The Clinic

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Acting? Maybe, maybe not.

  “Then what, Reed?”

  “Then I woke up in an alley a block from my house with the goddamnedest pain in my back and the stink of garbage in my nose.”

  “What time?”

  “Around four A.M., it was still dark. I could hear rats, smell the garbage— they dumped me like garbage!”

  I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

  “Kafka. I tried to get up, couldn't. My back was starting to hurt like hell. A throbbing, dull pain, right over my hipbone. And it felt tight, really tight, as if I was being squeezed. I reached around, touched something— gauze. I'd been wrapped. Like a mummy. Then my arm started throbbing, too, and I managed to roll up my sleeve and saw a black-and-blue mark— a needle stick.”

  He touched his inner elbow.

  “At first I thought someone had screwed with my head, too— given me dope, though I couldn't figure out why. Later I realized it was the anesthesia. I was woozy, nauseous, started to throw up, heaved my guts for a long time. Finally, I managed to stand, made it to my apartment somehow and collapsed. Slept all day. When I woke up, I was still in the dream and the pain was unbearable and I knew I had a fever. I drove myself to the free clinic and the doctor took off the bandage and this look came on his face. Like how can you be walking around? Then he told me, you've been operated on, man. Don't you remember? I started to freak out, he held up a mirror so I could see the stitches. Like a fucking football.”

  He played with his hair some more, rubbed his eyes, shook his head.

  “Oh, man. It was like . . . you have no idea. No idea, the violation. Fritz Lang, Hitchcock. This hippie doctor's telling me I've had surgery and I'm saying no way. He must have thought I was nuts.”

  “Hitchcock,” I said.

  “The classic plot line: innocent man gets caught up. Only the star hadn't been told. The star had been improvised on.”

  “Horrible,” I said.

  “Beyond horror— splatter cinema. Then I started to remember things. Desiree— Mandy. Us getting into my car, her leaning over to me, kissing. Jamming her tongue down my throat. Then fade to black. Boom.”

  He put the palm of one hand over his eyes.

  “The free clinic doctor's saying calm down, man, you've got a fever, better check into the hospital.”

  “Did the doctor say what kind of operation you'd had?” I asked.

  “He asked me if I'd had kidney disease and when I said no, what the hell are you talking about, he took an X ray. And told me. That's when he said I should be in the hospital.”

  “Did you check yourself in?”

  “With what? I don't have insurance.”

  “What about County?”

  “No,” he said. “Place is a zoo . . . and I didn't want any more documentation. I didn't want to go anywhere. Because I was already thinking.”

  “About getting back at them?”

  “About regaining my self-respect. It was only Desiree— Mandy— at that point. But I knew she'd just been the bait.”

  “Did you suspect Professor Devane?”

  “No, not yet. I didn't suspect anyone. But I was damned well going to find out.”

  “So what'd you do?”

  “Wangled a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics from the free clinic doc and went home.”

  “You weren't worried he'd report it?”

  “He said he wouldn't. They're cool over there.”

  “So you went home to recuperate.” Telling Mrs. Green it was a back injury. “What about the stitches?”

  He winced. “I took them out myself.”

  “Must have been tricky.”

  “Dosed myself up with the painkiller, rubbed Neosporin all over and used a mirror. It hurt like hell but I wasn't going to have anyone else knowing.”

  “So you never saw another doctor?”

  “Never. I should've, the scar's all fucked up— keloided. One day when I can afford it, I'll have it fixed.”

  I wrote some more.

  “It's still tough to talk about,” he said.

  “I can imagine.”

  “Oster asked me if I'd experienced mental anguish. I had to control myself from laughing in his face.”

  “No kidding,” I said, nodding. “Talk about understatement— okay, let's move on. How'd you find Mandy?”

  “A few weeks later— when I could walk— I went back to the club and saw the waitress who'd served us.”

  He put his hands behind his neck, flexed to the sides, back and forward. “Stiff. I stretch each morning but it must be damp in the walls.”

  “It's an old building,” I said. “So you saw the waitress. Then what?”

  He dropped his hands and moved closer to the glass. Smiled. Stretched again. “I waited until she was off-shift. She parked out in back— in the alley— poetic justice, huh? I was a regular alley cat. Meow, meow.”

  He scratched the glass partition. The deputy turned, looked at the wall clock and said, “Twenty more minutes.”

  “So she came out to the alley after work,” I said.

