Flashback

by Gary Braver

  Jack said nothing, just nodded as the syllables seeped in one by one. “Maybe so.” Then he looked out at the sea, and into the reflective light of the sun, feeling possibilities dance before his eyes.

  “By the way,” he said as they got up to leave. “What kind of a car did Nick Mavros drive?”

  “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Some kind of SUV … I think a Ford.”

  “What color?”

  “Black.”

  80

  JACK HAD NOT BEEN BACK TO Greendale for nearly two months. So when he showed up that Wednesday morning, he was welcomed like a famous alumnus returning to campus. Aides and administrative staff flocked around him and in tears Marcy Falco threw her arms around him. Jack had been one of her “witchcraft” successes.

  “I just wanted to stop in to say hello and thank you for all you did for me.” He had brought a large bouquet of flowers for the ward and a five-pound box of chocolate for Marcy. He said that he wanted to see how some of the residents were doing. He had heard that a few were progressing well in the trials.

  Marcy took him upstairs to the ward, where it was morning rounds, and patients were getting their meds.

  “How’s Joe McNamara?”

  “Up to his own tricks,” Marcy said. “He won’t take his meds. Connie’s coming along now.” She led him into Joe’s room, where Joe was sitting up in his bed. He had apparently slipped and injured his hip.

  “Hey, old-timer, remember me?”

  Joe looked at him, his face straining in confusion to place Jack.

  “Joe, you remember Jack,” Marcy said.

  Still Joe scowled as he rummaged in his brain for recognition.

  “In any event, Connie will be by in a moment,” Marcy said. “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

  When she left, Jack whispered into Joe’s ear. “Father O’Connor.”

  Joe’s mouth dropped opened as recognition swept across his brain. “Oh, Father, Father, forgive me.”

  “How’ve you been, my son?” Jack asked.

  Joe was beaming. “Pretty good, Father, pretty good, but I hurt my hip, you know.” And he pulled up the blanket to show a huge black-and-blue bruise along his flank. “It looks worse than it feels, though.”

  Jack could hear a wad of phlegm in Joe’s throat. “Well, that’s a blessing.”

  Just then Connie came in with a small tray with juice and a cup of meds. “Look who’s here,” she chortled, as she placed the tray on the table. Joe said nothing but studied the contents of the pill cups.

  Jack pulled Connie aside. “I hear Joe’s not being very cooperative.”

  She lowered her voice as Joe stared at the orange juice. “He likes the blue pills, but the white one he spits out.”

  “How come?”

  “He claims they make him dull.” And she made a what-are-you-going-to-do face.

  “What’s the blue?”

  “His Alzheimer’s drug.”

  “And the white?”

  “Zyprexa.”

  “Of course.” Then Jack lowered his voice. “Maybe if just the two of us are alone, I can get him to cooperate.”

  Connie thought that over. “Whatever.” Then she moved to the bed. And in a loud, clear voice she reserved for the elderly patients, she said, “Joe, you’re gonna do Jack a favor and take your meds like a good guy, okay?”

  Joe looked at her but didn’t answer. Then he picked up the cup with the square blue pill and gulped it down with orange juice. Connie watched from the doorway. Nurses were supposed to witness patients’ taking their meds so they could mark the charts.

  “Joe, it’s me, Father O’Connor.”

  Joe looked up and his eyes saucered.

  Jack held up the cup of Zyprexa. “You’re going to make me proud, okay? You’re going to be a good lad and take your pills for me.” Jack did all he could not to lapse into a Barry Fitzgerald brogue. He laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder, glaring at him with a sanctimonious smile. “Come on now, lad.” And Jack raised the cup with the single pill to Joe’s lips.

  Joe opened up, Jack poured it in, then raised the orange juice to his lips. And Joe swallowed.

  At the doorway, Connie grinned and flashed a thumbs-up. When she left, Jack sat at the corner of the bed. His eye fell on the suction bottle with the hose connecting to the wall.

  “I don’t like her. She makes me take that crud. They just put me to sleep. I like the blue ones better. They’re kinda fun.”

  “How’s that?”

  Joe’s thin dry lips cracked into a wry grin. “They bring me back to some good times.” And he gave Jack a naughty wink.

  Jack checked his watch. Marcy would be back in moments. “Joe, did I tell you the story about the new nun at her first confession?”

  “Uh-uh,” Joe said, looking up at him with an eager face.

  “Well, there was this new nun, and she tells the priest that she has a terrible secret. The priest then tells her that her secret is safe in the sanctity of the confessional. So, she says, ‘Forgive me, Father, but I never wear panties under my habit.’ The priest chuckles and says, ‘That’s not so serious, Sister Katherine. Say five Hail Marys, five Our Fathers, and do five cartwheels on your way to the altar.’”

  Jack waited a moment until he was sure Joe got the joke. Not getting a reaction, Jack began to explain, when it all clicked in Joe’s brain, and he started to laugh. Jack took Joe’s hand and laughed along with Joe, which made him laugh even more, until Joe started coughing. In a moment, Joe got locked into a coughing jag and Jack shot out of the room. Connie was just rolling by with her cart. “I think Joe needs to be suctioned,” he said. And hearing Joe trying to catch his breath, Connie rushed inside the room.

