Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  "With these new drugs?"

  "There are only a couple of approved ones, like alpha interferon or azidothymidine, which you hear called AZT. Accordingly, most PWAs take other drugs against the opportunistic infections AIDS allows, like pentamidine against pneumonia. I'm not a doctor, John, but we're years away from even a vaccine, much less a cure."

  "Which is why you support Maisy Andrus on the right to die."

  "Partly. Most of those infected can and will live a long time. Productively too. But for some, there has to be a way out."

  Bacall cleared his throat. "In the early eighties, before we knew a great deal about AIDS, a friend of mine contracted it and . . . withered terribly. He begged me to help him end his suffering, but I couldn't . . . see it that way, then. I couldn't do for my friend what Maisy had the courage and compassion to do for her husband in Spain. That's really why I support Maisy, John. She's living proof of the need to convince society that everyone has the right to end the fight mercifully and honestly. Without having to hoard pills from valid prescriptions and before descending into blindness and madness and . . . diapers, goddammit."

  Bacall lowered his voice again. "Tommy — Tommy Kramer — told me you served in Vietnam?"

  "That's right."

  "I have a reason for asking this, John. In the war, how many friends did you lose?"

  I looked away. "You didn't . . . When you were over there, you didn't keep some kind of tally."

  "Between five and ten?"

  I whoofed out a breath. "Ten, twelve. Around there."

  "John?"

  I looked back at Bacall.

  His eyes were wet and glowy, but he wasn't crying, just twitching a little. "John, in the last twenty-four months I've buried twenty-eight friends."

  "Jesus."

  "They were older, younger, every color. They were the best people and the worst, the most fun and the least. But they were friends, and no matter how careful they thought they'd been before they even knew they needed to be careful, they got taken. Opportunistically, horribly, slowly."

  I thought back to being in-country, mostly as a street MP, once in a while in the bush. The way people died, the randomness of it. Bacall cleared his throat again, then shook his head like a fighter who'd had his bell rung. "Maisy is trying to help us her way. In helping her, you're helping us your way. And if there is anything I can do, you've got it."

  "Understood."

  Bacall's twitches became spasms.

  "Alec, are you all right?"

  "No, but I will be." He dug through his overcoat to the side pocket of his suit jacket. "Sorry about this."

  "What's wrong?"

  "I'm diabetic, John. More a nuisance than anything else, but the last few . . . with all the excitement. I'm a little off my insulin schedule, I guess."

  Bacall drew out a leather case. He opened it to reveal an ampule of liquid and a hypodermic needle. Reaching down to his sock, he pulled up his trouser leg past mid-thigh. Even in the faint light I could see the track marks on his skin.

  "You want the courtesy light?"

  "No. Believe me, I can do this with my eyes closed. The double pleats keep me from having to drop my pants." He took out the syringe and, after two false starts, filled it from the ampule. I turned away to see a cruiser stopping, the uniforms inside readying themselves to step out and over to us.

  Bacall sighed. "There. Be all right in a minute."

  I left my hands on the wheel, where the cops could see them. The one approaching me was female, the one coming around to the rear of the passenger side a male. Bacall, eyes closed, was breathing deeply. The leather case lay open on the dashboard.

  "Alec?"

  "Yes?"

  "No sudden movements. We've got company. Leave the works where they are."

  Bacall opened his eyes but didn't turn his head.

  The woman had her right hand on the butt of her holstered weapon, using the left index knuckle to rap on my window. I rolled it down slowly.

  She had close-set eyes and the cratered cheeks bad acne leaves behind. "What's the problem, boys?"

  Her eyes left my face to see the paraphernalia on the dash and Bacall's exposed left leg.

  I said, "This man's a diabetic. He wasn't feeling too well, so we pulled in and he took a shot."

  Bacall said, "Of insulin."

  "Want to step out of the car, please."

  Bacall started to say something as I said, "We'll step out of the car."

  I came out slowly. Bacall fumbled with the unfamiliar door handle. He locked himself in before floundering out to be caught and steadied by the male partner.

