Today, she was proud of herself, almost happy – it was a little more than three months since she’d last called in sick. Her reward was Eddie St. George, the CHEMwest rep.
Earlier, she’d seen him in Oncology, had come up behind him, and playfully poked him in the ribs. He was so startled by the physical contact that he lost his footing, and had to reach out for the wall to keep his balance.
“Hey!” Megan Ann said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” She looked into his innocent sea green eyes, eyes that made her long for sensual Hawaiian beaches. “I was wondering if you’d be coming in today.”
He smiled widely at her. “Ridgewood Oncology, Monday, rain or shine.”
Was she coming on too strong? So? She’d wanted him from first sighting – he was tall and carried himself like her lost husband, and that was reason enough. She hungered for Eddie St. George.
“How was your weekend?” she asked, now sitting across from him in the cafeteria. It had to have been much more exciting then hers -- doing chores and shopping for groceries.
His smile faded briefly, only to return as he said, “I spent most of my time with Father.”
“That’s sweet. What did the two of you do?”
He stabbed a leaf of lettuce and pushed it into his mouth.
She repeated her question.
“Oh!” His attention returned to her. “He, uh, worked around the place; I did a lot of studying. We have a new product coming out soon.”
“A new breakthrough?”
“I wish that were true, but it’s really just a variation on an old theme. Although I suppose I shouldn’t say that.” He lifted his glass and took a sip of iced tea. “How was your weekend?”
“Definitely not worth discussing.”
Megan Ann glanced at the wall clock, saw that her lunch break was almost over, and chastised herself for wasting it on small talk.
“Hey, I’ve enjoyed having this time with you,” she blurted. “Could we continue this, meet for a drink after work?” Her cheeks burned.
“Uh, sounds like a great idea, but not tonight.”
She’d upset him, made him uncomfortable. She wanted to run from the cafeteria. Instead, she stood, picked up her purse, and started for the doorway. She was embarrassed when he got up and walked with her to the elevator.
“How about in a week … next Monday?” Eddie said. “Wish I could do it sooner, but ...”
She looked up to see him smiling. Her heart ran wild. “Yeah, Monday would be good.” She wished it were sooner but she did have a firm date with him. She dug into her purse, found a slip of a paper, and quickly wrote down her cell number. “Call me. We’ll set up a time.”
* * *
And he would call; he’d have to keep his word. If the RNs complained about him, the MDs would soon find some reason to pull back on their orders. Merz called that the Trickle Up Syndrome. Eddie found that funny at first, but his manager was right: If the troops weren’t happy, no one was happy.
He walked with Megan Ann to the nurses’ station, said goodbye, and continued on.
Most of the nurses he passed in the corridor slowed to look at him, most smiled. He knew exactly what they saw: A good-looking, rich bachelor. Someone they could sink their teeth into.
Women who come on to men are tramps.
Eddie didn’t believe that, but he never argued with Father.
He thought again about Megan Ann, and how she met Father’s requirements: petite figure, flowing red hair, and penetrating hazel eyes. Then ugly visions of other women he’d taken to Father flashed in his mind: lifeless bodies, unseeing eyes, teeth frozen in a death grimaces.
He blinked away the specter and tried to blank out the graphic vision of dissected body parts spread across the butcher shop cutting block.
His chest became heavy as though some giant force was squeezing him.
Sharp twinges curled painfully through his groin. Despite the gross images that disturbed him, he could still smell Megan Ann’s seductive scent, hear her voice floating in the air:
“What did the two of you do?”
He heard her ask the question over and over and over.
And he knew he could never answer it, for her, for anyone.
Those answers existed in an abyss, a black hole in the center of his mind where all his darkest memories lived.
₪ CHAPTER 10
Eddie returned to his Jaguar, slipped into the rear seat, and napped in the underground hospital garage until five o’clock. He then moved the car outside to a side street near an exit used by Ridgewood General personnel. He waited, tapping his fingers continuously on the leather briefcase on the passenger seat, watching every female that left the building.
Gina Mazzio and another woman, a strawberry blonde, walked out together, then parted. Gina yelled out, “See you tomorrow, Shelly. Sure you don’t want a ride?”
“I’ll take a rain check. And I do mean rain, sleet, earthquake, tornado. That’s what it would take to get me into that wreck you call a car.”
Gina frowned, gave Shelly a thumb down and climbed into a small, red Fiat. He listened as the roadster made loud chugging noises even after it was warmed up.
“So that’s Shelly,” Eddie mumbled. He waited until Gina was a block away, then began to track Shelly as she ambled down the street.
She had an umbrella that she alternated between swinging in a carefree manner and using as a serious walking aid. Her hips swayed confidently, but every few steps she would noticeably limp as though her leg had given out.
Eddie looked up at the darkening sky. It held rain-filled clouds that could open up at any moment.
After five minutes of watching Shelly, trailing about a half a block behind her, his mind zoned into a hypnotic cadence. Stop. Go. Stop. Go.
“I need to get out of here,” he said aloud, his voice shaky and unrecognizable even to himself.
No. He would have to stay.
Father’s message continued to flash on his cell phone screen; each letter branded into his brain:
M-O-R-E.
