Book Read Free

Death Bed

Page 25

by Stephen Greenleaf


  “All’s fair.”

  “That’s what they say. The Marquess of Queensberry never had to defend anybody against a trumped-up tax evasion charge. Now, do you just get off on talking to people who earn twenty times what you do, or you got something on your mind?”

  “Biloxi Corporation,” I said.

  “Biloxi. I see. Yes. Biloxi. Very interesting.”

  “That’s what the man I had lunch with yesterday told me, that it was very interesting. Very profitable, too. The fact that he’s the president of the company makes it even more interesting. I asked if I could get in on the action, in a small way, of course. Five thousand or so. He owes me a favor, but he said I should talk to you. How about it, Harrison? Throw some crumbs to the peasants.”

  The line went unused for a moment, and when Quale spoke I knew I wasn’t going to get what I wanted. “This was yesterday, was it, Tanner?” His voice was as smooth as syrup.

  “That’s what I said. At the Poodle Dog.”

  “Bullshit. I had lunch with the president of Biloxi yesterday myself. At the Rathskeller. You know it?”

  “By the Federal Building. Good sauerbraten.”

  “That’s the one. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “The gentleman didn’t even mention your name. You’re fishing, Tanner. Why, I don’t know, but you’re fishing. Well, my friend, there are No Trespassing signs up all over and the game warden is real mean. So stay the hell away from the pond. I mean it.”

  “I should have known better than to try to finesse you, Harrison. And I’ve got a tip for you, too. The Biloxi thing is fraudulent as hell, and it’s going to blow up in the next day or two. If I were you I’d keep clear if I didn’t want to spend the next few weeks picking shrapnel out of my ass.”

  “You’re crude, Tanner.”

  “When in Rome, Harrison. Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

  “Wooden, copper, paper, they’re all the same these days. Worthless. My clients pay in gold.”

  I hung up and thought things over for a while, then picked up the phone and called Max Kottle’s number for the second time that day. Belinda answered. I told her that I’d spoken to Max earlier that morning, and that I’d advised him not to pay the ransom. She wanted to know what was going on but I told her it would have to wait for a few more hours. “I’ve got a question for you, though,” I told her.

  “What?”

  “Where was Walter Hedgestone at noon yesterday?”

  “Walter? Why?”

  “Just playing a hunch.”

  “Let me see. Why, he was right here, meeting with some engineers about the oil shale project. The meeting lasted all day.” She paused. “You know, they were all close to Max, those big, rough men. The shale project was his pet, and he spent a lot of time out there when it was being set up. All those men think Max is dead, of course. They were talking about him, and Max was in the next room, listening in. What they said was nice. Some of them were even crying. Max was, too. I think Max feels better today than he has in weeks.”

  “Good. I’m glad for him. And for you.”

  “Did I tell you what you expected to hear about Walter?”

  “No,” I said, then said good-bye.

  I thought things over once again, for about a half hour. I thought them over very hard, and then I called the Investigator and asked to speak to Mr. Greer’s secretary. “My name is Quale,” I said when she came on the line. It’s illegal for a California private investigator to use an alias, but time was short. “I had lunch with Mr. Greer yesterday, perhaps you remember the appointment.”

  “Lunch? I’m afraid I don’t, Mr. Quale.” She paused, confused.

  “It’s not important,” I assured her. “The reason I called, I found a cigarette lighter on the floor beneath the table just after Mr. Greer left. I think it must be his. Perhaps you can ask him about it.”

  “Certainly. One moment.”

  I enjoyed the hum of silence for a time, then another voice spoke. “Harrison? What the hell’s this crap about a lighter? I haven’t had a cigarette in two years and you know it. What have you been smoking, huh?”

  I hung up in the middle of a chuckle, a chuckle from the mouth of Arnold Greer.

  My next call wasn’t answered for a long time. I was afraid she had already moved, and worse, that she would be out of touch for several days, until her new phone was put in. Then she was there, in the middle of my musings. When I told her who it was she swore.

