Buffett now began the workout again. He was counting down from sixty. When he exercised, he always counted down, rather than up, because it was harder to quit if your goal was to reach zero.
Fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six . . .
If you did quit before you got to your goal, that was the worst. Something terrible would happen.
Like, for instance, the Terror would get you.
Forty-seven, forty-six, forty-five . . .
Sweating.
Pull, pull, pull.
On thirty-three Wendy Weiser strolled into the room.
“Hey, Donnie.”
“Yo, Doctor.”
“How you feeling today?”
“Nifty.” Buffett kept a nifty smile on his face.
Phantom pain, phantom smile. Fair enough, huh?
She pulled up the chair in that way of hers and dropped into it, like she was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap. He thought of it as charming. He was not quite sure if that word fit or how someone can sit charmingly but that’s what he thought. He had been here two or three days now and he’d had five dreams about her already. Sometimes, when he was awake, he fantasized about her, he thought about the way she sat down, the way she kept her legs spread slightly when she sat, the way she slouched, which hid the shape of her breasts, the way her panty hose would rustle, the lab coat would fall . . . He did not let the fantasies get beyond that point.
Dr. Weiser was the only thing that troubled him about killing himself. He hoped she wouldn’t be the one to find his body.
“You want something to drink?”
“Scotch. Glenfiddich. Aged twelve years. Neat.”
Snappy Donnie, snappy jokes.
“OJ?”
“I’ll pass.”
She opened his chart. “I see we’ve got you lined up for more tests over the next couple days. There still isn’t much to report. Spinal shock is slowly subsiding.”
Weiser then did some poking and probing of her own and went through the same neuro exams that Gould had done a few days before. When he touched his nose she said, “Good,” the same way Gould had, and though he wished her version meant something more than his, it clearly didn’t. She made a notation on his chart, sat back, then lit a cigarette.
“You cut yourself,” she said.
He nodded, avoiding her eyes. He pushed a dangling handle of the jump rope out of the way.
“I . . .” His words stopped.
“I know how anxious you are to find out about your recovery,” she said kindly. “But until the shock subsides, all you can do is hurt yourself doing something like that. You could get a bad infection. Hospitals are filthy. They’re full of bacteria.”
“Sepsis,” Donnie whispered desperately.
“Sepsis.” She studied him for a moment then said, “You want to know about sex.”
“I want to . . .” He nodded, then confessed, “I wanted to see if I could feel anything. Down there.”
She told him it was too early to know much. But she agreed to tell him a few things. Weiser added, “I don’t have much time now. I’m going away for a couple days.”
His heart choked. She was leaving him.
The Terror at least was pleased at this news and pawed Buffett mercilessly as he sweated and clung to the gingham jump rope.
“Where you going?” he asked, to take his mind off the Terror’s maul.
“I have a place at Lake of the Ozarks.”
“You married?”
“I’m divorced.”
He remembered she had mentioned that.
Weiser added, “I have a boyfriend.”
“I go down there some. Horses. A lot of horses, I remember . . . And trees.” A vague memory came to him, then vanished.
“Unfortunately, Donnie, there are no short answers to the sexual aspects of SCI.”
“ ‘Aspect’ . . . You doctors use funny words.” For an instant his facade cracked. She paused as she noticed the blip of anger in his face. His smile returned.
“You worry about it a lot?”
“What the hell else is there to do?” He grinned. “I stare at Vanna White’s tits all day long.”
Weiser laughed. “We know from the location and nature of the trauma that you won’t be able to walk again, Donnie. At least not with the state of the technology now. But sexual dysfunction is still an open question in this stage of your recovery.”
Dis function, dat function . . .
Buffett was hugely disappointed in her. She was bullshitting him. Partnership? A good team? Crap.
“Even in the worst case there’s a lot we can do.”
As she talked his thoughts wandered. Down at her summer place, how often would she fuck her boy-friend? Would she tell him about Buffett? Would she lie underneath him and whisper to him that she had spent the morning talking about pricks and come to a eunuch? Would that make her boyfriend hump her harder?
