Dr. Death

CHAPTER 30

IT TOOK FORTY minutes on the 10 East and surface streets to get to the shabby section of East Hollywood where Beverly meets Temple.

Second hospital of the day.

Hollywood Mercy was five stories of earthquake-stressed, putty-colored stucco teetering atop a scrubby knoll that overlooked downtown. The building had an inadequate parking lot, a cracked tile roof, some nice ornate moldings from the days when labor was cheap, most with chunks missing. City ambulances ringed the entry. The front vestibule was crowded with long lines of sad-looking people waiting for approval from clerks in glass cages. CAT scans, PET scans, MRIs; the same high-tech alphabet I'd seen at St. Michael's, but this place looked like something out of a black-and-white movie and it smelled like an old man's bedroom.

Mate's bedroom.

His son was recuperating on the fourth floor, in something called the Special Care Unit. An unarmed security guard was posted at the swinging doors that led to the ward, and my I.D. badge got me waved through. On the other side was a chunky corridor five doors long with a nurses' station at the end. A black man with a shaved head sat near a stack of charts, writing, and a lantern-jawed, straw-haired woman in her sixties tapped her finger to soft reggae thumping from an unseen radio. I announced myself.

"In there," said the female nurse.

"How's he doing?"

"He'll survive." She pulled out a chart. A lot thinner than Joanne Doss's encyclopedia of confusion. A Hollywood Division police report was stapled to the inside front cover.

Eldon Salcido had been found beaten and semiconscious at 6:12 A.M. in the gutter of a residential block of Poinsettia Place, north of Sunset.

Three blocks from his father's apartment on Vista.

Paramedics had transported him, and an E.R. resident had admitted him for repair and observation. Contusions, abrasions, possible concussion later ruled absent. No broken bones. Extreme mental agitation and confusion, possibly related to preexisting alcoholism, drug abuse, mental illness or some combination of all three. The patient had refused to identify himself, but police at the scene had supplied the vitals. The fact that Salcido was an ex-con with a felony record was duly noted.

Restraints ordered after the patient assaulted staff.

"Who'd he hit?" I said.

"One of our predecessors, last shift," said the male nurse. "Her big crime was offering him orange juice. He knocked it out of her hand, tried to punch her. She managed to lock him in and called security."

"Another day in paradise," said the woman. "Probably a candidate for detox, but our detox unit shut down last month. You here to evaluate him for transfer?"

"Just to see him," I said. "Basic consult."

"Well, you might end up doing it for free. We can't find a Medi-Cal card on him and he isn't talking."

"That's okay."

"Hey, if you don't care, I sure don't. Room 405."

She came out from behind the counter and unlocked the door. The room was cell-size and green, with a lone, grilled window that framed an air shaft, a single bed and an I.V. bottle on a stand, not hooked up. The vital-signs monitor above the headboard was switched off and so was the tiny TV bracketed to the far wall. A low industrial buzz seeped through the window.

Donny Salcido Mate lay on his back, bare-chested, shackled with leather cuffs, staring at the ceiling. A tight, sweat-stained top sheet bound him from the waist down. His trunk was hairless, undernourished, off-white where it wasn't blue-black.

Blue coils squirmed all over him. Skin art, continuing around his back and down both arms. Pictorial arms striped by bandages. Dried blood crusted the edges of the dressings. A swatch of gauze banded his forehead, a smaller square bottomed his chin. Purpling bruises cupped both eyes and his lower lip was a slab of liver. Other dermal images peeked out from within the coils: the leering face of a nightmarishly fanged cobra, a flabby, naked woman with a sad mouth, one wide-open eye emitting a single tear. Gothic lettering spelling out "Donny, Mamacita, Big Boy."

Technically well-done tattoos, but the jumble made me want to rearrange his skin.

"A walking canvas," opined the straw-haired nurse. "Like that book by the Martian Chronicles guy. Visitor, Mr. Salcido. Ain't that grand?"

She walked out and the door hissed shut. Donny Salcido Mate didn't budge. His hair was long, stringy, the burnt bronze of old motor oil. An untrimmed beard, two shades darker, blanketed his face from cheekbone to jowl.

No resemblance to the mug shot I'd seen. That made me think of the beard Michael Burke had grown when adopting his Huey Mitchell persona in Ann Arbor. In fact, Donny's hirsute face bore a resemblance to Mitchell's. But not the same man. None of that cold, blank stagnancy in the eyes. These rheumy browns were bouncy, heated, hyperactive. Hundred percent scared prey, not predator.

