restaurant in the block to his left, a French restaurant across the street, and two others in the next block down. There were three restaurants in the hotel itself, but he eliminated them, since the doorman had found Emma outside.

  He began at the Japanese restaurant. He found an open back door and went in, interrupting the preparations for lunch to show Emma's picture to the host and to the coat check girl. When they shook their heads, he went to the Italian trattoria, and then he walked the block back toward the hotel and went into the French restaurant directly across the street.

  The owner was in his office. "The maitre d' will be here at noon," he told Alex. "He told me something about what happened." He looked at Emma's picture. "Close enough to his description, I suppose." He opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a small, beaded handbag. "The waiter said she left it on the banquette. There was no identification in it or we would have called."

  "She wasn't alone," Alex said.

  "No; the maitre d' said she was with a young man."

  "Whom he did not approve of," Alex said, hearing the note of disapproval in the owner's voice.

  "It is not our job to approve or disapprove of our customers. The young man did allow the young woman to leave alone, and made, I am told, a totally inappropriate remark that she was upset because she wished to marry him and he did not wish to marry her."

  "He said that so others would hear it.^"

  "He did. The maitre d' and the coat check girl."

  "The young lady is in the hospital," Alex said, and saw alarm fill the owner's eyes. "Not from her dinner here, I'm sure; she either took or was given a dangerously high dose of a legal drug. I'm trying to find out what happened during dinner."