Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51

by Humans (v1. 1)

  But what is his plan? What is this woman supposed to do? The aggravation is unbearable. Oh, the revenge I will take, once it’s safe!

  As for the other one, my little Pami, she’s also disappeared. That’s less important.

  I dare not fail. I dare not even ask for extra help. I dare not. What would be done to me—

  No. We don’t even think about what would be done to me.

  28

  The doctor took Frank aside while Pami was getting dressed. “Have you had any sexual contact with that young woman?”

  “Not me,” Frank said. “I won’t even shake her hand. I’m just here as a friend.”

  The doctor was a pleasant enough guy, skinny, balding, about forty. It was hard to tell if he was looking worried about Pami, or if he just looked worried all the time. Being a doctor with a specialty in AIDS, he might as well look worried all the time. He said, “I get the impression she’s an illegal alien.”

  Frank gave him a careful look. He said, “The other doctor.”

  “Murphy. Who referred you.”

  “Yeah, him. He agreed, the deal was, medicine’s the only thing we’re talking about. Cause we don’t want her to spread it, right?”

  The doctor smiled thinly, but went on looking worried. “Don’t worry, Mr. Smith, I’m not going to call the Immigration Service. The only point I want to make is that Pami will be needing hospitalization very soon, and I’m not so sure she’ll qualify under any medical plan at all.”

  “So what happens? They leave her in the street?”

  The doctor shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “They might.”

  “Nice people,” Frank said. “How long’s she got?”

  “A month or two before she’ll need to be in the hospital. After that... Less than a year, certainly. Less than a week, perhaps.”

  “And what can you do for her, between now and then?”

  “You’ll have those prescriptions filled,” the doctor said. “The unguent will ease the chafing of the sores. The other things will help her symptomatically, make life a litde more pleasant. That’s all that can be done, short of hospitalization.”

  Pami came out, dressed again in the clothes Frank had bought her. She didn’t quite lmow how to wear them yet, so they hung on her as though they didn’t fit, but in fact they did. She smiled her crooked smile at the doctor. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and smiled back.

  The doctor liked her; Frank could tell. The thing about Pami was, when she wasn’t being tough she was like a sweet little kid. Like a pet that could talk. Frank was keeping her around because, as he told himself, she gave him an interest in life, now that he was in semi-retirement with the East St. Louis cash. Anyway, it’s nice to know somebody that’s worse off than you, somebody you can feel sorry for.

  The doctor pointed to his receptionist, telling Frank, “You can pay Mrs. Rubinstein.”

  “Right.”

  Mrs. Rubinstein said, “How will you be paying today, Mr. Smith?”

  “Cash,” Frank said, bringing a wad of it out of his pants pocket.

  The doctor, about to turn away, looked back and gave Frank a smile as crooked as Pami’s. “You, Mr. Smith,” he said, “are one of those enigmas that will keep me awake at night. I don’t suppose you’d care to satisfy my curiosity just a bit.”

  “Nah,” Frank said.

  * * *

  They came walking around to the back of the NYU Medical Center, where they’d left Frank’s most recent car—a blue Toyota, stolen in New Jersey, now sporting altered New York plates— and some bum was lying on the ground against the curbside rear wheel. It looked as though he was drunk or something and fell off the curb, and now he couldn’t get up again. The way the car in front was jammed up against the Toyota, Frank wouldn’t be able to get clear without backing up, and he couldn’t do that with this bum lying draped around the rear wheel, so he poked the guy with his toe, saying, “Come on, pal, rise and shine. Make love to some other tire, okay?”

  The bum moved, in some kind of fitful and ineffectual way that did no good at all. Wiped out on cheap port wine, probably. Frank bent and grabbed the guy’s arm through the sleeve of the ratty topcoat, but when he pulled, the guy just flopped over onto his back, the topcoat gaping open, showing striped pajamas underneath. “Jesus,” Frank said, in disgust, “this turkey doesn’t even have any clothes.”

