by Tom Schreck
“All right, kid, what is it this time? You sprang for a Double Special, you must want something,” Rudy said while he manhandled the wrapping the sub came in with a force that might have gotten him charged with assault.
“What happens if a doctor is caught dealing drugs?” I said.
“He gets arrested and loses his license forever.”
“Why would a doctor making a zillion dollars take that kind of risk?”
“Well, first of all, your premise is off. Doctors don’t make that kind of money anymore.”
“Yeah sure…”
Rudy’s second bite got him into trouble. The oil dribbled on his chin and a spiral of an onion slapped up against it. It didn’t seem to bother Rudy at all, and I could tell he really loved his meal-his face was starting to sweat.
“Look, kid, we have a gazillion dollars in student loans to pay, we have a gazillion in liability to pay, we have to pay dues in every organization we’re in, and insurance companies do all they can to disallow payment. You add in an ex-wife, like in my case, and what you have to pay attorneys to defend you and your staff to support you and I’m not much better off than the guy who made this sub.”
The oil actually dripped off his chin and onto his shirt. Rudy shifted the sub into one hand and used the other hand to run through his hair. He now had kind of a Big-Dom’s-meets-Pat-Riley coif thing going on.
“So a doc might deal for the money?”
“Of course, but there’s something else. A lot of guys get into doctoring because of messiah complexes. They feel they deserve tons of money, and when they don’t get it, they get resentful and they start to take. With some it’s insurance fraud, with others it’s becoming an easy touch for prescription hounds.”
“But why illegal drugs?”
“I don’t know, they see how easy it is to become addicted and they see an easy market. They see how they can control people.”
I sat and thought or at least tried to think. Rudy was chewing with his mouth open and it reminded of the second-grade trip I took to the Bronx Zoo. I remember we got to the pen with the wildebeests right at feeding time and watched and listened to them devour a bunch of cabbages and apples.
“I think the shrink at work, Abadon, is dealing to the kids he’s counseling at McDonough. He hangs out with the steroid heads, and a dealer I was talking to said his supplier was a man of God or something.”
“Kid, slow down.” He wiped his face with the back of his hand and smeared oil over one cheek. “This is the guy you threw the cup of coffee at?”
“Yeah, he’s a self-righteous, born-again type.”
“Hey, I’m not crazy about the born-again crowd either, but-”
Rudy was interrupted by screaming from Scissor Legs.
“Get him off, get him off!” she screamed.
I jumped off the bench and saw Al furiously humping away at poor Matisse. He was lost in the moment and failed to respond to the shrieks from Lady Scissor Legs. She was traumatized, but I didn’t pick up trauma from Matisse. Actually, Matisse looked like she was having an okay time.
I bounded over the fence and ran toward Al who, for the first time, actually gave me a menacing growl. I grabbed him by the waist and pulled him off, but as I did it, Al’s head snapped around and nipped my little finger. I dropped him and he ran after Matisse, who by this time had been scooped up by her traumatized master.
“Matisse, Matisse!” was all that came out of her mouth. She was too traumatized to see Al running toward her.
Al muddied her pretty pink suit in an effort to get after his new true love, and as her master turned away to shield her, Al did the next best thing-he started to hump away at her leg. Hey, at least he had good taste.
I pulled Al off and apologized profusely. I got a teary “hrrmph” and the pair hurried away.
“Kid, you lead an interesting life,” Rudy said.
I had Al back on a leash but he wasn’t in a good mood. He sat and I had to pull him over to the bench.
“So how do I turn this doctor in?” I asked.
“Turn him in? It’s like any other criminal activity. You can’t just turn him in, the cops have to get proof. Usually, docs who get involved in this short of shit cover their tracks pretty well. They’re smarter than the average street jerk.”
“Ahh shit.”
Rudy thanked me for the sub and patted Al on the head as he got up to leave.
“Al, sometimes it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all,” he said as he headed to his car, oblivious to the oil spots that made an asymmetrical polka-dot pattern on his shirt.
31
Being a modern-day Robin Hood was complicated. I had set out to graciously defend my buddy, Hackin’ Howard, from the injustice of being falsely accused only to be thanked by him confessing and threatening me. Now, I’d uncovered what I believe is a dirty shrink dealing drugs, maybe even to the kids under his care. So do I continue to search for Howard with the legions of law enforcement professionals doing the same thing, or do I try to expose the born-again criminal poisoning the kids? These are the tough decisions facing today’s superheroes.
I cracked open a Schlitz and lay down on the couch, propped up enough to not dribble my beer. I flipped through SportsCenter, Law amp; Order, Law amp; Order SVU, and Law amp; Order Criminal Intent, past Lifetime, which was showing a movie about a guy who disguised himself to seduce his ex-wife and steal the kids, and to an infomercial about a product in which you could put your clothes in a plastic bag and suck all the air out to make it really flat. Then there was a show about really cool motor homes, a black comedienne’s special, and a show about animal cops in Detroit. VH-1 was showing something about the best one hundred booty songs, and Bravo had that guy with the bad beard interviewing a skinny actor with greasy hair whose name I didn’t know. Finally, I turned to the local cable news channel, my default channel to nap to.
