Bitter Medicine (19 page)

I concentrated on Lotty. “What are they suing you for doing, or not doing?” I asked.

“They haven’t sued me. They just want the record. That means they’re contemplating a suit. If they think they have grounds after looking at the record they’ll file a claim. I don’t know what the charge will be. Probably a combination of failure to treat her properly during the pregnancy and negligence in not supervising her care out at Friendship more closely. And if I can’t turn over her patient records, I might as well concede without a fight. I can just imagine a prosecuting attorney with that.”

So could I. “And tell us, Dr. Herschel. Do you really expect the jury to believe that your memory, unaided by any documents whatsoever—yes, we understand you
lost
them—is as reliable as Dr. X’s expert testimony?”

“Look,” I said. “This is impossible to discuss on the phone. I’m out in Barrington right now, but I could come see you at about ten-thirty or so.”

“If you could come tonight, Vic, I would appreciate it very much.”

I hung up and turned to Peter. “Lotty’s missing some patient files. Consuelo’s among others. It looks as though Fabiano Hernandez is suing for malpractice. Don’t you have some record of Consuelo’s treatment at Friendship? Do you think you could make a copy and get it to Lotty? She’s got to be in a god-awful legal spot, not being able to produce her records. If she had the file on what you did out at Friendship, it would be better than nothing.”

“Sued?” he repeated angrily. “Sued by that little
jackal? I’d better call Humphries. We gave that little bastard money just to avoid a suit. I can’t believe it. Goddamn little bastard.”

“Yes, well, it is annoying and obnoxious. But can you get a copy of Consuelo’s file? I’m going over to Lotty’s now. I’d like to be able to tell her something useful.”

He ignored me and went to the phone. I couldn’t think who Humphries was at first. Then, as Peter spoke—“Alan! Sorry to get you out of bed”—I remembered: Alan Humphries, the blow-dried administrator at Friendship. He’d given Fabiano five thousand in hush money. Protection money. So would Fabiano honor that and keep Friendship out of the suit? Or had he decided the baby-blue Eldorado was so nice, he should go back to the source and get more?

Peter hung up. “So far as Alan knows, we haven’t been hit with anything. But since Dr. Herschel was the primary care provider, we won’t know until they actually file a claim.”

I came close to punching him in the nose. “Can you think of something besides yourself for a minute? I want to know if you can get Friendship’s file on Consuelo for Dr. Herschel. Did you even think to talk to Humphries about that? Or were you too absorbed in your own damned worries?”

“Hey, Vic—take it easy. This kind of damned thing, they take an elephant gun and fire at anyone who was near the patient. Sorry to think of Friendship first, but we’re just as vulnerable as Lotty. More so—the lawyers
will come after us because they see we have the money.” He hesitated and held out a hand. “Can’t you give me some of the concern you have for her?”

I took his fingers between my hands and looked at them instead of his face. “I’ve known Lotty for close to twenty years. First she filled in for my mother, and then we became—friends is a weak word for it. Close, anyway. So when she has problems, they trouble me, too. When you and I have known each other twenty years, I’ll probably feel the same way about you, too.”

He squeezed my hand so hard I winced. Looking at his face I was astounded to see it drained of color, the eyes shining black and fevered in the lamplight.

“I hope so, Vic. I hope I know you twenty years from now.”

I kissed him. “You make it sound like high tragedy. No reason why we shouldn’t—I ain’t prone to dropping dead at a moment’s notice. But I do want to head back to town now. Lotty needs me, and she wouldn’t have asked me to make the long drive back if she didn’t.”

“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. “I’m not crazy about it, but I guess I can understand.”

“And will you look up your file on Consuelo for her?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll do it Monday. Drive carefully.”

He kissed me good-bye at the door. Convinced we were going back to the lake, Peppy followed me happily to my car. When I didn’t let her into the car, she watched me haughtily from the tarmac until I was out of sight.

I ended up dragging Lotty back to the clinic so I could see for myself that the files weren’t there. It’s an irrational itch—when someone’s lost something, you’re convinced you can find it—that they’ve overlooked some obscure hiding place from which you’ll triumphantly produce it. I pulled up rugs, looked behind radiators, under every surface, in every drawer, lifted out the hanging files to see if Consuelo and the Hernandez family had somehow slipped underneath. After a couple of hours of pulling and lifting, I had to admit that the records were gone.

