by Tim O'Mara
‘Here,’ she said, ‘or do you wanna head back to your place?’
The thought of going back to my place with a six-pack and Allison sounded real good at that moment. I told her that just as my cell phone rang. I looked at the Caller ID; it was Edgar. His sense of timing would have to be put on his list of things to work on. I knew I’d better pick up, though, because if I didn’t, he’d be calling all night.
‘Hold that thought,’ I said to Allison. Then into the phone, I said, ‘This better be good, Edgar. It’s been a long day.’
There was a brief pause on the other end, then, ‘Raymond Donne?’
It was not Edgar’s voice. ‘Yes?’
‘This is Doctor Gerena.’ He told me where he was calling from, but it didn’t quite register. ‘Mr Donne?’
‘Yes,’ I said, obviously with enough concern in my voice that it got Allison’s attention. ‘Yes. Is everything OK? Where’s Edgar?’
‘He’s with my assistant at the moment. He said you were his emergency contact. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, yes it is. Where are you calling from again?’
‘City Doctor,’ he said. ‘We’re on North Seventh.’
That was one of the new walk-in clinics that had been popping up all over the city the past few years. I stood up as I spoke. ‘I know where that is.’ I motioned to Allison to take care of the bill as I stepped over to the door. ‘What happened to Edgar?’
‘In layman’s terms,’ Dr Gerena said, ‘he was … knocked out. I’m not comfortable giving out too many details over the phone. I recommended that he take an ambulance to Woodhull Hospital, but he refused. He insisted that I call you.’
Then he couldn’t be too badly hurt, I thought. Woodhull is where you went when the choice wasn’t yours. I’ve heard some of the locals refer to it as ‘Wood Hell.’
‘I’ll be right there,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
I hung up just as Ally came to the door. ‘What happened?’
‘I don’t know. Edgar’s been in some kind of accident.’ I led her through the doors out on to Manhattan Avenue. It was still busy just after dinnertime on a Saturday night. ‘That was the clinic on the Northside. I have to go get him.’
‘I’m going with you.’
‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Ally. He’s still getting used to us as a couple.’
‘Well, he’s my friend, too,’ she said.
She sounded just like I did when Uncle Ray teased me a few hours ago. I grabbed her by the hand and we headed off to the car service around the corner.
We pulled up in front of the clinic a little more than five minutes later. Normally, we would have walked such a short distance, but this was not a normal situation. I gave the driver a ten as I opened the passenger door and raced to the clinic door where I was met on the other side by a Hispanic doctor about my age. He was wearing the usual doctor’s white coat, a stethoscope around his neck, and the look of a man who’d put in a few more hours that day than he’d planned on.
‘Mr Donne?’ he said.
‘Yes. Where’s Edgar?’
‘He’ll be right out.’ He looked over my shoulder as Allison entered the clinic. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We need to—’
‘I’m with him,’ she said. ‘The hours on your door say you close at six on Saturdays. How long has Edgar been here?’
Dr Gerena laughed. ‘The hours on the door don’t quite represent the hours we keep. Especially on a Saturday. Your friend – Mr O’Brien – was brought in about thirty minutes ago by a good Samaritan. A livery driver, I believe. He was found sitting outside McCarren Park on the sidewalk. His speech was impaired and his vision was blurry. He’s lucky the driver didn’t think he was just drunk.’
‘What did Edgar say happened?’ I asked.
‘He didn’t say much. The most I got out of him was that he was knocked down and may have lost consciousness for a short period of time. He was quite disoriented.’
‘Was he mugged?’
‘He didn’t come right out and say it,’ the doctor said, ‘but the nature of the wounds would lead me to believe he was, except …’
‘Except what?’
‘He had one pocket with about fifty dollars cash and his driver’s license – no wallet – and another with his cell phone. No credit cards.’
‘Edgar doesn’t believe in them. Too much risk of identity theft.’
If the doctor thought that was odd, he kept it to himself. ‘Well, then, if it was a mugging, it was a pretty bad one.’