“. . . two concerns. The act of intercourse. And second, siring children . . . Now, a man . . .”
She probably made love to her boyfriend four, five times a week. She probably had shuddering orgasms, she probably took him into her mouth . . .
“. . . two types of erections. Reflexogenic and psychogenic. Reflexogenic are caused by some stimuli to the genitals, the penis, of course, primarily, but also to the prostate or bladder. You don’t need your brain to participate in order to have this kind of erection.”
Ping. Sweat sprang to Buffett’s skin.
The Terror was having a ball.
Buffett’s armpits itched. He felt sweat appearing where it never had before—his cheek, his ears, the backs of his hands. Jesus God Almighty, his wrists were sweating! As if the moisture were crawling out of his flawed body, escaping.
“You wake up in the morning with an erection, that’s reflexogenic. Psychogenic is the type of erection in response to fantasies, visual stimuli—thoughts that turn us on.”
Weiser paused to ask, “Are you okay?”
“Hot in here.”
She stood up and opened the window. She turned her back to him, and the silk skirt was taut against her butt. He saw the outline of her panties.
Donnie swallowed.
She sat down again. Lit a cigarette, drew on it deeply three times, then crushed it out.
“I’ll give you an exam. We’ll find out if your lesion is upper-motor neuron or lower-motor neuron. If it’s upper, you’ll be able to have reflexogenic erections . . .”
What is she talking about?
“If it’s lower-motor neuron, that will mean your sexual activity will be what we call areflexic . . .”
“Psychogenic?” Buffett tried to concentrate. He hated words like that, big words, Doctor words. The Terror ate them up. They gave the Terror strength—ha, a hard-on! It stirred and stepped over his pain, the phantom pain, the betraying pain, and slid into his gut. Then the Terror moved through his chest. Buffett clenched his teeth and tightened his stomach muscles to keep it from oozing into his heart, where he knew it would kill him.
He kept his eyes locked on to hers and he pulled at the jump rope hard. Arm wrestling with the Terror.
“There are four possibilities. You could be complete or incomplete reflex, or complete or incomplete areflex. The most severe is complete areflex—that means no reflex activity and no brain involvement.”
Here is Donnie Buffett, six feet away from a beautiful woman, with sparkling green eyes, talking to him about hard dicks . . . He glances down at the small, motionless bump at his groin and feels the Terror dig an inch closer to his heart.
“Usually, in the case of gunshots, the lesion isn’t complete. In the case of areflexic patients with incomplete lesions, three-fourths of them have intercourse, and more than half have ejaculations and orgasms.”
But I’m not going to be one of them. A girl in a tight leather skirt talks to me about coming and I can’t feel a thing . . .
“It may not be necessary—it probably won’t be—but you might want to consider
a prosthetic.”
Buffett thought that meant artificial leg.
“. . . There are a couple different kinds of penile implants.”
The Terror was really up for this, carousing, squirming, swimming on its fucking back. The sweat poured. Buffett swallowed.
“Now, on the question of siring children, spinal injury generally results in a decreased sperm count, but many people without SCI have problems conceiving, and there are a number of techniques . . .”
A son? What about a son?
And, that was it—bang, the Terror got him.
Donnie Buffett shook like an antelope in a lion’s jaws.
Her eyes were narrowing a little, squinting, as he wiped the sweat off his face. “Donnie—”
He looked at her and swallowed. “I’m sorry.” He tapped his shoulder. “I’ve still got a hell of a lot of pain. You know, where I got shot here. It’s really a bitch sometimes.”
“Do you want something for it?”
“No, I just get these twinges. Makes me sweat like a pig. Keep going.” A smile. “Please.”
He could say that only because he was dead. The Terror’s fangs had shredded his heart. He was gone. He was as polite as a corpse at the wake.
She continued for a few minutes then offered some conclusion. Something cheerful, something snappy. He nodded and had no idea what she had said. She said she was sorry she had to leave. They’d talk again soon. He thanked her. Looked her right in the eye and said, “This’s been real, you know, reassuring. I appreciate it.” They shook hands. Buffett told her to have a nice weekend.