“What about Malcolm’s dictation—his notes after he saw Consuelo out at Friendship? Do you still have the tape?”

She shook her head. “I never got it. When his place was broken into, they must have stolen the dictating machine.”

“Damned funny thing to steal if they did. They didn’t take the TV or the phone machine.”

“Well, maybe they couldn’t carry the TV,” Lotty said, not really interested. “It was a big old-fashioned one, wasn’t it? He got it secondhand from one of his professors. To tell you the truth, I forgot about the dictation in the shock of his death. I suppose we could go now to see if it’s still there.”

“Why not? I was only going to sleep tonight anyway.” I drove her the few miles to Malcolm’s old apartment.

Even Uptown quiets down in early morning. There were some drunks on the street, and an old man walking his dog, both moving cautiously on slow arthritic legs. But no one bothered us as we went into the stale lobby and climbed the three flights to Malcolm’s door.

“I’m going to have to do something about this place,” Lotty commented, fishing in her purse for the keys. “The lease runs for another month. Then I suppose I’ll have to clean it out. I don’t know why he named me executor. I’m not particularly good at that kind of job.”

“Get Tessa to do it,” I suggested. “She can decide what she wants to keep and then throw everything else out. Or leave the door open. Things will evaporate quickly enough.”

Over the appalling mess of Malcolm’s life now lay the stale smell of abandoned rooms. Somehow the smell, and the layers of dust, made the carnage more bearable. This was no longer a place where a real person
lived. Just a wreck, something you might find at the bottom of the lake.

Lotty, usually fiercely energetic, stood passively in the doorway while I searched. She’d had too many shocks lately—Consuelo’s death, Malcolm’s death, the ravaging of her clinic, and now this malpractice claim. If it weren’t so far-fetched I could almost believe all the events had been engineered by someone with a grudge against Lotty—perhaps Dieter Monkfish, madman that he was, attacking her most vulnerable spots to force her to retire. I sat back on my heels to consider it. That would mean collusion between Fabiano and Monkfish, which was hard to believe. And that Monkfish hired muscle to batter Malcolm, which was ludicrous.

I got to my feet.

“It’s not here, Lotty. Either it’s in some Clark Street pawnshop, or Malcolm left it in his car. We could check there if you have the keys.”

“Of course. My brain is not functioning these days. We should have looked there first—he always did his dictation in the car if he couldn’t finish it at the hospital.”

Even reform-minded Harold Washington isn’t much interested in Uptown. Only a few streetlights functioned, and we had to go slowly up the street, looking at each car. The arthritic man and dog had gone home and the drunks were mostly sleeping, but a couple was arguing under one of the streetlamps near the end of the block. Malcolm’s blue Dodge, dented and rusty with age, was parked close to them. It fit into the
neighborhood well enough that no one had bothered it—the wheels were all still attached, windows intact, trunk unforced.

I unlocked the driver’s door. The interior lights didn’t work. I used the pencil flash on my key ring, saw nothing on the seat or in the glove compartment, and felt under the car seat. My fingers closed on a small leather case, and I pulled out Malcolm’s recorder.

We walked back down the street to my car. Lotty took the machine from me and snapped it open.

“It’s empty,” she said. “He must have done something else with the tape.”

“Or he had it in his apartment and his killers stole it—they took all his stereo tapes.”

We were both too exhausted to speak anymore. As we drove home, Lotty sat silently hunched over in the corner, her face in her hands. I’ve known her for many years, seen her in many moods, but never so depressed or lethargic she could neither think nor act.

It was almost four when we got back to her apartment. I helped her upstairs, heated up some milk, and poured in a large slug of brandy, the only alcohol she keeps in her place. It was a measure of her dejection that she drank it without protesting.

“I’m calling the clinic,” I told her, “leaving a message on the machine that you won’t be in until late. You need sleep now more than anything else.”

She looked at me blankly. “Yes. Yes, you are possibly right. You, too, Vic. You should sleep. I’m sorry to have
kept you up all night. Lie down in the spare room if you want. I’ll turn off the phones.”