I stepped closer to the bed. Donny Salcido moaned and twisted away from me. A tattoo tendril climbed up his carotid, disappearing into the beard thatch like a vining rose. Yellowing crust flecked the edges of his mustache. His lips were cracked, his nose had been broken, but not recently, probably more than once; the cartilage between his eyes was sunken, as if scooped by a dull blade, the flesh below a nest of gaping black pores. Orange splotches remained on his skin where he'd been disinfected with Betadine, but whoever had cleaned him up hadn't gotten rid of the street stink.

"Mr. Salcido, I'm Dr. Delaware."

His eyes jammed shut.

"How're you doing?"

"Let me out of here." Clear enunciation, no slur. I waited, got caught up in the skin mural. Subtle shadings, good composition. I got past that, searched for an image that would tie in with his father. Nothing obvious. The tattoos seemed to encroach on one another. This was the junction of talent and chaos.

Bumps in the crook of his arm caught my eye. Fi-brosed needle marks.

His eyes opened. "Get these things off," he said, rattling the cuffs.

"The nurses got a little upset when you tried to hit one of them."

"Never happened."

"You didn't try to hit a nurse?"

Headshake. "She aggressed on me. Tried to force juice down my windpipe. Not my esophagus, my windpipe, get it? Nasopharynx, epiglottis-know what happens when you do that?"

"You choke."

"You aspirate. Fluid straight into the lungs. Even if you don't suffocate, it creates a pleural cesspool, perfect culture for bacteria. She was out to drown me-if she couldn't accomplish that, infect me." A tongue, gray and fuzzed, caressed his lips. He gulped.

"Thirsty?" I said.

"Strangling. Get these things off of me."

"How'd you get hurt?"

"You tell me."

"How would I know?"

"You're the doctor."

"The police say someone hit you."

"Not someone. Ones. I got jumped."

"Right there on Poinsettia?"

"No, San Francisco. I walked all the way here because this glorious place is where I wanted to be treated." His head rolled toward me. "Better get me outta here or give me my Tegretol. When I'm out of my Tegretol, I get interesting."

"You suffer from seizures?"

"No, stupid. Cognitive dysfunction, affective scrambling, inability to regulate emotional outbursts. I'm

"Yes," she said, "he claims he needs it to maintain 'internal stability.' He played that tune for me, too. I'm waiting to talk to the attending."

"He's self-medicating for assaultiveness and mood swings. If he's already on Tegretol, he's probably gone through lithium and the neuroleptics. Maybe in prison."

"Maybe, but I can't get anything out of him resembling a clinical history. Tegretol's okay, but there's the issue of side effects. I need blood levels on him."

"Did you have a chance to talk to him?"

"He didn't talk."

"He's a bit more verbal now," I said. "There's some IQ there. He knows how it feels before the assaultiveness comes on, is fighting to maintain control."

"So what're you saying?"

"I'm suggesting that at least in one respect he may know what's best for him."

"Did you see that skin of his?" she said.

"Hard to miss."

"Pretty disorganized for someone who knows what's best for him."

"True, but-"

"I get it," she said. "The police sent you to see him and you want him coherent so he'll talk to you."

"That's part of it. The other part is he's already been assaultive and if something works for him, maybe it should be considered. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job-"

"No, actually you are." She laughed. "But sure, why not? Everyone else does. Okay, no sense having him freak out and me getting a three A.M. call. I'll try to get hold of the attending again. If she okays it, he gets dosed."

"He says he's been taking three hundred milligrams daily."

"He says? The lunatics run the asylum?"

"Look at Washington, D.C."

She laughed harder. "What do the police want with him?"

"Information."

"On what?"

"A homicide."

"Oh. Great. A murderer. Can't wait to see him again."

"He's not a suspect," I said. "He's a potential witness."

"A witness? Guy like that, what kind of witness could he be?"

"Hard to say. Right now, I'm trying to get some rapport. We're talking about his family."

"His family? What, good old-fashioned psychoanalysis? The stuff you read about in books?"

I returned to Donny's room. He was facing the door. Waiting.

"No promises," I said, "but the resident's calling the supervising doctor."

"How long till I get my Tegretol?"

"If she gets the okay, soon."

"An eternity. What bullshit."

"You're welcome, Mr. Salcido."

He drew back his lips. Half his teeth were missing. The stragglers were cracked and discolored.

I pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. "Why were you on your way to your father's place?"

"He never came to my place, why should I go to his place?"

"But you did."

"I know that, stupid! It's rhetorical-Ciceronian. I'm questioning my own motives-engaging in introspection. Isn't that good? A sign of progress?" He spat and I had to move away to avoid being the target.

