Devil's Plaything

Chapter 14

In Dr. Laramer’s office, a receptionist tells us the doctor has agreed to squeeze us in during his lunch hour. The receptionist has a hitch in his gaze that takes a second to identify as amblyopia, a subtle case of lazy eye that probably went undetected through his early childhood.

I take a seat next to Grandma.

“Lane, I wonder about the road not taken.”

“I used to do that, Nathaniel.”

“What?”

“Brood about the past.”

“You did?”

“You should try forgetting. It can be better.”

“How very lucid, Lane.” I smile at her.

“If you say so.”

“Can we talk about the man in blue?”

“Live in the present, Nathaniel.”

It’s a platitude. She’s gone again. I sigh.

“My untaken road went through a utility closet on the third floor of San Francisco General Hospital,” I say to Grandma in a low voice.

It was there I had spontaneous sex with Kristina Babcock, my bombshell medical-school mate.

In my second year, we were rotating through the psych ward. Our attention was consumed with “the Acrobat.” That was the moniker of Frederica Calhoun, a schizophrenic who believed she was the reincarnation of a 16th-century French acrobat. We’d walk into Frederica’s room and find her standing in some impossible position, or balancing a toothbrush on her head.

The question facing the attending physician was whether to force Frederica to take medications under court order. Weeks earlier, when off her medication, Frederica did a handstand on the ledge of an eighteen-story building, bringing a crowd and the fire brigade. But in our frequent conversations, she also was lucid, functional, thoughtful. She implored Kristina and me to argue for her freedom from meds that she said made her a “Gap-wearing, 21st-century automaton.”

The attending physician didn’t spend nearly as much time with Frederica. He recommended to a court she be forced to take medication.

“Is there a halfway house, or some alternative living situation that would give her a chance to live drug free?” I asked the doctor during our consultation outside the Acrobat’s room.

“She’s not capable,” he said. “Anything else?”

“It seems like she deserves a shot to be herself,” I pushed back.

“You do seem to really enjoy this rotation, Mr. Idle,” he responded. “I’m recommending you repeat it.”

On the way out, Kristina grabbed my hand and pulled me into a utility closet. “You’re the reincarnation of a sixteenth-century romantic,” she said. “You always side with the freaks.”

“I’m not cut out to play God or any other powerful administrator,” I said.

For the next two months, we fell towards love — great conversation, laughter, the real stuff. Then I turned on her. One night, I came to Kristina’s apartment for our first weekend away — Santa Cruz, a Van Morrison concert, a cheap motel, sex near — and possibly on — the beach. Seemingly, uncomplicated fun. To me, a demarcation line I wouldn’t cross. In fact, I wouldn’t even cross into her house. I stood in her doorway and, without prompting, coldly poured out my resolve. I told her I didn’t love her and never would.

It might not have been true. But Kristina was the embodiment of medical school, of a path towards a clear future. Rules, bureaucracy, checking off boxes and filling out paperwork, passion and patient care overwhelmed by monotony. A few months later, I broke up with my career, too.

I’d lucked into a prestigious summer job at the forensic clinic at Stanford. The day I was supposed to report, I was on a sleeper train in Rumania, having spontaneously decided to spend the summer traveling instead. When I returned to school for my last year, I was student non grata.

Meantime, Kristina started dating a studious and ambitious classmate named Pete Laramer. The pair were married by the time they graduated, and soon had three beautiful daughters.

Then, a year ago, I was walking with Grandma in Golden Gate Park when I ran into Kristina, Pete — Dr. Laramer — and the family. We had an awkward interaction in which Grandma, who in retrospect may have been suffering the very early stages of dementia, referred to me as Irving. As we parted, Dr. Laramer gave me his card.

“And that’s the story of how you got your neurologist,” I tell Grandma.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“As the kids say: I have commitment issues.”

“Oh.”

She’s silent for a second and says: “If you stay in one place, with one person, you will age no less quickly.”

I laugh. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“What?”

“Never mind, guru.” I lean in close. “Lane, I wish you’d tell me your secrets.”

“I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Remember to burp the baby.”

She’s looking at the coffee table. A copy of Family Circle magazine shows a picture of a mom holding a baby over her shoulder.