  I said, "I'm carrying a Chief's Special over my right hip. I have some ID in my inside jacket pocket."

  She motioned for the ID.

  I took it out. Reading it, she said, "Heard of you. Nancy Meagher, right?"

  "I'm seeing her."

  "Nance and I went to school together." She arched her nose over a shoulder. "Gate of Heaven. Tell her Sheilah Boyle, she'll remember."

  "I will."

  Boyle handed me back the ID. "They're okay, Conn."

  The male partner said, "Thank Christ, it's like Siberia out here."

  Then to Bacall, "You gonna be all right there, pal?"

  "Yes. Yes, fine. Thank you."

  "Have a good night," said Boyle as she and Conn trotted to their unit.

  Back in my Prelude, Bacall had gotten his pant leg down and was stowing the hypo case. "Thank you, John."

  "For what?"

  "This happened to me once before. The police . . . well, as I said back in your office, I don't always bring out the best in them."

  I started the car and drove Bacall to his house in Bay Village. On the way back to the condo I tried to convince myself that things would have gone just as smoothly with Sheilah Boyle and Conn if Bacall had spoken first.

  =13=

  I WOKE UP TUESDAY RELATIVELY FREE OF STIFFNESS DESPITE THE punishing run the previous morning. The sky outside my window was overcast, the radio quoting a temperature in the high forties. I dressed for running and went downstairs.

  No sign of the derelict, but I remembered his advice. Some stretching exercises for the calves and hamstrings, not quite breaking a sweat. I started out slowly, going over the ramp to the river path in a gentle second gear. Then I began pushing off more, using the thighs and the ball of the rear foot, gradually lengthening my stride as he'd predicted. The pace didn't feel faster, but my whole body seemed in tune with the rhythm my legs were setting. I turned around at the Boston University bridge so the run would be just about three miles.

  As I approached the Fairfield Street ramp again, the bum was sitting on the bench, a couple of layers of sweater off his torso and knotted around his waist like a backward apron. Nodding and smiling.

  I slowed to a walk in front of him. "Didn't see you this morning."

  "Saw you."

  "You did."

  "Uh-huh. Wanted to check first."

  "Check? On what?"

  "On whether you were one of those know-it-alls, couldn't take any coaching. There're a lot like that."

  "And?"

  "And you did just fine. The stretching, the pushing off, cutting your distance back after a tough one the day before."

  I kept walking, my lungs settling down. "The run yesterday took a lot out of me."

  The derelict shrugged, glasses slipping down his nose. "Wouldn't have known it. You looked pretty limber today."

  "Thanks."

  He thumbed the glasses back up. "Got to get some new tape for the bridge here. They been sliding on me."

  I extended my right hand. "John Cuddy."

  "John." He shook, but tentatively, almost mechanically, as though he hadn't done it for a while. "Just call me Bo."

  "Bo." I used the sleeve near my bicep to blot some sweat off my forehead. "Bo, you really know anything about this coaching stuff?"

  A glitter behind the lenses. "I do."

  "Feel like training
me'?"

  The lids lowered, and I thought he was going to get up and leave when he fixed back onto me. "Two conditions."

  "What are they?"

  "First, don't want no money from you."

  "That doesn't seem fair."

  "I decide what's fair here. I got my life, you got yours. I don't want no money."

  "Okay. What's the other condition?"

  "I don't want you turning me into some kind of project."

  "Project?"

  "Rehabilitation. Or pity. Like bringing a soldier home for Christmas dinner. Just me coaching, you listening and doing."

  "You've got a deal. Shake on it?"

  "We already shook. You ready for some more advice?"

  "You bet."

  "First thing, lose the sweat clothes and buy one of those fancy Gore-Tex suits. I know, I know, you figure you'll feel like some kind of dilettante. But you'll be able to wear just a cotton turtleneck and shorts under it, and the fabric wicks the sweat right off so you won't get chilled when the real weather comes in. January, February, you'll be running far enough we can't always start you into the wind. You sweat down into your jock, and penile frostbite gets to be a real possibility, eh?"

