Ladyfingers

by Shepard Rifkin

  "I'd do the same in your shoes," I said.

  "Yes," Hanrahan said. "They'll make a lovely addition to your file. I might even have them framed for the walls of my office. People will come in and I'll say, 'You wanna see a beautiful example of how to hang yourself? Take a look at them pictures.' "

  He sighed and stood up. He stretched and let out a long yawn. "You Spaniards got a great proverb," he said. He scratched a friction match against the seat and lit one of his peasant cigars. "It goes, 'Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.' And you wanna know, they're right. Adios, amigo."

  I watched him walk out. The double doors swung to behind him. It was a good proverb, all right. There was another one which I could have quoted to him. It goes, "If three people say you are an ass, put on a bridle." I looked at the vouchers. All Hanrahan had to do at that point was hold up a bridle and I would have backed into it dutifully.

  When I considered that there had been about three hundred people there, fifty vouchers weren't so bad. Most of the doctors had taken it in stride. But some wanted all their money back.

  Most of them were for taxi and train fare. The doctor who had made the speech had not only asked for $13.80 travel expenses. He had also billed me for four hours missing from his practice at thirty-five bucks per hour.

  I could maybe fight that claim all the way to the Supreme Court. But it would be simpler to pay it myself. What was not so simple about that solution was that First National Trust had lots of money, but very little of it was mine. What the bank had that was truly mine came to less than eighty bucks. The total of the vouchers, as I worked it out carefully and masochistically, came to $374.25.

  There are times when I should not be allowed out without a keeper.

  18

  AT 11:15 A.M. MY PHONE RANG.

  It was Hanrahan. "Yes, sir," I said.

  "We got the local AMA bitching to the PC," he said. He was making snuffling noises like a horse eating oats.

  After a second I realized he must be biting the end off a cigar.

  "Yes, sir."

  "And we also got another complaint."

  I had nothing to gain from being properly respectful.

  "Yes, sir. I've been careless about parking."

  "You what?"

  There's no point in making jokes with people who don't like jokes. I decided to get smart. I said nothing. Hanrahan loved handing out bad news to me so much that it took precedence over everything else.

  "The second complaint comes from Inspector Hanrahan. He told the PC you had been forging little things here and there. So guess what he said."

  "I'll let you tell me."

  "You better produce in thirty-six hours. Or else."

  I didn't think any response on my part would have been appropriate at this time.

  "And keep checking in with me by phone. You can even reverse the charges. I'll be delighted to pay. Be hearin' from you, Detective." He hung up.

  I hung up slowly. Good-bye, you son of a bitch. Goodbye, New York City Police Department. Good-bye, my nice salary and the nice pension. Good-bye, trips to Puerto Rico and good meals at good restaurants.

  I drank cup after cup of coffee. I didn't dare take a chance on going out for the paper. I picked up a book and after I had been holding it for ten minutes I realized that not only did I not have the faintest idea of what the ten pages I had read were about, but also that I had been staring at the same sentence for at least five minutes. I put the book back and listened to a discussion program.

  The issue was whether long hair in young males meant they were latent homosexuals or whether it was sign of the undoubted sexual virility of the eighteenth-century male.

  Well, it has been established I don't care for hippies. I also don't care for people who wear eccentric clothes or do eccentric things to prove they're eccentric. So the debate was lost on me. I switched it off.

  But the talk about eccentricity made me think of the Duchess. The Duchess was eccentric. But the Duchess was for real. The Duchess was not only not a phony-she had beautiful legs. I projected a picture. I could still see one slowly swinging back and forth with a shoe dangling from the toes as she smiled at me with her blue-lidded eyes. Very available, very passionate, very, very near. And very dangerous. I tore up the picture and decided to project some innocuous images which would not tend to degrade or incriminate or sexually arouse the projectionist.

  I looked out the window… Across the street was a very expensive delicacy shop. What could be more innocent than to go over the contents of its windows?

