So Like Sleep

by Jeremiah Healy

  “Not really.”

  That was all he needed.

  We covered neighborhoods, transportation, politics, universities, restaurants …

  “And this,” he said, doing a U-turn to catch an opposite-side empty parking space, “is like a memorial to dead brain cells everywhere.” He pointed to the sign over a tavern door, THE ULTIMATE SPORTS BAR AND GRILL.

  Erect and walking, Jim was about an inch taller than I. He had shortish black hair, a beard, and a brow that shrouded his eyes so that you weren’t immediately sure where he was looking at any given time. He was wearing tattered running shoes, baggy olive-drab fatigue pants, and a river boatman’s collarless long-sleeved shirt. He was not what you’d call a slave to fashion, and I could imagine him helping to run a law school about as easily as I could imagine me piloting a spaceship.

  “You’re gonna love this place,” he said over his shoulder as he led me in.

  Jim saved my nodding head from being taken off as he caught a basketball humming on a bullet pass six feet off the ground.

  “Oh, sorry, Jim,” said somebody.

  “No problem,” he replied, dribbling the ball toward a side wall. The management had hung a basket and then encased the shooting approach to it in a clear plastic sleeve. The effect was that a person could launch foul shots at the rim and the sleeve would control and channel the ball, swish or rebound, back down the sleeve to the shooter.

  As Jim approached the foul line, a bartender called out, “Seven in a row wins a free pitcher of house tap.”

  Jim acknowledged the challenge, took his stance, and sank twelve in a row before he said we needed a drink.

  We stayed there about two hours, watching a late Cubs day game from the coast on the eight overhead TVs. We moved around the several drinking and eating areas, including a mock elevated boxing ring with cocktail tables and chairs inside it, as Jim introduced me to friends and acquaintances of his. It was the best bar afternoon I’d spent since the army, and I said so.

  Jim smiled. “Tip of the iceberg. You getting hungry?”

  I said yes, and he said let’s go.

  The next place was called the Twin Anchors, a more neighborhood place. It had one long bar and an informal dining area in the rear. Jim walked up to the head waitress.

  She said, “At least half an hour for a table, Jim.”

  Jim said, “But I have my friend here from Boston, and I’ve been telling him all day what great food you’ve got, and—”

  “And it’s still half an hour.”

  Suddenly Jim doubled over and said, “Beat me, whip me, make me write bad checks …”

  “All right, all right. Enough, okay?” She blew out a breath, looked to me. “You know that’s one of his routines, right? You know I’m saving you and me both at least twenty minutes of shtick, right?”

  Before I could say anything, she looked behind her and said to Jim, “There’s a table open next to the kitchen. Probably nobody else’d want it anyway.” Then she smiled. “Connie’s having a shaky night. Maybe she’ll spill something on you.”

  As she got us menus, Jim turned to me and said, “That woman is one of the many reasons I love this town.”

  We gorged ourselves on barbecued baby back ribs, french fries, and Heileman’s Old Style beer. Between watching him in the bar and talking to him over dinner, I could see why Jim would be a popular and effective administrator. Bright and well-informed, he was the rare storyteller who knew the value of listening appreciatively to other people’s stories.

  As I was using a Handi Wipe on my fingers, Jim said, “You like comedy? Improv stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’re outta here.”

  I insisted on paying the check for dinner. Jim insisted he’d make it up later.

  As we drove, he said, “This is Old Town. It was pretty rough until a few years ago, when the gentrification started. Now it’s getting pretty trendy, but this place has always been great.”

  He pointed to a red-brick building with a red and white flag as we parked across the street. The flag said THE SECOND CITY.

  “Is this the place the Saturday Night Live people came from?”

  “And then some. C’mon, I’ve got a friend in the group.”

  We walked into the building and up the stairs. While Jim arranged for tickets through his friend, I walked along the rogues’ gallery of former members of the troupe. It was truly incredible. Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Betty Thomas from Hill Street Blues, George Wendt from Cheers, and a dozen other familiar faces from over the years.