  “And I was there waiting.” Grin. “Being the hunter is so much better than being the prey. . . . I put a hand over her mouth, a knee in the small of her back so she lost her balance, twisted her arm up behind her— hammerlock. Dragged her behind a dumpster and said I'm going to remove my hand, honey, but if you make a sound I'll fucking kill you. She started to breathe hard— hyperventilating. I said shut up or I'll cut your fucking throat. Even though I didn't have a knife, or anything else. Then I said, all I want is information about the girl I was with a few weeks ago. Desiree. And she said I don't know any Desiree. And I said maybe that's not her name but you remember her— remember me. 'Cause I'd left a big tip. I always do, waitering myself. She still tried to deny it and I said let me refresh your memory: She was wearing a tight white dress, drinking a Manhattan, and I was drinking a Sam Adams. 'Cause I know from waitering that sometimes it's the drink you remember, not the customer. She said I remember her but I don't know her. So I twisted her arm a little bit more and covered her mouth and nose— cutting off her air. She started to strangle and I let go and said, come on, honey, who's she to you to suffer for. Because I'd seen the way she and Mandy were acting— friendly, was sure they knew each other. She cried, stalled, got choked off some more, finally told me her real name was Mandy, she was from Vegas and that's all she knew, honest. I twisted the arm almost to the breaking point but all she did was whimper and say please believe me, that's all I know. So I said thanks, put my hand around her throat and squeezed.”

  “Because she was a witness.”

  “That and because she'd been part of it. The entire club was, contextually. I should've gone back and bombed the whole fucking building. Maybe I would've.”

  “If?”

  “If I wasn't here.”

  The deputy consulted the clock again.

  “Mandy from Vegas,” I said. “So you went there.”

  “I had time,” he said. “Nothing but. I'd dropped out of school to get the Embassy Row part, then lost it.”

  “Because of the scar.”

  “Only that. Before they saw the scar, they loved me. It was cable and I was just getting scale, but to me it would've been major wealth. I'd already been thinking of moving to a new place, maybe a nice rental near the beach.”

  His jaw clenched and his mouth tightened.

  “So you went to Vegas,” I said. “How'd you get there?”

  “Took the bus, went from casino to casino. Figuring a whore that good-looking would be working out of one of them. And I was right— you know, that's the amazing thing about all of this.”

  “What is?”

  “How easy it is.”

  “Finding people?”

  “Finding and . . . taking care of them. I mean I'd never even come close to doing anything like that to anyone before I handled the girl in the alley.” He snapped his fingers. “I've had harder parts to play.”

  “Was Man
dy easy, too?”

  “Easier. Because I had even more motivation. And she made it easy. Driving around in a Ferrari convertible. Ostentatious little bitch, right there in the open. I watched her park it at a casino, give the valet a big tip— Miss Hotshot. I followed her, watched her for two days, found out where she lived, waited until she came home alone, and surprised her.”

  “Same way?” I said. “Hand over the mouth, knee in the back?”

  “Why mess with a good thing? She was stupid enough to have her keys out, so I just opened the door and got her inside her apartment. She was loopy to begin with— stoned on something. Probably coke because her nose was a little raw. I put my knife across her throat and told her I'd filet her like a monkfish if she made a peep—”

  “This time you brought a knife.”

  “Definitely.”

  “It had to be a knife, didn't it?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Flipping his hair.

  “Because . . .”

  “Reciprocity— synchronicity. Like that Police song. They cut me, I cut them.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “Makes perfect sense. All I had to do to remember how much sense it made was to try a toe-touch or a sit-up and feel the pain in my back. Thinking about Embassy Row and what might have been.”

  His eyes turned to slits. Moving closer to the glass again, he said, “They say you only need one kidney, I can live til a hundred. But having only one makes me vulnerable. What if I get an infection and lose the one?”

  “So it was time to make Mandy feel vulnerable.”

  “Not feel, be.”

  “Be,” I echoed. “What next?”

  “She pissed her panties— Miss Tough Call Girl. I tied her up with some bicycle bungee cords I'd brought— hog-tied her, began the interrogation. She claimed all she knew was that a psychology professor from the U had hired her to pick me up, slip a Mickey in my drink. That she hadn't known why. As if that excused it. I said which professor and she tried to hold back on me. I covered her mouth and pinched her nose the way I'd done with the waitress and she blurted out the name. Which I already knew, because what other psychology prof hated me?”

  “Did she say how she knew Devane?”

  “Yes. She said Devane had hired her.”

  “For sex?”

