Lucky Leonardo (9 page)

Leonardo dragged himself out of bed on Saturday morning, four hours after he and Chrissie got back from Foxwoods. He had patients scheduled.
Pity the poor patients
, he groggily reflected as he did what he had to do to get ready for them. His wallet sat on his night table, bulging with hundred dollar bills, like a relic rescued from a dream.

Chrissie had the day off, and was sleeping quietly on the far side of the bed, so quietly that Leonardo stuck his face under her nose to verify she was still breathing, the kind of thing he used to do when Harvey was a little boy. No word bubbles, but after a few seconds of close concentration he was able to suspend the creaking and wheezing background noise which emanated from his own body, and feel and hear the gentle movement of air in and out of hers. She had lovely clear nasal passages and lovely clear lungs.

Although she didn't smell that great.

He showered, dressed, and poured down the coffee with a medicinal supplement to disperse the cobwebs and suck up the mold and strangle the bats and sanitize the attic for human occupation, not a minute too soon because his patients were walking up his sidewalk. You remember the married couple who were fighting over roses in the arboretum?

This time they were fighting over where they were going to be buried, an issue that reared its furtive head when they went to their lawyer to do the wills which they had put off for many years while they fought over whose side would have child care and custody in the event both of them should simultaneously die, which ceased to be a fighting issue after their youngest child turned twenty-four and got married. Now the wife wanted to be buried in her family's plot, which the husband said was the last place in the world he wanted to be caught dead in.

“But I take it,” Leonardo asked when the initial dust had settled, “that you wish to be buried in the same place, it's just a question of where?”

It took the better part of the session, through a maze of side issues, back issues, points of order, threats, tears, coldness, camouflage, collateral damage, measured ambiguity, and sustained hemming and hawing before the two of them reached the same one word answer to Leonardo's question: “Probably.”

“Incidentally,” the wife said to Leonardo at the end, with her arm around her husband's waist and lovingness toward him in her eyes, “did you know there was a creepy guy parked on the street in front of your office this morning?”

“No there wasn't,” the husband said.

“Yes there was,” she said.

“No there wasn't,” he said.

“Next time,” Leonardo offered as he ushered them out, not thinking much about the creepy guy report, reminded instead of the time near the end of his divorce litigation when he and Barbara found themselves alone in a snug reception area waiting for their respective attorneys to show up for mediation to try to resolve their intractable dispute over custody of Harvey.
What a good time that was!

———

“The lawyers are late,” he said to Barbara pleasantly enough.

“How did you happen to be standing in the shrubbery that night?” Barbara answered.

“What?”

“I don't think I gave you any reason to distrust me. My guess is that you were just paranoid.”

“What?”

“You were in the shrubbery because you were paranoid. Which bears directly on your fitness as a father.”

“What?” Leonardo yelped, like a small dog kicked. “Are you saying that because I discovered you committing adultery I'm not fit to be Harvey's father?”

“Yes,” Barbara coolly re-stated. “You had no reason to discover my adultery. Only a paranoid would have been waiting in those shrubs. God knows how long you were waiting there. It disgusts me.”

Leonardo wanted to lunge for her lily-white neck which fairly shimmered in its whiteness against her vivid green chemise, like Annette Bening's neck in
The American President
, he thought, not for the first time, when she danced straplessly across the White House floor in the arms of Michael Douglas, with taut tendons and exposed collarbone outcroppings and a very regal arch. So regal, so willowy, so arch.

A neck to risk one's neck for, but better not today, Leonardo counseled his hands and arms and baser instincts.
Better not today, boys. Be cool today. Neither wringing it nor covering it with kisses will help us win custody. Or win her back, or teach her a lesson, or be deemed self defense by a jury of our peers.

