Silent Treatment

by Michael Palmer

  “Because yesterday, deep down inside, I really didn’t want to drink. Today, I do.”

  Harry could feel walls going up. Either he had somehow gotten off on the wrong foot or she was determined to put him there. If he tried to lie to her now about his motives, she would know. If he told her the truth òr tried to lecture her in any way, he would probably be back at the playground watching basketball before his Coke was warm.

  “Maura, I’m here because I’m in trouble,” he said finally. “There’s a cop out to crucify me, my hospital’s looking for a way to drop me from the staff, and you’re the only one who knows anything that might help me. I don’t have any idea who you saw walk past you to Evie’s bedside, or why he killed her. But the other night he could have killed me as well, and he didn’t. I think he didn’t because he’s certain that sooner or later the police are going to arrest me. He let me go because he doesn’t believe I have any cards to play. But I do—two of them, actually. I’ve heard his voice and you’ve seen his face.”

  “And you think that if I’m drinking I’ll be of no use to you.”

  “I think that the last time you drank you almost died. I don’t want you to die.”

  She studied his face.

  “I really want to drink,” she said.

  “I know you do,” he replied with genuine empathy. “I really want to run away from all this. Someplace unbearably warm where they use shells for currency and haven’t heard of malpractice suits or HMOs or grand juries. But I’m not going to.”

  Maura opened the box of chocolate-covered mints, slid one onto her tongue, and closed her eyes as it dissolved in her mouth.

  “You knew about the sweets thing, didn’t you,” she said.

  Harry sensed a letup in the wall construction.

  “That doesn’t make me an expert.”

  She savored another mint.

  “Ten or eleven thousand calories a day in bonbons and Life Savers and Kit Kats, and I haven’t gained an ounce. Go figure.”

  “You’re lucky. I just look at that stuff and my belt lets itself out a notch—go figure.”

  Maura said the words in unison with him and then almost laughed. Almost. Harry waited. She picked at the edge of the mint box, then closed it and set it on the table. He knew this was the moment. She was considering asking him to abandon his crusade to keep her sober and just leave. And if she did, he would have to go, and she would be drunk within an hour or two.

  “Harry, I’m sorry for giving you such a hard time,” she said finally. “I suppose you know that right now you’re the only thing standing between me and the bottle of Southern Comfort I have in the kitchen.”

  “The only thing standing between you and that bottle is you, Maura. If knowing that makes me an expert, then maybe I am one after all.”

  In the silence that followed, Harry felt the topmost bricks come off the wall. Just shut up! he pleaded with himself. He had said what he could. Anything more might just turn her off. Not a word. Not one goddamn—

  “What do you think of this turban?” she asked suddenly. “I’m very self-conscious about having so little hair. I tried a wig, but it looked ridiculous.”

  “Like Dickinson.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Albert Dickinson. You cut him to shreds by telling him that his toupee looked like a piece of lettuce. Remember?”

  Harry could tell from her expression that she did not.

  “Oh, yes,” she said with no conviction. “You think the turban’s ugly. I can tell. Do you think I should take it off?”

  “I think you should do whatever you want to.”

  “You still want to go out for dinner?”

  “Of course.”

  “Even with a flaky, bald chick who keeps popping Peanut M&M’s and Raisinets?”

  “Try me.”

  She swept the turban off and tossed it across the room. Her reddish-blond hair had grown back a bit, although the scar from her operation still showed.

  “You’re staring,” she said.

  Harry knew he was, though not for the reason she was thinking. With the headdress gone, it was as if he was seeing her face for the first time. The swelling and bruises that had so disfigured her were gone. Her skin was smooth and beautifully pale, with a faint, natural blush and a few freckles highlighting her high, sculpted cheeks. Her eyes, a rich ocean green, seemed possessed of their own intrinsic light. And her mouth was wide and sensual. Harry felt his own mouth go dry.

  “I … um … I don’t think you need the turban,” he managed.

