“I don’t like fighting,” he said.
“That’s because you never have to do it,” I said. “Now just let me-”
His left hand caught my neck, and his right arm went around my waist. I could feel his fingers digging in to a catchy passage from Couperin and the increasingly hysterical counterpoint of “I’m Henry the Eighth” and assorted dog howls. Up in the air I went, feeling light and dreamy. I floated through the door to the waiting room, which was now dark, and swooshed across the room to the door. The hand on my neck came loose, opened the door, and then returned to my neck. It was at this point that I had the sensation of defying gravity. The setting sun was above me when I landed against a bush. Something scraped against my arm, and I slid to a sitting position, facing the doorway in which Bass stood.
“Watch your hand,” he said emotionlessly.
I looked down at my dangling left arm and saw that it hovered over a small natural mound probably left by an animal.
“Thanks,” I said, moving away from it.
Bass didn’t answer. He closed the door. I rolled over and stood up, looking down the street, but there was no one watching. My neck hurt, my stomach was sore, and my arm was scratched. That would all heal. The problem was my torn sleeve.
There is, I am sure, an easier way to get information than making people angry, but we each go with our own talents. Mine happens to be that of a class-A, number-one, pain-in-the-ass. I’ve got the wounds to prove it. I’m a walking, or crawling, museum of proof. I could give a tour of my body. Here’s the hole made by a bullet when I got a movie star with a gun in her hand angry. (It was at that point that I should have learned not to go with my talent for provoking when the provokee has a gun in his or her hand.) Here’s a bullet scar earned the following year from a crooked cop under similar circumstances, and my skull is a phrenologist’s nightmare of scar tissue, lumps, and unnatural protuberances. Each success had brought with it a permanent memory for me to wear.
My limbs worked and I was pleased with the results of my sparring with Dr. Olson. Unless I had read him wrong, and I doubted that I had, he was my man. In case I was being watched from the clinic, I limped very slowly to my car, doing my best to look defeated and demolished. I climbed in with a grunt, started the engine, and pulled slowly away after making a U-turn. I went as far as Sherman, turned right, found a driveway where I almost collided with a garbage truck, and pulled back into going-home traffic. A left turn had me back on the cul-de-sac, where I pulled over to watch the clinic from a distance.
The sun was still up but about to drop behind the hills when Bass came out of the front door. He was out of his bloody coat and wearing a light jacket. He carried a little gym bag in one hand as he went massively up the sidewalk and headed for Sherman. I slouched down after a quick adjustment of the mirror, and watched him in its reflection as he came to the corner and turned out of sight.
When I sat up again, the clinic looked dark. My stomach growled and my body throbbed. It would have been nice to get something for my arm and take a hot bath but I couldn’t afford to give Olson time to recover. Without Bass around, I was sure I could break him; well, I was sure I had a chance at it.
Darkness came in about an hour and I slipped out of the car and stood to keep my back from locking. I felt awful. I felt tired. I felt like great things were about to happen, but where the hell was Doc Olson? Was he working late doing a Bach-accompanied appendectomy on a dancing bear? Do animals have appendixes?
I gave it another ten minutes and then moved across the dark street toward the clinic. Lights shone through the trees from some of the houses set back from the street. Some of the lights came from a house directly behind the clinic and down a driveway. I circled the clinic, careful of where I was stepping, found no lights on and heard no sounds of music, only a crying dog and the parrot, who had stopped talking and was now croaking.
I moved back to the driveway and began to make my way down the gravel path to the house behind the clinic. There was still a final flare of light from the sun, which merged with the house lights to let me make my way to the front door of a two-story brick house of no great distinction.
No one answered my first knock or my second. The knocker was large, cast iron, and in the shape of a tiger’s head. It was loud. I tried again and something stirred inside.
“Coming, coming, coming, for chrissake, coming,” a woman’s voice said from inside.
There was a fumbling and grumbling behind the door and it came open to reveal a very ample and not sober woman in her thirties in a red silk blouse and matching skirt.
“Mrs. Olson?” I said with a gentle smile, which, I guessed, would make my pushed-in face less jarring.
She was all right for quantity though I couldn’t say much for quality at that point. She was dark, her hair black and straight, down to her shoulders. She was made up for a night out rather than a night in and she was coming out of the red thing she was wearing. She looked at me without answering, so I repeated, “Mrs. Olson?”
“Right,” she said.
“Can I come in?”
She shrugged, opened the door wider, and gestured with a free hand with bright red nails that I should step through. I did and she closed the door behind me.
“I’ve got some business with your husband,” I said.
She looked at me again and said, “Someone bit a hole in your arm.”
Before I could make up a lie, she turned and moved into a room to the left of the little hallway we were standing in. I followed her and found myself in a living room with old-fashioned furniture and one table lamp that gave off enough light to see everything dimly. Mrs. Olson moved nicely to a small table, where she picked up a glass of something amber and took a sip.
“A drink?” she said, holding out the glass.
“I recognize it,” I said.
“You want one?”
“Maybe after I talk to your husband,” I said.
She moved out of the darkness and stood in front of me, her mouth open in a little smile. Her hand came out and touched my sleeve.
“Why don’t you take that jacket off,” she said with clear mischief playing around her mouth. “Roy is taking a bath. Roy takes long, long baths. You know why Roy takes long baths?”
“Because he gets dirty,” I tried.
“Because he dreads smelling like the clinic. He is constantly cleaning, scrubbing,” she said. “He’ll be in the tub for an hour.” Her eyebrows went up as if it was my turn and I could see that she was swaying slightly, as if she heard music too high-pitched for human ears.
“I’ll wait,” I said.
“Maybe we can do something while you wait,” she said, the smell of alcohol coming from her breath as she moved close to me. “Roy’s usual callers are not very interesting and not very friendly. Are you interesting and friendly?”
“I am interesting and friendly,” I said. “Let’s talk.”
“My name is Anne,” she said.
“My wife’s name was Anne too,” I said.
“Was? Is she dead?”
“No, remarried.”
“Poor man,” she said, showing mock sympathy and taking another sip. “Maybe we can help you to forget. What’s your name?”
“Toby,” I said.
“Roy treated a schnauzer named Toby last year in Washington,” she said. “He had cataracts.”
“Terrific,” I said as she reached up to touch my cheek. “Tell me about Washington.”
“People were too busy to pay attention to each other,” she said. “Are you too busy to pay attention, Toby?”
What the hell. I kissed her while her husband was upstairs washing away the day’s blood. It felt good. It felt more than good and it was going to get a lot more complicated if I didn’t do something, but I couldn’t do anything except think that she tasted great, that her name was Anne, and that the world didn’t make much sense.
While we were pressed together, I felt her right hand move under my jacket and travel down my chest. My eyes were closed and I didn’t give a damn about the sound from far away. I told it to go away, to wait, to turn into music.