Al had joined me, making a fort out of the crook in my knees and rolling up in a ball. The news was doing a traffic report, which I found absurd because Crawford was a medium-sized town without any real traffic problems, but the reporter did everything he could to emphasize that everything was moving along without any major slow-downs. The enthusiastic traffic guy was about to turn it over to the up-to-the-minute-Doppler weather guy when the anchor abruptly broke in.
I got that weird chilly feeling.
They split the screen with an on-scene reporter. She was in a field with an ambulance, several police cars and a lot of activity behind her. You could see guys with those windbreakers with the big “FBI” on the backs milling around her. She was a bit shaken, more so than a reporter should be.
“… One body recovered consisted only of a torso, and it was drained of blood through a series of punctures on the sides of the torso. It was the body of a teenage girl. The second body was decapitated and emasculated but the limbs were intact. In both cases, the missing body parts were not found by the bodies…,” she said.
I sat up, which forced Al to do the same. I could feel the sweat on my palms and I had the instinct that I had to rush and do something, I just had no idea what. I grabbed my coat with the intention of heading to AJ’s when the phone rang. The chilly feeling, which hadn’t gone away, multiplied, and I had a weird premonition about who it was going to be.
“Duff? It’s me. What I told you was the truth, and it is imperative that you mind your business,” Howard said.
“How-” It was too late, he was gone.
I flew the Eldorado to AJ’s and didn’t have a cogent thought the whole way. It was like my mind overheated and couldn’t function properly. I was going to see Kelley; I didn’t even care about drinking.
The Foursome were at it, having been watching the special reports all afternoon. Even their mood was somber, but it didn’t make their conversation any less idiotic.
“I thought it was because Berkowitz’s father was named Sam,” Jerry Number One said.
“No, it was his neighbo
r’s Rottweiler,” Rocco said.
“Labrador,” Jerry Number Two said.
“Rottweiler,” Rocco said.
“His father was a dog?” TC said.
“Son of a bitch,” Jerry Number One said.
“No, he was psychopharmic and believed the Labrador was talking to him,” Jerry Number Two said.
“Rottweiler,” Rocco said.
“What did the Rottweiler say to him?” TC asked.
“Labrador,” Jerry Number Two said.
“He didn’t say anything to him. Dogs can’t talk, stupid,” Rocco said.
“What about those dogs that sing the Christmas carol?” TC said.
“That was spliced,” Rocco said.
“Most dogs are today. It helps with the overpopulation,” Jerry Number One said.
Kelley was there and he wasn’t watching TV, he was just staring straight ahead drinking his Coors.
“He called me,” I said.
“You need to call Morris right now, no bullshit,” Kelley said.
“All he said was that he was telling the truth and that it was imperative that I stay away.”
“You need to call Morris, now.”
“Why would he call me moments after doing this?”
“Call Morris, now.”
“Fine,” I said.
I went home and called Morris and he came over, this time by himself. He asked what, where, when, and how questions and left. Al remained calm and I guess Morris’s fascination with me as a source of information had diminished. It was now heading toward eleven; I didn’t feel like heading back to AJ’s and there was no way I felt like sleeping. The Yankees were off and there was nothing on the tube and I didn’t feel like drinking much, so I decided to take a ride.
Al came along and we headed out Route 11 West just to go someplace different. Elvis was doing his rocking gospel number “I’ve Got Confidence,” from the early ’70s, and he was doing an outstanding job. Forty-five minutes into the ride I decided to head over to where they discovered the bodies just to see. A half an hour later, I pulled up to a field lit by portable spotlights that, along with the misty late-summer rain, cast a surreal glow over the entire area. It looked like an alien landing spot or a spot being preserved for something supernatural. It just looked out of place.
I parked on the side of the road and walked with Al toward the yellow tape until a uniformed cop stopped me.
“Crime scene, sir. You’ll have to move on,” he said.
“Sure, I couldn’t sleep and just wanted to see this,” I said. The cop didn’t say anything at all. Though there were a handful of police types around it didn’t look like anyone was doing anything.
I moved along and started to head back to the Eldorado when I thought of something. I stopped and Al looked up at me.
What could I lose?
I looked back down at Al and our eyes met.
“Go find!” I yelled.
Al’s nose went to the ground and he worked around a circle. This was weird because although I gave him the command, I had no scent source. Al could pick up the smell of a rabbit and I could wind up in the woods for the rest of my life. What the hell, I wasn’t going to sleep and I didn’t have to get up for work tomorrow.
Al circled, paused, looked up, put his nose back to the ground, and moved forward. Al had a scent and he was after it. He took me down to the road ahead of the Eldorado and stopped. He looked up, looked left and right, put his nose down, looked back up, and wrinkled his brow. Then, the nose went back down and he moved forward slowly and deliberately with his tail straight out, which I think meant he was on to something. He moved ahead steadily, if not quickly, but stayed in a straight line along the road.
A mile and half ahead there was a crossroads, and without hesitation Al made a left. He moved on, never lifting his nose from the ground, and he kept going. There was a light mist falling, and little by little I had gotten soaked all the way through my T-shirt and jeans. My watch told me it was a quarter to two in the morning and Al had been on this trail for two hours. I couldn’t have stopped him at this point if I wanted.