  I scanned the French asparagus, the truffles, the palmhearts from Brazil, the figs from Turkey, the beluga caviar from Iran. The large gray eggs. Not the lousy little black ones. Fourteen bucks for a small jar. Who the hell would buy them? I began to grieve for the owners of the shop. But then, would they stock such things unless people bought them? No. Who, then, bought them? People with money. Why did people buy beluga? Because they liked them? Why did they like them? Because they had tasted them.

  The similarity of this approach to heroin addiction was obvious. I decided to refuse any offer of beluga caviar. Who would ever offer me beluga? I felt smug for five seconds. Then no more.

  The Duchess, that's who.

  Ask a foolish question, get a foolish answer.

  So here she was back again, and after I had summarily escorted her out.

  One encouraging note: I had brought her back without the use of a police informer. I had done it all by pure logic, the kind of stuff I needed in the finger-tracing business.

  I poured a double shot of scotch into some hot tea. Very good for sleeping. I had lifted it up to my lips when the thought occurred to me that the phone might ring while I was in a deep sleep. My mind would be a little fuzzy. I might blow everything. I poured the drink down the sink and came back carrying a glass of milk. I set it down beside the phone, took a sip, and lay down for a second before I undressed. I fell asleep like a heavy stone dropped into a pond.

  The ring of the phone brought me up to the surface fast.

  "Detective Sanchez?" The voice sounded thin and far away. "I'm one of the doctors who was at the Police Academy this morning."

  "Yes, go ahead!"

  "Can you give me Detective Sanchez, please."

  "This is Detective Sanchez speaking."

  "Would you be good enough to give me Detective Sanchez?"

  I got a good grip on my temper. "I think the connection-"

  "Would you be good enough to speak clearly, please?"

  "I think we have a bad connection," I said. "If you will let me have your number I'll phone-"

  The phone went dead. I stared at the receiver in my hand. I looked at the time. One p.m. Then I cursed quietly for a while. Spanish is probably the best language in the world for cursing. You can fill your mouth with those r's. I know all the bad words. I used them for fifteen seconds. The phone rang again.

  I reached for it so fast I knocked over the glass of milk. My pants sopped it up but I didn't care. It was the same voice.

  "Detective Sanchez?"

  "Yes!"

  "I tried getting you before but we must have had a bad connection. My name is Morrison. I'm one of the doctors you spoke to this morning."

  I asked God's pardon for the things I had just been saying.

  "Yes, Doctor?"

  "I've been thinking over what you said. I-well- maybe you'll think I'm wasting your time."

  "No, no. Go ahead." I kept my voice calm, serene, and soothing. My bedside manner for nervous doctors.

  "Yes. Well, you know, it might be helpful, this bit of information."

  "Yes, Doctor."

  "And then again, maybe it won't. I mean, it's possible. And if it's wrong, I hate to think I'll be wasting your time."

  Here I had someone nibbling delicately at the bait. It might be a minnow, or it might be the world's record in sailfish. I would never know till I landed him. But if I pulled too hard before the hook went it, I might lose him. And although I
wanted to hit him over the head with the phone, I would have to let him take the bait very easily.

  I made a soothing noise.

  "Well, you see, it's rather complicated. First of all- yes, in a second, nurse! Excuse me, I'm on emergency tonight, and the ambulance has just come in. I'm a staff anesthesiologist here."

  "I'll come over to the hospital."

  "If you don't think you'll be wasting your time. You see, I do know of a man and a woman doctor who seem to be what you were discussing. But I do know you receive quite a lot of crank calls. So-"

  "I'll come right away."

  "Well, if you don't mind coming over."

  "I don't. All in the day's work."

  "Fine. I'll see you, then."

  "Wait! What hospital?"

  But he had hung up.

  I took several deep breaths. I thought good thoughts. I put bad words away from me. I thought God and life owed me at least one break. I had forgotten his name. It served me right for not keeping a pad beside the phone. Everything served me right. I had led an evil life. I had gone to bed with ladies to whom I was not married. I had sent them home in cabs. I had not gone to confession for over a year. I had-

  The phone rang. I picked it up so fast I could almost smell the heat from the friction. "Yes?"