  “Okay, the turban’s history. If you’re still up for dinner, I’m a nut for Indian food.”

  “I’m up for it and I know a place.”

  He glanced around the room and realized that two and possibly three of the stark portraits were of Maura herself. They were skillfully done. No one could dispute that. And there was certainly a constancy in her vision of herself. But as far as he was concerned, none of them captured even a trace of the allure and gentle mystery of the woman sitting across from him.

  “You know,” she said, “you really are a nice guy. I’d like to help you if I can.”

  She took a tan windbreaker from the back of a chair and slipped it on. “Harry, did anyone ever tell you that you look like—wait a minuté, I’ll think of who.… Oh, I know, Gene Hackman. I think you look a little like Gene Hackman.”

  Harry looked at her curiously, uncertain of how to respond. Her expression was too matter-of-fact. She didn’t remember!

  “I … um … yes. One person did tell me I looked like him.”

  “Your wife?”

  “No. No, it was someone else. Maura, I meant to wait until after dinner to discuss the mystery doc, but could you tell me a bit of what he looked like—how you described him to your brother?”

  She seemed about to respond. Then her eyes narrowed. Harry could feel as much as see her confusion.

  “You know,” she said. “I remember someone coming into the room. At least I think I do. But that’s all.”

  “You mean you can’t picture his face?”

  She looked at him sadly and then shook her head.

  “Harry, I didn’t realize it until right now, but no. I can’t picture a thing from that night. Not a goddamn thing.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Watch that kid shoot,” Harry said, as they stood by the high chain-link fence that surrounded the basketball court. “The little one with the Knicks shirt.”

  The teenager, smaller and quicker than anyone else in the game, obliged by sinking an off-balance jump shot from twenty feet.

  “Nice call,” Maura said.

  They watched for a few more minutes and then headed down Manhattan Avenue toward Central Park.

  “You sure you want to walk all the way to the restaurant?” Harry asked.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but before I did my half gainer with a full twist down those stairs, I was a fairly decent runner.”

  “We walk.”

  Harry shared details of his own ongoing struggle to stay in shape.

  “You know, you’re being very patient not grilling me about that doctor from the hospital,” she said.

  “We can talk about it later.”

  “I feel terrible, but I really can’t remember what he looked like. I haven’t thought about the hospital much, mostly because I didn’t want to. Now I want to, but it’s like … like my brain is Swiss cheese. Some things, some conversations are crystal clear. Others … ?”

  “Just out of curiosity, do you remember your brother’s friend, Lonnie? He was in the room that night. His nickname is the Dweeb.”

  “He’s black, right?”

  “Exactly,” Harry said excitedly. “Do you remember what he was wearing? What he did that night?”

  “He had a hat on. A cap …”

  “Good. That’s right. What else?”

  She gazed up at a building, then shook her head sadly.

  “Nothing. I’m sorry, Harry, I really am. It’
s like trying to remember who sat next to me in the third grade. I know I was there, and I can pull up some hazy pictures, even the dress my teacher used to wear. But no real detail.”

  Harry recalled how quickly she had noticed Jennifer’s pin and Dickinson’s hairpiece, how rapidly she had reacted during the Dweeb’s role-playing scenarios. The specialized area of her cerebral cortex responsible for awareness had been functioning well that night—perhaps even more sharply than usual. But her ability to file information, or at least to retrieve it, had clearly been damaged—badly damaged, it appeared.

  “It’s not surprising, I suppose,” he said, hoping his concern and disappointment weren’t too obvious. “The concussion, the surgery, the alcohol, the withdrawal, the medications—considering all that, I think you’ve done pretty damn well.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ll keep trying. If something comes back to me, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “Thanks. Hey, enough. I call for a change in the subject. Let’s talk about art.”

  “And war heroes.”

