They left him alone until they returned with a young doctor, who began questioning him about his “event” and eventually recommended what needed to be done to gain further information about his symptoms. Through most of the night Quinn was poked, probed, made to drink foul liquids, scanned, X-rayed, and had his molecules jangled by an MRI machine, until finally he was given a sedative that didn’t work very well.
Morning had been a long time dawning.
“We detect no damage to the heart,” Dr. Liran said with an Indian accent, “but the images show considerable arterial blockage.”
Quinn asked what that meant.
Dr. Liran shrugged behind his desk. “That you’ve lived as long as you have, even though you’ve eaten too much fatty food, and inherited a predisposition for plaque buildup on arterial walls.” He smiled softly. “You’ll be glad to know you’re rather typical in that regard, Mr. Quinn.”
Quinn decided to drive to the point. “Did I have a heart attack?”
“A mild one, perhaps, that left no visible damage.”
“Or it might have been indigestion?”
Dr. Liran laughed merrily. “Oh, only if you’re an incurable optimist. You are only slightly away from being a prime candidate for angioplasty, Mr. Quinn.” The doctor regarded his test results, drumming his manicured nails on an opened file folder. “I see that you are a police officer. Do you get adequate exercise?”
“No.”
“Control your diet?”
“No.”
“Smoke or drink?”
“A cigar or a glass of scotch now and then. Occasionally both at the same time.”
The doctor gave Quinn a look that might have carried mild disdain, then peered down again at the clutter of material on his desk. “You had been running when you were stricken?”
“Yes, I was chasing someone.”
“Uh-hm.” That seemed to satisfy Dr. Liran. He let the subject drop. If he recognized Quinn from newspapers or TV, he gave no indication. Probably he was too busy saving lives to follow the news. He had his own serial killers to deal with.
“So what happened is nothing to worry about?” Quinn asked hopefully.
Dr. Liran looked pained. “I would say it’s definitely something to be concerned about. It was your body demonstrating to you the direction in which you’re going, which is toward a severe heart attack if you don’t take proper and reasonable precautions. I would like to impress upon you that despite lack of detectable damage to the heart, what happened to you is in itself quite serious.”
“A wake-up call,” Quinn said.
“That’s not the medical term, but it will do. I’m going to prescribe some pills to help lower both your blood pressure and your cholesterol count, but they won’t lower them enough by themselves. Much of this is up to you, Mr. Quinn. Here with your prescriptions is a suggested diet. Follow it, and avoid strenuous physical activity until we place you on an exercise program. I want to see you again approximately one month from today. When you know your schedule, call and make an appointment. If you don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
Quinn accepted the papers the doctor was holding out for him, then stood up and thanked him. “Don’t worry, Doctor, I’ll call.”
Dr. Liran smiled. “They all say that. Either way, I suspect we’ll be seeing each other again.”
“Acid reflux,” Pearl said later that morning, after Quinn explained to her-with some modification-why he hadn’t appeared for their meeting last night. “That’s acid bullshit, Quinn, and we both know it.”
They were in the unmarked, Pearl driving, on their way to talk to Abigail Koop. Fedderman was on his way to question Janet Hofer, the other woman who’d had lunch with Lisa Ide shortly before she died. Hofer was still in New York on an extended vacation.
“The important thing is, I almost caught the bastard,” Quinn said. They’d stopped at Krispy Kreme five minutes ago. He opened the paper sack as Pearl jockeyed the car too fast around a corner.
“The important thing is, you had a heart attack.”
“There was no heart attack. I told you, the hospital said I was fine. It could have been simple acid reflux causing chest pains.” He’d heard somewhere of people having acid reflux and thinking it was a heart attack, so why wouldn’t she believe him?
Pearl said nothing and stared straight ahead as she drove, letting Quinn know she was plenty ticked off and not buying what he was selling.
“If I’d been ten years younger, I would have worn him down,” Quinn said. “We almost had him.”
“How can you be so sure it was the Night Prowler?”
“He shot at me.”
“What?”
He told her about the bullet holes appearing in the shop window.
She drove for a while without saying anything.
Then: “He’s stalking you, Quinn.”
“Us, maybe.”
“More likely just you. That macho thing.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right, but we can’t be sure. The three of us need to be careful.”
“You’re just the guy to talk about being careful.”
“Put it away, Pearl.”
“God! A heart attack.” Afraid again. He’s made me afraid of losing something again. “Did they give you any medicine or instructions?”
“Some pills. Put me on a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. That means low food.”
“Jesus, Quinn! You’re eating a doughnut!”
“I’m a cop, Pearl. I’ve got a right.”
“Don’t you make light of this, Quinn!”
“I’m starving, Pearl. This is breakfast. It’s all I’m going to eat.”
“Believe it,” Pearl said.
Quinn decided to be quiet the rest of the way to Abigail Koop’s apartment.
“Acid reflux, my foot…,” Pearl said under her breath.
Koop was a fleshy but attractive woman with beseeching brown eyes peering out from beneath dark bangs. Quinn wondered where he’d seen such soft eyes before, then remembered a dachshund gazing at him when he was on the ground with his heart…event. Unlike the dachshund, Koop had a slightly crooked nose, an uncertain smile, lots of jewelry, and a manner suggesting she yearned desperately to be liked.
Her West Side apartment was like her, overfurnished and with a tentative decor that didn’t know quite what it wanted to be. A traditional gray sofa squatted on a maroon-and-black Persian carpet and faced an Early American TV hutch on top of which was a lineup of Harry Potter novels anchored by large bookends that were busts of Lincoln. Everything in the room seemed to be of different heights and placed next to everything drastically shorter or taller than itself. A small, bucolic landscape was mounted on one wall, a large, modern museum print on another. Please like something about me, implored the room. Or maybe Quinn thought that because of how he’d sized up Abigail Koop.
“Please call me Abby,” she told them as soon as he’d announced they were the police detectives who’d phoned for an appointment.
They agreed to do that, then sat side by side on the gray sofa while Abby sat down on a delicate little chair that was possibly French Provincial. Abby perched with her thighs pressed tightly together beneath the skirt of her gray business suit. Her hands were folded in her lap. She stole a glance at a clock on a table, then seemed sorry about it. Pearl figured Abby was going in late to work in order to have this conversation.
“We won’t take up much of your time,” Pearl said.
“It was a shock, what happened to Lisa.” Abby began nervously twisting the forefinger of her left hand with the thumb and forefinger of her right, as if testing to see how firmly the finger was screwed into its socket.
“You were good friends?” Quinn asked.
“I suppose you’d say so. We were good friends in college, anyway. But time passed and we lost touch. I