  "Hello, Detective Sanchez? I think I forgot to tell you the name of the hospital. It's Greer General. Out in Forest Hills."

  I said I knew where it was. I hung up.

  I went downstairs and got my car. I used the siren all the way. The brakes weren't too hot. I amused myself during the fifteen minutes it took to get there by reminding myself of the story of the guy who went to see a psychoanalyst. He complained about his poor memory. "Why does that bother you?" asked the shrink.

  "I walk into a cigar store for a pack of Camels. When the clerk asks me what I want, not only do I forget Camels, I forget that I came in for cigarettes. When I drive and stop for a light, I forget why I stopped."

  "Aha," says the shrink. "Very interesting. How long has this been going on?"

  "How long has what been going on?" says the guy.

  And suddenly the doctor's name popped into my head. I braked to a screeching panic stop and wrote it down in my notebook. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, indeed.

  19

  I PARKED THE CAR IN THE HOSPITAL PARKING lot. I headed towards a red neon sign that said EMERGENCY. I walked up a steep ramp and pushed open the swinging doors. They were well scratched by the stretchers which had been banging them open through the years. I asked the nurse at the desk just inside for Dr. Morrison.

  Her face immediately became blank. "He's in emergency surgery," she said. I guessed from her frozen look that she had an opinion of him she didn't care to have made public.

  I sat down.

  "He's going to be up there for a long time," she said. "We have a team up there doing an emergency operation."

  "The doctor asked me to drop by."

  "Is your name Sanchez?"

  "My name is Mr. Sanchez."

  "You needn't get so huffy about it. After all!"

  I was in a mood to argue. "After all what?"

  This was a nasty one. "If that's your attitude perhaps you'd be happier out of the hospital."

  She was about fifty and had no wedding ring. I was about to say I would complain about her lousy manners but I caught myself in time. If I tried to straighten out everyone in New York City who had been badly brought up I would get nowhere with this investigation. I flashed the badge.

  She looked indignant. "Why didn't you tell me right away you was a detective?"

  " 'Were.' "

  She wanted to kick that around but I cut her short. I told her it was serious and I couldn't wait till the operation was over.

  She told me to ride to the fifteenth floor for the roof operating theater. When I got there I found she had told the nurse in the scrub room I was on my way. That one helped me silently and efficiently into a sterile green gown, mask, and cap. She said he'd be sitting on a high-backed chair at the patient's head with a stethoscope to his ears. In case there'd be a lot of doctors around, since it was a serious and complicated transplant, I was to look for the man at the ivy tree.

  I went in. I couldn't see anything that looked like an ivy tree. It seemed pretty foolish to stick an ivy tree in an operating room, but I figured they knew what they were doing. I saw a tall man sitting in a high-backed chair at the head of the table; to one side of him was a thin metal post with a cross bar. On one end of the crossbar hung a plastic bag filled with clear fluid. I guessed it was glucose. A plastic tube ran from the bag into the left wrist of the patient.

  The nurse from the scrub room came in and said impatiently, "He's by the tree there."

  "What tree?"

  "The I.V. tree."

  "What's an ivy tree?"

  "I.V. tree. Intravenous tree. That thing over there with the glucose bottle."

  I went over to the tree. The doctor there had his stethoscope taped to the patient's chest. I didn't want to interrupt him as the muttered commands of "Scalpel! Retractor!" went from the surgeons to the nurses. Bloody gauze pads were dropped into large plastic bags attached to the sides of the table. Frequently there would be no word spoken. The surgeon extended his hand silently, the nurse at his side swiftly unwrapped a scalpel from a sterile towel, and slapped it into his hand. I could see why Greer General had such a fine reputation. The doctor became aware of me. He took one of the stethoscope plugs out of an ear and looked at me.

  "Police," I said. "I'll wait."

  "No, it's all right. I can hear all right with just one of these. The patient's doing very well anyhow. Are you sterile?"

