Angel of Mercy

by Andrew Neiderman

  “Your newspaper was lying on the sidewalk again. I knocked on the door to tell your sister, but she didn’t answer. She’s home?”

  “No, she’s on a job,” Faye snapped.

  “Well, I put the paper in the box before one of those young hooligans could come along to steal it. They usually do if they find one still lying here in the afternoon.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Kaufman.”

  “I heard you go out during the night. An emergency?” her nosy neighbor inquired. Unless elderly people were sick or in mourning, Faye found them distasteful and annoying. She hoisted her small shoulders and pulled herself into a stiff posture.

  “Why else do you think I’d go out that time of the night, Mrs. Kaufman?”

  The old lady nodded and then shook her head.

  “Somebody’s always very sick.”

  “Of course somebody’s always very sick. Especially in a community that has so many elderly inhabitants,” she added. Mrs. Kaufman continued to nod as if her round head with its clipped hair were sitting on a small spring.

  “Morris has the gout again. This on top of his high blood pressure.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me, not with the food you feed him. You don’t listen.”

  “I try, but he gets so angry. He says food’s food. He’s eating the same things he ate all his life.”

  “He’s not supposed to eat the same things. He’s older.”

  Mrs. Kaufman shrugged.

  “He doesn’t think so. I tell him to come out of the sun, but he doesn’t listen. I tell him to stop smoking those smelly cigars, but he doesn’t stop.”

  “He will,” Faye said.

  “When?”

  “When he’s dead,” she replied, and jabbed the key into the door lock.

  Tillie wasn’t shocked. She continued to nod.

  “I told him that, too, but he doesn’t listen. So who was so sick?” she asked as Faye pulled the mail out of the box.

  “You don’t know her,” she replied.

  “It’s very nice: you being a nurse. I wish I had become a nurse instead of a paralegal. What kind of a thing is a paralegal?” she asked in a self-deprecating manner. “You’re not a lawyer, but you do a lawyer’s work and get less money? At least, a nurse helps people and has self-satisfaction. A nurse is a dedicated person.”

  Faye paused just before entering her apartment.

  “Not all nurses, Mrs. Kaufman. Some are no better than anyone else who works only for the money. I’ll stop by later and check Mr. Kaufman’s blood pressure.” She shut the door before her neighbor could ask another question or make another comment.

  In the sanctity of their small, dark apartment, Faye Sullivan felt herself relax. The weight of responsibility lifted from her shoulders. With the window blinds drawn, the door shut tight, the lights still off, she felt a cool rush, an emotional cleansing. Here, she didn’t have to be a nurse; she didn’t have to worry about other people. She didn’t have to be respectable, efficient, professional. She could succumb to any and all inclinations, desires, fantasies.

  She dropped the newspaper and mail on the small table in the entryway and gazed around the living room. In the dim illumination from the sunlight that leaked around the blinds, the room was ethereal. In fact, the entire apartment had a hazy atmosphere. It was as if she had entered a dream. It made it all so much more beautiful. She closed her eyes and wished and wished …

  “I’m home,” she suddenly cried. A moment later, she heard his reply.

  “It’s about time. You’re late for your appointment,” he added. She smiled. Then, without taking another step forward, she began to disrobe. When she was naked, she moved forward slowly, her heart pounding. The gray shag carpet tickled the soles of her feet. She nearly giggled. At the doorway of her bedroom she paused and then slowly, ever so slowly, she peered into the room.

  That young intern, the one who was so terrified when he was called to the emergency in Sylvia Livingston’s room, Dr. Hoffman, was sitting up in the bed nude, wearing only a stethoscope around his neck.

  “Doctor time!” he declared, and she laughed.

  She ran to the bed and dove into the quilt, pulling it around her quickly.

  “Come on, now,” he coaxed. “Let’s not be a shy little girl.”

  She peeked out of an opening.

  “But I’m afraid, Doctor.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of, young lady. I’ve done this hundreds of times before.”

  “You have?”