  “Oh, look,” Pami said, “look at his neck.”

  There was some sort of wound on the guy’s neck, obscured by dried blood. There was more blood around his nose. He was Japanese or Chinese or something like that, and only half-conscious.

  “Aw, crap,” Frank said. “I don’t even wanna touch him.” And he thought, him, too. All round me, people I don’t want to touch.

  Pami hunkered beside the wounded drunken Jap, looking into his eyes. “He’s from the hospital.”

  “You think so? Okay, lemme go get somebody, bring him back.”

  But that roused the Jap, who suddenly, fitfully, shook his head back and forth, massive woozy headshakes, as though he had a lobster stuck to his nose.

  Frank frowned down at him. “You from the hospital? Why you don’t wanna go back?”

  The Jap was lying mostly on his back now on the asphalt, between the parked cars. He held his arms up toward Frank and pressed the insides of his wrists together, looking mutely past them at Frank.

  “Handcuffs,” Frank decided. ‘They’ll arrest you?”

  Now the Jap nodded, as vigorously and erratically as before.

  Frank gazed upon him without love. “You got anything catching?”

  Headshake.

  Frank offered a sour grin. ccWell, that’ll make a change. Come on,” he told Pami, “we’ll throw him in the backseat and get the hell out of here.”

  * * *

  While they packed he groused. “I don’t see why we gotta keep the guy around at all,” he muttered, putting his new all-cotton shirts in his new all-leather bag. “Some dumb Jap, can’t even talk, probably a loony.”

  Pami paid him no attention. She didn’t have a whole lot of clothing to pack, but she took a long time at it because she had to stroke and refold and grin at every damn piece.

  “Can’t even stay in one place on account of him,” Frank griped.

  The problem was, in New York City there was no hotel room anywhere that you could get to without going past the front desk, and there was no way Frank was going to carry that mute sick Jap in and by the front desk and up to a room, without getting stopped. What they needed was a roadside motel somewhere, that Frank could go into the office of and pay in advance and then drive right on down and park in front of the room. So nobody sees the Jap at all.

  “I don’t know how long we can carry him around, though,” Frank said.

  Pami said, “Maybe he’ll get better.” She shrugged, and looked more bitter than she had for several days. “Maybe he’ll get better.”

  * * *

  They’d left him in the backseat of the Toyota, lying there like a pile of wash on its way to the laundromat, and when they came back around the corner from the motor hotel they’d been staying in on Tenth Avenue he was still there. Either asleep or dead. He moved slightly, disturbed, when they climbed in, so he wasn’t dead.

  Frank made the light at the corner and turned right and they went up Tenth Avenue, north. He was still nervous about highways, after his experience when coming into this city, so he was going to avoid them. Drive city streets, and after that country roads. Just keep heading north, with no place special in mind. Stop where the country looks nice; with a motel.

  The eyes that watched him all the time, judged him all the time, liked it that he was hanging out with these people.

  29

  Pami just couldn’t figure out this guy Frank. He didn’t want to fuck her, he didn’t want to pimp her, he didn’t seem to want to make use of her at all. Takes her to a doctor, gives her food and clothes, drives around with her, and doesn’t want a
nything back.

  Maybe I died, Pami thought sometimes. Maybe I died in that fire with the cop, and this is what it’s like after you die, you have a nice dream to make up for all the bad things that went on before. She didn’t really believe that, though. No dream would have that disgusting Jap in it. And if Pami couldn’t figure out what Frank wanted with her, there wasn’t a hope in hell to figure out what he wanted with the Jap.

  But what difference did it make? Being with Frank was a lot better than being with Rush, that’s all that mattered. What did she care if things made sense or not? When had anything ever made any sense?

  They drove and drove, up through the middle of Manhattan, spending most of their time stopped at traffic lights, and at one of them the Jap came to and struggled up into a seated position. He looked like hell, unwashed, caked with dried blood, a little scraggly Oriental beard starting to grow. He smiled and bowed, head bobbing in the backseat, thanking them for rescuing him, and Frank told him it was okay, looking in the mirror at him, saying they liked the company, and they were going to drive out of the city for a while. The Jap liked that idea.