  “I was halfway down the stairs with a box of books. My friend’s outside in the van waiting. This is not convenient, Tanner.”

  I apologized and told her it would only take a minute. “When we talked before you mentioned a man wearing sunglasses in the dark. You said you saw him driving past Howard’s house one night.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “I want you to think back. Picture him in your mind. It’s important.”

  “Okay, but it’s no use. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “It’s not that. What I want to know is, could it have been something else he was wearing, something besides sunglasses?”

  “Like what?”

  “An eye patch.”

  She didn’t make a sound loud enough to prevent me from hearing my heartbeat. I became suddenly conscious of my hand sweating, of gripping the receiver like a bludgeon.

  “Yeah,” she said at last. “I guess it could have been that. In fact, that’s probably what it was. Yeah. An eye patch. Okay?”

  The light in the outer office was pale and weak, diluted by the gray-white ether of the out-of-doors that leaked in through the blinds. I took the cover off of Peggy’s typewriter, then pawed through her desk for some legal-sized paper and some correction fluid. Then I began to type, hunt and peck, while composing in my best legalese:

  Superior Court of the State of California

  For the County of San Francisco

  Civil No. 915460

  Maximilian Kottle, Plaintiff

  vs

  San Francisco Bay University Hospitals and Clinics, et al.,

  Defendants

  Notice of Deposition

  TO THE DEFENDANTS AND TO THEIR ATTORNEYS OF RECORD HEREIN:

  PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on Thursday, December 20, 1979, at the hour of two o’clock P.M., plaintiff in the above-entitled action, by and through his attorneys of record, will take the deposition of the Custodian of Records of defendant San Francisco Bay University Hospitals and Clinics, on the premises of said defendant, pursuant to Section 2016 et seq. of the California Code of Civil Procedure. Said Custodian is required to produce for inspection and copying, pursuant to the request for production of documents previously served and filed herein, all records, reports, documents, papers, books, accounts, tapes, letters, photographs, or other such material, in whatever form, in the possession, custody or control of said defendant which in any way concern or relate to plaintiff Maximilian Kottle.

  Law Offices of Roscoe Pound

  Attorney for Plaintiff

  When I’d finished typing I put the cover back on the machine and put on my jacket and flipped off the lights and walked to my car and drove west toward the ocean.

  Thanks in large part to the generosity of Max Kottle, San Francisco Bay University has a reasonably adequate teaching hospital. In my younger days, when I couldn’t afford good medical care, I’d go up to SFBU and let the dental students scrape my plaque and the medical students take my pulse and the nursing students weigh my flesh, all for about a tenth of the cost of having it done by full-fledged professionals. Of course, there were the usual horror stories about the place—wrong legs amputated, too much vaccine injected or too little, sponges and clamps and rings left in postoperative abdomens, undiagnosed tumors, unstemmed viruses—but if it’s all you can afford, you take the risk. Like riding the bus.

  The place had changed a lot since then—carpets and indirect lights and walnut paneling and recessed communications equipment and that was just the lobby. Els
ewhere, as in any hospital, were the mind-boggling, ever-gleaming gadgets foisted onto the health care industry by jobbers whose chief talent lay in concocting reasons why the old ones weren’t good enough anymore.

  The sign I was looking at said “Records.” The woman on the other side of the counter wore a white uniform that was sufficiently stiff and forbidding to protect everything from her virginity to her change purse. With a set of lips as thin as pie crust she asked me what she could do for me.

  I whipped out my freshly typed document. “Records deposition,” I said as officiously as possible. “The microfilm unit is out in the car. Where do I set up?”

  The woman’s tag said her name was Miss Daunt. She took my paper from me without a word or a smile and read it over and handed it back. “I don’t know anything about this,” she announced heavily, as though it were the only thing on God’s earth she could say that about. With a grump she turned back toward her files.

