H is for Homicide

18

Luis PARKED THE Ford in a small weedy lot adjacent to a strip mall that had probably been built in the early fifties judging by the architectural style, which was of the cinder block and glass brick variety. The chiropractor's office was located in a storefront, wedged between a barbecue joint and a barbershop. Dusty beige drapes covered the plate-glass windows, protecting the interior from the curious stares of those passing on the street. Not that there was much to see inside. The walls were flat blue, lined with metal folding chairs. A television set in the corner ran a Spanish-language tape extolling the virtues of the chiropractic arts. A tattered illustration on the wall labeled "Chart of the Eye" showed the split circles with radial divisions essential to iridiagnosis, by which one could accurately identify diabetes mellitus, typhoid, aortic regurgitation, and other alarming conditions. The floor was covered in marbled beige vinyl tiles, through which a damp mop had been trailed recently, leaving tracks of yesterday's dirt. A counter separated the reception area from the examining rooms in the rear. There were sixteen people waiting to see Dr. Howard and no magazines. One of the other patients was a fellow I thought I'd seen in Raymond's apartment the day I arrived. I filled out a rudimentary medical history, automatically printing the first three letters of "Millhone" before I caught myself, converting the i and l to the double oo's of my current alias, "Moore." The form itself took two minutes to complete, after which we all sat and looked at one another while two babies cried and eleven people smoked thirty-four cigarettes between them. The inhalation of passive smoke in conjunction with my boredom was enough to make me want to flee the premises. I checked my watch. I'd been sitting for an hour and a half. I didn't feel I could complain since I was only there to cheat the insurance company. I imagined all the other people, blacks, Hispanics, the elderly, the weekend athletes, being variously cracked, pummeled, pounded, and popped into alignment in the back room while I awaited my turn. People coming out to pay for treatment did appear to be relieved. Their backs seemed straighter, shoulders squared. They moved with more energy, taking with them enormous jars of pills which I assumed were expensive vitamins or calcium supplements. Many soft and crumpled dollar bills were passed over to the bilingual receptionist, a woman in her forties, quite possibly the doctor's wife.

When my turn came, I checked her name tag, but all it said was Martha. She walked me down a short corridor, past the open door of what must have been Dr. Howard's office. I caught a glimpse of a scarred oak desk covered with stacks of charts and small standing picture frames, probably showing him with loving family members, thus establishing his marital status and firmly declaring him off limits to women patients with designing minds. I was ushered into the adjoining examining room, noting with interest the door between the two rooms, which stood ajar. I could see through the doctor's office right back out into the hallway, where a passing patient turned and looked at me with curiosity. Martha opened a cabinet and removed a print smock that seemed to be made of two oblong cotton panels stitched together at the side and secured with elastic at the neck.

"Take your shoes off and strip down to your panties," she said, handing me the gown. "He'll be with you in ten minutes."

"Thanks. Uhm, could we close that other door?" I asked.

"Certainly." She moved through the doctor's office to the hall door, closing it as she went out.

I could feel my fingers start to itch.

My, my. All by myself and the office records of a scofflaw, insurance-defrauding bone cracker not ten feet away. I checked the door to the examining room, which had a thumb button on the knob, which I pressed, locking it. I stripped my clothes off in haste and pulled the gown over my head, then padded barefoot into the doctor's office, locking his door, too. The walls were so thin and so poorly constructed that it wasn't hard to run an auditory check of what was going on around me. I heard the doctor enter the room across the hall, greeting the patient by name as he closed the door behind him. Their murmurs were audible, though the content of the consultation was lost as he proceeded to his adjustment. I kept one ear cocked while I searched as thoroughly as I could in the eight minutes allotted me, uncovering a drawerful of claims that were a cursory match to the insurance forms I'd seen at Raymond's. I heard the door across the hall come open, the doctor's voice growing more distant as he gave a few final words of counsel and advice. I closed the desk drawer and crossed rapidly to the office door, grabbed the knob, and twisted. The button popped out. I was heading toward the examining room again when one of the little framed family photos on his desk caught my eye.

I stopped and squinted, peering at a bridal photo of a young woman I could have sworn I'd seen before. I snatched up the double frame, quickly rearranging the remaining frames to conceal the sudden gap. I eased into the examining room and had just tucked the picture frame in the handbag I'd borrowed from Bibianna when I heard the doctor try the door.

"Just a minute," I called. I popped the lock and opened the door for him with a sheepish smile. "Sorry," I said. "I didn't realize it was locked. Are you Dr. Howard?"

"That's right." He came into the room, closing the door behind him.