  Somebody behind them honked that the light was green. Frank jolted them forward and said, “Talk to him, Pami, for Chrissake. Find out if he’s hungry.”

  What did she care if the Jap was hungry? But she twisted around and looked at him and said, “You hungry?”

  The Jap gave a mournful nod.

  Pami nodded back. She said to Frank, “He says yes. He’s hungry.”

  “Maybe we’ll stop and get a pizza,” he said. “So we can eat on the way.”

  But the Jap was doing all kinds of gestures, pointing at his throat and shaking his head and making disgusted eating faces. Pami watched this for a few seconds and then said, “You got a hurt throat?”

  Big nod.

  “Can’t eat?”

  Sorrowing headshake.

  Pami faced front again. “Says he can’t eat,” she said, and went back to looking at the people on the sidewalks. There’s a hooker; that one right there.

  “Liquids,” Frank said.

  They were way up at the top of Manhattan by then, where it’s all Puerto Rican and Central American, so Frank stopped in front of a bodega and went inside, leaving Pami and the Jap in the car. The bums hanging out in front of the bodega, beer in their bandit moustaches, leered at her but didn’t approach. “Like to give it to you all,” she muttered under her breath.

  Frank came back out and got into the car with a plastic bag full of small cans of apple juice, plus rolls and cheese and beer for himself and Pami. “Give him some juice,” he said, “and make us a couple sandwiches.”

  So she did, and at the next red light the Jap cautiously took a sip of apple juice and made a horrible face as though it really hurt. But then he managed to swallow some—the rest dribbled down out of the corners of his mouth—and looked grateful.

  Pami glanced back at him from time to time, interested to see how he was making out, and as they drove up through the Bronx and into Westchester County the Jap very slowly put away two of the litde cans of juice, one agonizing sip at a time. Then he setded back against the seat, eyes glazing over, breathing with a raspy sound, his mouth hanging open.

  Driving along behind a very slow pickup truck, waiting for a chance to pass, Frank said, “How is he?”

  Pami twisted around to look back. “Better,” she said. “He looks better.” And she faced front again. Greenery up here, big houses. Like some of the hills north of Nairobi, the rich people’s places, only greener.

  Frank got around the pickup truck, then looked in the rearview mirror at the Jap. “Better, huh?” he said. “He looks like a dog that fell out of an airplane.” He shook his head. “One halfway decent score in my life,” he commented at the windshield, “and I turn into the welfare department.”

  Pami watched the fat men on the little tractors, mowing their lawns.

  30

  The reason the doctors had said it was all right for Grigor to have an overnight away from the hospital—his first since he’d arrived in the United States—was that nothing mattered any more, and everybody knew it, including Grigor, and including Maria Elena. But even though everything was now hopeless, there was still a great deal of awkward preparation to be made, medicines to carry, the foldaway wheelchair to be put into the trunk of the car, instructions for Maria Elena to write down and carry with her.

  Grigor was in favor of the expedition simply because he wanted to go on seeing and experiencing the world for as long as possible, and he knew his time was growing very short. And Maria Elena wanted it because, in some angry uncomplicated way she herself didn’t understand, she wanted Grigor to see her life, to see it, before his own life came to an end. To see what she’d done wrong.

  They would drive to Stockbridge, to the house Jack had now vacated—sadly forgiving Maria Elena first for her heartless treatment of poor Kate Monroe, with whom he would not be moving in—and she would cook a dinner, tiptoeing as best she could through the mine field of Grigor’s dietary restrictions. Tonight he would sleep on the living room sofa—the stairs would be impossible for him—and tomorrow they would drive back. Exhausting, futile, and more sorrowful than cheerful, but at least simple.

  Until the blowout.