I crawled under the thin, lavender-scented sheets on Lotty’s spare bed. My bones ached and I felt gritty. The jumbled events of the day churned over and over in my brain. Monkfish. Dick’s fee. The IckPiff files. Where was Malcolm’s tape? Where was Consuelo’s file?

The baby had them. She was sitting on a high bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, a manila folder in her tiny purple fingers. I was trying to climb up the dune to get to her, but my feet slipped on the scorching sand and I kept falling down. Hot and thirsty, I staggered to my feet. I saw Peter Burgoyne come up behind the baby. He grabbed at the folder and tried to take it from her, but her grip was too strong. He let go of the file and began strangling her. She made no sound, but watched me with piteous eyes.

I woke sweating and choking, disoriented. When I realized I wasn’t in my own bed I panicked for a few seconds until the events of the previous night returned. I was at Lotty’s. The little travel clock on the elegant bedside table hadn’t been wound. I fished around for my watch in the clothes I’d thrown on the floor. Seven-thirty.

I lay back down, trying to relax, but I couldn’t do it. I got up and took a long shower. I cracked open Lotty’s door. She was still asleep, a frown drawing her heavy brows together. I closed the door softly behind me and left her apartment.

I knew something was wrong as soon as I started up the stairs in my building. Papers were strewn on the steps, and when I reached the second-floor landing I saw a spot of something that looked like dried blood. I had my gun out without thinking, running up the last sixteen stairs.

Mr. Contreras lay in front of my apartment. The door itself had been taken out with an ax. I wasted a minute making sure the place was empty, then knelt down next to the old man. His head had bled fiercely from a scalp wound, but the blood had clotted. He was breathing, short stertorous breaths, but he was alive. I left him for a minute to crawl through the ax hole. Called for the paramedics. Called the police, dragged a blanket from my bedroom to wrap him in. While I waited, I felt him gently. The wound to his head seemed to be the only injury. A pipe wrench lay about a yard from his crumpled body.

The fire department arrived first—a young man and a middle-aged woman in dark blue uniforms, both muscular and short on words. They listened to what I knew while hustling Mr. Contreras onto a stretcher; they got him down the stairs in less than a minute. I held the doors for them and watched them slide him into the ambulance and head for Beth Israel.

A few minutes later, a couple of blue-and-whites squealed to a halt in front of the building. Three uniformed men leaped out; one stayed in the car manning the radio or calling in reports or something.

I went out to greet them. “I’m V. I. Warshawski. It was my apartment that got broken into.”

One of them, an older black man with a potbelly, wrote my name down slowly while they followed me up the stairs. I went through the routine: what time I’d come home, where I’d spent the night, was anything missing.

“I don’t know. I just got back here. My neighbor was lying comatose in front of the door—I was a lot more concerned about him than I was about a few stinking belongings.” My voice was unsteady. Anger, shock, the goddamned fucking last straw. I could not cope with this break-in or the injury to Mr. Contreras.

The youngest of the trio wanted to know about Mr. Contreras. “Boyfriend?”

“Use your head,” I snapped. “He’s in his seventies. He’s a retired machinist who thinks he’s still the muscleman he was forty years ago and he’s set himself up as my foster father. He lives on the ground floor and every time I come or go in the building he pops out to make sure I’m okay. He must have followed whoever did this up the stairs and tried to take them out with the pipe wrench. Goddamned old fool.” To my horror I felt tears springing to the corners of my eyes. I took a deep, steadying breath and waited for the next question.

“He expecting someone?”

“Oh, a couple of weeks ago I had an encounter with Sergio Rodriguez from the Lions—Detective Rawlings knows all about it—over at the Sixth Area. Mr. Contreras
thought he ought to keep a lookout to see if they’d try to come in the night for me. I told him if he heard anyone he should send for you guys at once, but I guess he still thinks he ought to be a hero.”

They all chimed in at once, wanting to know about Sergio. I gave them my standard Sergio story, about how he bore this long grudge against me for his prison sentence. One of them called on his radio down to the relay man in the car, asking him to phone Rawlings. While they wrote up notes and waited for the detective, I wandered through my apartment, looking at the mess. Something was wrong in the living room, but I wasn’t sure what. My television was still there; so was the stereo, but all my books and records had been heaved onto the floor in a vast sprawled mountain.