I resisted the impulse to shake hands with the man. It seemed inappropriate since I'd just burgled something from his desk. He was in his sixties, very clean looking. He wore white pants and a white jacket, with a snowy dress shirt underneath, starched shut collar standing up so high it seemed to pleat his neck. His dark hair looked soft on top. His hairline was receding, which left him with a long expanse of unlined forehead. He had cold eyes, a mild brown, behind square tortoiseshell frames, a humorless mouth that turned down slightly at the corners. He managed a perfunctory smile with his lips while the rest of his face remained fixed. His gaze was intense, giving him the look of a man capable of seeing straight from his own felonious heart into mine. The fragrance of crushed spices wafted into the room behind him, some faded Oriental blend of musk and sandal wood.

He glanced at my chart. "Miss Moore. What seems to be the trouble? Why don't you hop up on the table."

"It's my neck," I said as I hiked myself onto the table. "I was in a little accident and Raymond Maldonado suggested I have you check it." He crossed to a corner sink and washed his hands with a virulent-looking red liquid soap from a wall dispenser. The gaze he turned on me was brief, but sharply focused. "You should have mentioned that to Martha. We'll need an X ray," he said. "I'll have my assistant take it. You can come back here when you're done." He moved to the door and held it open for me. Instinct told me to take my handbag, which I picked up and tucked under one arm, a gesture of distrust not lost on him.

"Your purse is safe, if you'd care to leave it," he said.

"It's no trouble," I murmured, not volunteering to put it back. I had visions of his searching it in my absence, discovering the photo I'd swiped before he arrived. My memory warbled a little tune, too faint to identify. I was certain I'd seen the woman in the picture, but I had no idea where.

Barefoot, I followed him down the corridor to a makeshift X-ray laboratory, partitioned off by a few temporary plywood screens. The equipment looked like some I'd seen in a doctor's office when I was a kid: bulky and black, with a cone the size of a zoom lens. I imagined 1950s-style rays, thick and clunky, piercing my body in poorly calibrated doses. The assistant, a young guy with a cigarette bobbing in his mouth, took two views – a full spine and a close-up of the cervical vertebrae. I'm wary of unnecessary X-ray procedures, but again, since I was cheating, it was hard to protest. I returned to the examining room, where I had another long wait, this time sitting dutifully on the paper-covered table. For all I knew Dr. Howard was observing me through a hidden peephole. He returned in due course, snapping the developed film onto a wall-mounted viewer. He explained patiently, in chiropractic terms, how misshapen my spine was. Happily, my neck wasn't broken, but almost every other part of my back was in want of improvement. He put me facedown on the table and did something divine, crunching my bones in a manner that sounded like someone chewing ice. He prescribed a lengthy series of adjustments, writing out his diagnosis with a fountain pen. He was left-handed, wrist curving atop the sentences as he sketched out his recommendations. The pen made a scratching sound as it angled across the page. Even his writing looked expensive, I thought. California Fidelity was going to pay dearly for my ills.

"What's your relationship to Raymond?" he asked without looking up. Something about the nonchalance of his tone sounded a note of caution.

"I'm a friend of Bibianna's, his fiancee."

"Have you known her long?"

"Two days," I said. "We did an overnight together in the Santa Teresa County Jail."

The sharp gaze shifted and I thought I detected a nearly imperceptible pursing of his lips. He disapproved of low-lifes like Bibianna and me, probably Raymond Maldonado, too. "How long have you had your offices down here?" I asked.

"Since my license was reinstated," he said, surprising me with his candor. Maybe I'd misjudged the man. He opened a drawer and took out a number of ink pens, of various types and colors. He passed me a sheet of paper with a series of slots in the left-hand column. "Sign each line with a different pen, rotating them randomly. We'll fill the dates in later when we go to bill your insurance company. Who's the carrier?"

"California Fidelity. I called the office up north and they said they'd send the claim forms down."

"Good," he said. "And what sort of work do you normally do?"

"Waitress."

"Not good. I don't want you on your feet and no lifting heavy trays. File for disability. Nice to meet you," he said. He snapped my chart shut, got up, and left the room. Half a minute later, I heard him entering the examining room next to mine.

It was two fifty-five by the time I left his office. The day was hot for late October, the air perfumed with the yeasty smell of warm exhaust fumes. The neighborhood we were in wasn't much of an improvement over the one where Raymond lived. As I approached the Ford, Luis leaned over and opened the car door. I slid into the front seat. Whatever Dr. Howard had done in the way of adjustments, my hangover was at least gone. I tilted my head this way and that, taking inventory of my neck. Not bad. No stiffness, no more aches or pains.