So he stayed in his seat and treated her insult like pie in his face, and let it drip down his beard and onto his shirt to a chorus of laughs, and waited for his attorney to show up. The awkward fact being that Harvey tipped off his dad. Not that Harvey knew exactly what Barbara and Stan were up to when Barbara worked a visit to Stan's house into the Saturday morning errands, after the dry cleaners and before the butcher and Bloomingdale's, parking Harvey in front of Stan's big screen television with a pizza and Coke and disappearing into the bowels of the house. “Dad,” Harvey said, “we went to Stan's house today while you were playing golf.”

“Oh.”

Leonardo wasn't sure how to play it. Stan, acting in his capacity as a music teacher, might be giving Barbara secret tuba lessons, so Barbara could give Leonardo a surprise tuba concert on his birthday. Or maybe Stan, in his capacity as Barbara's high school classmate, organized a high school reunion event and all the invitations were lost in the mail except for Barbara's.

Leonardo's golf buddy Gerry hired a private detective under similar circumstances and got back glossy pictures of flagrante delicto, but after a week of vicious fighting which included police visits on consecutive nights, the first because the neighborhood couldn't sleep with all the noise and the second because the neighborhood thought a sudden silence meant murder-suicide, they patched it up and disappeared on a cruise to Greece. As far as Leonardo could tell they were living happily ever after, and liked to tell their story over drinks with lots of laughs—“You won't believe where the detective was hiding? Hah, hah, hah…”—the way some couples liked to tell the funny crazy story of how they met or how they did Disney World with the kids.

Leonardo started with a little more poking around than usual, through her drawers, her pockets, her pocketbook, her appointment book, her emails, her panties, whatever he could get his fingers on over the period of a few days while she showered, or slept, or was out of the house doing God knows what.

When one of his patients had similar suspicions and asked for advice, Leonardo cautioned the patient that suspicions could be poisonous and completely unfounded, and pointed out other times when the patient mistook the facts, and urged the patient not to “act out” on suspicions, and he almost was able to slip back into that safety zone himself when he happened to find himself driving slowly past Stan's house, circling Stan's house to be more precise in lazy unconscious loops like a disturbed asteroid on an evening when Harvey was at a friend's house and Barbara had called to say she'd be working late.

Leonardo saw the first star of the evening through his windshield, and made his wish: “Please,” he wished, “give me the strength to just drive home.” But each time he pointed homeward he would drift off course, and find himself back in Stan's neighborhood, back on Stan's street, back in front of Stan's house, moving slowly and looking for clues.

Someone was in the house because a light went on upstairs. And Barbara wasn't at her office, or home, or picking up her cell phone. Drinks with clients, or stuck in traffic, or side-tracked by Bloomingdale's, or something else.

The sky was moonless, and Stan's street was dimly lit. The house was set back from the street and surrounded by mature rhododendrons and thick evergreen shrubs. Leonardo happened to park a few blocks away, and happened to walk back in the direction of the house, hunched down with his baseball cap pulled low on his head and his coat collar pulled up to his ears like he was walking into an adult video store.

I'm just a routine after-dark pedestrian, minding my own business, not carrying burglary tools or drug paraphernalia, lawfully partaking of the cool evening air. Dum de dum de dum…

When he reached the sidewalk in front of Stan's house he slowed his pace, and dipped into the shadows cast by a canopy of tangled branches. There were no sounds. There were no spectators. He felt pretty much invisible except by high-tech night vision equipment which he didn't think would be in wide use in this suburban neighborhood, at least before bedtime.

He waited a full minute of silence before dropping to his knees and crawling through the perimeter plantings, which included sharp thorns which ripped at his hands and throat, and small branches which tried to poke out his eyes. He could smell dog shit nearby, and it seemed to be traveling with him. It was a miserable crawl, but he never once thought of retreating. “It reminded me of 'Nam,” he told Dr. Ziggamon.

“You were never in 'Nam.”

“Doc, I was crawling through the mud and the shit, scared out of my mind, following incoherent orders.”

Dr. Ziggamon nodded. “'Nam, the metaphor…”

“…for temporary insanity,” added Leonardo.