  "I understand."

  "Second thing, go easy on the booze. Beer's okay because it's got plenty of carbohydrates. But lay off the hard stuff, dehydrates you too much."

  "Right."

  "Third thing, you got to drink water. Lots of water. Half gallon a day isn't out of the question. Also, get used to sugar-electrolyte drinks like Gatorade or Exceed. They'll have that stuff along the course, and you don't want the tummy getting its first taste of it at mile fourteen the day she counts."

  "Anything else?"

  "We have to put you on a program. You do any lifting now?"

  "Nautilus."

  "Fine. Stick with that, but drop the weight on your leg machines and increase the repetitions at the lower weight. Want to build that redundant function endurance."

  "Okay."

  "Now, for the running itself, we'll do six days on, one day off. Your body's all wrong for serious training, but we got better than four months yet. You'll train at the pace you'll maintain during the race. We'll do low mileage five days and give you a long run the sixth day for your confidence."

  "I think I can handle that."

  "You won't ever do more than a twenty-miler before the race herself."

  "Why is that?"

  "It's best to leave the last six or so as unexplored territory till you have the crowd to help you through."

  "Makes sense."

  Bo thumbed his glasses again. "Mornings all right?"

  "That's what I'm used to anyway."

  "See you here, then. Tomorrow, seven in the A.M."

  "Thanks again, Bo."

  "Give it a couple months." He rose and began walking upriver as he had the day before. "Then thank me, you still feel like it."

  After showering I made some phone calls while my hair dried. A receptionist at Mass General told me Dr. Paul Eisenberg would be unavailable all morning, but could squeeze me in that afternoon if I promised not to take more than fifteen minutes. I promised. I reached the Reverend Vonetta Givens directly. Nudging the truth a little, I said I'd covered the debate the previous night and wanted to ask some follow-up questions. Givens said she'd be happy to see me at her church and gave crisp directions to it.

  Directory assistance had Louis Doleman's number in West Roxbury. He answered on the third ring. Without saying anything, I cut the connection, an odd noise in the background just as I depressed the plunger. It sounded like the birds from jungle movies of the forties.

  I shook my head and got dressed.

  * * *

  "I'm here to see the Reverend Givens?"

  A black kid sat behind a table inside the entrance of All Hallowed Ground Church. He had a nose that almost touched both ears and a haircut like the front view of an aircraft carrier.

  "Your name, please?"

  "John Cuddy."

  "Just a minute."

  The kid dialed two digits. He was probably a football lineman in high school, going to fat at twenty.

  Into the receiver he said, "Reverend, you expecting John Cuddy?"

  He nodded at the phone and replaced the receiver. "Through the door behind me."

  "Thanks."

  Someone on the other side of the door threw some bolts, and a near twin of the kid at the desk pulled it open, gesturing with his head that I should enter. He wore a Boston Against Drugs, or B.A.D., T-shirt and brushed against me as I went by him. Then he caught my left wrist deftly, twisted it, and wedged me up against the wall. The desk kid came up and patted me down, finding the revolver and wrenching it from the holster.

  The hammerlock was good, immobilizing me just at the edge of pain. I didn't try to resist.

  Desk said to Door, "Let's take him in."

  Door kept the hold on me as I was ushered before the reverend. She was already on her feet, one hand inside the center drawer of the old desk between us. There were diplomas and prints and photos framed on the walls, but no windows whatsoever. Door's grip kept me from appreciating the ceiling, if any.

  Givens looked past me, I assumed to Desk palming my gun. She seemed to notice that I wasn't struggling. "Arthur, you may release the man."

  My arm came free.

  She kept her hand in the drawer. "And who are you, really, sir?"

  "John Cuddy, like I told you on the phone."

  "I made some calls. Brothers and sisters in the media, print and broadcast. They never heard of you."

  "I have some identification in my left breast pocket."

  "You may reach for it."

  I opened my jacket and took out the ID, holding it up for Arthur or his pal to take from behind me.