  The moment was Jack’s, and his awareness was crackling. He had less than two seconds as everybody else in the room was distracted—Marcy at the other side of the dayroom with another resident, the aides with their backs to him. And the cart sat right there, drawer open, folders of patients’ meds all in a row—Joe McNamara’s gaping at him. And inside of it the card of blue pills in shrink-wrap windows.

  Connie never locked the cart when she ducked into the rooms. Officially, she was supposed to, since it was a fundamental regulation in the nursing home that medication carts be locked when the nurses were out of view of them. But in all the weeks that Jack had spent on the ward he almost never saw the nurses lock the carts, unless they had to leave the area for a length of time—but never for a fast dip into a patient’s room. And why bother, since everybody on this ward was mentally out of it?

  In a flash, Jack’s hand shot into the folder, and a moment later a card of thirty Memorine tabs was inside his shirt. He ducked his head into Joe’s room and said good-bye. Joe had caught his breath and waved. “Good-bye, Father. And thanks for stopping by.”

  “Any time, m’lad, and God bless.”

  Half an hour later, Jack was home.

  It would take them another day to realize that a card of thirty was missing. And nobody would connect the absence to Jack. Even if they did, it would be too late to stop him. He looked at the card of pills.

  And the son of a bitch also had a black SUV. He’d been tailing him for weeks. He knew Jack was on to him. He knew, and now he was dead and had taken it with him.

  81

  MEMORINE CLEARED BY THE FDA FOR THE TREATMENT OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

  BOSTON—GEM Neurobiological Technologies of Walden, Mass., today announced that it has received marketing clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Memorine, a new drug for the symptomatic treatment of mild to severe Alzheimer’s disease. Memorine has proven highly effective in reversing the damage done to patients with mild to advanced Alzheimer’s disease while enhancing cognition and patient functionality.

  “GEM Tech’s dedication to the needs of patients and their families and our commitment to human health care and Alzheimer’s disease research have fostered this new breakthrough therapy,” said Ga
vin E. Moy, president and chief executive officer of GEM. “For generations, Alzheimer’s disease has been a family tragedy affecting millions of people. Memorine represents the first cure of this dreadful affliction, thereby all but eliminating the anguish of families and terrible deterioration of patients.”

  Controlled clinical trials in over 900 patients demonstrated that more than 70 percent taking Memorine dramatically improved in tests of cognition over the course of the studies and assessment of patient function and behavior and activities of daily living, in comparison to patients taking placebos, after 24 weeks of treatment.

  The efficacy of Memorine was established by placebo-controlled Phase III clinical trials. In the trials, patients diagnosed with mild to severe Alzheimer’s disease received single daily doses of either a placebo or 10mg of Memorine for 24 weeks … .

  Cognitive improvement and memory were measured by the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-cog). Patients on Memorine achieved results nearly 80 percent higher compared to placebo groups. Likewise, patient function was markedly improved, based on clinicians’ observations and interviews with patients and caregivers … .

  Memorine will be available by prescription by the beginning of next year … .

  THE TELEPHONE PULLED JACK AWAY FROM the morning paper. It was the administrator from Cedar Lawn Cemetery returning his call from the voice mail messages he had left yesterday.

  It was an unusual request, and Jack had to answer a few questions to prove his identity. But they had the information he had sought.

  Leo K. Najarian was born on July 19, 1931, and died on March 30, 1972.

  Jack asked the man at the other end to repeat those dates, and the man did so. They had come from the coroner’s certificate of death.

  Jack thanked the man for his time and effort and hung up the phone.

  And for a long moment Jack stared at what he had written down. Leo Najarian had died eleven months before Jack was born.

  82

  IT WAS CLOUDY, AND THE FORECAST was for an evening thunderstorm. Jack was packed and just leaving the house when he heard the doorbell ring.

  It was René. Her face was stiff and white. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “And a good morning to you.” He closed the door behind her.

  She glared at him. “The nursing staff at Greendale reports that a thirty-tab card of Memorine is missing from the med cart. They also report that you had dropped in for a visit on the same day.”

  “And they sent you over here to see if I know anything about that.”

  “No, they didn’t, because they can’t possibly imagine why you’d be interested in the stuff. They’re still searching for it.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” A week had passed since he was out there.

  “Jack, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He picked up his travel bag. “I’m going to find out who killed my mother.”

  “This is absolutely crazy.”

  “No crazier than the stuff I’m carrying in my head.”

  “First, you don’t even know if it’s going to work for you. Second, you can’t just pop a pill and wait for flashbacks. It has to build up in your system. Third, I resent your suspicions of Nick Mavros.”

  He reached into the travel bag and pulled out the card of tabs. Nearly a third of them were gone. “It works, but all I’m getting is snippets—nothing connecting. I need the proper stimulus. The right setting. The right conditions, like the weather.”

  “What if something goes wrong? What if you trigger some awful psychotic reactions?”

  “It’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  She tugged at his arm. “And what the hell do you hope to accomplish?”

  “The truth.”

