Her dusty red Jaguar was still sitting, lonely, behind the medical building as Nesha dropped her off Monday morning. He was one of those men who couldn’t be without a car and had rented a Pontiac at the airport.
“You sure you’ll be all right?”
She had spent most of Sunday in bed with a heating pad and Aspirin every four hours. “I feel better today.”
He had made her a succession of cups of tea with lemon, which he claimed were better for her than coffee. Lying in his arms didn’t hurt either.
“Doctors have a right to recovery time like everyone else,” he said, putting his hand on the back of her car seat, drinking her in with his eyes.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got a full day of patients who need me.” She leaned over to kiss him. He hadn’t shaven yet, and a fine grey stubble scratched her cheek. She liked the intimacy of him before he was ready for the rest of the world.
“If you find it’s too much for you,” he said softly in her ear, “call me and I’ll come get you.”
He waited in the car, his window down, while she walked to the front door. She could see his breath turn visible and wisp into the cold morning air. Waving goodbye, she unlocked the door and stepped inside.
She started up the stairs, then stopped, remembering something. Turning back down again, she flicked the light on in the back hall and stepped toward the rear door. Outside, Nesha’s car had already disappeared down D’Arcy. She unlocked the trunk of her Jag and opened it, picking up the dirty shopping bag that Birdie had thrust at her.
Holding it with her thumb and forefinger, she carried it upstairs. She deposited the bag on the paper liner laid out on the examining table in one of the treatment rooms. Iris prepared each room the evening before by ripping the used liners off the leather tables, then pulling fresh paper down. She wasn’t due for another forty minutes.
A musty odour escaped the bag. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought it upstairs. She took a pair of latex gloves from a dispenser near the sink and pulled them on. Instead of catching up on her paperwork, she was dissecting garbage. Precious, Birdie had said. Opening the top of the bag, she pulled out a blue cotton blanket wrapped in a bundle. She unravelled the mass impatiently until it lay revealed: an old plastic doll with one arm and one leg. Naked and bald but for a few tufts of blonde hair. One eyelid moved up and down over a marble-green eye, the other stayed closed. The mouth startled her. Though it shouldn’t have, since it was a typical doll mouth, pursed together like a flower. As if it had just exclaimed Oh! Miriam wouldn’t be saying Oh! for a while, but she had the same mouth.
What was that around the doll’s jointed neck? It looked like a hospital ID bracelet. She lifted the doll sideways to read it. “Eisenbaum.” The date and name of the hospital had been cut off and string had been attached to the holes in the plastic bracelet. She heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Iris was early. She rewrapped the doll in the baby blanket and placed the whole thing back into the plastic bag. Let the police deal with it.
She walked down the hall to the counter expecting to see Iris. In the middle of the waiting room stood the young homeless man she had seen in the library.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He looked around, in no hurry, his blond hair in corkscrew curls. “This is a doctor’s office, isn’t it?”
“We open at nine. Call the secretary and make an appointment.”
“But I’m sick now. You gonna turn away a sick person?”
“If you’re really ill, go to Emergency.”
“It’s not an emergency. I’m just sick.”
He would have been a handsome young man if his hair were washed and his ski jacket and jeans were clean.
“What are your symptoms?”
“I got pains.”
“Where?”
“Here.” He pointed to his throat. “And here.” His head.
His watery blue eyes watched her sullenly. He made her nervous, but he wasn’t the one who had tried to run her down.
“How did you find me?”
“You gave the librarian your card.”
“And she gave it to you?” she asked, incredulous. “She doesn’t like you.” He grinned.
“She likes me. She left it on the counter where I could get it.”
“Unbelievable,” she muttered under her breath. Then to him, “Are you really sick?” Not the best bedside manner.
He tilted his head. “Pain’s killing me.”
“I don’t suppose you have a health card? Never mind. What’s your name?”
“Nigel.”
“Wait here, Nigel.” She imagined his proud mother naming him Nigel when he was born. When had that promise of childhood died?
Too suspicious to let him come into a treatment room, she went down the hall to collect some supplies and bring them back to the waiting area. Stethoscope around her neck, carrying tongue depressors, an ophthalmoscope, and an audioscope, she turned to step out of the exam room. There he stood in the door, blocking her way out. He was taller than she’d thought. If he wanted to, he could overpower her. Her hands began to sweat.
“Hey, your old man knock you around some?” He pointed to the bandage on her cheek.
“I fell. Not that it’s your business.”