  “You better learn something about it real quick, lady,” I said to her broad back. “I know for a fact that Judge Lassiter ordered this depo to take place today or he’d find you people in contempt.”

  “Our lawyer always tells me when a deposition is scheduled. He hasn’t told me one word about this.”

  “You better get him on the horn. If I go home without a full set of pictures on my little machine, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

  Miss Daunt just stood there and looked at me, making me shrink. I couldn’t afford to give her the luxury of contemplation. “You ever see Judge Lassiter in action, lady? I saw him toss a guy in jail once just cause he wandered into the courtroom with his hat on. Real mean guy. He told the lawyers we could get these records today. I saw him do it. If I were you I wouldn’t take it on my head to go against him.”

  “Just a moment.” Miss Daunt turned and marched like a Prussian into another room and closed the door behind her.

  I was going to have to be plenty lucky to avoid a charge of obtaining property under false pretenses, and I was going to have to be even luckier to get the information I wanted.

  Luck. It comes and goes, sails on the winds and swims on the waves, enters through back doors and leaves through windows. As evanescent as smoke or fame. I’ve had more than my share of it over the years.

  When Miss Daunt came back her face was wide with triumph. “I’ve called our lawyer,” she announced grandly. “He wasn’t in the office. His secretary didn’t know anything about this case.”

  I shrugged elaborately. “See you in court.”

  “Just a minute, you,” she ordered. Her smile was reptilian. “I didn’t talk to the lawyer but I did do some checking. We have no records on your Mr. Kottle. None at all. You’re at the wrong hospital.”

  No I wasn’t.

  There was one more stop to make before I laid it all out, before I had all the threads I needed to make a rope. This stop was a hospital, too. Children’s, on California Street.

  A few years ago I’d played a lot of poker in the evenings. The best of the regulars I’d played with was Al Goldsberry, the assistant pathologist at Children’s Hospital. Al quit playing about the same time I did, but for a different reason. He was too good at it. Since then he’s been playing blackjack at any casino that will let him in the door. Al’s a card counter, which means given enough time he can beat any honest blackjack game in the world. Vegas won’t let Al play anymore, and neither will the Bahamas. Al doesn’t seem to mind, though; Al never seems to mind much of anything. Maybe it’s because pathologists so seldom get sued for malpractice.

  For some reason they always put the pathologists in the basement, as though those tissue slices and blood samples and virus cultures would recombine into advanced life forms and take over the world if allowed above ground. I found Al in a windowless room, standing at the end of a long counter that was covered with vials and flasks and beakers and burners and that kind of science stuff. He was pouring something red from one test tube into another. There was a smile on his face. There was always a smile on Al’s face.

  We said hello and I asked Al what he’d been up to.

  “Atlantic City,” he said simply.

  “Big score?”

  “About twenty grand. Didn’t want to abuse the hospitality.”

  “Got some time?”

  “Sure,” he said, then looked at me carefully. “You look a little on edge, Marsh. Problem?”

  I shook my head. Then I reached in my pocket and pulled out the little blue capsule. “Can you tell me what this is? What it’s for?”

  “How soon?”

  “Now.”

  He smiled. “Maybe, but probably not. Is that all you need?”

  “One more thing. There’s this guy. He’s sick. Has intense pains in his hands and feet. Hurts to walk, hurts to touch things. What could that be?”

  “Any other symptoms?”

  “Not that I know of. Except he’s also a junkie.”

  Al shook his head. “Could be several things, Marsh. Arthritis. Circulatory problems. Gout. How old’s the guy?”

  “Early thirties.”

  “He should see a doctor.”

  “How about poisons? Any of them produce symptoms like that?”

  Al’s smile faded for an instant. “Poison, huh? Foul play?”

  “Maybe. Maybe most foul.” I wanted to make it a joke but it wouldn’t become one.

