One Foot Off the Gutter (6 page)

“Is that you, Doctor Dick?” the orderly said. “I didn't recognize you there for a second. You asked about this here biddy? Where am I taking her? I was told to take her outside.”

“Outside?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah, you know. Got to put her somewhere.”

“Let me see her chart.”

“She ain't got one.”

“Oh, that's peculiar. What's going on here?”

There was a lengthy and uncomfortable pause in which no one said a word. Nary a sound was heard in the lysol reeking corridor. The geriatric looked up at the doctor with her milk colored eyes; her pupils were dilated and gray. She opened her toothless mouth, but nothing came out.

“Are you all right, ma'am?” he whispered.

“Ahhh,” she croaked.

“I see. Well, she doesn't have any complaints,” the doctor said.

“That's right,” the orderly chipped in. “Elizabeth here, she's been happy with us. She's got no problems to speak of.”

A gurney came speeding down the hallway, guided by three red-faced medics.

“Watch out, doc!” one of the medics shouted. “We've got a live one here!”

“It's not so good,” another medic gasped.

“Let me have a look,” the doctor ordered.

The gurney was laden with a heavy, inert body covered by a sheet. The doctor peeled back the sheet a few inches and received a jolt that shocked him speechless. It wasn't possible; there had to be an error. He became scared, and strangely enough, as if he'd been waiting for this moment, he felt thrilled.

“Patsy! My God, what is going on here?”

The ice cold features of his wife's unmarred face greeted him. Her eyelids were ashen, her skin bloodless; her breathing was shallow. He doubted if she was conscious, and there was a chance her heart wasn't beating.

“Where did you find her?” he asked the medics.

“Ambulance got her,” the third medic chirped. “They picked her up by Folsom Park.”

The first medic pulled the sheet back from Patsy's neck, revealing her breasts and shoulders. Three dark, bruised holes formed a triangular pattern across her left thigh and stomach. The doctor pressed his fingers on the wounds. The flesh was pulpy and wet; the bullets were buried under layers of muscle and fat.

“Where are you taking her?” the doctor asked.

“We haven't decided,” the second medic answered.

He kneeled down beside the gurney; the medics did the same. The doctor whispered, “Patsy? Can you hear me?”

From a point on the map further away than the doctor could have imagined, she answered, “Yes, I can hear you.”

“Do you feel any pain?”

“I don't know. I feel something. But it's not what you think.”

The doctor's pulse double-timed a beat. Patsy was trying to tell him something important. But this wasn't the proper occasion. Boy, did she ever freak him out; he never could tell with her. A voice inside his mouth told him to proceed with caution.

“You don't get it, do you?” she whimpered.

The words rattled like a corn husk in her throat. The doctor felt a blast of icy, arctic air blow across his shoulders.

“Get what?”

“I think we need to talk.”

The medics stared at her with undisguised horror.

“I thought she was dead,” one of them confessed.

“Not yet,” the second medic smirked.

“What do we need to talk about now?” the doctor asked.

“Our marriage.”

A drop of blood appeared on her lips; it resembled a solitary ruby. The doctor wiped away the drop with the sleeve of his surgical smock.

“Our marriage?” he repeated.

God, he hated her when she got into a snit about their relationship. Patsy could be so manipulative. She felt the need to dominate him; she liked to trap him in front of witnesses. That's when she showed her true colors.

“Aren't you worried about Malcolm and Celeste?” she asked.

The doctor was aghast. He was taken aback by Patsy's tone of voice. How dare she try to belittle him. If she thought she could humiliate him before several of the hospital's employees, she had another thing coming.

“Don't talk to me about Malcolm and Celeste,” he snapped. “They were your idea, not mine. Remember, dear?”

“Oh, now we have the real story...it was my idea,” Patsy mocked him.

She'd picked up the ability, God knows where, to mimic his voice. During the course of their marriage, she'd learned to twist the way he talked into an unflattering caricature that made him feel like a dunce. She could throw his own words back at him with a venom that made him think he was three inches tall and shrinking.

“Yes, it was your idea. That and giving them those ridiculous names.”

“You don't like their names? I didn't know we'd come this far. This is wonderful. It's so good to hear you be honest for a change.”

“Don't provoke me. It won't work. I'm too smart to fall for it.”

He put his hands over his ears. He tried to reassure himself, this was not happening. To speak his mind, that was a big mistake.

“I told you it would turn out this way,” Patsy said with self-evident satisfaction. “I always knew you'd shirk your duties as a father and as a man.”

“Who's wearing the chastity belt? Can I ask you that?” the doctor blazed up.

“That's it. It's over. You've gone too far, Richard.”

“Take her away,” the doctor ordered. He snapped his fingers. The tableau surrounding the gurney liquefied instantaneously.

“Where to?” the first medic said.

“To the incinerator room,” the doctor replied.

He turned around and took off down the hallway. He was determined to keep her from having the last word. It was too late; he wasn't quick enough. Before he passed out of hearing range, Patsy used the last of her strength to lean over the restraining bars of the gurney, and to scream, “You'll pay for this, you bastard!”

“I'm sure I will,” the doctor muttered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

i
turned off the engine as the squad car rolled up to the curb near the abandoned building on Twenty-first

Street. The warm Mission night was quieter than usual. That gladdened me: I was having a hard time concentrating on what I needed to do.

“What are we doing here again?” Bellamy complained. “C'mon, Coddy. We don't need to do this. What the fuck are you trying to prove, ha?”

“Would you look at that? Would you look at that house?” I said with admiration. “This is what I was telling you about.”

“I'm serious, man! Don't shine me on! What are we doing here? I want some answers!”

“Relax, Bells. I know what I'm doing. If you stay loose, you'll see what I'm talking about.”