He clutched the phone. One word.
MORE.
Since that summer evening when he was ten, the very last time he saw Mother, Father’s demands had inundated him, controlled him, made him a slave.
Hot and sweaty, Eddie yanked at his collar.
He was again in that time and space long ago when Mother had bent over to kiss him goodnight after tucking him into bed. Her eyes were glassy, as though she didn’t really see him. She was looking at something, someone far beyond him, far beyond the room. The next morning she was gone.
“What were you looking at?” he said out loud; repeated it louder. A woman crossing the street gave him a funny stare. He shrugged and smiled at her, saw her visibly relax.
Need to pay closer attention to what’s happening now.
Shelly ducked into a doorway. A neon sign overhead blinked: THE HIDEAWAY.
Eddie found a parking space, beat out someone who hadn’t moved quickly enough.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” the man in the other car yelled. “That’s my parking place. I was here first.”
Eddie got out of the driver’s seat, gave the man a wide-eyed look of discovery and said, “Sorry.” He shrugged and strolled towards the bar.
Even though it was Monday, the small local lounge was busy, crowded with people who had obviously just come from work. Most of the men and women wore business suits; there were flashes of smart phone screens everywhere. People nodded, smiled, talked.
Probably telling lies, every one of them.
Eddie stood behind Shelly in the crowd, then eased into a vacated stool next to her. He listened to her and a guy standing on the other side of her bounce small talk back and forth, the kind of bull men and women indulge in before getting to the serious business of hooking up.
Shelly was about forty-five, wore her hair in a ponytail that shone even in the diminished light. Under her unbuttoned raincoat, a gray knit shirt and light
green scrub pants looked wilted, and there were large areas of stippled ink markings on the thigh area, probably from tapping a pen on her leg. She lifted her arm to the bartender to order a drink and Eddie caught not only a waft of stale perspiration, but also a scent of female sexual excitement.
What was he doing here? He was exhausted. He closed his eyes, saw the message on his cell phone again:
MORE.
For years Father would demand that he bring a woman to the shop every other month or so. But recently he’d become insatiable. Nothing was enough. It was getting harder and harder to find the type of redheads that Father insisted he bring. Even though his sales territory stretched from San Francisco to San Jose, there were only a limited number of large medical facilities to draw from.
He couldn’t understand the increased demand: Father was supposed to be was very sick, but the shaking hands or troubled speech he’d expected as a result of the tumor had not happened. Had Father lied to him?
A cellular phone rang out a merry-go-round tune and the man Shelly was talking to raised a phone to his ear.
“Yeah?”
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
The man leaned over to Shelly and said, “Sorry, honey, I’ve got a sick kid at home.”
Shelly held his arm briefly and Eddie noticed a large diamond engagement ring on her right hand. Like her opalescent fingernail polish, it flashed in the diminished light.
“Do you really have to go?”
He shrugged her arm off and without another word headed for the exit.
Shelly took a couple of large gulps of her Margarita.
“Better off without him,” Eddie said to her. “Seemed kind of like a jerk.”
“And who the hell asked you?” Shelly said, her hazel eyes glaring like a striking viper. She turned away and tossed down the rest of her drink.
He leaned back and forced a smile, but he could feel his scalp wrinkling with dissatisfaction. “Sorry! Just trying to make small talk.”
Shelly turned back to him, studied his face again, didn’t recognize him. But she seemed to like what she saw; she caught the bartender’s attention: “Another one, please.”
When her drink arrived, Eddie said, “Take it out of this.” He handed over a twenty. The server moved away from Shelly’s stash of money on the counter and swiped away a crisp Andrew Jackson.
Eddie wanted to leave, wanted to rush outside the bar. He didn’t want to pick up Shelly, didn’t want to bring any more women to Father. But the insistent cell phone was vibrating inside his pocket.
People were packed in tight around him and the noise level was making his ears ring. He shifted in his seat, focused on the discomfort – made it step back, far back. Soon, he was able to raise his glass of Merlot as she lifted her salt-frosted Margarita. They clinked glasses.
* * *
Shelly leaned on Eddie as he walked her to his car. She gave him her address and immediately passed out, sleeping soundly during the ride to the concrete block building. The roofie he’d slipped into her last drink had worked immediately on her.
When he opened the gate and pulled into the back of the shop, a crash of rain battered the windshield. As he stepped out, the deluge on his neck startled him, added to his misery.
He gagged, retching alongside the car. He couldn’t stop. He dry heaved again and again.
“I don’t want to do this,” he muttered, leaning against the car. “I just want to go home.”
But his brain echoed with the insistent admonition: MORE!
He was afraid, afraid someone might remember him leaving the bar with Shelly. But there would be a more immediate price to pay if he disappointed Father, and he couldn’t face paying it.
A sudden violent energy sprang from nowhere, zigzagged through his arms. It gathered a furious momentum and a chaotic buzzing hummed in his head.
Women are all like your mother. Liars, deserters, users.
Only when he reached into the car for Shelly, yanked her out, and tossed her up and over his shoulder did the noises stop.