  Over the years, in most social situations, Harry seldom carried the conversation. Thoughtful was the way he explained that trait; boring was Evie’s frequent retort. But Maura Hughes was extremely easy to talk to. He rambled on as they walked and suddenly, he found himself talking quite candidly about the Corbett curse and his episodes of unusual chest pain—things he hadn’t shared with anyone.

  “So,” she said when he had finished, “who’s your doctor?”

  “I’m getting one,” he said too quickly.

  She stopped, took his arms, and turned him toward her. Concern shadowed her face.

  “Promise?”

  Harry had no idea how long he stared into her emerald eyes before he responded.

  “With all that’s going on, I won’t say when. But I promise.”

  The light changed. They crossed Columbus and were half a block from Central Park when she said, “I think you should know that my performance this evening notwithstanding, I have a steel-trap memory for things that people promise me. And I can be an incredible nag when I want to be.”

  “I have a feeling you can be an incredible anything when you want to be.”

  Harry was totally surprised to hear the words spoken in his voice. Was he actually flirting?

  “That’s a nice thing to say, Harry,” she responded. “Especially considering that at this point, you’ve known me longer in the DTs than out.”

  “Tell me, what tipped you over the edge?”

  “You mean drinking?”

  “Yes.”

  She laughed.

  “You think there has to be some tragedy, some horrid, dark event in my past that sent me reeling into the bottle?”

  “I … um … I guess that’s what I assumed, yes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. There’s certainly a lot in my past that I wish had never happened. But no single cataclysmic tragedy. In fact, if anything, alcohol was a godsend—at least for a while.”

  Maura talked of her upbringing by well-to-do parents—her summers at riding camps, her years in boarding school, and finally her abbreviated enrollment at Sarah Lawrence. By then, rebellion against her parents’ lifestyle and hypocrisy had opened a gap between them that would never be bridged.

  “Eventually, my … my father suffered some big financial reverses and my mother left him. He died in a car crash … somewhere outside of Los Angeles—far from sober, in case you were wondering.… A woman in the car with him was also killed.”

  When she spoke of her father, Harry noticed a striking change in her expression and her voice. The muscles around her jaw tightened. Her speech became strained and halting. An opaque shade seemed to descend over her eyes—a protective membrane, shielding her feelings.

  “What about your mother?” he asked, anxious to help her off the subject.

  “Mother’s still alive. But neither Tom nor I ever hear from her except every other Christmas or so. I doubt she’s sober very often either. Probably because my parents never even spoke of such matters, for as long as I can remember I’ve been acutely sensitive to things in the world that were tragic or unjust.”

  She told of spending several years trying to write the great American novel, including two years on a Navajo reservation in Arizona. But her writing lacked fire, and her experiences with the Navajos and others who were poor and oppressed only seemed to heighten her sense of impotence. It was as if the harder she struggled to have her life make sense, the less it did.

  “One day, not so much for answers as for therapy, I dusted off my paint box and stretched a few canvases. I had taken some lessons in high school, but never got into it. This time, from the very beginning, painting felt right to me. I wasn’t bad either, but nobody seemed to notice my work. Then a wonderful thing happened to me—Southern Comfort. I discovered that drinking freed something up inside me—or maybe smoothed the rough edges off. I don’t know. But I do know that the more I drank, the better I painted.”

  “Or at least thought you painted,” Harry corrected.

  “No. You may not want to believe it, but I really was better. The galleries saw it, and so did the people who buy art. For a time, my work was in great demand. I actually bought that building my apartment’s in. Then, without my realizing it at first, I began spending more and more time either drinking or sleeping off hangovers, and less and less time painting. It’s been about three years since I did anything anyone was interested in. I don’t remember my last sale.”

  “You never got treatment from an alcohol counselor or tried AA?”

  “For what? There were always reasons I drank—relationships that were in the dumper, injustices, bad reviews, professional snubs. I saw a therapist for a while. She said I just had an artist’s temperament and passion. And besides, I always sincerely believed I could quit whenever I wanted to. Now, after what’s happened to me, I’m not so sure.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “What?”