Bellamy crossed his arms and didn't say a word. He slunk down in his seat, waxing sullen vibrations while he
watched me get out of the car. I could feel his eyes questioning my sanity.

I held my riot helmet in one hand. The hulking Victorian with its ruined gables stood out against the moon light. I adjusted my garrison belt and smoothed back my admittedly receding hairline. A bird chittered in a backyard tree. A balmy night like this seemed to be the right kind of weather for a man about to change his life.

“See, Bells? Is this so awful? Can't you appreciate the air, and forget about the rest of it?”

“I don't want to get involved, Coddy. Just let me smoke a cigarette, and I'll calm down, okay?”

 

All I wanted was a home. Something that would separate me from the citizens and the assholes. All I had to my name was a rental in Novato; Christ only knew I wanted something more than that. Alice called it real estate envy. Some people wanted a beautiful, sexy wife. Other people wanted a fancy car, and practically everyone wanted lots of money. But what I wanted was a house.

That's what this place was going to be, my home. I pulled out a flashlight from a pocket in my combat blouse and walked around to the side of the abandoned building. I stopped by the garbage cans, scaring a tomcat that blinked villainously at me before running off. There was jasmine, somewhere inside the neighbor's backyard. The odor reminded me of Alice and the way she smelled after she stepped out of the shower.

“Don't stare at me like that, Coddy,” she'd say.

“Come here.”

Alice would laugh. “Not now, Coddy.”

“Give me some candy. It won't take long.”

Before she could cover herself up with a towel, I'd draw her close to me, having waited so long for the moment. I'd plunge my face into her cleavage with Alice saying my name over and over, like she was casting a spell against all things bad and evil.

I did an about face and retraced my steps until I was in front of the house again. I played the flashlight over the steps of the porch. I caught myself calculating how much money it would take to repair the place. Adding up the numbers was as automatic as wearing my uniform.

A car drove by and I jumped; I spun around and reached for my revolver. I saw Bellamy was doing the same in the front seat of the squad car and I silently mouthed my gratitude. Bellamy was always at my back, taking care of business for me. I cherished this aspect of our relationship. You never knew when an asshole was going to surprise you.

Twice in my career I had been radioed to the scene of an alleged crime, only to find out that I'd walked into an ambush. The first time I'd narrowly escaped getting shot. The second time wasn't even worth remembering: the squad car had taken two hits in the side while me and Bellamy were standing in line for burgers at McDonald's. After all these years on the force, I was getting tired of the excitement. It was monotonous, and did nil to help me sleep at night.

I mounted the front steps of the abandoned building, testing each step before putting my full weight on it. The
first thing I noticed was a yellowed piece of paper tacked to the door. It was a five-year-old advertisement for jumbo pizza slices at Domino's on South Van Ness Avenue, a pizzeria that had burned down to the ground three years ago.

Pointing the flashlight at the stoop, I saw it wouldn't be too difficult to break into the building. I smiled in the gloom; the best was yet to come. Behind that door was a treasure, the things I'd never had as a kid.

 

Free Box held his breath on the other side of the front door. He could hear Coddy talking to himself on the porch. The spit in Free Box's throat dried up into a tongue-defying clot. It was that cop again, that crazy cop. Free Box cupped one ear to the door and cocked the revolver's hammer with his thumb.

 

“Officer?”....Psst, officer...is something wrong?”

“Who's there? Identify yourself!”

“I'm over here.”

I swung the flashlight toward the voice and slid my revolver from its holster with the other hand. A citizen in his pajamas from the house next door was hailing me. The guy's timing was phenomenal; people had been known to die for less.

For the entirety of my life, people had been interrupting me at the wrong moment. It was like walking in on someone when they were making love to their wife. It was something that should never happen, but it kept occurring regular as clockwork.

“What can I do for you, sir?” I glowed with malice.

The doctor's tangled hair and white skin were caught inside the radius of Coddy's flashlight beam. The doctor had woken up to the sound of an unusual noise. He'd gotten out of bed and gone over to the window to investigate the disturbance. To his surprise, as dark as it was, he saw a large policeman standing on the steps of the abandoned building.

It was the last thing he expected to see at four o'clock in the morning. Doctor Dick was suspicious. The Mission cops were the dregs of the city's police force; untested, callow rookies and hardened sociopaths that no other station in the system wanted. Headquarters sent all the bad apples to the Mission. The doctor had read about it in the local newspaper.

“Is everything okay, officer?”

“Everything is beautiful. Now why don't you go back to sleep.”

The doctor didn't move. “Are you sure?” he asked.

 

This is perfect, I thought. The little man wants to stand me off.

“Sir, things couldn't be better,” I piped up, ready to be diplomatic.

There was an uncomfortable interlude; the citizen did not know what to do. Finally, with great and protracted reluctance, he shut his window. I flicked off the flashlight and made my way back down the front steps to the sidewalk. I was trembling like a wet shirt on a clothesline in the wind. Fucking hell, I wanted that building. For now, I had
to maintain my cool. I appropriated a casual but artificial gait and strolled over to the squad car, opening the door.

Bellamy stirred from a cat nap, one of his specialties. Bellamy could sleep with both eyes open. It wasn't something the average man did.

“What's going on?” he yawned.

“Nothing,” I sniggered. “Ain't nothing going on but the rent.”

“Let's get some coffee,” Bellamy said. “Cruise over to Hunt's Donuts. They'll have some freshly baked maple bars.”

“I'm with that.”

I started the engine, shifted into gear and backed into the street. I stepped on the gas, excited and irritated at the same time. The car roared one hundred yards up the block to the corner of Folsom. The light turned to green and I goosed the pedal, sending Bellamy flying back into his seat as we zoomed through the intersection past the park toward Mission Street.