by Dan Taylor
She frowns. “On a Sunday? Is everything okay?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
He doesn’t want to worry his wife any more than need be—she’s already doing enough for the family over the trail of negligence left by Dr. Jennings—so he tells her a white lie. “I’ve got to attend to Mrs. Watkins. Her hemorrhoids have flared up again, and her prescription has run out.”
“Oh, okay. But can’t it wait until Monday?”
“She says they’re the size of seedless grapes. Plus, I really want to make a good impression with the new patients. You know how it is.”
“I do, honey. Can you at least take off Barney’s training wheels before you leave? He’s getting really good.”
He manufactures a smile. “I will when I get back. The tools are in the garage, if you want to do it yourself? Either that or you could probably go inside and get a butter knife and prize those things off without breaking a sweat.”
“We can just wait until you get back.”
“Tell Sport I’ll be back before he’s doing wheelies.”
He rolls up the window. Starts the car. He sure hopes he can find Mr. Hancock before it’s too late. Not only is he not suffering from an insignificant illness, he’s suffering from a heart condition that threatens to take his life any minute, if it hasn’t already.
Jake Hancock has half a heart, literally. Well, kinda, one of his valves is almost blocked, meaning he more or less has half a heart.
But still, one of his patients could die any minute.
14.
“IT’S NEVER FELT better,” I say, in response to Grace’s question: “How’s your dodgy ticker doing?”
I answered seriously, despite Grace putting on a silly cockney accent and doing a funny dance like Dick Van Dyke on top of the rooftops. She even jumped and clicked her heels together.
Truth is, I’ve got a pain in my chest that’s hurting more than the time I stubbed both pinkies at the same time—don’t ask how. I don’t feel “top of the world” or “chipper.” Jesus, she’s got me started now. I didn’t tell Grace about the pain in my chest because I’m a proud dude and kinda old-fashioned when it comes to women and hiding away my problems, especially with women who I’ve only known a couple hours. And especially problems of a medical nature. “Hey, I have a condition that means I sweat profusely, and even from areas you wouldn’t think of as an area of the body that normally sweats—like my knees. Now that’s over and done with, would you like to go to bed with me?”
Okay, having a pain in your chest isn’t the same thing as some gross sweating disorder, but you get the point. It’s unattractive. Call me a romantic, but I believe in that knight-in-shining-armor stuff.
“Why are you puffing out your chest,” Grace says.
We’re waiting for the elevator. It’s taking its time. I think Mrs. Howard might have got confused and pressed all the floors again.
“Was I?”
“Yeah, and you were sticking your chin out.”
“Weird.”
The elevator arrives and it is Mrs. Howard who gets out. She looks around, unsure.
Then I say, “This is fifteen, Mrs. Howard.”
She looks at me and frowns. “Fifteen what?”
I speak loudly, aiming my mouth towards her hearing aid.“The fifteenth floor, Mrs. Howard. It’s the one you live on.”
"The one I live on?”
Mrs. Howard doesn’t understand sentences most of the time, but especially so when you end a sentence with a preposition.
So I say, “It’s the fifteenth floor, Mrs. Howard, the one on which you live.”
She pushes past me. “I know that, you jackass.”
To Grace, I say, “Cute old lady.”
Grace says, “A doll.”
We make it outside without Grace’s cockney accent rearing its ugly head again.
When we’re standing on the street outside my apartment building, she utters the two words I least wanted her to say, “Winnie Pooh.”
In response to my question: “Should I flag down a cab?”
Her response isn’t entirely appropriate and only semi-logical, but I know what she means. “No way!”
“Come on. Every trip is more fun in a Winnebago.”
“What are you, the slogan writer for their ad campaign?”
“Come on.”
“Whoa, slow down with the effective persuasion.” The surgical assistant hands Dr. Sarcasm a scalpel.
“Okay, we’ll take your car.”
“You know I don’t own one.”
“I didn’t.” She’s not fucking with me.
“I didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“Okay, I don’t own a car.”
I totaled it a couple months back, after swerving to miss a drunk bum who’d wandered into the middle of the road. Remembering Grace wanting to buy one of them shoes, I leave out those details.
“The Winnie Pooh it is then, unless you can come up with a valid argument against us using it.” She starts making her way to my parking spot in the apartment building parking lot in the basement. And she’s striding like none of the arguments I have prepared against our using it for the investigation will stop her in her tracks.
But I’m always one for fighting pigheadedly for a lost cause. “It’s conspicuous, for one,” I say, barely keeping up with her.
“And having on orange pants isn’t?”
It’s true. They’re not salmon or any color like that.
“Bright-colored pants seemingly clashing with more traditionally colored jackets and shirts is in. And we’re in L.A., in is inconspicuous.”
“We’re still taking the Winnie Pooh, but you can try ‘for two’ on me, if you want.”
“Okay. It’s not fuel efficient.”
“Neither is paying someone to drive you who spends half their time driving around the city, looking for gigs. By that argument, we should take the bus.”
I back off, knowing when I’m beat. I’ll do anything to not take the bus—including driving around in a vehicle that looks like it’s been designed to transport professional banana peelers to and from work. “Okay, but can you at least stop calling it ‘Winnie Pooh’?”