When she was gone he picked up the phone and called Bob Gianno at the Maddox police station. They talked about nothing for a while and when Buffett could wait no longer he asked the detective for a phone number. There was silence for a moment and then Buffett heard the numbers. He memorized them. He asked Gianno, “This is one of those cellular phones, right?”
“Yeah, it’s in his Winnebago.”
“And I just call it like a regular number?”
“That’s all you have to do.”
Chapter 12
THROUGH HIS CLOSED eyes, Donnie Buffett was aware of a shadow over him. He hoped it was not Penny.
He particularly hoped it wasn’t her parents.
The nurse changing the urine bag would have been okay.
The nurse changing the Foleys wouldn’t have been.
He was pleased to see that it was John Pellam.
Buffett said, “Hey, chief, it’s you.”
Pellam nodded and walked into the room.
“You got more flowers. Looks like a nursery.”
“Yeah. I don’t like flowers so much, you know. She said she didn’t want them, that girl of yours. But you ought to take some to her. What’s her name? Tell her you bought ’em.”
“I’m glad you called. I was going to stop by.”
Buffett waved to the chair. “Why? You in the mood for more abuse?”
Pellam laughed.
“I was feeling bad, you know. I was a real shit.”
“No problem,” Pellam said.
“I kind of go crazy. I didn’t—”
“I understand. You doing okay?”
Buffett nodded, and laughed. “I’m fine. I was, I think the doctor called it, ‘resisting.’ I was resisting what happened to me. If you go with it you feel better.”
“Good.”
“A little therapy. I’ll get a wheelchair. There’re a lot of laws. Wheelchair access. Go to the Cardinals games, they gotta have ramps. You can get practically anywhere.”
“I saw they have sports for . . . you know.” Pellam was hesitating, maybe not sure whether to say “paraplegics” or “handicapped.” What he said was, “Wheelchair sports. I saw it on the ESPN.”
“Yeah, basketball. Wheelchair basketball. And some guys do the marathon. I guess you can coast downhill. Man,” he said, smiling, “that’s me—doing a marathon sitting on my ass. Hey, you want something to eat?”
“Thanks a ton. Hospital food?”
“Naw, I got some good stuff here. Ruffles, dip. Cookies.”
Pellam shook his head. Buffett ate half a cookie and stared into the cellophane bag for a moment. He rolled the top of the bag tight. Set it on a tray.
Pellam did a tour of the greenhouse by the window. He said, “So how long you been on the force?”
“Close to seven years.”
“You say that? Force?”
“Sure, you can say that.”
“And you walked a beat, like in the old days?”
“Some neighborhoods aren’t so good anymore. Maddox’s really gone to the dogs. So you make movies?”
“Not me. I just find locations.”
“How’d you get into that?”
“Fell into it, I guess. I like to travel.”
“You meet any Hollywood honeys? You must, huh?”
“I stay clear of the Coast. Not my scene, really.”
“Then why’re you in movies?”
“Why’re you a cop?”
Buffett shrugged.
“Oh, I forgot.” Pellam lifted the stained bag he carried. “It’s beer. Can you drink it?”
“Hell, yes, I can drink it.”
Pellam sat down on the sturdy gray chair. They opened two cans and drank them down. “You know,” Buffett said, “all these guys I work with? Mean sons of bitches some of them, it’s like they turn into pussies when they come to see me. They bring me flowers. They bring me magazines. Nobody’s brought me any beer. A lot of guys don’t come. I think they’re nervous or something about seeing me, about what they’re going to say.”
Pellam stood up and slipped two fresh cans in the water pitcher next to the bed. He filled it with cold water. The lid did not close completely. “If you got a spacey nurse, maybe you can get away with it.”
“ ’Preciate it, chief.”
Pellam sipped his beer. He waited a moment, then said, “I guess I wanted to say this last time, but, well, you looked pretty upset and I held off.”