  “But never to one as pretty as you,” he added. Then he reached out and slowly lowered the quilt, exposing more and more of her naked body. “Just relax,” he said. “Close your eyes and think of something nice. Think of ice cream.”

  “That makes me cold,” she said, and she shivered.

  “Then think of …”

  “I’ll think of a warm, bubbly bath.”

  “Good.”

  She felt the stethoscope on her breast. He slid it down gently over her nipple and then lifted her breast to get to her heartbeat.

  “My, my,” he said. “What a happy little heart.” He moved the stethoscope down her chest, over her stomach to her belly button, and paused. “Gurgle, gurgle,” he said. She smiled. “And now let’s see if anyone’s home.”

  He placed the stethoscope over her pubic hair and tickled the entrance to her vagina. She moaned and opened her legs a little more.

  “Do you mind visitors?” he asked. She shook her head.

  “Knock, knock, then,” he said.

  “Come in,” she replied quickly. A moment later she felt him enter. At first it was like a gynecologist prodding, exploring, examining. Then it thickened and began to pulsate and soon her dream lover was driving her toward an ecstatic frenzy. Her body lifted and fell, lifted and fell. She moaned and began to claw the air, hoping to take hold of him and draw him down over her, but, as always, there was nothing to grasp. He had put all of himself into her. Suddenly he became a hot rush and with a thrust lifted her buttocks off the bed and drove her back until her head reached the head board. She screamed and dropped her eggs into his hot, white pool swirling within her. Then she began to calm down, withdrawing her passion with little cries and gasps until she was finally quiet, finally still.

  She lay like that for nearly an hour. When she opened her eyes, he was gone, of course. All that remained was the stethoscope. She sat up slowly and gazed around her bedroom. Loneliness, like the rancid odor of mildewed wood after a flood, settled in around her. Sitting naked like this brought back the memory of her father coming into her bedroom. He had been sleeping on the sofa in the den and he looked like he had been tossing and turning all night.

  “It’s cold,” he said, embracing himself. “I’ve got to crawl into your warm bed before I get up and get dressed.”

  Before she could reply, he was crawling in beside her, his cotton pajama bottom sliding down over his love handles as he slipped under the blanket.

  “I’ll get up and make coffee,” she said, but he had his hand on her thigh.

  “No, not yet, sweetheart. Just stay here for a while and help Daddy get warm. That’s it.”

  She had her head turned away so he didn’t see the tears streaming down her face, nor did he hear her sobs. He was moaning too loudly.

  Remembering made her grow nauseous and dizzy. The vertigo was coming, so she quickly closed her eyes and took deep breaths until it subsided.

  Then she thought she heard the front door open and close.

  “I’m home,” Susie called.

  “In here.”

  Susie came to the doorway and peered in. Her face looked radiant, as radiant as it always did when she was involved with a new widow or widower.

  “Are you all right?” Susie asked quickly.

  “I’m fine. How’s he doing?”

  “He slept well.”

  “Was he surprised to see you there?”

  “And how! But he was very nice and so …”

  “Vuln
erable?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” She paused. “What does that mean again?”

  “Easy to hurt.”

  “Yes, that’s it. He’s like a little boy, just like Daddy.”

  “Daddy was never a little boy, not the way you mean.”

  “Of course he was. He was always forgetting to put the toilet seat down. And remember when he left the house wearing two different shoes and you had to run out and bring him back?”

  “That was different. I don’t want to talk about it anyway,” Faye said quickly. “Did you get him to eat?”

  “Uh huh. And I tidied up.”

  “Good. Aren’t you tired?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me too.”

  “So we’ll both sleep.”

  “Are you going back?” Faye asked cautiously.

  “Of course. We just left it kind of vague for now, but he knows I’ll be back. He’s going to his son’s for dinner tonight. I tried to talk him out of it. I offered to make him dinner. He belongs at home, resting,” she added with a smile.

  “Don’t push. If he wants his family and they want him, he’ll be all right.”