We’ve reached it now. We stop in front of it, both regarding it. She says, “Look at it. It’s totally a Winnie Pooh.”
I shake my head. “It’s something all right.”
She starts climbing in.
I say, “Watch you don’t slip on a banana peel on your way up.”
“What?”
I think a couple seconds. “Oh forget it. Nothing rhymes with banana peel either.”
“Jake, you’re weird, you know that?”
“Thanks!” Dr. Sarcasm sews up patient and high-fives surgical assistant.
15.
THE FIRST STOP is the squash club I gained employment at. Part of the Hills Spa Executive. Seems like a long shot, my being there. The theory I’m running with is that an enemy of mine drugged me, and kept me that way, maybe heavily sedated for the week, for some gain. Coaching people in a game I know nothing about doesn’t fit into that theory very well. Kinda like how a pet elephant fits into a hamster cage. But it was something I was supposed to do, so I figure us going there and asking a few questions will eliminate it as a possibility from our investigation—like a detective investigating a rape case asking a man who’s had his penis amputated what he did on the night of the rape, so that the detective can get an alibi and eliminate him from the investigation.
I run all this by Grace on the way to the spa, changing the amputated-penis-suspect-in-a-rape-investigation simile to something that won’t offend her.
“I don’t get it,” Grace says.
“What don’t you get?”
“The bit about the detective and questioning the one-armed rapist regarding the rape and strangulation.”
I’m not feeling that creative this morning.
I say, “See, he couldn’t have done it, so the detective is just tick
ing boxes, eliminating suspects.”
“But wouldn’t the detective know he didn’t do it already, with the guy only having one arm.” She thinks a second. “Is it possible with only one hand to strangle someone?”
“Probably, if his hand is really big.”
“So let me get this straight. Us going to the squash club section of a spa to see if you worked there when you suspect you’ve been heavily sedated is as likely as an unusually large handed, one-armed pervert having raped and strangled someone?”
“Right. It’s simple. Though it’ll probably turn out the suspect has an average-size hand.”
“So why are we going there?”
“To cross it off our list.”
“Why don’t we just do that without having to drive all the way there?”
“Because an investigator explores every possibility, no matter how unlikely it is.”
She seems unconvinced, so I pull rank. “Leave the investigating to me, Grace. I’m the one with a vocational qualification from a community college in investigating.”
She puts on her deep southern-twang accent again. “Okay, Mr. College Man. But if we need waffles, I’m the gal to make ‘em.” Not finished yet, she mock salutes me.
I sigh. “That isn’t what I was saying. Look, it’ll probably turn out to be nothing.”
“And if it is, can I play a more active role in the investigation?”
“You can play a more active role anyway, just in this case you’re wrong about hopping over a possibility.”
“I’m going to hate to say I told you so.”
Her tone suggests she’ll revel in it, but I’m not one to argue.
We’re quiet the next ten minutes or so. Before we set off, Grace programmed her Sat Nav to guide us there. Every so often, it instructs us: “Make a right turn in fifty yards,” “make a U-turn when possible,” that type of thing, and in the voice of Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants. She must’ve downloaded the voice file for her Sat Nav.
“Isn’t that just the cutest?” Grace asks.
“The voice?”
“Yeah.”
“The cutest. But I’d prefer Bob.”
“Tried it. I crashed because of it.”
I’ve been enjoying the quiet, so pretend I’m not interested in hearing the story of how SpongeBob made Grace crash Winnie Pooh.
A few minutes later we arrive. “You’ve arrived at The Krusty Krab. Okkkaaayyyy.” Patrick giggles and so does Grace.
“Park in the spot farthest away from the main entrance,” I say.
“Why, so we can catch them unawares?”
“No. I just want to be seen in this thing as little as possible.”
She puts on a childish voice. “No fair. You’ll hurt Winnie’s feelings.”
“I’m sorry. You too, Patrick.”
We get out the Winnebago and make our way to the main entrance. I ask the receptionist for directions to the squash section of the spa.
We walk down humid hallways, passing upper-class ladies on our way. Grace says hi to each one as we pass, prompting them to give us a wide berth.
“Wow, everyone seems so friendly. Is any of this ringing a bell?” Grace says.
“It is. But I came here for an interview before I was drugged.”
But the people aren’t familiar, not until we reach the reception desk for the squash section, where I see the guy who interviewed me, straightening squash rackets for sale, displayed in a mini store-like setup. It’s about five feet from the reception desk. The person behind the desk isn’t ringing a bell in the figurative sense, but he is literally ringing a bell. Right after he spotted me and looked at me wide-eyed.
“Get out. I’m calling security,” he says.
Wow, you’d think they’d have a more up-to-date method. I assume his calling for security is because of how Grace is dressed, coupled with us not carrying squash rackets.
Grace and I walk up to the desk. “Hold on there, chief. We just want to ask a few questions before we leave,” I say.
What he says next blows my mind. “You’re never to step foot in this building again, Hancock.”
Like I said, I don’t remember this guy. But the way he’s looking at me sure tells me he knows me.