  “What truth? That you’ve got some sick obsession about your mother’s death and you’re trying to pin it on an innocent man?”

  “I’m stuck in a little horror loop and it’s going to continue until I do something about it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like opening a door.”

  “This is insane. You don’t know what you’re doing. I’m telling you, you’re not going to do anything but set off more seizures.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

  She stomped her foot. “Jesus Christ! You could damage your brain.”

  “Been there, done that. And just in case … ,” and he reached into his pocket and pulled out four vials of pills. Dilantin, Depakote, Tegretol, Zyprexa—antiseizures, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, you name it.

  She looked at the labels. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered in exasperation.

  “If I begin to trip out, I pop some of these. Isn’t that what you do on the wards?”

  She looked at him nonplussed. “Did it ever occur to you that you may not be in any mental condition to take any of this?”

  He nodded. “Then want to come along and hold watch?”

  “Where?”

  Jack checked his watch. “The boat leaves in three hours.”

  THEY ARRIVED AT NEW BEDFORD JUST in time to catch the one o’clock ferry. Jack had brought with him a travel bag with enough food for the weekend. The sky was a bundle of dark clouds, and rain was beginning to fall.

  René had continued to protest as they drove along until she realized it was a lost cause. Jack was adamant, but he was also touched by the fact that maybe René Ballard cared enough to come along to keep watch. Or maybe it was to defend the reputation of her friend and former professor. Whatever, he was glad she was with him.

  Earlier Jack had called Olivia Sherman to ask if he could rent the cottage for the weekend. She said that the weather would not be good, but he said that he didn’t mind. In fact, he preferred the beach under dramatic conditions. She didn’t seem to understand but welcomed him to come.

  For most of the boat trip to the island René remained in a quiet funk. But at one point she asked, “What if you take your little trip and convince yourself you saw Nick in the cottage that night? What do you have?”

  “I already told you—the truth.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll have a self-fulfilling delusion,” she said. “You’ve lined things up in your head so you can arrive at a predetermined conclusion—that Nick had something to do with your mother’s disappearance.”

  “I’m counting on recognizing the difference between delusion and memory.”

  “Yeah, and thirty percent of the patients on Memorine are conversing with people from their childhood.”

  “But in their heads they’re back there.”

  She shook her head in frustration.

  THEY ARRIVED AT THE ISLAND AT about one-thirty and hired a taxi to take them to the Vita Nova. They had begun to descend the steps to the cottage when Jack felt a small shudder. Overhead the sky was a dark, roiling canopy of clouds. And in the distance they could hear the rumble of thunder accompanied by explosions of light in the clouds as if from an unseen battle at sea. The conditions were nearly the same.

  They made their way down to the cottage without saying a word. The key was back in its plastic container under the flower box, and with it Jack let them inside.

  In spite of his adamancy, he really had no idea whether this would work or how long it would take even if it did—or how long René would tolerate the experiment. But for the last several days, all the drug had done was turn his head into a kaleidoscopic run of dissociative past-time vignettes that had no connection to that night three decades ago. But the storm resonated in some deep place.

  And Jack knew that the flashbacks needed just the right stimuli—like some of the old people on the Greendale ward hearing an old tune and suddenly they would be back in grade school. And although René might turn out to be right—that it was insane, dangerous, and probably a dead end—it was also a last-ditch effort to satisfy a festering unknown that he knew would not otherwise go away until his death.

  Around three P.M. Jack took
his first tab. By then René had resigned herself to the absurdity of the experiment and saw herself as simply on standby alert should Jack flip out. Over the next few hours Jack tried to make small talk with her. She gave halfhearted answers about where she was born, where she went to college, about her parents.

  By six, Jack still felt nothing, so they made a dinner of pasta with a jar of store-bought sauce. At one point, while they were working in the close confines of the small kitchen, Jack turned to her. “René.”

  She turned toward him from the stove where she was stirring the sauce.

  “Why did you decide to come out here with me?”

  The question caught her off guard. “To make sure you don’t hurt yourself.”

  Jack could not help it, but as he took in those clear blue eyes and full and faintly disapproving lips, he felt a warm longing flood him. Here was a beautiful, desirable, and intelligent woman—the kind who dated famous brain surgeons, business execs, or movie stars—a woman who was so far above his league yet who had come all the way out here in the middle of a storm because she cared. Yes, maybe it was academic or out of some professional sense of obligation—but he didn’t want to believe that. And now he was sharing a very small space with her and enjoying it in spite of the bizarre circumstances. “That’s very nice of you.” And for a second he thought he was going to slip and lower his face to kiss her.

  But a sudden sizzle cut the air.

  “The pasta water’s overflowing.”

  Gratefully, Jack snapped off the gas jet as foam poured over the sides of the pot. With a fork he snagged a strand of spaghetti and handed it to her. She blew on it, then tasted it. She nodded. “Perfect.”

  As he poured the pasta into a colander in the sink, he said, “By the way, do you like Armenian food?”

  “You mean like shish kebab?”

  “Yeah, and pilaf, stuffed grape leaves, and lamejun, which is Armenian pizza.”

  René was setting out the dinnerware and dishes. “I’ve never really tried it. Why?”