“I’m between jobs, sort of,” she said. “I clerk a few hours at my grandfather’s hardware store on DeSoto near Fifty-seventh. I’ll be there between one and three.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
I started to hang up but she said, “Wait.”
“I’m here.”
“What the fuck. Yeah, I’d like to know who killed Kyle. They could have stopped, called the police, given him first aid, something, instead of running away.”
“Any idea who might want to hurt Kyle?”
“Hurt? It was some drunk or some blind old lady or something,” she said. “Hit-and-run. Police said.”
“We’ll talk at your grandfather’s,” I said.
“Hey, if you-”
I hung up.
Richard McClory said I could meet him in half an hour at his office on Orange.
I folded my list, tucked it in my back pocket, put on my Cubs cap, locked the door, went through the drive- thru at McDonald’s half a block away where 301 joins Tamiami Trail. I ate my Big Mac and drank my Diet Coke while I drove to Marie Knot’s office in the complex at the corner of Bee Ridge and Sawyer.
I didn’t see Marie, just told the temp at the desk that I was Lew Fonesca. The girl was young, maybe eighteen or nineteen, round face, peach skin, long dark hair. She handed me an eight-by-ten envelope with my name on it and I was out the door checking my watch.
When I pulled into the parking lot of the McClory Oncology Center, I opened the envelope, scanned the two summonses to figure out where they had to be delivered and what they were for. Both were less than fifteen minutes away and neither suggested that the person I’d be delivering it to was particularly dangerous, but one never knows.
I put them back in the envelope, left the envelope on the seat and entered the oncology center in what my watch and the clock on the wall over the television set in the waiting room told me was within a minute of the half hour McClory had given me.
There were four people in the waiting room. Three were men over sixty. One was a woman who couldn’t have been more than forty. They all were staring at the television. A woman on CNN was telling them that people were dying in a place thousands of miles away, in a town whose name they couldn’t pronounce.
“Sign in,” said the woman behind the counter on the right with a smile. She wasn’t much younger than the quartet watching CNN.
“I’m not a patient,” I said. “I have an appointment with Dr. McClory.”
She looked at me, never losing her smile. I didn’t look like serious business.
“My name is Fonesca,” I said. “Just tell him I’m here.”
She picked up the phone and held it to her ear as she pressed a button, paused and said, “A Mr. Fonseca to see Dr. McClory.”
“Fonesca,” I said.
She nodded at me but she didn’t make the correction.
“Yes,” she said into the phone.
She hung up, looked at me and said, “Through that door, office all the way straight back.”
I went through the door. A muscular man with a well-trimmed beard wearing green lab pants and shirt came out of a room on my right.
“Changing room is through that door,” he said.
“Not a patient,” I said.”I have an appointment with Dr. McClory.”
He pointed down the corridor and ducked back into the room he had popped out of. The door to Richard McClory’s office was open. It was big, with a tan leather sofa against the wall, two tan leather chairs in front of the desk, a swivel chair with matching tan leather behind the large well-polished dark wood desk. The desk was completely clear except for a large black-and-white framed photograph of four men at a small table playing cards. The men, who seemed to be in their sixties or older, sat on folding chairs. One had his hand to his chin as if he were considering his next move. The wall behind McClory’s desk was covered in framed degrees, awards and certificates. The one window right across from the door looked out on a parking lot.
“Fonesca?” came the voice behind me.
I turned. He was tall, looked as if he could pass for John Kerry’s brother or cousin. He was wearing a white lab coat and a look that suggested it had been a while since he had a full night of sleep.
He held his hand out toward one of the chairs. I sat and he moved behind his desk, leaned forward and folded his hands.
“Nancy hired you,” he said.
“Yes.”
He looked out the window. An SUV went over a speed bump with a rattle.
“Has anyone close to you died unexpectedly?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He looked away from the window at me. It wasn’t the answer he expected. There was a flash of something, maybe anger in his eyes. How dare my tragedy be compared with his?
“Kyle was my only son,” he said.
I wasn’t going to play. I wasn’t going to say, “Catherine was my only wife.” These were different tragedies, different pains for two different people.
“I know,” I said.
“You do this for a living?” he asked. “Exploit people’s grief, promise them justice?”
“No,” I said.
“No?” he repeated with sarcasm.
“No.” I got up and said, “Sorry.”
I was on my way out, almost at the door, when he said, “Wait. Close the door. Sit down.”
I closed the door and went back to the chair.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pushing his hair back with the palm of his large right hand. “I deal with death, the death of near strangers, every day. We save some, save a lot, but some come too late. The families, the wives, parents, children, must feel what I’m feeling.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Now I’m one of them and I think about the crap I say to them and know that if someone tries to give me that about losing Kyle… I’m sorry. I’m tired. I haven’t slept in almost three days.”
“I know a good therapist,” I said.
“Don’t believe in it,” he said. “You know you’re the first person I’ve discussed Kyle’s death with? Everyone just looks at me sympathetically or tells me how sorry they are, but they don’t talk to me and I don’t want them to. God, I’m rambling.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“I suppose. It doesn’t matter.”
He put his head in his hands for an instant, sighed deeply, looked up and said, “You want to know why I’m a good radiologist?”
I nodded.
“I’ve been through what about half of my patients have been through. I’ve had prostate cancer. Radiation. Seed implants. I tell them, I’m living proof that you can survive. It’s the survivors of those who don’t make it that I can’t deal with. You know the side effects of radiation and seed implants?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, the one on the table now is the inability to produce sperm,” he said. “I can’t have any more children, Mr. Fonesca. I’m forty-two years old and Kyle will be the only child I will ever have.”
He stared at me, either waiting for a response or seeing through me.
It should have been clear five minutes earlier, but I was sure now. Dr. Richard McClory was self-prescribing to deal with his pain and it looked as if he might be using more than the minimum recommended dose of whatever it was.
“Ask your questions, Mr. Fonesca,” he said, leaning back, eyes closed.