‘Did he have his laptop?’ I asked.
‘Not on him, no. Why?’
‘That means he was mugged. He never goes anywhere without his laptop.’
‘Well, you can ask him about that when you see him.’
‘When can I see him?’
‘My assistant is attending to his wounds now,’ Dr Gerena said. ‘We checked for all the usual symptoms of a concussion and broken bones, but we think he was pretty lucky in that regard. About as lucky as you can get when you’ve been mugged, I guess. He’s sustained a few minor bruises, but other than that, he seems OK. To be on the safe side, though, if you can convince him to go to the hospital, a series of x-rays would put my mind at ease about the concussion.’
‘He won’t go for that if he’s conscious,’ I said. ‘He hates the attention and all the bells and whistles. If it’s your professional opinion that he’s OK to go home, that’s the best place for him.’
The doctor gave that some thought. ‘I’m not OK with that,’ he said. ‘Legally, I can’t force him to go. I will need your help filling out some forms and …’
Something stopped him. It took me a little while to figure out what it was.
‘You need to get paid,’ I said.
‘It’s the clinic, really. I’m not used to this end of the business.’
I reached into my own wallet-less pocket and pulled out the credit card I had planned to buy dinner with. I handed it to the doctor, who genuinely seemed to be uncomfortable taking it.
‘We let the receptionist go at six,’ he explained. ‘The company frowns on overtime, at least for the per-hour employees. We all wear a lot of hats around this place.’ He turned around, grabbed a clipboard off the counter and handed it to me with instructions to fill it out the best I could. ‘I’ll just run the card,’ he said, stepping around the counter. ‘If Mr O’Brien has insurance, they’ll reimburse you for this, Mr Donne.’
‘He works for the MTA. I’ll worry about getting reimbursed some other time.’
He smiled and pointed the card at me. ‘You’re a good friend.’
‘So’s Edgar,’ I said.
‘Hey, that’s my name.’
I looked over as Edgar came through a set of doors escorted by a woman in blue scrubs. He had a bandage above his left eye and walked over to me with a slight limp. Allison joined us. She put her arm on his shoulder. He surprised me by accepting it for the kind gesture it was and not as unwanted physical contact.
‘How’re you doing, buddy?’ I said. ‘The doc here says you took quite a fall.’
‘With some help, yeah,’ Edgar said. ‘Guy ran up from behind me, grabbed my laptop bag, spun me around like a top right into the metal fence outside the park. Next thing I knew, some guy was shaking me. I thought it was a bad dream.’ He closed his eyes and added, ‘You gonna take me home, Ray?’
I looked over at the doctor. ‘He thinks I should take you for some x-rays. Would you be willing to do that?’
His eyes popped open, frightened. ‘No.’ He said that clearly enough. ‘You know I hate that kinda stuff.’
‘I had to ask.’
‘Edgar,’ Allison said. ‘Are you sure you don’t—’
‘I’m sure, Allison. I just wanna go home.’
Allison looked as if she wanted to push the point but decided against it. She’d had enough conversations with Edgar to know where this one would end up and the energy it would take to get there.
‘OK,’
she said. ‘Home it is.’
The doctor touched me on the arm and handed me back my credit card and a copy of the paperwork without Edgar noticing. I slipped it all into my back jeans pocket and said, ‘Then if we’re done here …’
‘We are,’ Edgar said. He turned to the doctor and said, ‘Thank you,’ and then said the same to the doctor’s assistant. ‘You are both very good at what you do.’
The assistant gave us a tired smile, raised her hand to wave good-bye, and then disappeared through the same doors she’d come in through. Dr Gerena stuck his hand out to our small group. We all shook it.
‘We’re open tomorrow at nine,’ he said, ‘if anything bothers you more than it should, Mr O’Brien.’
‘You’ll be the first to know,’ Edgar said and then added, ‘Actually, I’ll be the first to know, I guess. Then I’ll call you.’
Not sure if that was a joke, the doctor just smiled and said, ‘Take some ibuprofen if you start to feel achy tonight.’