  Al reached out his hand for the pill and left without a word. I gazed idly at the tools of a trade that was as foreign to me as Pluto and more than a little suspect. Some very intelligent people say that modern medicine invariably makes people worse, not better, and that except for certain chemical triumphs like vaccines and certain mechanical aids like respirators we’re all better off putting our fate in the hands of Mother Nature than Hippocrates’ descendants. But, it’s like everything else. None of us plain folks can tell which expert to believe.

  Al came back in the room nodding his head. “If you were as lucky at poker as you have been just now, you’d be a rich man,” he said. “I think I’ve got your answers.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The door to his office opened easily but the waiting room was as vacant as a balloon. There were no lights burning, no Muzak playing, no birds chirping. The desk drawers were still open and empty, abjectly entreating Gwen Durkin to return. Nothing bid me to enter, but nothing kept me out.

  I walked through the waiting room toward the back offices, and when I heard some sounds coming from the direction I was headed I walked faster. The examining rooms were as empty as the waiting area. My guarded footfalls sounded like stakes being driven into a craven heart.

  The office I had been in the last time was empty, but the door to the room at the end of the hall was closed and suspicious. I stopped next to it and listened. From the other side came a hissing noise, the sound of a polecat, the sound of an adder, a fearsome sound. I turned the knob slowly and pulled. The door came toward me smoothly and silently, as though afloat. I moved to the side, out of range of whatever might be in there, but no shot was fired, no cry was uttered. I peered around the edge of the doorway and looked inside the room.

  Doctor Hazen was there all right, but if it weren’t for his small size and his balding head I might not have known it was him. He wore a rubber apron that stretched from his neck to his knees, a pair of round goggles tinted the color of beets, a polka-dot trainman’s cap and heavy leather gloves with gauntlets that reached halfway to his elbows. In his right hand was the golden nozzle of a welder’s torch, in his left a small, thin rod. His attention was concentrated on the piece of metal on the workbench in front of him and on the flame he was applying to it.

  I stood quietly and watched him work. The gases in the tanks behind him were set at a hot mixture of oxygen and acetylene. The flame they produced was white-hot, the metal they touched orange and puddled. Hazen was melting the steel into one of his standard forms—this one resembled something more properly lodged in the cranium of an ox. From time to time a shower o
f sparks cascaded to the floor, in celebration of the artistic process.

  Nearest to me were a couple of finished pieces whose polished glow contrasted sharply with the grimy dullness of the raw materials of the craft. As with the other pieces of Hazen’s they were awesome but not admirable. Elsewhere, the studio was a mess, a swirl of tools and materials, hunks of dull, unworked metal, discarded pressure tanks looking enough like bombs to make me nervous, wooden casting forms, tongs, hoists, anvils, cast-iron buckets, rags. The Village Smithy, one century hence.

  I stepped into the room, my shoes scraping heavily over the metal shavings and sawdust that covered the floor. The sounds I made seemed as loud as sin, but Hazen didn’t hear them. I approached to within five feet of him, until I could feel the heat from the molten metal and the flaming gases, could smell the smoke of combustion and the stench of chemical rebonding. “Doctor Hazen?” I said.

  Neither the torch nor the doctor moved, so I repeated his name, louder. When he still didn’t respond, I reached out and touched his shoulder.

  He jumped. The flame from the torch flashed up off the metal and, no longer blunted, shot into space like the tail of a streaking comet. Hazen turned his head and looked at me. At least I assumed he was looking at me; he was eyeless behind the dark lenses of his welder’s goggles.

  After a few seconds he placed his rod on the table and raised the goggles to the top of his head and left them there, two amber eggs in a newly built nest. “The office is closed,” Hazen said grimly.

  “For repairs?” I said, gazing around the studio in a burlesque take.

  “I told you before. My records are confidential. They are protected by law, but even if they weren’t I would refuse to disclose anything about my patients.”

  “Oh, I’ve got all the information I need about your patients, Doctor,” I said. “It’s you I need to know more about.”

  “Me?” he exclaimed. “If you want to know me, look there. And there. And in the waiting room. My work is me and I am my work. We are fungible. One.”

 

‹ Prev