by Dick Cluster
“When I fix cars,” Alex answered her earlier question, “I charge twenty-five an hour plus parts and machine-shop fees.”
Rosemarie Sturgeon Davis took out her checkbook and a sheet of stationery, cream-colored with a thin violet border. “At two hundred a day plus expenses,” she said, “I can afford to allow you to neglect your repair shop for a week. I’m writing you a letter of introduction, to whom it may concern.” She wrote, and then she looked up at Alex to be sure. Her chin was the weak link in her face. Probably it hadn’t always been, probably these muscles had merely succumbed first to the passage of time. In any case, her chin quivered now. She got it under control by speaking the question out loud: “Will you do this for me?”
Alex nodded, and then three things happened at once. He folded the letter and the thousand-dollar check and put them in his pocket. Natalie Cooper this time took both of Rosemarie Sturgeon Davis’s hands. And Rosemarie finally lost her self-control and cried.
* * *
Home, Alex found the unaccustomed, eerie emptiness that always surprised him every other Tuesday night. He did not need to look in on Maria, to insist it was time to turn off the light or the radio, to try to discover what was on her mind or to watch her unconscious recharging of the batteries as she lay there, breathing quietly, oblivious and asleep. He pictured her in her other bedroom, next door to the sister she had in the other half of her life. It was late; she would be asleep there, too, the same person, dreaming the same dreams. He called Meredith and told her what had happened today, the service and the meeting for coffee and the letter and the check. The thousand dollars made this his job in a new way. Now I’m not just doing this on a whim, this fact let him say to Meredith.
“I think I should spend tomorrow looking into things around here, talking to the families,” he went on, “trying to pin Natalie down some more if I can. I’m going to make reservations for Pepperell Woods for the weekend, starting Thursday.” He waited for help but got none. “Do you want to come?”
“Maybe,” Meredith said. “After my Friday class. Include me in your reservations, please. Keep me posted, and I will let you know right away if I hear anything from Suzanne.”
“That’s it?”
“No. I want to remind you to call about your bloods tomorrow.”
“Oh, right,” Alex said, surprised that he had, in fact, forgotten. The bureaucracy at the Commonwealth Community Medical Plan was not so good. If anything was wrong with his blood, the information would get to his doctor, and to him— eventually. The eventually was why the doc always asked him to grease the wheels by calling in first. “I will.” He waited for an explanation of the cold correctness of her tone. “What’s wrong?” he asked at last. The answer he got sounded like one that Meredith had rehearsed.
“Last time you did this, Alex, you were sick. I tried to watch over you as much as you would let me, which was not very much. Now you’re supposed to be well— as you put it, as well as you’re ever going to get. So, when you choose to go on investigating murders… well, dammit, I don’t have to like it, that’s all.”
“I chose, yeah, but Rosemarie needed somebody to do it. You wanted me to send her back to the Yellow Pages?”
“I never said you invented the job. Neither do sailors or fishermen invent theirs. That’s what it makes me, though, isn’t it? One of those women waiting for men who’ve gone to sea. There’s not much to do but stroll around the widow’s walk and cast either fearful or hopeful glances out over the waves.”
“Oh fuck,” Alex exploded. “You’re not talking about ‘investigating murders,’ quote unquote. I invited you to come up to New Hampshire and help me find out what Rosemarie wants to know, didn’t I? You’re talking about waiting for tumors to show their ugly faces again.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m talking about,” Meredith shot back. “If I don’t carry a rifle, I can’t criticize the waging of war?”
Alex imagined the fury with which her fingers would be gripping the phone. He still thought he was right, but he knew that now he’d really pissed her off. Step Back to Repulse Monkey, he said to himself— or, better, Rollback, or White Swan, or any of the many postures whose purpose is to help the tai chi practitioner redirect an antagonist’s energy without stepping back. So that a blow is deflected, goes somewhere else, so that it does not land. Rightly or wrongly, Alex rooted himself in the idea that her anger was primarily at his cancer, not his actions. He slid away from the anger, yet he remained aware that his block was itself an admission that she had a point.