He smirked.
She had to stay authoritative, show no fear. “Take off your jacket and sit down.”
He obeyed, but the odour of sweat radiating from him made her turn away. She reached for a wooden tongue depressor. At least she felt more in control now that he was sitting.
“Open wide.” She held down his tongue to look inside his throat. Listened to his chest with the stethoscope. Looked in his ears. Felt his forehead with her hand.
“Nothing here,” she said. “You’re not sick, are you?”
He shrugged.
“Why are you really here?”
“I want my friend back.”
“Stanley?”
“They wouldn’t let me go to the station with him. Hard-asses. Don’t have no one else.”
“I’m sorry. But what does it have to do with me?”
“It was your fault they got him. You called the cops.”
Now she understood. “But he probably killed that woman.”
“That stupid old broad? No, he didn’t. Never. He liked her. Though she was a loser. Never knew what he saw in her.”
“You were jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“She took him away from you. He spent time with her.”
His blond eyebrows rose. “Guess so.”
“Did you kill her?”
He scowled. “I dunno. Don’t remember. Can’t always remember so good. Might’ve been high that day. Wouldn’t remember if I was high.”
“You wouldn’t remember killing her?”
He thought a moment. “Would I get to stay in jail with Stanley?”
Footsteps sounded on the stair. Iris. Finally.
They both listened as Iris’s heels clicked on the tile in the waiting area, then proceeded down the hall.
“Rebecca?”
“Who’s that?” he hissed, jumping down from the table.
“It’s all right. Just my secretary.” She called out, “In here, Iris!”
Perfectly groomed in a navy wool suit, Iris stopped short when she reached the exam room. Her usually relaxed face froze. “What happened to your face? Are you okay? Should I call someone?”
“Everything’s —”
She turned to reassure Iris when a large, unyielding arm swung her backwards with dizzying speed and landed around her neck. He held her facing Iris, his arm cutting off her air circulation.
“Leave her alone!” Iris cried. “You’re hurting her! What do you want?”
“I want you to shut up! That’s what I want! What’s with you old broads anyhow? Can’t you shut up?”
Iris put up her hands in acquiescence. “Okay. Calm down. Just tell me what you want and I’ll get it.”
Rebecca had both hands dug into his arm trying to pull it loose. It was a log.
“Stanley. I want Stanley.”
“Who?” She looked at Rebecca, her eyes large with confusion, alarm. “Who’s Stanley?”
Rebecca didn’t know how long she could keep breathing.
“The doc here called the cops on Stanley. Shouldn’t’ve done it. She can’t just get away with that. He’s my friend. I want him back.”
“So, Stanley’s in jail? And you want him out?”
“You got it.” He paused a second. “I just thought of something. I’ll trade the doc for Stanley! It’s, like, a hostage situation.”
“You’ve been watching too much TV.”
“How’d you know?”
“Okay,” said Iris, glancing nervously at Rebecca. “First loosen your hold on her neck, because you want her alive.”
He seemed to think about this, then he relaxed his arm slightly. She could breathe again. Her lungs filled with air. Thank you, Iris.
“What’s your name?”
“Nigel.”
“Nigel?”
Rebecca prayed she wouldn’t say something flip like, What was your mother thinking?
“Okay, Nigel. It’s like this. If the police have your friend, you have to negotiate with them. Would you like me to call them and set it up?”
“Call the cops?”
“You want to trade your friend for the doctor, right? She’s your hostage?”
“Yeah. The bitch called the cops on Stanley.”
“Well, then, it’s the cops you have to talk to.”
“I get it. Sure. Okay. Call’em.”
Iris hesitated in her triumph. “You won’t hurt her while I’m gone?”
“What, do I look stupid?”
Rebecca heard Iris on the phone in the front office, where they couldn’t make out what she was saying. Rebecca couldn’t distinguish words, only the panic Iris had kept beneath the surface with Nigel.
She reappeared at the door. “Police are on their way. Why don’t you let her go now?”
“She’s my hostage.”
“You won’t go anywhere, will you?” Iris addressed Rebecca.
She croaked out, “No.”
“You broads think I’m stupid.”
When they heard the police entering the office, he tightened his grip on Rebecca’s neck. The air was squeezed out again. Her eyes began to water.
Two constables stood behind Detective Fitzroy in the doorway of the exam room. Rebecca was profoundly relieved to see him, his tall, authoritarian bulk reassuring. Yet she wondered if he could keep Nigel from choking her to death.