We said our good-byes, got ourselves another car service, and were at Edgar’s apartment ten minutes later. Safe, and a little sounder.
FOURTEEN
‘My god,’ Allison said standing in the middle of Edgar’s basement apartment living room for the first time. ‘It’s like living in a mini Best Buy.’
‘He’s a man who likes his stuff,’ I said.
The ‘stuff’ in his living room consisted of two big-screen, high-definition TVs, a Blu-ray and a DVD player, a desktop computer with something he called ‘The Tower’ next to it, a pair of top-of-the-line, three-foot-high speakers – and some smaller speakers built into the wall – that could be used with all the devices in the room.
‘I like stuff, too,’ she said, ‘but two TVs?’
‘One’s just for sports,’ I said, as if that made perfect sense.
She shook her head, again unwilling to put in the energy. The doorbell rang and Edgar shouted from the bathroom, where he was changing into sweats. ‘Pizza’s here!’
I climbed the stairs, paid the delivery guy, and brought the pizza to the coffee table in front of the couch.
‘Does he have plates?’ Allison asked, her sarcasm duly noted.
‘Of course he has plates,’ I said, pretty sure I was right. The last time I was here, we also had pizza and ate off of paper plates. I went into the kitchen, and after opening three cabinets I came across Edgar’s plates. None of them matched, but that was OK, because we only needed one at the moment, even though after that big meal I’d just had, the pizza smelled pretty good. I grabbed three glasses – they did match – and brought everything into the living room. What Edgar saved on dishware, he spent on his technology.
‘Should I leave you two alone?’ Allison asked. ‘He seemed a little uncomfortable next to me in the car over here.’
‘I don’t know. Let’s see how he feels after eating. After what the doctor said, I can stay the night if he wants, and you can head back to my place. I know it’s not what we planned, but. …’
‘I’m not that high-maintenance, Ray. Your friend needs you, you do what you have to do.’ She kissed me on the cheek. ‘That’s one of the things I love about you.’
I was about to give her a kiss back – not on the cheek – when Edgar entered the room not-so-subtly clearing his throat. He looked down at the pizza and said, ‘Great! I’m starving.’ After sitting on the couch, he seemed to be very aware of his leg. ‘I heard getting injured makes you hungry.’
‘You’ve never been injured before?’ Allison asked.
‘I’m a nerd,’ he said as if that explained all. ‘And I’m very careful at work. I’ve got enough sick days in my bank to take a year off if I want. But I don’t want to because I’m gonna get paid for those days when I put in my papers.’
‘You sure picked a hell of a way to pop your cherry, Edgar.’
Edgar looked up from the couch, confused by Allison’s comment.
‘She means,’ I said, ‘your first injury was a real doozy.’
He waited a few moments, processed that, and said, ‘Yeah. I guess I did.’ He looked at the box of pizza. ‘You guys sure you don’t wanna eat?’
‘We’re stuffed,’ I said. I picked up one of the glasses. ‘What do you want to drink? Some water?’
He opened the box of pizza, disconnected a slice from its brothers, and slid it on to his plate. ‘There’s a six pack of Bass in the fridge,’ he said. ‘You know how I like it.’
I did, because I’d been serving him Bass and tomato juice at The LineUp for quite a few years now. I picked up all the glasses, went into the kitchen and put his drink together. I also took the liberty of opening a second bottle and splitting it between the two other glasses. When I got back to the living room, Allison was sitting on the opposite end of the couch and Edgar was almost through with his first slice of pizza. I handed them both their drinks and sat down midway between them. Allison said, ‘You sure alcohol’s a good idea right now, Edgar?’
He either didn’t understand the question or chose to ignore it. My guess was the former. As for me, I both understood it and ignored it. Edgar took a long sip and then grabbed another slice. The aroma of the pizza was tempting me to do the same.
‘You know,’ Edgar said between bites. ‘One thing I didn’t tell the doctor.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘When I went out for my walk before, as soon as I left the house, I had the weird feeling I was being followed.’