  Jim said behind me, “Show’s about to start.”

  We went into a raised cabaret room that seated maybe three hundred people around a small, bare stage. There were six people in the company, according to Jim always four men and two women. The cast members would rotate out when a new opportunity presented itself, but rarely would they return. That night they did six rehearsed skits, all of them ridiculous, tasteless, and screamingly funny. Then two of them came back out, soliciting from the audience simple phrases, like “Tupperware” and “city bus” and “Chicago Bears.” Half an hour later, all six members were back, doing improvisational skits based on the audience suggestions. Watching them playing off and building on each other’s inventiveness, you had to concede that the funniest person you ever knew would appear pretty amateurish next to them.

  At the end of the show, the cast got a thunderous, stomping ovation. Jim asked me if I’d like to meet them, but I declined, preferring to keep the image of them I already had.

  As we were filing out with the rest of the audience, I said to Jim, “You know, I don’t want to keep you out too late.”

  He said, “You’re just seeing some doctor tomorrow, right? I mean, you’re not performing surgery or anything yourself?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Great.”

  I remember the names of some of the places we stopped. Gamekeepers, P. S. Chicago, Yvette’s, a pizza place called Ranalli’s with lots of imported beers and ales. Mostly, though, I remember just images, like the contours of a leather chair or the earrings a barmaid wore or the railing on the half-flight of stairs down to the men’s room.

  I do recall Jim’s dropping me off back at the Raphael, the doorman coming to help me out of the car. Jim stuffed a piece of paper in my shirt pocket and said, “Be sure to call me tomorrow if you need help.”

  I leaned up against the doorman and turned back to the car to say thanks. Jim yelled something and drove off.

  The doorman steadied me into the lobby. I asked him if he’d caught the last thing Jim said.

  The doorman worked his mouth. “I believe, sir, he said something like ‘Most fun I’ve had with my clothes on.’ ”

  Probably verbatim.

  Twenty-five

  THE FIRE ALARM BROUGHT me up, legs churning, head whipping around madly, trying to spot clothes and shoes. Then I realized that I was still in them. My head began pounding, and the alarm noise began to sound too lengthy for the pauses in between. The telephone. Idiot. Hung-over idiot.

  I picked up the receiver and said, “John Cuddy.”

  “Thought you might be in need of a wake-up call.” Jim’s voice.

  “Thanks. What time is it anyway?”

  “About seven-thirty A.M. Central Time. Anything you need?”

  “Yeah. An Excedrin the size of a Hershey bar.”

  “Hah. You’re just out of practice. Five days in this town’d make a new man out of you.”

  “How long should it take me to get to Chicago Memorial?”

  “By cab, maybe twenty minutes with traffic. It’s only a couple of blocks from where you were yesterday at the Art Institute.”

  “Good. I’ll pull myself together and get down there. Thanks again for last night.”

  “No problem. I put my telephone numbers in your pocket again as you were getting out of the car. Call if you need me.”

  “I will.�
��

  I hung up, stripped, and took four aspirin with as many glasses of water. After I showered and shaved, I called Dr. Gemelman’s office. His secretary said he was expecting me at ten o’clock, seventh floor, room 712. I thanked her, then marshaled my courage and went downstairs to the restaurant, forcing an order of French toast into the acid pit where once my stomach lay.

  A different doorman whistled me a cab, and we pulled up in front of Chicago Memorial fifteen minutes later. The structure was old and looked more like a decaying office building than a hospital.

  The sign to the right of Dr. Gemelman’s door said ADMINISTRATIVE CHIEF. I walked in, gave my name to his secretary, and was shown into his inner office immediately.

  She said, “Dr. Gemelman? Mr. Cuddy,” and closed the door behind her as she left.