"I don't know why I do what I do," he said. "If I did, would l be here?"

I said nothing.

"I hope this happens to you one day," he said. "Feeling this passive. Weak. You think my skin's so weird? What's weird about it? Every shrink I talked to told me skin wasn't important, the thing was to look within. Get past the surface."

"How many shrinks have you talked to?"

"Too many. All assholes like you." He closed his eyes. "Talking faces, little crushing rooms just like this… Get past the skin, the skin, look inside. Man, I like the skin. The skin is all. The skin holds it all in."

The eyes opened. "C'mon, man, get these things off, let me touch my skin. When I can't touch it I feel like I'm not there."

"In time,Donny."

He moaned and rolled his head away from me.

"Your skin," I said. "Did you do all that yourself?"

"Idiot. How could I do the back?"

"What about the rest of it?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you did. It's good work. You're talented. I've seen your other artwork."

Silence.

"The Anatomy Lesson," I said. "All those other masterpieces. Zero Tollrance."

His body jerked. I waited for him to speak.

Nothing.

"I think I understand why you chose that name,

Donny. You have zero tolerance for stupidity. You don't suffer fools." Like father…

He whispered something.

"What's that? "I said.

"Patience… is not a virtue."

"Why not, Donny?"

"You wait, nothing happens. You wait long enough, you choke. Rot. Time dies."

"People die, time goes on."

"You don't get it," he said, a bit louder. "People dying is nothing-worm food. Time dies, everything freezes."

"When you paint," I said, "what happens to time?"

A tiny smile showed itself amid the beard. "Eternity."

"And when you're not painting?"

"I'm too late."

"Too late for what?"

"Responses, being there, everything-my timing's off. I've got a sick brain, maybe the limbic system, maybe the prefrontal lobes, the temporals, the thalamus. Nothing moves at the right pace."

"Do you have a place where you can paint now?"

He stared at me. "Screw you. Get me out of here."

"You offered your art to your father, but he wouldn't accept it," I said. "After he was gone, you tried to give it to the world. To show them what you were capable of."

His lips folded inward and he chewed on them.

"Did you kill him, Donny?"

I bent closer. Close enough for him to bite my nose.

He didn't. Just stayed in place, prone, staring at the ceiling.

"Did you?" I said.

"No," he finally said. "Too late. As usual."

After that, he shut up tight. Ten minutes into the impasse, the straw-haired nurse came in carrying a metal tray that held a plastic cup of water and two pills, one oblong and pink, the other a white disc.

"Breakfast in bed," she announced. "Two-hundred-milligram morsel with a one-hundred chaser."

Donny was panting. He forgot his restraints, tried to sit up. The cuffs snapped against his wrists and he slammed back down, breathing even faster.

"No water," he said. "I won't be drowned."

The nurse frowned at me as if I was to blame. "Suit yourself, Senor Salcido. But if you can't swallow it dry, I'm not going back to the doctor to authorize an injection."

"Dry is good. Dry is safe."

She handed me the tray. "Here, you give it to him, I'm not getting my fingers bit off."

She watched as I took the pink pill and brought it close to Donny's face. His mouth was already wide open. His molars and most of his bicuspids were missing. Putrid breath streamed up at me. I dropped in the pink lozenge. He caught it on his gray tongue, flipped it backward, gulped, said, "Delicious."

In went the white pill. He grinned. Burped. The nurse snatched the tray and left, looking disgusted.

I sat back down.

"There you go," I said.

"Now you go," he said. "I had enough of you."

I tried awhile longer, asking him if he'd ever actually gotten into the apartment, what did he think of his father's library, had he read Beowulf. Mention of the book drew no response from him.

The closest I got to conversation was when I let him know I'd met his mother.

"Yeah? How's she doing?"

"She's concerned about you."

"Go fuck yourself."

I pressed him about novelty shop gags, phony books. Broken stethoscopes.

He said, "What in the ripe rotten fuck are you talking about?"

"You don't know?"

"Hell no, but go ahead, talk all you want, I'm coasting now. Getting smooth."

Then he closed his eyes, curled as fetally as the cuffs allowed, and went to sleep.

Not faking; real slumber, chest rising and falling in a slow, easy beat. The rhythmic snores of one at peace. I left Hollywood Mercy trying to classify him. Assaultive and deeply disturbed, but bright and manipulative. Combative and pigheaded, too. Eldon Mate had rejected his son unceasingly, but genetics couldn't be denied. Zero Tollrance. He'd turned himself into a walking canvas, drifting from squat to squat, numbed his pain with dope and anticonvulsants and anger and art.

Painting his father's portrait, over and over.