  "Thank God," I said, "the issue has never come up."

  He must have heard that joke a thousand times. He smiled politely.

  "Yes. Well, I phoned you because I thought that even the slightest suspicion I had might be of some use. And maybe not. One never knows. Many is the time you people must get sent on wild-goose chases."

  "That's true." I was beginning to feel that my earlier irritation at the doctor was justified.

  "Maybe this will turn out to be one of those pointless days, Mr. Sanchez."

  "I take it in stride, Doctor."

  There was a tall nurse at the operating table. Her green eyes lifted and stared at me. She looked me up and down with a cool, speculative stare. I did the same to her. She looked at Dr. Morrison and then back at me, and her rust-brown eyebrows lifted in a tiny gesture which said, very plainly, "I know he's a jerk. You must be discovering the same thing." A few threads of brilliant red hair slipped from under her cap. She pushed them up with her forefinger. The gesture lifted her right breast. There was a satisfying amount of bosom there and I looked at it. She caught my glance and lowered her eyes. They looked entrancing above her mask.

  For the first time I understood why masked balls had been so popular in the last century. It was just like gambling. And far more exciting than computerized dating.

  What makes for suspense is the unexpected. Who wants to bet at roulette if you win every time the wheel spins? They'll tell you at these IBM dating places that you'll never waste time with someone with whom you're not compatible. They'll pick out someone with similar tastes in food, politics, religion, clothes, and coital positions.

  They miss the point. I'm not interested in going to bed with a female version of myself. Moreover, I don't mind losing out with a woman who, it turns out, hates chicken so much she'll throw up on my rug when we get home; or someone who'll try to push me into an orgone box before she'll unbutton. It's the occasional defeat that keeps me stepping briskly.

  The blood-smeared rubber gloves of the surgical team slipped in and out of the body cavity. I turned my back at an angle so that I wouldn't have to look. There's no reason why I have to look at more of that than I absolutely have to.

  "About four years ago," Dr. Morrison said, "when I first came to Greer General, there was a doctor here named Charles Henl
ey. Harvard Medical. Interned at Bellevue. Brilliant surgeon. After I had been here he set up private practice in a very plush office on Park Avenue. He-"

  "Nurse!"

  One of the surgeons had called my favorite nurse. The surgeon wanted her to hold two retractors. Even through the looseness of her green gown I could see the full surge and thrust of her buttocks. It would take a large, competent man to take charge of those hips and dominate them. It might be too much of a struggle for me.

  I'm not too big, but I am competent. Then again, she probably lived near the hospital. That meant Forest Hills. And that meant Queens. One girl from Queens was enough. I sighed and closed the door on my lovely Florence Nightingale.

  I devoted all my attention to the doctor.

  "Henley brought his work here," Dr. Morrison was saying. "We had a woman doctor on the staff." I sensed his voice had changed. I listened for the tone. "Dr. Ann Lyons. A pediatrician and a surgeon. She had quite a reputation on the East Coast. When Henley came here she was about thirty-three. Not very attractive, not quite plain; you understand." His eyes never left the patient. "He needs blood," he said. "Excuse me. Miss Forsythe!" Now I knew her name.

  "Doctor?"

  "Whole blood on the I.V. tree, please."

  She walked swiftly to an alcove and returned with a plastic bag of blood. She suspended it from the other arm of the tree, opened a little plug on the plastic tube feeding glucose into the arm that lay still beside the patient, and I watched the blood slide down into the tube.

  "The patient had five drinks within half an hour at a local bar. He got into his Renault and tried to beat a Cadillac to an intersection. Luckily he has an excellent heart and two very good lungs.

  "Well, Dr. Lyons immediately fell for Dr. Henley. It was the talk of the hospital. She followed him around like a puppy. When he smiled, she beamed. When he frowned, she almost burst into tears." Miss Forsythe looked fascinated at the hospital gossip.

  "That will be all," he said. She gave him a dirty look and went back to the surgical team.