The interior of the car smelled of fast-food burgers and cold French fries. There was an empty milk shake container on the dashboard and a white paper bag sitting on the front seat. "Oh, goody, for me?" I asked. I peered into the bag, hunger rising suddenly. "Luis, there's nothing in here but trash!"

"I thought you'd ate."

"You thought I'd ate?" I said pointedly.

Luis seemed embarrassed. "Eaten."

"Yeah, well, I eaten the same time you did and I'm starving again." I revised my tone. There was no point in being a bitch about this. "Isn't there any way we could stop and pick up some lunch for me on the way home?"

He started the car, checking the flow of traffic in the rearview mirror. "Raymond said come back as soon as you got done. We got work to do."

"How come we have to do everything he says?"

Luis turned a flat look on me.

I thought about Raymond's temper. "Good point," I said.

When we got back to the apartment, the dog was tied to the railing out on the balcony and the apartment door was standing open. There were six or eight young Hispanics on the premises, most of whom I hadn't seen before. Bibianna sat on the couch, bending over a game of solitaire which she'd laid out on the coffee table. Luis went into the kitchen and fetched himself a beer. I excused myself with a murmur and went into my room, where I removed the stolen pictures from my handbag. I moved over to the window and opened it quietly. The frame was a bifold, two photographs in matte gold, hinged in the middle. I dismantled the frame and tossed it out the window, checking first to make sure I wouldn't be clunking anybody in the head with it. I studied both photographs closely, holding them up to the light. These were formal wedding portraits. The first was one of those group shots taken at the church altar afterward, people lined up in a semicircle with the bride and groom in the center. In addition to the newly weds, there were six young women in lavender, fanning out to the left, and six guys in gray tuxedos with lavender cummerbunds on the right. Dr. Howard was clearly the father of the bride, whose mother didn't look a thing like the receptionist. I'd guessed wrong there. The second photograph was a full-length shot of the bride herself. She was the woman I thought I recognized. She was standing in three-quarter profile, her eyes lifted solemnly toward the stained-glass window above her head, bridal bouquet held at her waist. The dress was a close-fitting satin with a train that had been spread out around her feet as if the material had melted to form a pool. Her blond hair was pulled back, secured in some kind of netting like a bridal snood. The face was tantalizing, not pretty by any stretch, but she'd clearly hired a team of makeup experts to enhance her every feature. I was sure I'd seen her recently, but not looking nearly as good as this. I squinted, perplexed. It was like seeing your mailman at a cocktail party in fancy dress. I had to shrug and forget it for the moment. It would come to me, probably popping into my head when I was in the middle of something else.

I crossed to the closet, slid the door back, and pulled up a corner of the dark blue shag wall-to-wall carpet. I slipped the pictures under it and pressed the carpet back in place.

I returned to the living room, where Bibianna was studying the run of solitaire she'd laid out. I settled into the chair. I tucked my feet up under me and watched Bibianna play, keeping a discreet eye on the gangbangers, who had formed a rough line near the kitchenette. It must have been payday. Raymond sat at the table, collecting hand-held slips of paper, counting out bills in return. He was all business, conducting transactions in Spanish. Without appearing to pay much attention, I took note of the faces, wondering if I'd be able to identify them later from mug shots, if required. The only two I recognized were Raymond's brother, Juan, and the sulky fellow, Tomas, who'd had so much trouble with his paperwork the day I arrived. Raymond glanced over at me and I dropped my gaze to the solitaire laid out on the table.

I'd watched her set it up so many times by now, I was almost ready to try it myself. This one wasn't the usual red queen on a black king strategy but ran in suits so that if you won, you ended up with only four piles, one for each suit, cards in numerical order from aces up to kings. She went through all the cards in her hand by threes without coming up with a play. She tossed the hand in and pulled the cards together in a pile.

"You want to do my chart?" I asked.

She shook her head. "The stuff's at my mother's and Raymond won't let me talk to her. I tried to call her last night, but he caught me with the phone and nearly beat the shit out of me. What an ass…" She glanced over at Raymond, who had stopped what he was doing so he could stare at her. Bibianna stirred uneasily and glanced at me. She said, "I can read your palm instead. Put your hands on the table."

"Palm down?"

"Yeah. Just put 'em down on the tabletop."

I eased my feet out from under me and leaned forward so I could rest my palms flat on the table as instructed. Raymond must have realized she was into her palmistry and he went back to work. Bibianna's look became intent. She scrutinized the backs of my hands, then lifted both and turned them over. She took my right hand in hers and examined it with care, saying nothing. Her manner was as professional as a doctor's. I don't believe in palmistry, any more than I believe in numerology, astrology, the Easter bunny, or the tooth fairy, but there was something in her expression that piqued my curiosity. "What?" I said.