Forty-five minutes later, Al stopped and took a crap. Then, he resumed for ten more feet, stopped, sniffed, looked up, looked down, looked left and right, and put his nose back down. There were tire tracks in the mud in the side of the road. In fact, there were what appeared to be two sets of circular tracks that headed back in the direction we came, like someone met at this spot and then turned around together. I was still looking at them when I felt Al tug me in the exact direction we came from. Retracing the same path, we were back on the scent.
At three fifteen, we were at the crossroads and Al got confused. He started to take the left, hesitated, and went in the direction we originally came from but started looking back and walking with his nose up. Before long his nose left the ground and it was clear he was off whatever he set out after. If there were two cars maybe one made the turn and one didn’t, or maybe they got out on foot, or maybe there was a rabbit that ran around and doubled back. Shit, maybe a pizza-delivery guy spent the night looking for a house, turned around, and then got back on track by making a left at the crossroads.
It was after four when I got back to the Eldorado. Al was moving pretty slow and it had been a long night. The spotlights were still shining and I headed up the brushy knoll for another look at the scene. The cops weren’t milling around, and I figured they had finally got permission to call it a night. That seemed weird to me, but I didn’t get a chance to think it through because Al had given me a wicked tug. He pulled me hard for about twenty feet through the wet, high grass, sniffing like crazy.
Al stopped and I saw what was making him crazy.
The cop we were talking to earlier was lying in the grass with half of his face blown off.
32
A while back I had seen some dead people. Kelley shot a guy in the back of the head as the scumbag was about to rape a little girl. The term “blown his head off” is so overused that it’s meaningless until you’re standing in front of someone when it happens. There was blood all over, and the image of what was a breathing human being now was right there for you to contemplate, shattered and oozing life. For whatever reason, I remember the smell.
There was a smell of gunfire and there was the almost metallic smell of blood, and there was something else-what I perceived was the smell of death.
I was going in and out of the present while I looked down at the dead cop and the video of the other death I saw played in my head. The corner of the top of his head and the eye on that side of his face was gone while the other eye remained closed. A wave of the smell reached me and I puked without having a chance to bend over.
The yakking brought me back into the present as only barfing can do, but I knew I was going to be battling nightmares and what I called “daymares” all over again. I didn’t feel real and I had no idea how much time had elapsed. Al was sitting at my feet, at attention, sensing something untoward and important was happening. His nostrils never stopped moving even while the rest of him remained still.
I started to breathe heavily and I could hear my heart beating when a voice shook me back to the moment.
“Help me… help…” The voice came from the field, and it was close.
Al ran twenty feet ahead and stopped, his tail straight out.
I followed and came across another uniformed cop bleeding hard from the chest. He was a light-skinned black guy with a weightlifter’s build, and his uniform was soaked with blood. A deep scarlet hole to the left side of his chest seeped blood like a sump pump.
“Oh God…,” I heard myself say. I didn’t have any idea what to do, so I ripped off my T-shirt and placed it over the wound. The cop sucked in a few painful breaths, but otherwise he was barely breathing.
“Call… call…” He pointed to his radio.
I pushed the yellow button on the side and said “hello” several times until some sort of dispatcher responded. I don’t know what I said,
but he said something about ambulances and not to go any place.
I kept my T-shirt in place and my head drifted away. I think I threw up a few more times and I know I was shivering, but everything that was happening was blurry. Then there was some activity and I remembered seeing Kelley’s face and the look on it. Then a detached voice said, “They’re all dead.”
The next morning I came to in the spare bedroom in Rudy’s house. Al was sleeping next to me and I awoke feeling half drunk. Rudy poked his head in the doorway; he was wearing a ratty robe that probably used to be white. He was sipping coffee.
“Valium, kid. Trust me, you needed it,” he said.
I tried to talk and it didn’t make much sense to me, but Rudy handed me a cup of coffee. Al sat up and just looked at me. He didn’t fuss or bark, which was weird enough on its own.
“You remember much from last night?” Rudy asked.
“I remember dead cops… one still alive, lots of blood. What the hell happened?” I said.
“They were ambushed. All four are dead. You blacked out and went into shock when the cop you were helping died.”
“How’d I get here?”
“Kelley brought you around eight.”
“What time is it now?”
“Four.”
“Who did it?”
“They have no idea.”
The coffee was helping and so was the conversation. I didn’t feel like things were real.
“What’s it mean to go into shock?” I asked.
“Your body shuts off when it’s had too much either physical or psychological shit happen too fast. It can be dangerous but you’re fine… physically, anyway.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Kid, take it easy for a while. Read some books, rent some Elvis movies, walk the dog…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah, I know. Like there’s a chance in hell of that happening,” Rudy said.
By nine that night the Valium was out of my system, so I decided to add some Schlitz to it. I didn’t feel like sitting around the Blue by myself getting weirder by the minute. I headed to AJ’s, and Elvis and “One Broken Heart for Sale” on the way helped-Elvis always helped.