  “He doesn’t want his family; he wants his wife and she wants him. They were in love,” Susie insisted.

  Faye sighed.

  “I’m tired,” she said. She lowered her head to the pillow and closed her eyes. She felt Susie standing there watching her for a few moments, and then she heard her go into her own bedroom.

  Faye didn’t wake up until midafternoon. When she did, she went to Susie’s room and peeked in and saw she was still fast asleep. Poor thing, Faye thought, exhausted emotionally. She always gets that way. Faye closed Susie’s door softly and then went to take a shower. She put on a pair of jeans and a short-sleeve cotton blouse and went into the kitchen to warm up some of the pasta Susie had made earlier. While she ate, she read her mail and perused the papers. She turned to the obituary page in the most recent edition and shook her head when she saw that Susie had cut out the article about Sylvia Livingston. Sure enough, when Faye looked in the living room, she found the article already pasted neatly in Susie’s album beside the obituary for Dorothy Murray.

  She thumbed back a few pages, gazing at the obituaries from the newspapers in Palm Beach, Florida, and Phoenix, Arizona. Then she closed the album and ran her palm over the soft velvet cover. The album was getting very thick. Susie was very proud of it, very proud of the contents. Faye placed it back on the coffee table and returned to the kitchen to make herself some coffee just as Mrs. Cohen from the service called.

  “Motorcycle accident victim,” she began. “Twenty-year-old. Dr. Enker operated on him this morning. Parents want private nursing around the clock. He’s still in a coma, bad head injuries. How about the night shift? It’s a milk run.”

  Faye shook her head without answering.

  “Hello? Faye?”

  “No, I … I’m exhausted from my last two cases, one after the other.”

  “So?”

  “I’d like a couple of days off first,” she said firmly. Mrs. Cohen grunted.

  “Suit yourself, but you’re passing up easy money.”

  “I’m not in it for the money,” Faye snapped.

  “What are you in it for, the boxes of candy? Jesus. All right. Take a few days off. I just love you independently wealthy single women,” Mrs. Cohen said and then hung up.

  “Who was that?” Susie asked from her bedroom doorway. Her eyes looked sleepy.

  “The service.”

  “Oh.”

  “I ate your pasta. It was still great.”

  “Thanks. Where are you going?” she asked when Faye started away.

  “To take Mr. Kaufman’s blood pressure. I promised Tillie.”

  “She’s such a damn busybody.”

  “I know, but I treat the patient, not his wife.”

  She fetched her bag and went next door. As she expected, Morris Kaufman’s pressure was high.

  “You must stay away from those salty foods,” she told him.

  “I told him that,” Tillie Kaufman said. “But he won’t listen.”

  “What are you trying to do to yourself?” Faye demanded. “Don’t you know how terrible it is to die and leave your wife alone?”

  Morris Kaufman was an inch or so shorter than his wife and much thinner, but his face was sallow and his eyes a tired, dull brown.

  “With her friends, she’ll never be alone. You see how those busybodies are here night and day, mooching,” he kidded. Faye didn’t laugh.

  “Friends,” Tillie said. “All they do is make a mess. My apartment doesn’t always look this bad, Faye. But with Morris so sick …”

  Faye understood.

  “I’ll ask Susie to stop by and clean up a bit for you.”

  “Will you? Thank you. She’s such a delight whenever she comes to see us. Isn’t she, Morris?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Never mind all that. You better start following your dietary restrictions, Mr. Kaufman.”

  “You should listen to her, Morris. She knows what she’s talking about.”

  “I’m listening. So tell me,” he said, leaning toward her, his breath stale from his last cigar, “you had a visitor today?”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you what he listens to—he listens to the walls,” Tillie Kaufman said. Faye reddened.

  “I had no visitors, Mr. Kaufman, and I don’t like being spied on. Don’t do it again,” she warned.

  “See,” Tillie said. “I told you you just heard her television set.”