She ran an index finger across my right palm, took up my left palm, and looked at it again. "You like action. You know how I know that? When you put your hands down on the table, you left a lot of space between. Insecure people put 'em close together. Short nails indicate you're aggressive. No ridges or spots, which is good. Means you're healthy. Skin type is medium, doesn't say much, but look at this… how wide the space is between your thumb and the fingers on this hand. You think for yourself…"

Her voice was hypnotic and I found myself listening to her with great seriousness. I'd expected a lot of talk about life lines and love lines, but she didn't have a chance to get to that. The trouble broke out so suddenly, I never knew what started it. I heard a shout, the banging as a chair fell over backward. By the time I looked up, Raymond had Tomas down on the floor. He was clutching the guy by the throat, the switchblade against his cheek. Raymond's face was contorted by rage, his hands shaking as he squeezed his fingers into Tomas's windpipe. Tomas was burbling, his eyes wide as he struggled to free himself. Sweat had beaded his forehead. I saw the blade of the knife slip into his cheek, sinking into the flesh, blood welling up. Raymond seemed almost hypnotized by the process. No one else made a move. It seemed to be one of those moments where retaliatory violence would only jeopardize Tomas's chance of survival.

Bibianna whispered, "My God…" She crossed the room, kneeling beside Raymond, where she began to murmur in his ear. I could see him struggle for control. He made a sound like a sob, very tight and ancient, almost a squealing at the back of his throat. Bibianna touched his hand, talking to him earnestly. "Don't do this, Raymond. I beg you. Let him go. He didn't mean nothing by it. You're hurting him. Please…"

He lifted the knife. Bibianna extracted it from his hand while his victim rolled away, blood pouring down his face. Raymond seemed to cough and his rage shifted from Tomas to Bibianna. He grabbed her by the arms and hauled her upright, shoving her up against the wall so hard her head banged a piece of plaster loose. He put his face an inch away from hers, the now familiar ripple of tics tugging half the muscles in his face. His eyes rolled up in his head so that he seemed to look at her with the milky, blind slits. His voice was a whisper. "I'll kill you, you ever interfere with me again, you got that?"

Bibianna nodded frantically. "I won't. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

He stepped away. The ritual cough and bark began and I could see him jerk his head, rolling his shoulder in its socket. Luis had grabbed a kitchen towel and was pressing it against the cut in Tomas's cheek, issuing orders in Spanish. Blood soaked through instantly. Two of the guys came to Tomas's assistance, helping him out the door. The apartment cleared rapidly. My heart was pounding. Bibianna sank down on the couch, white-faced. She put her head between her knees, close to fainting. I moved over and sat down beside her, patting her and murmuring words of encouragement as much for my own benefit as for hers. Moments later, Luis returned. I gathered that someone was taking Tomas off to the emergency room. In the meantime, Raymond seemed to have regained control. Bibianna composed herself and picked up her cards again with shaking hands. Luis wiped blood off the kitchen floor. All of us understood how important it was to get past the moment. To avoid any further upset, we acted as if nothing had happened, which made us co-conspirators. No reference was made to Tomas or what he'd done to precipitate Raymond's reaction.

Raymond paced the room, snapping his fingers restlessly as he turned to Bibianna. "Hey. Get your jacket. We're going out. Hannah, you too."

I got my jacket. Hell, I wasn't going to argue with the man.

This time Raymond and I took the Ford, while Luis followed us in the Cadillac, Bibianna in the passenger seat. I turned halfway, looking through the back window at the Caddy, which kept pace with us. Luis and Bibianna were only dark silhouettes. "How come she always goes with him on these runs?"

"We fight," he said.

I studied him with interest. He seemed relaxed, his manner open and easy. I was beginning to understand that for a short period of time just after an "attack," he was really rather benign, as if soothed by the outburst. For a brief interlude, he would be completely approachable, even loving. He was not a bad-looking guy. He could probably find a woman who'd care for him if he wasn't fixated on Bibianna.

He caught my look. "What are you lookin' at?" His words were belligerent, but the tone was mild.

"I was just trying to figure out why you're so obsessed with Bibianna. Why insist on marriage when she's clearly not that hot for it?" I held my breath, but he didn't seem to take offense.

"She can't mess with me. No way. People who screw with my head have to learn they can't. She hasn't got the word yet."

"About what? You have her back. What else do you want?"

"I have to make sure she stays."

"How can you do that?"

"I did already," he said. "She just doesn't know it yet."