“Hold on a minute,” I say. But he carries on ringing the bell. Grace reaches out and grabs it from him, quieting it. Now that Grace has it, he looks like he might cry. Baby needs his rattle.
I say, “I know this guy,” and then point to the guy who was straightening the rackets. “That’s Kevin, right. I remember you from the interview.”
“That’s right,” he replies.
Reception Desk Guy scowls at him for cooperating. I turn my attention to him. “But I don’t know you. And you’ve met me? I’ve got that much right.”
He’s confused. I don’t blame him. “Is this some sort of game you’re playing, Hancock?”
“No game. I just want to know if I’ve been here, and not when I came for the interview. I remember that part.” I do now, fully, though I hadn’t before.
Reception Desk Guy scoffs. “Of course you’ve been here. You worked here for a day and a morning before I fired your ass.”
My head’s spinning from confusion. I would’ve remembered this guy. He has a mole on his cheek the size of a quarter. A guy tends to remember a feature like that hairy mother. Anyway, mole aside, this guy’s saying I worked here. Jesus, this is getting confusing.
I need to ask more questions: “So, I turned up for work on Monday, like Kevin and I agreed?”
“Yeah. You had us all fooled for, say, about two hours. Until it became apparent that you hadn’t played squash in your life.” I get the impression Reception Desk Guy’s cooperation in being questioned is more out of cathartic reasons than out of my request for details. How dare a fellow man pretend to excel in a sport to which I, noble man that I am, have dedicated my entire life?
“Weird. I didn’t turn up drunk or anything?”
He seizes the opportunity with both hands. “Well, you certainly played like you were drunk when I challenged you to a game, to catch you out.” He scoffs again.
Grace butts in: “What my friend is trying to say in his roundabout way, is did it appear that he was intoxicated in any way?”
I confirm, “Yeah. That.”
He looks at Grace and then back at me, his theory that I’m some sort of raving lunatic weakened by the fact that the person accompanying me seems to know exactly what I’m trying to ask and why I’m asking it. He frowns, then says, “No. You wouldn’t have lasted two minutes if you’d have turned up drunk. What’s this about, anyway?”
“What’s your name?”
“Brandon.”
“Well, Brandon, I’m having a hell of a day. I woke up this morning not knowing what I’ve done for the last week. I know I was supposed to work here, as your squash pro, but until you confirmed it I had thought it really unlikely that I’d actually turned up. And you saying that I turned up acting normally—not under the influence of some sedative or whatever—has just blown my theory of what happened to me out of the water.”
His eyes narrow. “So you really can’t remember meeting me at all?”
I nearly mention the mole on his face, but then think better of it. “No, not at all.”
He’s not completely convinced. “You don’t remember our conversation about Frasier and if his mullet looked cool or not, considering style of the time? It was one of the first things we talked about.”
Certainly sounds like that’s the first thing I would’ve talked about on that Monday morning. “No.”
“And what about when you called one of our clients ‘candy pants,’ and a Bel Air heiress, at that?”
Grace starts giggling. We both look at her. She’s holding up a hand for me to high-five. I say, “Not the time, Grace.”
She lowers her hand, suppressing giggles.
To Brandon, I say, “I don’t remember any of that, but it sure sounds like me.”
“
Is everything okay here?”
I turn around and see a security guy. He addressed Brandon, but he can’t keep his eyes off the bell in Grace’s hand, as though it’s a gun. I bet they’ll address this bell issue in their next Wednesday afternoon meeting.
Brandon says, “It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”
The security guy’s not finished. “Can you hand the bell back to Brandon, lady?”
She does. Brandon places it back behind the desk. With that done and order restored to the world, Security Guy leaves.
I turn my attention back to Brandon. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the time I was here? Anything, anything at all?”
“I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Just anything you can remember.”
He thinks a second. “You were completely inappropriately dressed. Like an old-school tennis player at Wimbledon, minus the perm. Kevin and I thought it strange, but figured you were a huge McEnroe fan.”
Grace giggles. I stop her with a raised eyebrow. Then to Brandon, I say, “Not stuff like that. Anything that seemed strange? Anything out of place?”
“Mm, I guess your ten o’clock the second day was a little strange. The one who walked out after five minutes.”
“Why?”
“It was a guest lesson. She wasn’t a member. I remember well, because she had the strangest name. Anyway, we practically begged her to take her money back on her way out. We figured you’d upset her, just like the member who you coached the lesson before. She wouldn’t have any of it. Would barely look at us. And now that I think of it, she asked for you by name. I thought that particularly strange, with you having only worked here for a day.”
Sounds like I might have offended this one. The offer of drinks with a handsome, witty dude offends ladies much more than you’d think.
And this “asking for me by name” request sounds suspect. It could be a lead. “What was her name?” I ask
“I’m afraid I can’t give out that information.”
If you want to seem polite, a good way is to pretend to be afraid of things, no matter how irrational.
I start to take out my wallet, but Grace stops me. Then she says to Brandon, “Would it convince you if I screamed, ‘Get off me, you pervert. There’s no way I want to warm up your squash balls!’”
