wad of phlegm going down a drain.
'I don't -' Try. 'I don't want to -' Say it. 'I can't -'
'Is he talking in his sleep?' A man's voice, asking it in a clinical way, almost as if thinking out loud.
Mitch opened his eyes, and saw a doctor, a dark little Paki or Indian dude, eyes just a bit too sunken. Coming in with the nurse. ''I am Doctor Drandhu.' Indian accent.
'Painkiller.'
'I am not your doctor, so I can't prescribe it. Your doctor's up in the E.R., doing a little cutting and pasting on somebody else. He'll be here soon as he can. I came over from Culver City – I work at the Culver City Private Hospital – because Doctor Metzger – that's your doctor, Dr. Metzger, he said I might have a look at you…' He was talking distractedly as he looked at Mitch's wounds. 'Very very nice sewing. Doctor Metzger does good work. It doesn't look like you lost a lot of muscle tissue, so if the nerves are well, you should recover, but you will have some scarring…'
'You got one like this one?' the nurse asked, surprised.
'Two, actually, correct. A young woman and a man about forty. We have just got the man in this morning. Were you taking a drug, Mitch? It's confidential.'
'No.'
'You are sure? We are not going to tell anyone about it, no.'
Mitch just closed his eyes. Sure, right, just try and explain.
The doctor asked him another question. Mitch ignored him. He didn't even notice what the question was, at first. He was too busy trying not to throw up. He heard it when the doctor repeated it. 'Mitch, who were you talking to when we came in? Are you hearing voices?' Mitch ignored that, too. After a few minutes he realized they had gone. But someone else was there. He could feel it.
He opened his eyes and saw the Handy Man. The More Man had sent him.
A little man with red cheeks and very big bright blue eyes and extra-big earlobes like that Senator with the bow tie who ran for president, and not much forehead, and a wide, yellow-toothed smile. He wore an old brown jacket, and a neatly pressed brown shirt, brown polyester pants. His hair was crewcut. He really didn't care much what he looked like, no, not the Handy Man. Just simple and clean, that was the Handy Man. Maybe that's why he didn't have any fingernails.
Panic. 'No! I'm not going.'
'There no one around,' said the Handy Man, in his too-high voice, a midget's voice. He was only an inch or two taller than a midget. 'And the ones out in the clinic, well, they're all busy, and I've brought something so you don't have to walk, and something so you don't have to feel any pain.' He held up a syringe. 'Morphine.' He smiled apologetically. ''We would prefer to use the connection instead, but it is broken, so…' He shrugged, and widened his smile.
'Morphine? Oh yes, please.'
Let the Handy Man give him the painkiller, Mitch thought, and then he'd refuse to go with him. He'd buzz for the nurse. Yell for help.
But after the Handy Man shot the drug into the IV tube, a warm tide of indifference carried Mitch away and he let the Handy Man bundle him into some clothes and into the wheelchair.
On the way out, as the badly oiled wheelchair squeaked down the hall, he found himself staring hazily at the stitches in his arm. The black wiry stitches stuck out at the ends, where they were tied off, looking like insect legs, insect antennae. Insects burrowing in his skin.
He didn't care. He fell asleep, not caring.
Culver City, Lot Angeles
'You sure you weren't sleeping with Amy?'
'I think I'd probably notice it if I was.'
'That's not funny, Jeff. You know what I mean.'
'I'm being honest. She came over and said she needed a place to stay for one night. Mitch was pretty dazzled by her. I think his respect for you quadrupled when I told him she was your wife.'
They were sitting in Jeff's little office, Jeff on an orange crate and Prentice on Jeff's swivel chair. The orange crate would have collapsed under Prentice. He sat next to the PC workstation, with Jeff's collection of Playboy Calenders from the 1950s and early 60s on one wall, his Japanese robot monster toys, bookshelves made of cinder blocks and raw boards taking up another. They were untidy shelves, with magazines and graphic novels crammed in horizontally over the Penguin paperbacks and Jeff's pulp detective novel collection, each old yellowing paperback encased in a clear plastic envelope. In a closet was Jeff's small but startling gun collection…
They were waiting for the phone to ring.
'She stayed on the futon and Mitch slept on the floor in a sleeping bag. I knew you'd want to get all the sleeping arrangements clear. I tried to talk to her but she seemed really spooked. She said she was trying to make up her mind about something. Said she had a part, or anyway an offer, but she didn't know if she trusted the guy. I figured it was one of these casting couch situations.'
'Shit.'
'Yeah. Anyway, she didn't want to talk about it. She sat on the futon with her legs drawn up under her -'
'She always sits that way if there's room.'
'- and stared at the TV. She watched like four sitcoms without hardly even blinking but she didn't laugh at any of the jokes. She was still on the futon, asleep, when I left for a meeting the next morning. I called home and Mitch said she'd left.' He paused, staring reflectively into space as he remembered. 'I think I… I was in a rotten mood so I argued with MItch, over the phone, about him finding a job or going back to school. And… when I came back he wasn't there. Left a note, didn't say much. I didn't connect his leaving with Amy. Maybe there's no connection. Probably not…'
'How come you didn't tell me before about Amy being here?'
'Because she asked me not to and because I know how you are. Irrationally jealous. I mean, I never laid a finger on her but I knew you'd grill me anyway if you knew she was here. You could be divorced or busted up with a girl for three years and still be possessive of her, Tom. Even if it was you that dumped her, which it usually was.'
Prentice winced. 'It's mostly if it's one of my friends. I can't stand the idea of one of my friends sleeping with my ex-girlfriends. I don't know why it should bother me, an ex should be an ex, but…'
The phone rang. Jeff dived for it. 'Hello?'
A pause as he leaned vulture – like over the phone, one hand flat on the desk. 'Where? Juvenile Detention? Jesus. Which one?' He reached for a pen and a yellow pad. 'Got it. Thanks. Thanks Officer, I-' He shrugged, and hung up. ''Cops don't waste time with amenities, just hang up when they're done. He's in JDH, possession of a controlled substance.'
'He's in juvenile hall? They'd have to inform your mom or dad if they put him there, Jeff.'
'They informed my mom, chances are, but she fucking lied to me about it. I guess she didn't want me to get him out, wanted to teach him a lesson or something.'
'Or make sure he went through their drug rehab maybe.'
'Maybe, if you want to believe she had decent motivations in lying to me. I doubt it. The bitch. Well, let's go see if they'll let us have him. Maybe I can get custody.' Jeff seemed relieved, almost happy.
Jeff was almost out the door when the phone rang again.
It was the cob Jeff had just talked to. Jeff listened, and said, 'Well why the hell didn't you -? Hello? Shit.' Jeff went into his slow motion mode, moving as if in liquid wax as he hung up the phone, sat down and tugged at his beard. 'He was taken to a hospital. He ran away from it. They don't know where he is.'
3
Oakland, California
Constance was a virgin, certainly. In more ways than one, Ephram decided.