Offering his best to his father, getting rejected over and over.

As good a motive for patricide as any. And Donny had considered it, he'd definitely considered it.

Did you kill him?

Too late. As usual.

Denying he'd followed through. As did Richard. Brilliant, bloody production, and no one was willing to take credit.

Despite Donny's slyness, I found myself believing him.

The mental impairment was real. Tegretol was powerful stuff, end-stage medication for mood disorders when lithium failed. No fun, not an addict's choice. If Donny craved it, he'd suffered.

He'd dissected his father on canvas, but the real-life murder reeked of a mix of calculation and brutality that seemed beyond him. I tried to picture him organizing what had happened up on Mulholland. Stalking, enticing, writing a mocking note, hiding a broken stethoscope in a box. Cleaning up perfectly, sufficiently meticulous not to leave a speck of DNA.

This was a guy who got mugged and left in the gutter. Who got yelled at by an elderly landlady and fled.

My mention of the book and the scope had elicited nothing from him. His clumsy attempt to enter his father's apartment in full view of Mrs. Krohnfeld was miles from that degree of sophistication. His entire life pattern was a series of failed attempts. I doubted he'd ever gotten past Eldon Mate's front door.

No, someone a lot more intact than Donny Salcido Mate had planted that toy. The personality combination I'd suggested at the beginning-the same mixture suggested by Fusco.

Smarts and rage. Outwardly coherent but with a bad temper problem.

Someone like Richard.

And his son. I thought of how the boy had pulverized six figures' worth of treasure.

It kept coming back to Eric.

Dispirited, I headed west on Beverly and considered how Eric might've lured Mate to Mulholland. Wanting to talk about his mother? To talk about what he'd done to his mother-for his mother. Claiming to Mate that he'd been inspired by the death doctor. The appeal to Mate's vanity might have worked.

But if Eric had been the one in that motel room, why butcher Mate? Covering for himself? Thin. So perhaps Mate had been involved. And Eric, knowing of his father's hatred for the death doctor, perhaps even knowing about the failed contract with Quentin Goad, had taken it upon himself to act.

Blood orgy to please the old man.

Happy Traveling, You Sick Bastard. The phrasing had an adolescent flavor to it. I could hear the sentence tumbling from Eric's lips.

But if Eric had slaughtered Mate, why was he now striking out against his father? Had he finally come to grips with what he'd done? Turned his anger on Richard-blaming, just as the old man was wont to do?

Father and son rolling, wrestling, snorting on the floor. Tearing at each other, only to embrace. Ambivalence. Apparent reconciliation.

But if what I suspected was true, the boy was unpredictable and dangerous. Joe Safer had sensed that, asked my opinion. I'd avoided an answer, claiming I needed to focus upon Stacy, but also wanting to avoid additional complications. Now I had to wonder if Eric's presence in the house put Stacy-and Richard-in danger.

I'd call Safer as soon as I got home. Hold back my suspicions and keep my comments general-Eric's bad temper, the effects of stress, the need to be careful.

The afternoon traffic had sludged to chrome cholesterol, cars lurching forward in fits and starts, tempers flaring. I allowed myself to be drawn into it, oblivious to petty resentments, thinking about real rage: Eric and Mate on Mulholland. Blunt-force injury to Mate's head. As in baseball bat.

Perhaps the boy had gotten Mate up there with a simple lie: misrepresenting himself as a terminally ill patient pining for the love bite of the Humanitron.

A young, male traveler. Mate, defensive about too many females, those nasty feminist jibes about his sexuality, would have liked that.

The meet, the kill, then weeks later Eric sneaks into Mate's apartment and hides the stethoscope.

Out of business, Doc.

High intelligence, savage anger. The boy had plenty of both.

And sneaking out in the middle of the night was Eric's habit, he'd done it for years.

Helen, the dog…

A look at the boy's phone records and credit-card log would be instructive. Had he booked a flight from Palo Alto to L.A. on or around the day of Mate's murder? Made a second trip to pull off the break-in?

Taking all those risks simply to taunt Mate's ghosts.

Or was it the cops he was out to humiliate? Because, after shedding blood, he learned that he liked it?

The juxtaposition of blood and pleasure. That's the way it had started for Michael Burke. That's the way it always started.

Someone that young and smart warping so severely. Terrifying.

I wanted to bounce it all off Milo. Intriguing, he'd say, but all theory.

And theory was where it would freeze because I couldn't-didn't want to-probe further.

A horn honked. Someone screeched to a stop. Someone cursed. The air outside looked heavy and milky and poisonous. I sat in my steel box, one among thousands, pretending to navigate.