I leaned forward. ‘What do you mean “followed”?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, really. I’m not sure I’ve ever been followed before.’ He turned to Allison. ‘Ray and I have followed people before, you know.’
Allison gave Edgar a half-smile/half-grimace. She didn’t find the stories of my previous exploits with Edgar quite as exciting as Edgar did. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But tell us about this feeling you had.’ She was using her reporter voice now.
‘When I left the apartment,’ he said, ‘the street was empty, but when I got to the corner, I thought I heard someone behind me. So I turned around but didn’t see anyone, so I kept going.’ He took another bite and another sip. ‘When I got about a block from the park, I had to stop and tie my shoe. Then I was sure I heard someone behind me. I looked back and no one was there, just a couple going the other way. There were a lot of cars parked on the street so I figured maybe whoever it was ducked behind one of them. Then I just figured my imagination was getting the best of me.’ He looked at me. ‘Ray and I had quite an eventful day.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ Allison said. ‘Did you go back and look?’
He shook his head. ‘Nope. I was too jumpy at that point and felt kinda dumb getting all worked up like that. I guess now maybe I should have, huh?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Because if someone was following you and you got face-to-face with that person, you might have been hurt worse than you were.’
He squinted. Thinking hard. ‘So you think someone was following me?’
‘If you had that feeling, Edgar, and then you end up getting mugged? Yeah, I think it’s a good bet someone was following you.’
‘But why?’ he asked. ‘Why would – oh, for my laptop.’
‘That’s the logical answer,’ I said.
‘That’s a long way to go for a lousy laptop.’
‘Lousy?’ I asked. ‘When did you ever refer to computer equipment as “lousy”?’
‘That’s because I was carrying my old one, Ray. I just upgraded – again – and this one was from before my last upgrade. It’s the one I bring to the bar and work. I don’t really care – too much – if something happens to it ’cause I just use it now for getting on the Internet and taking notes.’
‘So,’ Allison said, ‘a few hours ago, you had three laptops?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, like, Doesn’t everyone?
‘So,’ I said, ‘if you’re right and you were being followed, it could have been someone who knew where you lived and that you usually ca
rried a laptop.’
We all thought about that for a bit. Edgar said, ‘Like a neighbor or something?’
That didn’t sound right. Maybe he was just imagining he was being followed and the mugging was a coincidence. That didn’t sound right either. Then what? I thought back to our day together: going out to Marty Stover’s office and then to the apartment he lived in under my father’s name. I closed my eyes and pictured Edgar at both places.
‘You had your laptop with you all day today, right?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But not the one that was stolen. I had my second one.’
‘Not the newest?’ Allison asked.
‘No,’ he said, using the tone he puts on when another – non-technophile – adult doesn’t get what he’s saying. ‘My second one.’
‘So the one you put the flash drive on today – the one you uploaded Marty’s files on to – that’s still here?’ I asked.
‘In the other room. Why?’
We were all silent again until Allison slapped me on the thigh. Hard.
‘You think whoever attacked Edgar tonight was after the computer Edgar used today,’ she said.
‘I’m thinking that’s a possibility, yeah,’ I said, rubbing my thigh.
‘If that’s true,’ Edgar said, ‘then that someone thinks I have something important on my laptop. Something I picked up from Marty’s.’
‘It’s possible,’ I repeated.
Edgar stood up, way too fast. He swayed a bit before speaking. ‘Then we need to go through all the files I downloaded and see what’s on them.’
I got up and eased him back down. ‘You’re not doing anything yet except eating and resting,’ said the overprotective mother in me. ‘If that’s true, that the person who mugged you did so to see if you got anything from Marty’s, they’re not going to find anything, right?’
‘Right,’ he said.
‘So, we’re good.’ For now, I almost added. ‘Besides, you said Marty had a few decades’ worth of stuff on his computer. You’re in no shape to spend however many hours it’ll take to come close to figuring out what’s on there that may or may not be important.’