  A voice that didn't belong to Desk said, "Private investigator, Reverend. Want me to call 'round on him?"

  "No, thank you, Arthur." She withdrew her hand from inside the drawer. "Please return Mr. Cuddy's identification but not his gun and leave us. Thanks to you both, again."

  I got back my ID, heard two "Yes, Reverends" and a closing door.

  Givens was in a raglan-sleeved sweater and bulging jeans that I thought might have had to be hand cut and resewn. She pointed to a chair. "Please."

  We sat simultaneously as I said, "Arthur's the guy on the door?"

  "That is right."

  "Not just another noseguard."

  "No. Lionel — the boy at the desk — started three years for Boston Latin, leading them in tackles. Arthur just returned to us from two years in the military police."

  I felt a little better. "They did a nice job, suckering me in."

  Givens seemed to relax a bit, dropping the formal manner. "The folks they been facing up to for me, they learned some."

  "Security out front, some kind of piece in the drawer, no windows. Who're you expecting'?"

  "The first drug pusher decides it's time to cross the line, kill him a preacher. So far the real bad ones just been making fun of us, telling the kids, 'What makes you feel better, what the fat woman say or what we sell you?' Sealed up the windows account of that's the way we built the storm cellars back home."

  "Oklahoma."

  "That's right. You ever been there?"

  "Uh — uh."

  "Know much about it?"

  "Enough. I'm allergic to tornadoes."

  "The twisters, they ain't so bad once you get used to seeing them coming. The whole sky goes green and yellow, and the clouds start moving too fast. Then there's this little band of blue sky at the horizon, and the funnel like to spinning along it, a ballerina toe-dancing her own sweet way toward you.

  "I remember one day, I couldn't get home in time. So I jump into this ditch, alongside the road? Got to get yourself below ground level. Well, I feel it coming, the twister, but I don't have enough sense not to look up, and this apartment house, the top two floors, anyway, be flying over my head. I could see the plumbing pipes, even the
clothes a-hanging on the bedroom doorknobs. Then dead still, like the Almighty decided against wind as one of His elements, and that big house just dropped like a stone, smashed all to pieces about a hundred feet away from me. How did you know I was from Oklahoma originally?"

  Nice change of pace. "Your introduction at the debate."

  "You really there?"

  "That's right."

  "Doing what'?"

  "Protecting my client's interests."

  Givens thrust her head forward to get a better look at me. "That Nazi honkie. You the one took him out."

  "Just kind of laid hands on him. really."

  She smiled a little. "Who's your client?"

  "I'm happy to tell you, but my client would like it to remain in confidence?

  Givens waved her hand to say "of course."

  "I'm working for Maisy Andrus."

  The eyebrows rose, but the hairdo didn't budge. "What's the problem?"

  I took out the Xerox copies of the threats from my other pocket and handed them to her. She read one, tsked, and glanced at the others before handing them back.

  "Anybody tries to tell people they ain't doing what they should gets these."

  "Not in their mailbox at home, hand delivered."

  "Oh."

  I put the notes away. "There a reason why you didn't go to the bookstore after the debate'?"

  "There is. You want to hear it?"

  "I would."

  Givens set her expression for drudgery. "I don't have no book out, Mr. Cuddy. My people are poor, but they are behind me. I go to that store, they go with me. They see other folks, white folks, buying those books, they feel they got to buy some too, support me. They can't afford that."

  "One of those notes was inside a book Andrus was given to sign."

  The reverend shook her head slowly. "What do you figure you got here, big-time crazy?"

  "Daring. Clever. Maybe crazy, maybe not."

  Givens looked skeptical. "Why you coming to me with all this?"

  "You oppose Andrus on the right to die. I'm trying to talk with anybody that a real crazy might see as a kindred spirit against her." Emphatic shake of the head this time, almost dislodging the hairdo. "No. No, sir. My people, they are strong and they are tough, but they are good. They vote against what she says and march against what she says, but . . . She waved her hand at my pocket. "Not anything like that. Not ever."