Deadlock

My head was starting to feel worse; I drank some water and lowered the bed to rest. I slept for a while. When I woke up a young man was sitting in the visitor’s chair watching me with nervous concern. His smooth, round face with its broken nose and doggy brown eyes looked vaguely familiar. I collected myself.

“Pierre Bouchard! How nice to see you. Myron told me you were out of town.”

He smiled and looked much more familiar-I had never seen him around Boom Boom without a smile, “Yes, well, I got back last night. And Anna pointed out the story of your accident in the paper.” He shook his head woefully. “I am so sorry, Vic. First Boom Boom and now this.”

I smiled awkwardly. “My shoulder will heal. And I know you won’t give me sympathy for a mere dislocated shoulder when you’ve had your leg tied up for weeks, and your nose broken three times-”

“Four,” he corrected with a twinkle.

“So did Myron tell you I wanted to see you?”

“Myron? No. How could he when I have only just returned to Chicago? No, Vic. I came for your sake.” He pulled a package from the floor and handed it to me.

I opened it up. Inside was a seal carved from the soap-stone used by Eskimos. I was very touched and told him so.

“Well, in a hospital one gets tired of flowers all day long. I know. This little fellow was carved by Eskimos two, three hundred years ago. I hope he will bring you luck.”

“Thank you, Pierre. I hope he will too. And he will always help me think of you.”

He beamed. “Good, good-only don’t let Anna hear you say that!” He paused a minute. “I came, too, on an errand of Boom Boom’s. I have been in Quebec for two weeks-I flew down for the funeral, you know-then went right back there.

“Well, I got home last night and there was a letter waiting from him! He had mailed it the day before he died.” He fumbled in the breast pocket of his tweedy brown jacket and pulled out the letter, which he handed to me.

Boom Boom was haunting me from the grave with his letters. Everyone was bringing me personal correspondence from him-why didn’t he ever write me? I pulled the single white sheet from its envelope and read the small, neat handwriting.

Pierre

Anna tells me you’re playing in the Coeur d’Argent. Break their heads for me, my friend. I thought I saw Howard the other day in very odd circumstances. I tried calling him but Elsie said he was in Quebec with you. Give me a ring when you get back and let me know.

Boom Boom

“Who’s Howard? Howard Mattingly?”

Pierre nodded. Mattingly was a second-string wing. “Elsie’s his wife. Poor girl. If he told her he was going to the Coeur d’Argent she would believe him-just in order not to find out where he really was.”

“So he wasn’t in Quebec with you?”

He shook his head. “Always a new girl, Mattingly. Boom Boom never cared for him-he can’t even play hockey. And he brags, you know.”

The unforgivable male sin-bragging about your success with girls and on the ice-especially when neither was very admirable.

I looked at the letter again, dubiously. It seemed totally unrelated to the mess I was trying to sort out. But it had been important enough that my cousin called, then wrote Bouchard. It must mean something. I’d at least have to try to find out where Boom Boom had been the last few days before he died. The letter was dated the twenty- sixth. He’d died on the twenty-seventh. That meant going back maybe to the twenty-third-when the Lucella had taken water on in her holds. Could Mattingly have been involved in that? I started feeling overwhelmed by the enormous amount of work I had to do, and looked despairingly at my arm attached to the ceiling.

“Do you have a good photo of Mattingly?”

Bouchard fingered his chin. “Publicity picture. Myron could give me one.”

“Could you get me half a dozen copies? I want to see if I can find anyone who can ID him in some out-of-the- way places that occur to me.”

“Sure. Right away.” He got up enthusiastically. Action. That’s what hockey players thrive on. “Maybe you want me to take it around while you’re lying here?”

“Let me think about it… I know who I need to talk to and you might not be able to get to them.”

He took off in a cloud of antiseptic. I looked at my cousin’s calendar again. On the twenty-third he’d seen Margolis. Must have been over at the elevator. On the twenty-fourth, a Saturday, he’d been with Paige. He hadn’t written in any other appointments. On Monday he talked to MacKelvy, the dispatcher at Grafalk, and to two people whose names I didn’t recognize. I’d show Mattingly’s picture to Margolis. Maybe get Pierre to do that.

I looked at my watch, strapped awkwardly on my right wrist. Four-thirty-Paige was probably at the theater. I called, got her answering service, and left a message.

Lotty came in around five, noting the disarray of papers and bedclothes with her thick black eyebrows raised. “You’re a terrible patient, my dear. They tell me you’re rejecting all medication… Now I do not mind if you don’t want the pain pills-that’s your choice. But you must take the antibiotics. I don’t want any secondary infection in the arm.”

She straightened the mess around the bed with a few efficient motions. I like watching Lotty-she’s so compact and tidy. She sat down on the bed. A nurse, bringing a supper tray, pursed her lips in disapproval. No sitting on beds, but doctors are sacrosanct.

Lotty looked at the food. “Everything’s boiled to death. Good-no digestive problems for you.” She grinned wickedly.

“Pizza,” I groaned. “Pasta. Wine.”

She laughed. “Everything’s coming along nicely. If you can stand it for one more day I’ll take you home on Monday. Maybe spend a few days with me while you recover, okay?”

I looked at her through narrowed eyes. “I’ve got work to do, Lotty. I’m not going to lie in bed for two weeks waiting for these shoulder muscles to heal.”

“Don’t threaten me, Vic: I’m not one of these silly nurses. When have I ever tried to stop you from doing your job, even when you were being a pit dog?”

I struggled up. “Pit dog, Lotty? Pit dog! What the hell do you mean?”

“A dog that has to get down in the pit-the ring-and fight every damn person, even its friends.”

I lay down again. “You’re right, Lotty. Sorry. It’s very kind of you to invite me home. I would appreciate that.”

She brushed a kiss on my cheek and disappeared for a while, coming back with a deep-dish onion and anchovy pizza. My favorite. “No wine while you’re on antibiotics.”

We ate the pizza and played gin. Lotty won. She whiled away a lot of World War II in London bomb shelters playing gin with the family who had taken her in. She almost always beats me.

Sunday morning I tried Paige again but she still wasn’t home. Around noon, however, she showed up in person, looking beautiful in a green ruffled blouse and black and green Guatemalan skirt. She moved buoyantly into the room, smelling faintly of spring, and kissed me on the forehead.

“Paige! How nice to see you. Thanks so much for the flowers-they brighten the place up, as you can see.”

“Vic, I was so sorry about the accident. But I’m glad you weren’t hurt more seriously. My answering service said you were trying to get in touch with me-I thought I’d come in person and see how you’re doing.”

I asked how Pavane for a Dope Dealer was doing and she laughed and told me about the performance. We chatted for a few minutes, then I explained that I was trying to follow up on my cousin’s movements the last few days before he died.

Her arched brows snapped together in a momentary annoyance. “Are you still trailing him around? Don’t you think it’s time you let the dead bury the dead, Vic?”

I smiled with what calmness I could, feeling at a disadvantage with my hair unwashed and wearing a hospital gown. “I’m doing a favor for an old friend of Boom Boom’s-Pierre Bouchard.”

Yes, she’d met Pierre. He was a sweetheart. What did he want to know?

“If you’d seen Howard Mattingly recently.”