Being a “recovering cancer patient,” in Alex’s view, was a difficult game because it was a game you had to play in the dark. Put another way, it was like playing a team sport, say basketball, against an opposing team whose strengths and weaknesses were completely concealed. Maybe the opponent had exhausted both his starting five and his bench— maybe those haywire, abnormally multiplying cells were all gone, done in by chemical warfare and the body’s natural defenses, dead. Or maybe not— maybe the opponent had acquired new life in the form of an unheralded rookie, a late-round draft choice who soon would break out onto the floor and suddenly would dominate the league.
There was no way of knowing; the issue was to keep from being paralyzed by waiting, paralyzed by fear. One of the ways to avoid paralysis, Alex felt, was to take risks. To show he was not afraid to play aggressive ball. Even as he dredged up this analogy, however, he knew it would not be convincing to Meredith. Should one take up skydiving, she would parry, just to vanquish one’s fear of an airplane crash? So he just said good night, and so did Meredith, and then each of them hung up a telephone and left the other one alone.
That was that, then. Alex turned in the silent apartment and dropped on the couch where she had told him about what happened after she left the restaurant that night. Okay, he concluded, she was being pigheaded. She wasn’t going to help him enjoy this, help him take pride in unearthing guilty parties for Rosemarie Davis, or in piercing Natalie Cooper’s web of words and helping her save Suzanne Lutrello from whatever threatened, arrest or frame-up or worse. Meredith would not be sucked into this. She was going to remain the parson’s level-headed daughter with the unerring eye.
Women, Alex said to himself. Enough women for the night. His eyes focused on a windowsill that held an ashtray, and in the ashtray half of the joint that he had rolled for Natalie. He wanted to get smashed and go out and shoot pool, the way he used to do in Nebraska, many, many nights with Hans. Hans, the factory-trained VW mechanic who’d left Germany for a change of culture and a way out of the Bundeswehr draft— and gone straight to the heartland of America, where the great-grandchildren of German immigrants could be found. And then he’d been charmed and intrigued when a Semitic, black-bearded Glauberman had come along. Well, that was all far in the past now, and anyway, even if Hans Heidenfelter miraculously pounded on his door, Alex didn’t know any pool halls without cigarette smoke, and breathing other people’s tobacco was not an acceptable form of thumbing his nose at the odds.
So he dialed his friend Bernie, who would give him a hard time like Meredith, but once he did it he wouldn’t stay mad. Besides, Bernie was a downtown lawyer and a keen observer of doings among Boston’s upper class. Bernie would know some things about Graham Johnston and Barbara (Pepperell) Johnston and maybe Lowell Townsend Johnston or Rosemarie (Sturgeon) Davis as well. He and Bernie would go to an upscale bar with a no-smoking lounge where they would drink imported beer and see what loose ends might turn up to be unraveled. But he got only Bernie’s answering machine, which he took to mean that Bernie and his wife Phyllis had gone to bed. So he smoked the rest of the joint and thought about the fact that Hans was married too— or had been, the last Alex had heard.
Because in truth, that business about Alex and Hans and the pool hall hadn’t lasted all that long. Soon enough it had been Alex and Ilene Paciorek, and Hans tagging along. And then after a while it hadn’t been that, but Hans and Ilene, two real Nebraskans, who soon enough, in
a mix of recklessness and tradition, drove off one night and came back a week later, married. And they had all gotten along, but from then on Alex knew he was leaving. He’d waited for an excuse, and the excuse had been Laura, passing through and needing her car fixed en route to Boston.
Well, life. Tonight there was no more to do about old family dramas or new ones either. In the morning he would start with the Johnstons. For now he spread his feet, hip-width apart, and tried to feel a connection between the earth and the soles of his feet. It was a relief to give both his mind and his body to the tai chi form, to surrender to its infinitely detailed pattern, its sequence, to strive without striving, to search for stillness in motion and for motion in stillness. It was a hell of a lot more wholesome than speaking in coded whispers to ski resort employees, searching for the college-educated hookers that Caroline Davis had known.