  * * *

  “Now what?” Frank said, seeing the woman wave at him. Just beyond her, a car was pulled off the road, with somebody inside. The right rear of the car sagged down almost to the weedy ground. A few miles back they’d been delayed by some kind of demonstration in front of a nuclear power plant—with everybody in the car shielding their faces from the state troopers standing around—and now this.

  “Stupid people,” Pami said.

  “By God, I’m gonna get to change another tire,” Frank said, pulling into a stop behind the woman and the car.

  Pami said, “Another?”

  “It’s just the way my life runs,” Frank told her. Switching off the ignition, opening his door, he said, “Well, maybe this one will have good advice, too.”

  * * *

  Maria Elena was too distraught to notice how odd the trio was in the car that had come to her rescue. She only knew this was a seldom-traveled road, far from the interstates and the Taconic Parkway, where all the traffic sped. She had Grigor as her responsibility, and she had no idea how to change the blown tire.

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you,” she said, when the roughlooking man approached her from the Toyota.

  “That’s okay,” Frank said. He was feeling surly, because what was he going to get out of this? The hearty thanks of some broad he didn’t know or give a damn about. Good-looking, in a kind of exotic too-strong way, but so what? Already loaded down with Pami and the Jap, he wasn’t going to score on the roadside with some damsel in distress. He was just going to mess up his hands again and get all dirty, that’s all. And Ms. Exotic here didn’t look the practical type; she wasn’t going to have any of those nice wet towelettes. “You wanna open the trunk?” he said.

  “Oh, yes.”

  Pami got out of the car to stretch her legs. Also, she was curious about the other person in that car. If he was a man, why didn’t he change the tire himself? Why didn’t he even get out of the car? She strolled forward.

  Kwan had been napping. Now he sat up, sharply aware again of the nasty sting and burn in his throat. It had been so hard to get the apple juice down. He was very hungry, but how was he going to eat? These people he’d fallen among wouldn’t be able to feed him intravenously. Should he just give up, return to his fate? Or try again to kill himself? He watched Frank open the trunk of the car and take out a wheelchair. Kwan closed his eyes. I don’t think I can go on, he thought.

  Frank put the wheelchair to one side and went back into the trunk for the spare, as Pami strolled by. Grigor, seated in the front passenger seat with the window open, watched the thin black girl in the outside mirror as she approached. He readied a small smile, not showing the interior of his ruined mouth, and lo
oked up as she came parallel to him and glanced in. “Hello,” he said.

  “Yes, hello,” Pami said, looking him over, understanding why he hadn’t leaped out to change the tire. Merely curious, she said, “You got slim?”

  “What?”

  “No, that’s not it,” Pami corrected herself. “Here it’s AIDS.”

  Grigor smiled again, remembering to keep his lips closed. “No, not me,” he said. Then he looked at her more closely, the bone structure visible in her face, the darkness beneath her eyes, the boniness of her shoulders. “But that’s what’s got you, is it?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Pami said, with a shrug. “Anybody can see it now. No more work for me.”

  Grigor peered in the outside mirror again at Frank, just hunkering down by the rear wheel, pushing the jack in underneath. “Is that your doctor?”

  Pami laughed. “You bet. Cure us all.”

  “Not me,” Grigor said.

  “Why? What you got?”

  “Chernobyl.”

  “What’s that?”

  While Grigor explained to Pami what had happened to him, Maria Elena said to Frank, “I was feeling very lost before you came.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “The tire breaking the way it did, it was as though everything I touched had to fail.”

  The lug nuts were giving Frank a hard time. He said, “I know the feeling.”

  “My husband has left me,” she told him. “My friend in the car is dying. Everything I do has failed. I wanted to make things better, but I didn’t.”

  Frank stopped his work to look up at her. A lid seemed to come off some boiling pot in his brain. He said, “I’m an ex-con, habitual loser, I jumped parole, did a million litde burglaries. I never hurt anybody, but then I went in with another guy, and an old man died. That’s the money I’m spending. I still dream about that old guy.”