“I don’t have a baby yet, Grandma.”

She shrugs and picks up the magazine.

I fidget and find myself conspicuously avoiding the glance of an eighty-something woman lovingly cradling the hand of her oxygenated husband who suffers a nasty case of wildly overgrown ear hair.

I extract my phone. There are six missed calls — from the retirement home. Vince must be frantic and pissed. But he hasn’t left a message.

I call Pauline. “Mystery man,” she answers.

“What?”

“So what’s in your mystery package?”

“Mystery instructions.”

She doesn’t respond for a second.

“Pauline?”

“Hold on.”

She puts her hand over the phone but I can still hear her coughing to the extent it sounds like she might be sick.

“Upset stomach,” she says when she’s finished. “Late night followed by quintuple espresso. I’ve got to cut down my caffeine intake.”

Or her stress.

“Have you ever considered slowing down, maybe just in the middle of the night?”

“Right back at you. Now tell me about the package.”

I describe how I opened the thumb drive, and the instructions I found. I glance at the clock on my phone. It’s noon. I’ve got three hours before the mystery meeting.

“Sounds cloak and dagger. Are you going to wear a trench coat?” Pauline asks.

True to her word, Pauline has tried to remain light, fun, and flirty. She says she’s not going to change her approach to the world just because I don’t want to date.

“Something very strange is going on,” I say.

“With the memory stick?”

I hesitate. I’d love her help figuring out what’s going on but right now she presents as many complications and entanglements as she does resources and insights.

“It’s already been a long day. I don’t know, just strange,” I finally say.

“So are you going to go to the meeting?”

I look at Grandma. Does the thumb drive have anything to do with the attack in the park, and Grandma’s recent ramblings? Or is it coincidental, unrelated, some kind of joke?

“Wearing a trench coat and matching socks.”

“Socks and dagger,” she says. “Can I come?”

I tell her that I’d prefer to go alone.

“Be careful. Socks aren’t much defense against sharp objects,” she says. After a pause, she adds, “I’d love to see you later.”

I’m silent.

“I should go,” she says.

“Wait. Could you spare me another minute?”

“What’s up?” She suddenly sounds rushed.

“Tell me about Chuck. Your investor.”

There is a moment of silence, then she says: “What makes you ask?”

“He seemed interesting when we met last night. I’m just curious about him.”

Another pause.

“I think he’s curious about you, too.”

“Meaning?”

“I think he thinks you’re cute. You’re his type.”

I’m not sure if she means that he likes my journalistic temperament or, perhaps, that he’s gay. Now that I think about it, it had crossed my mind.

“You should work that angle,” she continues. “Maybe you can get him up to sixty-five dollars per blog post. You’ll be a rich man by the year 2075.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Look, Nat, can we talk about this later today, or tonight? I’m staying in the city.”

Pauline has a gorgeous house in Marin, overlooking the water. But she keeps a three-story loft downtown, near the ballpark.

“Come by tonight and we’ll make good on the drinks we missed, and I’ll tell you about Chuck.”

Before I can tell her that’s not going to happen, she adds, “I really gotta go. I’m on Internet time.”

She hangs up.

From my backpack, I pull out my laptop. I find a weak signal in the waiting room. I call up a browser and I search for “Adrianna.” It is a fool’s errand. There are several million of references.

Is Adrianna a resident of Magnolia Manor? That makes no sense in that Vince seemed baffled that Grandma had mentioned the name Adrianna.

From my pocket, I pull one of the shell casings I found on the ground outside my flat after this morning’s drive-by shooting. The brass housing looks to measure less than an inch in length, the width of a ring finger.

Into Google, I type: “identify shell casing.” I get countless hits — about collections of artillery shells, lamps made from old casings, and on and on — but not the clearinghouse site I’d imagined would let me precisely identify my bullet, or the gun that fired it.

“All that surfing can rewire your brain,” a voice says.

I look up to see Dr. Laramer.

“You’re looking well, Mrs. Idle,” he says to my companion on my right.

I close my laptop.

“Hello, Doc,” I say. He wears blue scrubs and flip-flops. “Is it casual footware Friday?”

“It’s Thursday,” Grandma says.

She’s right.

He looks at her and cocks his head.

“Interesting,” he mutters.