“Doctor,” said David, Leonardo's Saturday morning patient after the couple who probably wanted to be buried together. You may remember David from the time he worried that Leonardo might not save him if he happened to be falling out a window. “I was walking my dog yesterday afternoon as it was getting dark. Walking my dog is one of the things I do without my eyes wandering to the wrong places, you know?”

“Yes,” said Leonardo.

“We met a German shepherd, with the pointed ears and the long nose, and the bushy tail, you know?”

“Yes.”

“She was loping across the field, and came over to us. At first I was scared because she looked like a wolf, with the burning eyes, you know. I had no idea where she came from. But she joined us, and played with us. She was gentle. She obviously had a whole level of smartness above my dog. Like she listened carefully to what I said to her, with her ears pointed you know, and seemed to understand…”

“Yes.”

“She…it was in a dog voice, but she spoke to me…”

“Yes.”

“…supportive things, like she thought I was a good boy even though I'm shy, and can't talk to people. She walked us home…”

“Yes.”

“But when we got home I didn't know what to do with her. I didn't ask her in. I left her outside, but it was getting dark and cold and I worried whether she'd be OK. I put water and dog cereal on the front mat, and patted her, but I didn't invite her in. I was afraid of getting too close. I was afraid like she might take over, start ordering me to do things, you know? I fell asleep worrying about her. When I woke up this morning she was gone.”

“Do you miss her?”

“To tell you the truth, Dr. Cook, I'm relieved. I don't think I could handle that smart a dog.”

“Did she remind you of anyone?”

“I don't know many people with pointed ears and big tails.”

“Yes, but do you know someone who speaks to you gently, and who you can talk to even though you may be afraid?”

“No.”

“I mean someone who you think is wise and caring?”

“No.”

“Someone who would catch you if you were falling…”

“No.”

“Fine. By the way, did you notice anything unusual on the street in front of my office this morning?”

“Has the German shepherd been visiting you too?”

Leonardo walked outside after the session to get a breath of air, and check for stray dogs, suspicious vehicles, Viet Cong, whatever. Nothing jumped out at him, or looked at him funny, or growled from behind the shrubbery. But he kept taking quick glances over his shoulder, thinking he might catch them by surprise.
Keep walking down this path, Lenny, keep peeling and picking and poking, and you'll be the one in the patient's chair, with the straps on. Like last time.

———

Late that night Chrissie added another dog story. She told Leonardo that her grandmother, on her way from her deathbed to the afterlife, inspirited herself into Chrissie's black cocker spaniel.

“What?”

“My grandmother, whom I was close to, was in the hospital, and I was in my house with my dog, who was no brain surgeon, I promise you. I was writing a paper for school, comparing and contrasting something or other. My dog was sleeping on the rug. All of a sudden she sits up, and there's deep wisdom in her eyes like I never saw before or after, and she comes over to me and tells me that my grandmother just died, and she's very sorry…”

“What language? English? French?”

“She communicated the idea to me.”

“How did she find out?”

“I suspect that my grandmother, after she took leave of her body, was able to swirl around a little bit as part of her departure, and the dog, whom she always liked and who liked her, was an appropriate medium.”

“Why not just speak with you directly?”

“Leonardo, I didn't make the rules. I have no idea what options were available to her. If she used the dog, she had her reasons.”

“Fine.”

“Lots of people make spiritual connections, for God's sake. It wouldn't kill you…”

“Fine.”

They lay there in the dark, in the afterglow of her dog story, or maybe this one should be characterized as a grandmother story, with the window slightly open, allowing tendrils of cold air to enter and swirl around the room, touching their flesh like fingers of a ghost, but otherwise a quiet night with no warning barks, or suspicious footfalls, or screams from beyond borne on the wind to alarm a sleepy head, and gradually their breathing slowed down and they curled closer together, and hand in hand drifted to the other side of consciousness.

Until the phone rang.

They both sat up with a start. Leonardo reached for the phone. “Hello,” he said.

“Lenny,” he heard Barbara say, “is Harvey there with you?”