  Gemelman rose, shook my hand, and waved me to a chair. He was maybe six-one and skinny, with a high forehead, bushy eyebrows, and very hairy hands. His facial expression as he spoke suggested he had the personality of a rainy Tuesday night. “A Dr. Karen Barzlay asked me to see you, but she was vague as to why.”

  I smiled as ingratiatingly as possible. “I’m a private investigator from Boston. I’m helping an attorney there defend a college student accused of murdering his girlfriend. The student and the girlfriend were members of a therapy group run by a psychiatrist who used to work here. I was wondering if you could give me some information about him.”

  Gemelman frowned. “Information about the psychiatrist, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “If I had known that was your purpose in seeing me, I could have saved you a trip. We don’t release that sort of information, I’m afraid.”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily need his file, Doctor. Just some information about him, if you remember.”

  “I’m sorry. Quite impossible.”

  I stopped for a minute, watching him.

  “Mr. Cuddy, if there’s nothing else …”

  “Why the closed door, Doctor?”

  “It’s a matter of confidentiality, you see.”

  “No, I don’t see. I’m not asking to see his patients’ files. I’m asking about him as an employee. What’s so confidential about that?”

  “It is our policy not to discuss the employment records of any of our physicians.”

  “Doctor, forgive me, but you can’t be serious. I mean, you must get credit inquiries, background checks from other licensing states or organizations …”

  “For which we require a prior release signed by the physician involved. I can assure you we have none such from Dr. Marek.”

  “Doctor, there is a murder involved here.”

  “I’ll take your word for that.”

  “There is some evidence that the dead girl may have sought a nonprofessional relationship with Marek.”

  “Mr. Cuddy, I have already explained our position. I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

  “Are you going to force me to get the lawyer in Boston to begin proceedings out here?”

  Gemelman frosted over. “We do not respond well to bluffs or threats, sir. We do respond to court orders properly issued. Feel free to pursue that course if you please. But now, if you don’t mind …”

  I rose. “Thanks for your time, Doctor.”

  I left his office and stopped near his secretary’s desk to tie my shoelace. Her internal phone line buzzed. She picked it up, seemed to interrupt the caller by saying, “Oh, but he’s still …” then simply said, “Yes, yes,” several times while avoiding my gaze. I was pretty sure that she was being told by Gemelman to issue an incommunicado decree regarding me to the rest of the staff. I decided I ought to ask my landlord Karen if she ever mentioned Marek’s name to Gemelman. I was pretty sure I hadn’t told her his name, and I was damn sure I hadn’t mentioned it to Gemelman before he’d used it himself.

  I called Jim from a public phone in the lobby. He said that most hospitals in the city were tight with information, especially when there might have been something nobody wanted to reveal. He said I’d need a lot more legalese on paper before a judge in Chicago would order one of its own to open up. I thanked him and said I might be back to him, but I doubted it. He asked if he could show me some more of the town that night, but I told him I had to leave. He promised to let me reciprocate if he ever got to Boston. He also said he’d have Karen call me about the matter when she got back from her conference.

  I cabbed to the hotel, my insides not quite up to lunch yet. I called United and got my ticket changed to an earlier flight. I packed up, checked out, and was driven to O’Hare by someone who looked like nobody famous. I was on the ground in Philadelphia by 3:00 P.M. Eastern Time and in front of Philadelphia Lutheran Hospital on City Line Avenue by 4:00 P.M.

  I should have stayed in Chicago.

  The administrative physician was on vacation. His secretary, a blond young woman with the complexion and shape of a Bartlett pear, told me that such information was not available without the permission of the subject or the direction of the secretary’s absent superior. My use of the name Clifford Marek brought a cough and a sidesaddle smile, more reaction, I thought, than recalling the name only from a pink telephone message should have produced. I tried to pry some information from that opening, but the secretary knew both her job and a con job when she heard one. I left her and went back downstairs.