7. TESTING, ONE AND TWO
Wednesday morning, Alex again brought extra clothes to work. He felt enough loyalty to business and craft to finish up the valve job on the Saab that was sitting in his shop. But he told the customers with reservations for today that he was sorry, they’d have to come back in a week. He told them he had to get his boiler fixed. The cold snap had broken, the sun was out, and the weather forecast called for a high of thirty-nine. Still, he knew none of the customers would themselves work in a building without heat. They threw him sour but vanquished looks and left. Alex found a number in the phone book and called the Graham Johnston home.
“My name is Alex Glauberman. I don’t like to intrude, but I’d like to arrange to speak to Mr. or Mrs. Johnston when I can. I’m afraid it’s about their son’s death.”
“You’re from the police, you mean?”
“No. No, I’m not. I’m a friend of a friend of Scat’s. To whom am I speaking, please?”
“This is Gardner Johnston.”
“Yes,” Alex said. “Scat’s brother.” He riffled through a clipboard full of repair orders. It helped him act the part of somebody whose call should command respect. “It has to do with some things that happened in New Hampshire. I’ve been retained to look into those.”
“You’re an attorney?”
“Yes,” Alex said. That would have to be the meaning of these oversized sheets of paper in his hands. He had a friend who was an attorney, anyway. Which was the capital of New Hampshire, Manchester or Concord? The second one, that’s where you drove past the gold dome. “In Concord. I know this is a bad time. But I’m down here seeing to some property closings today…”
“Just a moment,” Gardner Johnston’s expressionless voice said. A moment went by. Three minutes, actually, by Alex’s watch. No one spoke to him, but the line did not go dead. There were probably laws against impersonating an officer of the court. Bernie would know. Trevisone would know, too. For now, Alex just tried to figure out what to say next.
“Well, Mr.… Glauberman, he’ll see you today then. He’ll be at home here, at half past twelve.”
“Thank you,” Alex said. Apparently it was assumed that his property closings could be shifted to accommodate the schedule of a wealthy and mourning man. That was not surprising. What was surprising was that the senior Johnston would agree to a meeting without more explanation. Alex scribbled the house number on the topmost repair order. This reminded him he was supposed to call in for a lab report. He gave his name to the assistant, who told him he would be put on hold. On hold they played a kind of Muzak that was heavy on violins and guitars. The assistant came back. She said, “Alex, Dr. Wagner wants you to come down and get another test.” Immediately, Alex heard his breath go shallow. He felt some live creature in his belly fill with air and float up into his face. Step back, he told himself. Roll back. Turn aside.
“Alex?” the clinical assistant said.
“Sorry?”
“Dr. Wagner would like you to come in for another test.”
“Yeah,” Alex answered. “I heard you. Did she say what was wrong?”
“No, but I have your slip. It’s the blood counts and the LDH. Those are the ones she wants you to have.”
“I had those Monday. Do you mean there was a problem with the results?”
“I really don’t know. She’s with a patient. She said to tell you these tests were to be repeated.”
“All the counts? Because they were all bad, or because she thinks there might have been an error?”
“Would you like to speak to her? I’ll have to put you back on hold.”
Alex looked at his watch. The doctor hadn’t called him. Therefore— giving her the benefit of the doubt— it was not an emergency. Whatever had bothered her, she had decided not to do anything about it until she saw the result of another test. “No. If I get in there right away, can she order the new test Stat and get the result this afternoon?”
“I think so. If you can get in here before twelve.”
“I’ll have to,” Alex said, and hung up. He needed a shower before he could see Graham Johnston. He gave himself five minutes. Five minutes to wash off the grease, and the same five minutes to think. He stood under the warm water, closed his eyes and let it soak his skin, soak his hair and his beard. With his eyes shut he could see the pink lab slip waiting for him, the little check marks indicating which parts or functions were being checked. Like a vacuum test, compression check, rpms or cranking volts or dwell. Only it was living things being measured: blood counts and LDH.