  “Games she called it. She said Hope was into kinky stuff— bondage. Had seen her dance somewhere up in San Francisco and picked her up— sick, huh? A psychologist that twisted.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then, I untied her and said thanks for being honest with me, baby. To disarm her psychologically. Then, I took her back outside in front of her house, told her I was going to let her go if she kept her mouth shut. She looked so relieved, she actually thanked me, tried to kiss me, showing tongue. It reminded me of how she'd kissed me in my car just before the lights went out. No one was on the street, so I took hold of her hand, held it still so she couldn't touch me. Then I gave her the knife.”

  “Where?”

  “First in the heart, because they'd broken my heart by looting my body, robbing me of my entire future. Then in her cunt because she'd used her cunt to trap me. Then I put her on the ground and turned her over and stabbed her in the back. Just like she'd done to me. Right over her kidney.”

  He reached behind and winced. “Never really knew where the kidney was before.”

  “Still painful?” I said.

  “Sitting is painful,” he said. “How much more time do we have?”

  “Ten minutes. So once you'd learned Hope's name from Mandy it was time to take care of her, too.”

  “You bet.”

  “And you used the same strike pattern. Heart, vagina, back.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “The only difference was that Hope tried to struggle. Not that it helped her, but it did mess me up. I'd wanted to get the fucking surgeon's name out of her but I was afraid she'd manage to break free and scream, so I just did it.”

  “When did you learn the surgeon's name?”

  “Not until last week, when that kid attacked him and the news said he'd known Devane. Light bulb on. Two plus two. So I started watching him, too, and got a bonus. The punk.”

  “Casey Locking.”

  “My other judge. I was never really sure if he was in on the plan but I suspected because he was sucking up to Devane. Once I knew, he was history. I got his file from the psych department, learned his address. I already knew where Cruvic lived because that's where I'd seen him with the punk— his house up on Mulholland. So I started watching Locking.”

  “Saving Cruvic for last.”

  “You bet.”

  “Tell me about Locking.”

  “Another easy one— it's so easy.”

  “Probably harder to act it out.”

  “Definitely . . . where was I?”

  “Locking.”

  “Locking. I followed him home, walked into the house, and shot him.”

  “Why a gun and not a knife?”

  “Three reasons,” he said, pleased to answer. “A. I know cops are into M.O. and I didn't want it to be obvious that the same person had done him and the girls. B. Stabbing was for the women, it just didn't feel right for him, and C. I'd already gotten rid of the knife.”

  “Where?”

  “Tossed it off the Santa Monica Pier.”

  “You could have bought another one.”

  “Hey,” he said, grinning. “Starving artist.”

  “What about the photos framing Locking's body?”

  “Another bonus. Showing the world what she was like— what they were all like. Do you believe that stuff? Sick.”

  “So what was your plan? To get Cruvic?”

  “Him and the asshole using my kidney. I figured to learn everything, eventually. Perform a little surgery of my own, take back what was mine.”

  The deputy said, “Two minutes.”

  Muscadine mouthed Screw you to his back and smiled at me. “So how're we doing?”

  “Fine,” I said. “I appreciate your forthrightness.”

  “Hey, only way to go. Tell the truth, it feels good to finally unload.”

  Oster was just outside the prison's main door. The line was still long.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Well what?”

  “I instructed him to cooperate.”

  “He did.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Gruesome.”

  “I'll say. So does it fit?”

  “Does what fit?”

  “Is there severe mental anguish?”

  “Definitely,” I said, shaking my head. “No shortage of anguish.”

  “Good,” he said. “Great. Gotta go, we'll talk more.”

  He hurried into the jail.

  Instead of returning home, I drove to a restaurant on Sixth Street where I ordered lunch— nice big one: Caesar salad, T-bone steak medium rare, home fries, creamed spinach, their best burgundy by the glass.

  While I waited for the food, I opened my briefcase and took out a yellow pad.

  As I sipped the wine, I began.

  PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION:REED MUSCADINEPRISONER #464555532EXAMINER: ALEXANDER DELAWARE, PH.D.

  I wrote for a long time.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JONATHAN KELLERMAN, America's foremost author of psychological thrillers, turned from a distinguished career in child psychology to writing full-time. His works include ten previous Alex Delaware books—When the Bough Breaks, Blood Test, Over the Edge, Silent Partner, Time Bomb, Private Eyes, Devil's Waltz, Bad Love, Self-Defense, and The Web— as well as the thriller The Butcher's Theater, two volumes of psychology, and two children's books. He and his wife, the novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.

 

 

 
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