“Say what?”
“I’m really getting hassled. Your buddies—and the FBI now—they’re really on my case. They’ve been on the set and it’s messing up the film. I’m worried about my job. I can’t afford that right now.”
Buffett shrugged. “If you didn’t see anything, you didn’t see anything.”
“Yeah, but they don’t feel that way and they’re all over the place. The FBI’s talking about looking into the company’s tax returns and corporate documents.” Pellam made a helpless gesture with his hands.
“Oh, the feds’re pricks from the git-go,” Buffett said as if explaining something as basic as gravity. Then he nodded. “Ron Peterson—he’s the U.S. Attorney—he’s a maniac.” He explained about Gaudia and Crimmins and the 60 Minutes program. “Peterson’s going to get Crimmins and nothing in this world is going to stop him.”
Pellam continued, “I want to help. I don’t want to be a GFY but—”
This brought a spark to Buffett’s eyes. He started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Pellam was irritated.
“Somebody called you a GFY?”
“Your friends. The detectives.”
“Gianno and Hagedorn.” Buffett laughed again. “Nobody told you what that means?”
“They told me it meant a reluctant witness.”
“Pellam, believe half of what cops tell you. It means, go fuck yourself.”
“Very funny. Very goddamn funny.”
Buffett continued to laugh.
After a moment, Pellam’s mouth curled upward and he laughed loud. “GFY. That’s good, I gotta admit.”
“Listen, Pellam, I got a deal for you. I want you to do me a favor. You do it and I’ll tell the department to lay off. I can’t do anything with the Bureau but they’ll listen to me at Maddox Police.”
“You’d do that?”
“You got my word.”
“What’s this favor?”
“No big
deal. There’s something in my house I want you to get for me.”
“Me?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“No, I guess not.” Buffett saw Pellam’s eyes flick to Buffett’s wedding ring. He asked, “Why not have your wife bring it when she comes to visit?”
“The thing is,” Buffett said, as his determined and cheerful eyes moved from Pellam’s face to the fuzzy TV screen, “it’d upset her.”
IT WAS A small neighborhood of bungalows set on postage-stamp-size lawns five minutes from downtown Maddox. Both the dark brick houses and the grass were well tended and trim. Pleasant. Pellam believed he had cruised along this street on his quest for the perfect Tony Sloan bungalow. The traffic from a nearby expressway was an irritating sticky rush that filled the air and yellow haze from a half dozen brick smokestacks hung thick over the yards.
Pellam climbed off the Yamaha. He paused in front of the house and checked the address. There was a white Nissan in the driveway and behind it a brown Mercury station wagon with Illinois plates.
The small garden in front held the corpses of flowering plants. Stalks mostly. Bleak. Pellam knew nothing about gardening but if this had been his lawn, he would have added some evergreens. He walked up the winding brick path to the small porch. One other thing he noticed: There were no tricycles or other toys here as there were in all of the other yards.
He pressed the bell. There was no answer. He opened the screen door and banged a large brass knocker. A moment later the door opened. He was looking at a thin brunette with a long face, cautious and nondescript. Late twenties. She had flawless skin. Every time he glanced away from her he forgot what she looked like.
“Mrs. Buffett?”
“Yes?” She held the door as far open as the thick brass chain would allow. A sickening sweet scent—maybe air freshener, maybe cheap perfume—flooded out.
“I’m John Pellam.”
A blink. Then understanding. “Right right right. Donnie said you were coming by.” A formal smile. She didn’t offer her first name. Buffett had told him it was Penny.
“I have to pick up a few things.”
“That’s what he said.”
The door closed then opened, the chain unhooked. She motioned him inside. He saw two other people. Her parents, he guessed. The woman was what Penny would be in twenty years: thin, white-haired with beautiful skin. And very cautious. Penny’s father was in his late fifties, with a businessman’s paunch under his pink, short-sleeved shirt. They both stared at Pellam. He introduced himself.
Bloody River Blues: A Location Scout Mystery Page 14
