Black House

Most of my patients come in through the waiting room, and I’ll bring Mrs. Marshall in that way. Give me two or three minutes.”

Jack thanks him, and the doctor hurries out through the door to the waiting room.

In the little closet, Wendell Green slides his cassette recorder from the pocket of his jacket and presses both it and his ear to the door. His thumb rests on the RECORD button, and his heart is racing. Once again, western Wisconsin’s most distinguished journalist is doing his duty for the man in the street. Too bad it’s so blasted dark in that closet, but being stuffed into a black hole is not the first sacrifice Wendell has made for his sacred calling; besides, all he really needs to see is the little red light on his tape recorder.

Then, a surprise: although Doctor Spiegleman has left the room, here is his voice, asking for Lieutenant Sawyer. How did that Freudian quack get back in without opening or closing a door, and what happened to Judy Marshall?

Lieutenant Sawyer, I must speak to you. Pick up the receiver. You have a call, and it sounds urgent.

Of course—he is on the intercom. Who can be calling Jack Sawyer, and why the urgency? Wendell hopes that Golden Boy will push the telephone’s SPEAKER button, but alas Golden Boy does not, and Wendell must be content with hearing only one side of the conversation.

“A call?” Jack says. “Who’s it from?”

“He refused to identify himself,” the doctor says. “Someone you told you’d be visiting Ward D.”

Beezer, with news of Black House. “How do I take the call?”

“Just punch the flashing button,” the doctor says. “Line one. I’ll bring in Mrs. Marshall when I see you’re off the line.”

Jack hits the button and says, “Jack Sawyer.”

“Thank God,” says Beezer St. Pierre’s honey-and-tobacco voice. “Hey man, you gotta get over to my place, the sooner the better. Everything got messed up.”

“Did you find it?”

“Oh yeah, we found Black House, all right. It didn’t exactly welcome us. That place wants to stay hidden, and it lets you know. Some of the guys are hurting. Most of us will be okay, but Mouse, I don’t know. He got something terrible from a dog bite, if it was a dog, which I doubt. Doc did what he could, but. . . . Hell, the guy is out of his mind, and he won’t let us take him to the hospital.”

“Beezer, why don’t you take him anyway, if that’s what he needs?”

“We don’t do things that way. Mouse hasn’t stepped inside a hospital since his old man croaked in one. He’s twice as scared of hospitals as of what’s happening to his leg. If we took him to La Riviere General, he’d probably drop dead in the E.R.”

“And if he didn’t, he’d never forgive you.”

“You got it. How soon can you be here?”

“I still have to see the woman I told you about. Maybe an hour—not much longer than that, anyhow.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Mouse is dying on us. We got a whole lot of things to say to each other.”

“I agree,” Jack says. “Work with me on this, Beez.” He hangs up, turns to the door near the consulting-room chair, and waits for his world to change.

What the hell was that all about? Wendell wonders. He has squandered two minutes’ worth of tape on a conversation between Jack Sawyer and the dumb SOB who spoiled the film that should have paid for a nice car and a fancy house on a bluff above the river, and all he got was worthless crap. Wendell deserves the nice car and the fancy house, has earned them thrice over, and his sense of deprivation makes him seethe with resentment. Golden Boys get everything handed to them on diamond-studded salvers, people fall all over themselves to give them stuff they don’t even need, but a legendary, selfless working stiff and gentleman of the press like Wendell Green? It costs Wendell Green twenty bucks to hide in a dark, crowded little closet just to do his job!

His ears tingle when he hears the door open. The red light burns, the faithful recorder passes the ready tape from spool to spool, and whatever happens now is going to change everything: Wendell’s gut, that infallible organ, his best friend, warms with the assurance that justice will soon be his.

Dr. Spiegleman’s voice filters through the closet door and registers on the spooling tape: “I’ll leave you two alone now.”

Golden Boy: “Thank you, Doctor. I’m very grateful.”

Dr. Spiegleman: “Thirty minutes, right? That means I’ll be back at, umm, ten past two.”

Golden Boy: “Fine.”

The soft closing of the door, the click of the latch. Then long seconds of silence. Why aren’t they talking to each other? But of course . . . the question answers itself. They’re waiting for fat-ass Spiegleman to move out of hearing range.

Oh, this is just delicious, that’s what this is! The whisper of Golden Boy’s footsteps moving toward that door all but confirms the sterling reporter’s intuition. O gut of Wendell Green, O Instrument Marvelous and Trustworthy, once more you come through with the journalistic goods! Wendell hears, the machine records, the inevitable next sound: the click of the lock.

Judy Marshall: “Don’t forget the door behind you.”

Golden Boy: “How are you?”

Judy Marshall: “Much, much better, now that you’re here. The door, Jack.”

Another set of footsteps, another unmistakable sliding into place of a metal bolt.