She grunted as her gut hit hard against him, but her hand swung listlessly, back and forth, back and forth.
All at once, his chest opened up and a rush of air forced its way through his lungs. He screamed with a strange exhilaration. She became light as a feather as he swept through the smelly lockers into the processing room. Sides of beef and cuts of pork still hung on hooks in the chilled cutting room; fresh sawdust was scattered on the floor. He dumped Shelly onto the hardwood cutting table.
An array of containers filled with organ meat was carefully lined up on an aluminum cart. Next to them were scalpels with various size blades mingled with boning and sawing knives. Eddie cringed, knew he would have to assist Father. They would be there past midnight preparing the packages.
Shelly was moaning and starting to wake up.
Father stepped from behind a swinging side of beef, quickly pulled a pair of poultry shears from an overhead rack, and expertly cut away her clothing as if it were a loose coat of fur. She lay naked, her skin forming goose bumps up and down her arms and legs. Pendulous breasts drooped to the sides of her ribcage; her gut bobbled as she coughed and rubbed her neck.
“Red hair! How many times do I have to tell you? Red Hair!”
“She is a redhead,” Eddie mumbled.
Jacob pointed to Shelley’s mouse-brown pubic hair. “Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Just can’t get it through that muddled head of yours – red hair, small, attractive. God but you’re stupid.”
Father duct-taped her wrists and legs to the table, pausing once to look at the large diamond ring on her finger. She was now awake, staring at him.
“Where the hell am I?” she said, looking around the room. First she glared at Eddie, then at Jacob.
“Son-of-a-bitch! What the hell do the two of you think you’re doing?”
She yanked against the silver-gray tape; her face turned purple with exertion and rage. Every part of her trembled as she tried to pull free. Father leaned over and licked her face; she turned her head sharply away.
“Sit!” Jacob said to Eddie.
Eddie was shaking but he eased down on a high stool.
“Touch her, you wimp. Touch her!”
He ran a hand lightly across her thigh, across the soft flesh of her stomach.
Father was laughing, but the voices in Eddie’s head boomed even louder:
Miserable brat. Stop whining. Do it. DO IT R-I-G-H-T!”
“Let me go!” Shelly screamed.
Eddie’s head buzzed, buzzed with a never-ending accusation:
It’s your fault your mother left me. Left me with YOU.
Jacob’s voice was nasty and sweet at the same time. “Nurses should understand the values of anatomy and physiology,” he said. “Learning with the real thing is always best.” Father twisted, then yanked the diamond off Shelly’s finger, held it up to the light, then tucked it away in a pocket.
Shelly was silent; her eyes followed Jacob’s every move.
“Think of it!” Jacob said. “Your miserable body will teach future nurses everything they need to know about their insides … with your insides.”
Shelly’s short, stabbing scream filled the room.
Eddie smashed his hands over his ears, released a loud wheeze.
The elder St. George frowned at him, then turned back to Shelly. His hands poised over her like a surgeon ready to operate. He smiled.
₪ CHAPTER 11
Gina slipped into her apartment and quickly shut the door. She clenched her teeth and tightened her muscles to quell her shaking body, then drifted through the vast pool of darkness she called home. If Harry were here, the living room would have held a warm welcoming light and the rich aroma of one of his many spicy concoctions.
She groped for the lamp switch, allowed the light to pierce the blackness. Everything was as she had left it that morning – coffee table filled with magazines that spilled onto the floor, the morning newspaper folded and unread on the
sofa, and the scruffy chair she kept threatening to replace. It all stared at her reproachfully, including a framed photograph of Harry, with his soulful eyes that seemed to follow her every movement.
When she finally removed her raincoat, she realized the apartment was damp and cold; it also smelled sterile, like some important human component had been drained from the place.
Just four walls.
Her gaze jumped to the answering machine, but there was no blinking light. No new calls. There would be no sound of Harry’s voice.
Loneliness washed over her as she sprawled across the sofa, the chill of the room raising goose bumps. Limp, wasted, she felt small and vulnerable, like a child who sprinted home after school to be in a safe, warm place and found herself alone. How many times had that happened to her as a child growing up in New York City, with both parents working?
But there were also many good moments being part of a large extended Italian family of parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and friends. Together, they created a world of trust, creature comforts, and the wondrous abundance and flavors of Italian cooking. It was as if she and those in the neighborhood had been intermingled during some ritual prenatal exchange, then delivered so tightly bonded, they even thought alike most of the time.
Now she was on the other side of the continent, away from her roots. She glanced at Harry’s picture again and sighed softly. He was gone also.
Harry!
Another vital connection that no words could explain, but whose loss endangered her sense of belonging.
She sat up, pulled his picture to her. He was the only man who made her feel secure, even if she refused to commit her soul to him. It wasn’t his fault – Dominick. had ruined that kind of surrender.
Sometimes when she was scared and alone, she shook with fear as she thought about her ex-husband. Memories of that final night with him would flash through her head like a looped, slow motion film.
She started to cry, stopped herself, started again. The worst thing was knowing that the man who brutalized her was her husband, someone she had once trusted, had placed her total faith in.
Sin & Bone: A Medical Thriller (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 2) Page 6
