Paula sighed. “Yeah, if there’s one guy who knows his way around blood, it’s him. You be careful, all right?”
“I promise I won’t leave the house, and I’ll make sure all the dishes are washed,” I said. “Hey, quick question. You ever hear of a newspaper called the Wentworth County Dispatch?”
“Wow, you’re really going back in time now,” she said. “Sure. It was a small daily, covered Wentworth County, way back when there were rotary-dial phones and all us lady journalists wore poodle skirts and wrote for the Women’s Pages. Probably sputtered out in the late sixties, early seventies. What are you looking for?”
“Oh, I’m not sure,” I said. “Earlier today I spent a fascinating hour or so talking to a former reporter for the paper. Gwen Aubrey. Ever hear of her?”
“Nope.”
“Any idea where there might be some back issues to look at?”
Paula said, “Best bet would be here, I guess, in our bound back-issues section, since the Chronicle bought it out about a month before it closed. Or the Tyler library, or the one up in Porter. Curious about something?”
“Always,” I said, and after a bit more chit and chat, we parted ways.
I powered my way through the afternoon and managed to avoid a nap, and then I made a series of phone calls to my health-care system and listened to a lot of bad on-hold music. Eventually I talked to a very nice woman who expressed her sympathy with me, promised to do what she could to help me out this very day, and while putting me on hold to track something down, promptly disconnected me.
So that was that.
I decided to putter around on my MacBook Pro until Felix came; that gave me a thought, and then I buried myself in the odd world of rare silver from Sicily until there was a knock at the door.
It must be Felix, I thought, and as I got up and lumbered over to the door like a bear that’s just escaped a bear trap, I wondered what kind of company he was bringing. Knowing Felix, I guessed it wasn’t a single person, because he would have said “guest.” He said “company,” which meant more than one, and I was sure that the company would be young, pretty, and female.
I opened the door and saw Felix, flanked by two men in their early thirties with dark hair and brown eyes wearing blue khaki slacks and work shirts. I was embarrassed to see that I was wrong, wrong, and wrong.
“Hey,” he said, walking in, carrying two paper bags with handles and a small drink cooler.
“Hello right back at you,” I said. “Uh …”
The two men strolled in as well; they started talking to Felix in what seemed to be Greek. Felix replied, pointing to my living room, and then to the stairs, and both men nodded and trotted upstairs.
“Those two are my distant cousins, Dimitris and Michael, from the home country,” Felix said.
“The other one?”
“Yeah,” he said, going to the kitchen. “They tried to migrate up to France, got caught up and arrested, and they contacted the Red Cross—and then contacted me.”
From upstairs came the noises of things being dragged around and opened up, and then water running. Felix started taking paper-wrapped packages from out of the bags, and then opened my cabinet doors.
“Well … what the hell are they doing here?” I asked.
Felix stared up at the cabinet. “Somebody moved your sea salt and pepper mills … oh, here we go. Huh? Oh. Michael and Dimitris wanted to thank me for getting them here, and until they get settled into something more productive and long term, they belong to me. I told them where I was going today, we talked about this and that, and now they’re here.”
“I can see that. What are they doing?”
“What I told them to do.” He bent down, rummaged around some more, and said, “Hey, your cast-iron frying pan … hold on, here it is.” He stood up and put it on my stove.
“Which is what?”
“Oh, don’t be dense, my friend. The place needs a good cleaning, a good straightening out, and I know that having your books piled up in cardboard boxes is gnawing at you … like a fox chewing on some passed-out drunk’s toes.”
“Nice thought.”
“Thanks, I thought you’d like it.”
Despite the bandage on his wrist, Felix moved quickly and fluidly through the kitchen; he popped two potatoes in my microwave, heated them up and tossed them into the oven, made a salad, and then heated up the cast-iron pan.
“What do you have?”
“Nice, thick steaks.”
I gestured out to my deck. “Isn’t that what a grill’s for?”
“That’s what one usually does, but I want to try something else. Bear with me.”
He heated up a mix of olive oil and coarse salt in my skillet, while upstairs there was a chattering of Greek voices and the sound of my washer and dryer being used. Then the sound of something being scraped on the floor, followed by the two men yelling at each other in Greek and the hum of a vacuum cleaner.
Felix unwrapped some yellow wax paper, tossed two beautiful thick, marbled steaks onto the very hot skillet. A burst of smoke and steam rose up; Felix kept a close look on the time while he charred one side, then the other, and then the edges as well. When he was satisfied, he put the skillet in the oven, washed his hands, and said, “Now we wait. What’s going on with you? Any word yet on your tumors?”
“My tissue samples are still out there on the West Coast, probably having more fun than I am. I’ve talked to my health-care provider a couple of times, with no good answer.”
“You making a list?”
“A list of what?”
“A list of those people screwing you over and making your life miserable. Then at some point, down the road, you can get back at them.”
I