Blood counts were straightforward, he understood them well enough: white cells, red cells, and platelets. He’d gotten used to having his counts checked twice a week during chemo, because the medications had the side effect of killing off these vital cells. But now they were checked just every other month. Routine, he had been assured— in case of bone marrow involvement, which would not show up to the educated touch or on the ghostly black-and-white X-ray film. “Involvement” was the medical term for a small malignant mass. Such a mass might be reflected in lowered counts of blood components that the bone marrow produced. It was better not to get involved. And something else, too, some more remote possibility. Something about autoimmune reactions, which might prompt the body to devour its own cells.
LDH was the other bimonthly test. Lacto-something, Alex couldn’t remember the name. A liver enzyme, the doc had said. Jaundice, hepatitis, what did impaired liver function look like? Yellow piss? Yellow for liver trouble, red for kidney. But no, that wasn’t the point of the test. “A secondary measure of tumor growth.” Those were the words she had said. How did that work, and why?
Alex shut off the shower and reached for a towel, feeling suddenly cold, wintry cold. He began to get ready for what would happen if the second test also made the doc unhappy— unhappy, but not surprised. Ultrasound, CAT scan, bone marrow biopsy, it would be. That needle in the hip, right through the bone, jabbing into the marrow like electric shock, inside the bone, just for an instant, where the anesthetic couldn’t touch. And then what? Back to the medications? Back to that sense of his body not being there for him, running on only half of its cylinders, suddenly surging and then as suddenly missing, choking off? Back to that long, slow, perpetual lousy feeling in his gut?
* * *
Along this stretch of Brattle Street the sidewalk was well shoveled, from curb to the edges of the lawns where the noontime sun melted enough ice to show mud and tufts of soggy grass. Alex wondered whether the city fathers provided mini-plows for the old boulevard of the old rich. Or perhaps the lawn-care firms did this as a sideline in winter. He parked his car, tied his tie, and pulled the bandage off the inside of his elbow.
The needle hole had clotted nicely— no problem with his platelets as far as he could see. He’d gotten in and out of the lab quickly and efficiently, just as the needle had gotten in and out of his arm. Usually he liked watching the test tube fill up with the rich, dark blood. Usually it was comforting to see the life-sustaining fluid, and it was comforting also to be able to face it without flinching or faintness; it would be wimpy in the extreme to be a
fraid of the sight of one’s own blood. But he’d given himself dispensation. Today it was okay if he didn’t want to watch. He’d been tempted to hang around and try to talk to the doc. However, that dispensation he had not given. He had work to do. The appointment with Graham Johnston would not wait. There was something ghoulish about coming here to the bereaved father. Facing his own death, even remotely, made that feel a bit more all right.
Alex checked his appearance in the rearview mirror. These were the same clothes he had worn to Caroline Davis’s memorial. They weren’t what lawyers wore, but one of Alex’s last claims to bohemianism was that he didn’t own a suit. Brown slacks and a preppy tweed jacket, bought used; these would have to do.
The Johnston house was set sideways to Brattle Street, and well back. It was an old house, wood clapboard painted a light purple with a bluish tint. Probably it had originally been white, and had fronted on a farm or a large meadow. But for a long time the farm or meadow had been house lots and side streets. The Johnston property was separated from these lots by a solid cedar fence. As Alex followed the concrete walk, an invisible dog kept up an angry, monotonous barking from the other side.
The door was answered by a servant, a housekeeper— a young woman with wide Indian features, Salvadoran or Guatemalan, Alex thought. He said who he was, expecting to be shown into some wood-paneled study, but she pointed into the kitchen, which lay in the back of the house at the end of a short hall. The kitchen had been redone sometime, the renovation understated. The walls were still painted wainscot panels halfway up and painted plaster above— no sheetrock, no polyurethaned new blond wood. The old fireplace held an antique Franklin stove. What had once been a pantry held a large electric range surrounded by work surfaces and hanging pots. Alex liked this kitchen. In fact, he was jealous. This one was still itself, not rigged together as he’d done his own, out of odds and ends of modern, functional designs. On the other hand, this one had been, even from the beginning, a cookhouse of the well-to-do.