  Morris Kaufman shrugged and smiled conspiratorially. Faye glared at him. Then she wrapped up her blood pressure cuff and stethoscope and marched quickly to the door of the Kaufman apartment. Tillie followed.

  Still fuming, Faye looked back in Morris Kaufman’s direction. “Take him to the doctor and have him prescribe some stronger medication for the high blood pressure. He could have a stroke any moment.”

  “You mean it?” Tillie said, alarmed. Faye paused, deciding whether or not to continue and punish her old neighbors. The fury inside her was like a fist closed so tightly it would never open. It made her stomach ache and sent a ring of fire around her heart.

  “Yes,” she said firmly.

  “Oh God. Morris,” Tillie Kaufman muttered. She turned to go back to her husband.

  “What’s the matter?” Susie asked as soon as Faye closed the door behind her in their apartment.

  Without answering, she went into the bedroom. She looked at her bed and the stethoscope and then stared at the wall between her apartment and the Kaufmans’. She hated those thin walls, but he had no right to put his ear against them and listen to her while she …

  She brought her hands to her face. Sick as she was, Mommy had heard her moans through the walls, too. Mommy had gotten out of bed and come to the door, and when she looked in and saw Daddy …

  Would she ever forget that ear-shattering scream, the way her body folded to the floor while she clutched at her broken heart?

  “What’s wrong?” Susie asked, coming up behind her.

  Faye lowered her hands and took a deep breath. Susie didn’t know; Susie never knew.

  “That Morris Kaufman,” Faye replied and nodded toward the wall. Susie understood.

  “You had someone here?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he listened in?”

  “Yes. Elderly people can be so insensitive,” Faye said. “Unless they’re dying or suffering.”

  Susie nodded, her eyes suddenly growing smaller. “Maybe,” she said slowly, “maybe he’s taking the wrong pills.”

  Faye stared back at her. She understood what Susie was saying.

  “Tillie would like you to stop by when you get a chance and tidy up their place.”

  “Okay.”

  Faye looked at herself in the mirror and then Susie stepped up beside her and smiled. Their smiles were so much alike, they seemed to have the same face.

&n
bsp; She could hear her sister’s thoughts. It wouldn’t be too difficult for her to substitute a decongestant for his blood pressure pills, an antihistamine that when taken liberally would raise his blood pressure.

  Then he wouldn’t be listening to things that weren’t any of his business.

  10

  The Palm Court apartment complex was a property on the north end of town, where it could be very windy at times. Consequently, the rents were cheaper and the tenants were lower-income people and retirees who could economize and afford to spend a season in Palm Springs. From the superintendent, a short, stubby bald man with small gray eyes, Frankie learned that the Murrays had been coming to the Palm Court apartments for the last five years. He called them two of his regulars. While he spoke, he worked an unlit cigar in his mouth, savoring the tobacco juice.

  “Nice couple, got along with everyone, hated to call me to fix something. Whenever they did, Mrs. Murray would apologize like crazy. I told them, it’s my job. Don’t hesitate to call, but they were the sort who never wanted to impose. A lot different from most of my tenants. Some will call in the middle of the night if a door squeaks, know what I mean?”

  Frankie nodded.

  “They make a lot of friends here?”

  “Not really. Most of their friends live in other areas in the desert. I do have another elderly couple in 14C who were their closest friends in the complex, the Stuarts.”

  “Did you notice anyone visiting him the day or night before he was found?”

  “I wasn’t here that day. Went up to Hot Springs to visit with my cousin and didn’t learn about Sam Murray’s death until I returned in the afternoon. I didn’t even know the old lady died.”

  “Point me toward 14C,” Frankie asked. He followed the walkway around the building and knocked on the door. The desert winds had started up, kicking sand and dust around. The sky had thin, wispy clouds brushed across the sea of light blue, but the roar of the wind made it seem as though he were about to encounter a hurricane.

  Mrs. Stuart, a small blue-haired lady in her early seventies, opened the door cautiously and peered through the opening, the chain lock still in place.