“Every time I measure a prospective boyfriend against the man my father was, a man like you, he comes up short. I just won’t settle for anyone less,” Susie added firmly.
Tommy smiled.
“Well, you’re a very pretty and a very nice person, so the man who finally wins your heart is going to be a very lucky man,” Tommy said.
Susie didn’t smile. Her eyes suddenly turned cold and her lips firm.
“I’m not optimistic,” she said. “And besides, when I see how much it hurts to lose the one you love, I’m afraid I hesitate to get too involved. It’s a horrible paradox. The more you love someone and he or she loves you, the harder it is to face life without him or without her.”
Tommy just stared up at her. He didn’t know whether to feel sorry for her or admire her. Was she better off with this attitude? He certainly couldn’t disagree with her description of the pain accompanying the loss of a dearly beloved.
“I know how much you’re going to miss Sylvia,” she said, “even though you’re the strong, silent type. Just like my father was,” Susie said wagging her head. “Men think if they keep their sorrow inside and let their tears fall behind their eyes, they’re more manly and it hurts less. But the truth is, that hurts more. It pulls and pulls at your heart and wears you down until you feel just like you do right now. I bet I could blow you over like a feather,” she said.
Tommy smiled.
“Maybe you could.”
“Of course, I could. Keep eating, Mr. Livingston, even if it’s just something you do mechanically.”
Tommy nodded and lifted the spoon.
“Yes, ma’am. I guess I do need someone like you around right now,” he confessed.
“Of course you do. It’s what I do best, too.”
“Oh? And what’s that exactly?”
“Help grieving people deal sensibly with their grief. Faye says it’s a logical thing for a nurse’s sister to do, when you think about it. For hours and hours after she returns from her nursing work, she talks about her patients and the doctors and all that goes on. I’ve learned a lot about medicine and treating people just by sitting and listening to her.
“And what is grief? Grief is like a sickness, like a disease. It debilitates, tears down the body, has symptoms like … like the flu. It fatigues you, ruins your appetite, fills your stomach with butterflies.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right,” Tommy said, impressed with how vehemently she spoke about it. He ate some more of the oatmeal and drank some of his coffee.
“Grief over a lost loved one, especially a wife, turns grown men such as yourself into little boys again,” she continued. “Our daddy was like that. It got so I had to remind him to brush his teeth. I stood over him and forced him to eat, just like I’m hovering over you and forcing you to eat. He became forgetful, too, and left things everywhere.”
“Sounds like he was quite along in years when your mother passed away.”
“No. He was your age. Don’t underestimate what’s happened, Mr. Livingston. Your wife was a much bigger part of your life than you realize even now.”
Tommy stared at her for a moment. She looked so confident and sounded so positive. He began to wonder more about this young woman. Where were she and her sister from? How long had they been in Palm Springs? What sort of a childhood had she and her sister had?
“You’re from L.A.?”
“Pacific Palisades, originally, but Faye and I have lived in a lot of places.”
“Don’t say? You seem too young to have lived in too many places,” he said.
“Faye’s work has taken us all over the country.”
“How long you been here?”
“A few months. I like it here,” she said quickly. “My father would have liked it here, too.”
“What happened to him? After your mother’s passing, that is.”
“He …”
“Yes?”
“Took his own life eventually,” she said and looked away. She sighed and turned back to him with a soft smile. “It was sad, but I understood.”
Tommy continued to gaze at her for a moment. He had half suspected something like this.
“How did he …?”
“He swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. But when Faye and I found him …”
“Yes?”
“He was smiling. My mother must have been waiting for him, don’t you think?”
For a long moment, Tommy said nothing. Then he shook his head.
“I’m afraid I don’t believe in much after this life,” he replied finally.
Susie was devastated. She sat back aghast.
“But if you don’t believe in anything after … how will you ever …”
Tommy looked up sharply.
“Ever what?”
“Be with your wife again?”
“I don’t expect I will,” he confessed and rose from his seat, obviously anxious to end this topic. “Thanks for preparing my breakfast. I’d better go call some of these people back,” he said referring to the list. Susie watched him go to the den to use the phone and then she rose slowly.
“It’s just his way of dealing with his sorrow,” she muttered. “He didn’t mean it. Daddy would never have said anything like that.
“Never.”
She brought the dishes to the sink and thought for a moment. Then she turned and stared angrily after Tommy Livingston.
“She’s waiting for you. You can’t leave her waiting. You won’t,” she vowed, and she vigorously sponged down the bowl, the glass, and the cup as if Tommy Livingston had some infectious disease. “You won’t.”
6
Corpsy Ratner followed the gas pump attendant’s suggestion and took the Ramon Avenue exit off the I-10 freeway into Palm Springs. Once on Ramon, he lifted his foot slightly off the accelerator to hover closer to the speed limit. Corpsy, so nicknamed by his associates in the pathology department at the hospital in Phoenix because of his enthusiasm for his work, had an obsessive need to obey all laws, especially traffic laws. He prided himself on the fact that he had not gotten so much as a parking ticket his whole driving life, nearly twenty years, to be exact. What other man in his mid-thirties could claim so spotless a record? If nothing else, Faye Sullivan should have been impressed with that, he thought ruefully.