  “Realizing that you may not be able to quit any time you want to.…”

  The restaurant Harry had recommended was on Ninety-third near Lexington. They entered Central Park at Ninety-seventh. It was eight-forty-five, but there was a fair amount of lingering daylight. They took a paved footpath down to the reservoir. The air was warm and still, the water mirror-smooth.

  “I really love this city,” Harry said. “Especially the park.”

  “Do you often walk through here at night?”

  The walkway around the reservoir, as far as they could see through the gathering dusk, was deserted.

  “This isn’t what I would consider night yet, but the answer is yes. I don’t tempt fate by bushwhacking, but the roads are safe enough here.” He skimmed a small stone across the water. “Ta da. Thirteen skips. A new world record.”

  “How come I only counted eight?”

  “I can see I’m going to have trouble with you.”

  Enjoying the quiet comfort they were feeling with one another, they headed up a wooded path toward the road. The last vestiges of daylight had given way to evening.

  “Listen, Harry,” she said. “I’ve been thinking, and I want to propose a deal. You think I should be going to an alcohol counselor or AA. I think you should be seeing a heart specialist to have that pain of yours checked out. The deal is this: you agree to face up to your problem, and I’ll agree to face up to mine.”

  “I already promised you I’d do it.”

  “I’m talking about soon. If you want, I’ll go to one of those meetings tomorrow.”

  “Believe me, it’s not angina I’ve been having. I know angina. It’s just that I’m overly aware of chest discomfort because of my family history and—”

  “Deal or not?”

  They stopped and looked at one another. Harry swallowed at the dryness that had recurred in his throat.

  “Deal,” he said. “Provided you agree not to take a drink of any sort of booze without calling me firs
t and giving me a chance to dissuade you.”

  “Deal.” Her smile was warm and hopeful. Then suddenly, her expression changed. Her eyes widened. “Harry!” she cried, staring over his shoulder.

  “Not a word, neither of you!” the man behind Harry growled.

  Harry recognized the voice immediately. It belonged to the larger of the two men from Desiree’s apartment. Harry started to turn, but the thug, several inches taller, locked an arm under his neck and thrust a gun into his ribs. Maura instinctively whirled to run and collided with the man’s partner, who had come charging down the path from the road, cutting off any attempt to escape in that direction. The spot they had chosen was totally hidden from the road above and from the reservoir below. Maura cried out as the shorter, stocky one grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm high behind her back. Then he forced her off the path and up the hillside into the dense woods. Harry’s captor shoved him rudely after her.

  “No sucker punches this time, asshole,” he snarled.

  Harry tripped on a thick tree root, but the giant’s grip across his neck kept him from falling. After twenty yards, the underbrush and steepness of the hill made it impossible to continue. It was much darker than it had been on the path.

  “Okay, down on your knees, both of you,” the taller man ordered.

  He dropped Harry with a sharp kick to the back of the knee. Maura, her hand bent up nearly to the back of her neck, was powerless to resist.

  “Nice body,” the thug said as he forced her, face down, onto the ground. “Real nice.” He kneeled on the small of her back.

  “Shut up and just do what you have to do,” the other rasped.

  “Leave her alone,” Harry pleaded. “She’s no threat to anyone. She doesn’t remember a thing. Nothing. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “Shut up, dammit!”

  Something solid—the man’s fist or the revolver butt, padded somehow—slammed down on a spot just behind Harry’s right ear. Pain and a searing white light burst through his head. He pitched forward and landed heavily, air exploding from his lungs.

  “No! Please don—!”

  Through a semiconscious haze, Harry heard Maura cry out. Then suddenly her words were cut off, replaced by a dreadful gurgling. He could feel her kicking, her feet flailing desperately against the ground beside his face. He lifted his head. His vision was blurred, but through the darkness he could see the man with the cinder-block build straddling Maura from behind, his beefy hands tight around her throat, pulling her head up as he strangled her, bowing her back.