“Roll up your sleeve and make a fist,” he said. I made a tight fist for the second time that day.
Dr. Burn hadn’t looked me in the eye yet, and he didn’t now, as he crossed in front of me and opened one of the thin metal drawers. He pulled a syringe out of its wrapping and wet some cotton in alcohol, then stood in front of me and dabbed the alcohol at the vein that was visible at the base of my bicep.
I looked away and felt a sharp sting, then I felt nothing. I said, “You get it, Doc?”
“No, I didn’t, as a matter of fact,” he said tiredly. “Your vein’s a little tough. Do you drink very often, Mr. Stefanos?”
“Only on special occasions,” I said.
“Right,” he said; then I felt the sting again and turned to watch the burgundy black liquid fill the tube. Dr. Burn capped it off and handed me the plastic cylinder. I felt the sickening but reaffirming warmth of my blood through the plastic. “Hold this while I wash up.” He returned after washing and took the sample from my hand. “What’s the sample for?”
“I’m going to be a father,” I offered, in response to his coercive gaze. “The mother wanted me checked out before we went through with the process.”
“The process?”
“I’m a surrogate,” I said, the words clipped with clinical sterility.
“That’s very intelligent of her,” he said, and added, before I could take it the wrong way, “and noble of you.” He tapped his pencil on the clipboar [th›
“That’s true. In fact, I just came from a clinic where I could have had it done. But I wanted to speak to you. I was referred by William Goodrich.”
“I saw that on your chart,” he said. “Which is stranger still. William Goodrich isn’t a patient of mine. His wife April is.”
“I said I was referred by Billy Goodrich, Dr. Burn. I didn’t say it was a medical matter.” I buttoned my shirt and looked up at the doctor. “April Goodrich is missing. Her husband hired me to find her.”
I handed the doctor one of my cards. He cleared his throat as he looked it over, then handed the card back to me.
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss my patients with anyone without their consent. That is something that I think you can understand.”
“Of course. But I’m not here to ask you if you know her whereabouts. I wouldn’t ask you,” I lied, “to compromise your professional relationship with your patient.”
Dr. Burn had a seat on the folding chair and crossed one long leg over the other. He removed his reading glasses and placed them on the counter to his left. “Then what is this about? Is April in any danger?”
“I don’t know. She may have just walked away and made a clean break from her marriage. Even if that’s the case, I still intend to find her. It’s what I was hired for. But if something’s happened to her, it would help to know of any medical difficulties she may have. It could increase her chances.”
“You mean, if she’s been kidnapped.”
“That’s right.”
“I would need to check this out with the police first, before I spoke to you. I assume they know.”
“They have a record of her disappearance,” I said.
Dr. Burn said, “I’ll call you.”
The phone rang shortly after I arrived at my apartment.
“I spoke to the police,” Dr. Burn said.
“Well?”
“Your story checks out.”
“So? Is there anything I need to know on the medical end about April?”
“She’s a healthy young woman,” he said carefully, “as long as she watches herself.”
“What’s wrong with her, Doc?”
Dr. Burn chuckled without joy. “She’s got a very minor problem, one that you would b [t yiv›
“No shit.”
“Precisely.”
“So April Goodrich can’t take a drink.”
“Not exactly,” he said. “April is both corn- and grape-sensitive. Most liquor is out, of course, and it goes without saying that wine is too. The majority of rum sold in this country is shipped in hogshead barrels, blended with grape brandy before bottling. So that’s out too. But rum bottled in Jamaica is a different story.”
“You lost me.”
“April can drink liquor that’s free of corn or grape, and drink it she does, Mr. Stefanos-to excess. She’s damn near what we used to call a Jamaican rummy.”
“And if she drinks something else?”
“She knows not to. She’d get violently ill.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing on the medical end, as you say. Nothing else particularly unusual.”
“What about on the personal end?”
“It’s none of my business, of course” he said. “But I’ll tell you this: on more than one examination, I noticed various… markings about her wrists. Sometimes similar markings were around her ankles.”
“What kind of markings?”
“Burns of a sort. Hemp or wire.”
“You think she was tied up?”
“The markings would seem to indicate some sort of bondage, yes.”
“April ever mention it? Complain about it?”
“No.”
“Consenting adults, Doc. It’s not my thing, but it’s not illegal.”
“Maybe not. But I met her husband once on a consultation, when they were considering having a child. Let’s just say that I don’t think April left home involuntarily. He seems to have had a proclivity for sudden anger, an anger perhaps that could have manifested itself in violence. Does that paint any type of picture for you?”
“It’s vivid enough.”
“Good luck, then,” he said abruptly. “And go od luck with fatherhood too. Your blood specimen was fine, by the way. Though you ought to take it easy on the sauce, as a general matter of health.”
“It’s under control,” I said.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Thanks for the advice, Doc, and thanks for the information. You’ve been a big help.”
' wideight='0em'›
TEN
Thursday’s post was light on news but heavy with inserts. I read it that morning as I sat on my convertible couch, a mug of coffee resting on the couch’s arm. My cat sat next to me, her thin body barely touching mine, licking her paws with deliberate, efficient zeal. Occasionally I reached over and scratched around the scarred socket that had once housed her right eye.
The headline of the Metro section screamed that the homicide numbers had exceeded the previous year’s, with three weeks to spare before New Year’s Day. Arsons and gay bashings were on the increase as well. Several related articles described the “faces behind the victims” of the street crimes that were now spreading “west of Rock Creek Park,” a D.C. code phrase for whites. This from a newspaper that routinely buried the violent deaths of its black readership in the back of the section.
After my second cup of coffee I laid Dream Syndicate’s Medicine Show on the turntable, cranked up the volume, and cleared the rocker out from the center of my bedroom. I jumped rope for the duration of the album’s first side; for the B-side I did abs and several sets of push-ups. Then I showered, shaved, dressed, and had another