Instead, on every occasion, she had rejected him firmly, once even reinforcing this maligning of his image by claiming he reeked of the odor of formaldehyde.
At nearly six feet tall, Corpsy was as lean and awkward as a young Abe Lincoln, with the same soulful face cut deeply by premature wrinkles around his cheeks and etched in his wide forehead. He was hairy: the same dark strands that streamed down his forehead unevenly also curled up his spine and even over his shoulders. His eyebrows were bushy and thick like near-term caterpillars, and no matter how closely he shaved, his face was haunted by a five o’clock shadow mere hours afterward.
When he was a teenager, Corpsy would beg his mother to shave his back during the summer months; otherwise, he would never take off his shirt, never go swimming. Of course she would do it; she would do anything he asked of her. His mother was a simple, soft-spoken, meek woman who dwindled rapidly after his father’s truck accident and death until she resembled a bird with a broken wing, denied song and flight, its eyes vacant, waiting for the inevitable end.
Corpsy was her reason to go on. He was Lillian Ratner’s only child, and as such was babied and spoiled. Corpsy was the first to admit this, but he rationalized that he suffered his mother’s indulgence for her benefit more than for his own. I’m all she has, he thought, which was especially true after his father’s smashup returning from a haul to Texas.
No two people looked more mismatched than Bret Ratner and Lillian. Corpsy’s father was a muscular, hard, gruff six-foot-three-inch man with sinewy arms and wide shoulders, a trucker who wolfed down his food even when he was on a week’s layover. Corpsy had his long arms and legs and long fingers, but it was as if his mother’s daintine
ss and fragility had interfered during his formation to prevent him from inheriting any of his father’s strength. No matter how much he exercised, his body refused to become anywhere as hard as his father’s, and his muscle structure remained mediocre, if not downright underdeveloped.
He gave up trying to be like his father and withdrew, feeding his ever-festering interest in the internal nature of things, from mere insects and flowers to animals and people. Not bright enough or rich enough to become a doctor, he became a lab technician and eventually got a job in the pathology department at the hospital. He had been at the job most of his adult life, devoting himself to his work with a religious intensity that rivaled monks’ and priests’ and that earned him the notoriety that resulted in his nickname.
But he no longer minded. In fact, Corpsy saw the outside world as a world populated by envious people, people who wished that they cared about something as intensely as he did, people who wished they had his capacity to love something other than their miserable selves.
To say he was obsessive was to understate. Corpsy wouldn’t deny it. When he found something that interested him, he pursued it with a passion that threatened to kill him. It was true about aspects of his work, but it was also true about his hobbies, the latest being collecting the kidney stones and gallstones he found in the corpses he dissected. He kept them in jelly jars on the shelves in his bedroom, each jar labeled with the age and sex of the deceased. His mother was upset about it, but she rarely went into his room anyway. In fact, other than his mother, no woman had ever been in Corpsy’s room.
Women, unless they were stone-cold dead, terrified him. Invariably, he would lower his eyes when a woman spoke to him, unless that woman was someone in authority, especially someone who wore a uniform. The uniform had the effect of neutralizing her sexuality and emphasizing her authority. He had deep respect for authority, which was why he was obsessive about obeying traffic laws.
But Faye Sullivan had been different. She had been the first woman in uniform who had touched him deeply, maybe because he had seen something in her eyes, a second set of eyes, the eyes of the woman beneath the white dress and within the white slip and white panties and white bra; the woman who pulled on those white socks and stepped into those heavy black shoes. He heard a warmer tone under the orders she snapped to underlings and he saw another pair of hips swing under the skirt of her uniform when she marched down shiny corridors.
He had learned her schedule, and when he was able to, he would sit in the parking lot by the hospital and wait for her to arrive just so he could watch her get out of her car and walk to the entrance. Often he was there at the end of her tour of duty to watch her emerge and get into her car. He had done this for weeks before gathering up enough nerve to say his first words to her, which were merely, “Good morning.”
She returned the greeting with a perfunctory smile, but it was enough to encourage him. He decided to follow her home one day and that was when he discovered she had a twin sister. At first, that confused him, threw him into a fluster because he was both excited and discouraged by the revelation. He had been fantasizing about Faye, imagining that she was really just as lonely as he was, and just as particular about whom she associated with and befriended. That was why she was a loner at work and why the others resented her. Just as they resented him.
But a sister … this meant she did have someone close, someone in whom to confide her troubles, her secrets, her dreams and fears. And a twin sister to boot! They shared more; they had to.
However, when he saw Susie hobble down the stairway and he realized she had a handicap, his ambitions were once again kindled. There was a real loner in this family, someone with whom he could commune, someone who would understand his deeper feelings. But he didn’t try to make any contact with her that day.
Always the gentleman and always respectful of authority, he finally gathered his nerve and approached Faye Sullivan while she was alone in the nurse’s quarters at the hospital. He had waited for her to have the sort of patient whom he knew would not be a constant worry. He studied her pattern and then, when he felt confident, he approached.