“Let her go, Nigel,” Fitzroy said, massive beneath his wool coat, his bulbous nose glowing. “We’ll talk better alone, without the women. Just us guys.”
“I want Stanley back.”
“I know. Let’s talk about it.”
“She’s my hostage. It’s her fault he’s in the can.”
“Okay. But you can let her go now because we’re here. You did your job and got us here, now let’s talk.”
“Negotiate?”
“Yeah, we’ll negotiate.”
“How much do you want her? I want something to let her go. Drugs.”
“Nigel, Nigel. We’re getting away from the real issue here.”
“Uppers and downers. Docs get free stuff from drug companies. Everyone knows that. She’s probably got stuff right here.”
Rebecca was all out of air. She had to do something or she’d pass out. She brought one hand down from where it was unsuccessfully tugging at his arm. Squeezing her hand between her back and his front, she located his groin in the baggy jeans and grabbed his testicles in her fist, crushing them like walnuts.
“Aowww!” Nigel groaned in pain. “Bitch!”
He shoved her forward, away from him. She stumbled, air filling her lungs again.
Fitzroy caught her. “Nice work.” A satisfied smile lit up his blotchy face as he handed her quickly to the constable behind him.
Nigel didn’t have a chance. In one step, Fitzroy reached him and seized one of his arms. The big man wrenched it behind his back, pulled the other one in tandem, and locked his wrists into handcuffs.
“You’ve done it now, Nigel. You’re in real trouble.”
“She deserved it!” he shouted. “She ratted on Stanley! I want to see Stanley!”
“Oh, you’ll see Stanley, all right.”
In the hall the constable said to Rebecca, “Are you okay? Do you want to go to the hospital?”
She stroked her neck with her fingers, feeling fragile as a bird. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll cancel today’s patients,” Iris said. “You should go home.”
Rebecca kept taking deep breaths. Just because she could. “No. I’d rather be busy. We’ll just finish early. Don’t book anyone past four.”
The constables sandwiched Nigel from either side and shuffled him out through the waiting room, his hands cuffed behind him. A woman patient entered the office as they were marching to the door.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” Nigel spit out.
The woman stood in place, mouth open.
“Office isn’t open yet,” said Iris.
“Could I just wait in here?” the woman asked, peering after the constables. When Iris shrugged, she found a seat in the waiting room.
Iris led Rebecca to her private office and sat her down in her black leather chair. “Relax in here for a while. No hurry to start.”
Rebecca leaned her head back and closed her eyes, but Nigel’s arm kept squeezing her neck. After a few minutes there was a quiet rap at the door.
Detective Fitzroy poked in his large, round head with the scant hair. “Did he hurt you? Do you need a doctor?”
She sat up. “I’m okay. Just shaken up. What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’ll be charged. You’ll have to make a statement.”
“He may’ve killed the old woman.”
“Oh yeah? He say so?”
“He said he couldn’t remember. Said he was high on something.”
“That’s no help.”
She leaned her elbows on her desk. “You think Stanley did it?”
“He denies it.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“Most of these guys wouldn’t know the truth if it came up behind them and bit them on the ass. You should go home, doc.”
“Too much work to do.” Then she remembered. “I’ve got something for you.”
She stood up and came round the desk unsteadily.
“Take the day off,” he said. “I’ll write you a note.”
She gave him a wry smile as she pulled on a fresh pair of latex gloves. His eyebrow went up. She retrieved the dirty shopping bag from her closet. After leading him into one of the exam rooms, she deposited the bag on the paper-lined exam table.
“Birdie gave this to me the last time I saw her.” She unravelled the baby blanket to reveal the broken doll.
“It looks like something she got out of the trash.”
“There’s an old hospital ID bracelet around its neck.” She held it sideways so he could read it.
“Eisenbaum,” he said, shrugging. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Not really,” he said. “That was her name.”
“Her name was Eisenbaum?” She felt her heart contract. Sentry was such an English name, it invoked no feeling in her. But Eisenbaum. The woman might have been a Jewish grandmother.
Rebecca threw herself into the day’s work. At lunch, Iris brought her some egg drop soup from a local Chinese restaurant, along with some General Tso chicken and rice. These kept her going. By the time she finished her last patient at four-thirty, she was exhausted.
Iris looked up sheepishly from her desk when Rebecca brought her the last patient’s files. “I’m sorry, dear, but your neighbour from across the street just walked in and begged me to let her see you.”
“Mrs. Sentry?”