  I thought about continuing on to New York then, but as I went backward through Marek’s career I was losing ground, and heart along with it. Instead, I checked into a cut-rate motel near the hospital and next to a mini-mall on City Line. Thanks to the previous night with Jim, dinner consisted of a bland deli sandwich, two pieces of Drake’s Pound cake, and a quart of milk.

  Twenty-six

  CONSIDERING TIME and distance to the respective airports, it is easier to travel from Philadelphia to New York by train than by plane. I caught the Amtrak Narragansett from Thirtieth Street Station at 8:30 A.M. and pulled into Penn Station at 10:20. Given my luck so far, I left my bag in a locker and took a taxi to New York Central Hospital.

  True to its name, the hospital building was located just off Central Park South. The exterior wore that dingy look that all but recently completed structures in the Big Apple seem to have. The interior, peeling linoleum floors and matching paint, was no improvement. The directory said I would find Psychiatric Services on the ninth floor.

  There was a counter just off the elevator bank. The people behind it were dressed in no particular uniform. A thirtyish black male with hip-hugger pants and a caricatured lisp asked if he could help me.

  “I’m a private investigator from Boston, and I’d like some information about a doctor who used to work here.”

  “Well, anyone who’s come that kind of distance ought to get all the help I can give. What’s the doctor’s name?”

  “Clifford Marek.”

  The man stiffened, then crossed his arms. “I’ve worked in this office for eleven years and that kind of information is not available without the doctor’s authorization or Ms. Smith’s approval.”

  “Who’s Ms. Smith?”

  He swiveled around, pointing to a barely readable plaque on a closed door behind the counter. “The boss.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to be a wise-ass, but I’ve been chasing this thing for a couple of thousand miles now. Can I speak to Ms. Smith and explain things to her?”

  “Certainly. Your name, please?”

  I told him and he walked to the door, knocked, and waited. He frowned impatiently, knocked again, then opened the door and disappeared inside. He emerged a minute later leading a thickset middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense look to her.

  “Mr. Cuddy, is it?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Come in. Suley, hold my calls.”

  “Yessam,” he said, derision in his voice.

  I walked through the opening in the counter and into Ms. Smith’s office. She indicated a seat for me and then plopped decisively into her own chair. “Now, what’s t
his all about?”

  I told her, including names and places.

  She shook her head. “I can’t release any such information about Dr. Marek.”

  “Ms. Smith—”

  “Mr. Cuddy, either you obtain the doctor’s authorization or a court order. We simply can’t give out that kind of information otherwise. Every administrative superior in this hospital will back me on that.”

  “Tell me, does this insistence on procedures get triggered just by Dr. Marek’s name?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean that every time this particular man is mentioned in a hospital setting, everyday reasonable people go immediately bureaucratic on me.” I regretted my choice of words before the last one was out of my mouth. You don’t call a bureaucrat a bureaucrat and hope to receive any cooperation.

  She buttoned up and stood up. “Have a nice day, Mr. Cuddy.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  I let myself out of her office and walked toward the opening in the counter.

  “Oh, Mr. Cuddy,” said Suley, extending a folded piece of paper to me.

  “Yes?”

  “You dropped this on the way in to Ms. Smith.”

  I looked down at his hand. “I don’t—”

  “You did,” he said, pushing the paper toward me. “I saw you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking it from him.

  Suley arched an eyebrow and said, “Glad to help,” then returned to some other documents on the counter.

  I waited until I was in the elevator before opening the paper. In ornate handwriting, it read: “Talk to Agnes Zerle, somewhere on the Boulevard in West New York. Tell her Diana Ross sent you. If Smith finds out, I’m blackened dogfish.”

  I smiled, refolded the note, and stuck it in my pocket.

  “You mean New Jersey, pal,” said the cabbie.

  “No, I was told West New York.”

  “Yeah, but West New York is in New Jersey. Like a town there, get it?”

  “Not exactly. How far is it?”