“Excuse me,” he began. She looked up from her magazine with surprise, but she did not smile. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple almost freezing in place and refusing to bob. “My name is Cor … Arnold Ratner. I work in pathology.”
Faye folded her magazine and sat back, her eyes becoming small and fixed, the pupils darkening.
“Yes?”
“Um … I’ve said hello to you on a number of occasions and you’ve returned my greeting,” he continued.
Faye looked as if she didn’t remember, but she nodded.
“I know you’re not on staff here, that you only special, but I thought since we both work at the hospital …”
“What?” she demanded with growing impatience.
“I … I just thought I could come by one day and say hello.”
“Come by? Come by where?”
“Your home … your apartment. The truth is,” he continued, finally building up enough courage to say it, “I’d like to meet your sister.”
“My sister?”
“Uh huh. Properly, of course. That’s why I came here to ask your permission to drop by and pay you two a visit. Whenever you think it would be a good time,” he added. Faye stared at him silently.
“How do you know about my sister?” she asked.
“Well, I just happened to see her one day and I was quite surprised at first … being you two are twins …”
“Have you called our house and spoken to her?” Faye demanded.
“Oh no,” Corpsy said, shaking his head vigorously. “I would never do that.”
“Did you speak to her in a store or …”
“No, ma’am.”
“Susie is a shy girl. I don’t think your paying us a visit would be wise,” Faye said sharply. “And I wouldn’t advise you to call or try to speak to her if you should see her out and about. She is a fragile person, Mr.…”
“Ratner.”
“Ratner. I have a special responsibility to look after her. I’m sure you understand,” Faye said and snapped the magazine open again. It was as good as her saying “Dismissed.”
Corpsy’s naturally pallid complexion turned crimson. He started to stutter another explanation and then quickly retreated, hurrying down to the sanctity of his lab, where he paced between two dissected male bodies and berated himself for making himself look so foolish.
But he couldn’t erase Susie Sullivan from his mind. The image of her hobbling down those stairs lingered and tormented him. He had caught her angelic smile and he dreamt that smile was for him. Of course, he understood and appreciated Faye Sullivan’s reaction to his request. In her shoes he might very well have responded the same way, but she just didn’t know him, he thought. If she did, once she did, she wouldn’t see him as any sort of threat to her sister.
And so, with the same sort of monomania he brought to all his obsessions, he began to pursue Faye Sullivan, seeking ways to ingratiate himself with her. He followed her every assignment and made it his business to be there whenever she arrived at the hospital to greet her, and whenever she left, to bid her a good evening. He tried to expand his hellos and goodbyes with small talk about her patients, the hospital, her work, even the weather, but she resisted.
And then he thought he would approach her through her patients and their families. He began to visit her patients whenever she wasn’t on duty. With those who were able to talk, he spent time, always turning the discussion to Faye and praising her on her abilities. When the patients were too sick to talk, he spoke to the lingering spouse or daughter or son, if there was any. That was how he learned that Susie Sullivan cared for some of them.
When the first corpse of a dead spouse appeared in autopsy, it was as if he were greeting an old and special friend. This was someone Susie Sullivan had known and touched and cared for with affection. He treated the bodies the same way, taking extra c
are, extra interest, and that was how he discovered what the chief of pathology had missed: amyl nitrate. Taken in these dosages, it would bring on a heart attack.
He had every intention of pointing it out. He imagined Faye was somehow responsible, but then he envisioned Susie Sullivan’s angelic smile and fantasized her beside him. Any investigation mostly like would begin with her, and he could do nothing to hurt her, nothing to put suspicion on her. However, armed with his knowledge he found new courage and became far more brazen when he approached the stern Faye Sullivan. He lingered longer when he greeted her and he saw she noticed the way he looked at her. There was curiosity in those blue eyes now, curiosity and not just annoyance.
One evening he waited two hours in the parking lot for her to complete her tour, and when she appeared, he got out of his car and approached.
“I’d like to meet your sister,” he said firmly.
“Now look, Mr. Ratner …”
She remembered his name, he thought smugly.
“Arnold.”
“Arnold. I’ve already told you …”
“I thought she and I could talk about Mr. Brofenberg,” he said sharply.
“Pardon?”
“Amyl nitrate,” he said. She stared at him a moment and then pivoted and marched to her car, her heels clicking sharply in the night.
A few days later, Corpsy drove to the apartment Susie shared with Faye. He noted that her car wasn’t in the parking lot, but he remained there for hours until he saw the complex superintendent come along and go into the Sullivans’ apartment. Curious, he got out and approached. The door had been left open, and when he gazed into the unit, he saw how empty it looked.
“Can I help you?” the superintendent asked.
“I … I was looking for Faye Sullivan,” he said. He couldn’t bring himself to say Susie.
“Gone,” the superintendent replied.
“Gone?”
“Checked out without asking for her security back, and after she had just paid a month’s rent. Got to admit,” he added when Corpsy didn’t utter a word, “it surprised me. I thought she and her sister were more reliable than some of the dips I get renting units in this complex.”
Angel of Mercy Page 6
