The Clinic

“They both were.” Big smile. “That was the beauty of it. The street was so dark, those big trees, no one walking. I leaned my bike against the tree, walked up their front lawn, gave the meat to the dog, and just rode away.”

Long silence.

Finally, he said, “So easy.”

I nodded. “You came back later?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Around ten.”

“Because that was the time of her nightly walk.”

The smile dropped off. “She walked between ten-thirty and eleven-thirty. Same route, black sweats one night, gray the next. Black, gray, black, gray. Like a machine. I didn't know if she'd walk without the dog or call it off. But she did- does that tell you the kind of person she was? The poor Rottie's barfing its guts out and she just goes about her routine? If she'd veered off-schedule, who knows, I might never have gone through with it.”

“Really?”

He stared at me. Broke into the widest grin yet. “Nah, eventually it would have happened.”

“In the script, huh?”

He looked down at his feet again. “Yes, that's a good way to put it.”

“If you don't mind, let's back up a bit, Reed.”

“To what?”

“Mandy Wright.”

“Mandy who?”

I smiled, crossed my legs. “She bothers you? More than Devane?”

“No.” He exhaled. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me what happened. How she set you up.”

He cracked his knuckles loud enough for the deputy to turn around. Flipped his hair, combed his fingers through it, let it cascade around his handsome face and flipped it once more.

The deputy turned again, frowned, faced the wall.

Muscadine said, “Whew…”

“Still hard to talk about,” I said.

“Yeah… you hit the nail on the head. The basic issue is the setup. That fucking committee hearing.”

“The blood test.”

“Exactly. Devane hated my guts for whatever reason, must have decided right then to harvest me. Incredible, isn't it? Like a bad dream- for months I was walking around in a nightmare.”

“Tell me about it.”

“The nightmare?”

“Everything. Starting with Mandy.”

“Mandy,” he said. “Mandy the working cunt. She told me her name was Desiree.”

“Did you know her before you met at Club None?”

“No, but I knew hundreds like her.”

“How?”

“L.A. woman,” he said. “Like that Doors song.”

“Did she pick you up?”

“In retrospect, she must have. At the time I thought I was picking her up.”

“Where?”

“Club None.”

“You go there often?”

“Once a week or so. I was taking some night acting classes in Brentwood, used to drive home on Sunset. Sometimes I dropped in and had a beer. They must have been watching me. Stalking me.”

He started to cry, covered his face. “Shit,” he said through gigantic fingers. “To be prey- the violation.”

“Spooky,” I said.

“Sickening.”

He looked up.

I nodded.

“The degradation,” he said. “They cheapened me. I wouldn't treat a dog that way.”

I let him compose himself. “So you went into Club None and saw Mandy- Desiree- and-”

“She was at the bar, we made eye contact, she smiled, bent over, showed me her tits. Luscious tits. I went over, sat down, chatted her up, we moved to a table. I bought her a drink, had myself another beer, we talked. Next thing her hand's on my knee, and she's saying let's go back to my place.” Smiling. “It's happened to me before.”

“Did you go to her place?”

“We never got there. She must have slipped something in my beer 'cause the last thing I remember is getting into my car and then… God, I still can't believe they fucked me like that!” Big shoulders shook.

Acting? Maybe, maybe not.

“Then what, Reed?”

“Then I woke up in an alley a block from my house with the goddamnedest pain in my back and the stink of garbage in my nose.”

“What time?”

“Around four A.M., it was still dark. I could hear rats, smell the garbage- they dumped me like garbage!”

I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

“Kafka. I tried to get up, couldn't. My back was starting to hurt like hell. A throbbing, dull pain, right over my hipbone. And it felt tight, really tight, as if I was being squeezed. I reached around, touched something- gauze. I'd been wrapped. Like a mummy. Then my arm started throbbing, too, and I managed to roll up my sleeve and saw a black-and-blue mark- a needle stick.”

He touched his inner elbow.

“At first I thought someone had screwed with my head, too- given me dope, though I couldn't figure out why. Later I realized it was the anesthesia. I was woozy, nauseous, started to throw up, heaved my guts for a long time. Finally, I managed to stand, made it to my apartment somehow and collapsed. Slept all day. When I woke up, I was still in the dream and the pain was unbearable and I knew I had a fever. I drove myself to the free clinic and the doctor took off the bandage and this look came on his face. Like how can you be walking around? Then he told me, you've been operated on, man. Don't you remember? I started to freak out, he held up a mirror so I could see the stitches. Like a fucking football.”

He played with his hair some more, rubbed his eyes, shook his head.

“Oh, man. It was like… you have no idea. No idea, the violation. Fritz Lang, Hitchcock. This hippie doctor's telling me I've had surgery and I'm saying no way. He must have thought I was nuts.”

“Hitchcock,” I said.

“The classic plot line: innocent man gets caught up. Only the star hadn't been told. The star had been improvised on.”

“Horrible,” I said.

“Beyond horror- splatter cinema. Then I started to remember things. Desiree- Mandy. Us getting into my car, her leaning over to me, kissing. Jamming her tongue down my throat. Then fade to black. Boom.”

He put the palm of one hand over his eyes.

“The free clinic doctor's saying calm down, man, you've got a fever, better check into the hospital.”

“Did the doctor say what kind of operation you'd had?” I asked.