Right To Die

27

THE MEDICAL FACILITY WAS ONE I'D NEVER HEARD 0F, TUCKED away in the Longwood Avenue area near Brigham's and Women's Hospital. I found the right floor and suite, but the door was closed.

"John."

I turned around as Del Wonsley got up from a tub chair. Closing the current Newsweek, he looked bushed. "Thank you for coming. It'll only be a minute. They're… treating just now."

"What happened?"

Wonsley dropped the magazine onto the seat behind him. "AIDS leaves you open for a lot of complications. The diabetes is playing yo-yo with his waking hours. Usually these things are pretty predictable, but this episode is lasting longer than the others. So, Alec wanted to be sure to see you."

Wonsley read my face and managed a smile. "No, no. I think he's going to pull through this time. Weaker, but he'll make it. It's just that in seeing you now, Alec is playing the percentages?

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Be straight with him. No hearts and flowers. Just talk business or whatever, like he was laid up with a broken leg and had to meet people here as an inconvenience."

The suite door opened. A black female nurse with a round face came out. She held a metal pan, discreetly shrouded by a towel to conceal the contents. An East Indian female doctor followed the nurse and beckoned to Wonsley. They moved off to talk, Wonsley coming back as the doctor continued briskly on her way.

"You can go in now, John. But only a few minutes, all right?"

"Come get me if I overstay my welcome."

Wonsley went back to the chair.

I knocked, heard something, and went in.

They would have to invent a new kind of bleach to make the sheets whiter than his face.

Alec Bacall nodded to me, one fist compressing a little sponge ball. The arm had a clear plastic tube in it, some not-so-clear liquid pulsing downward and into him. I moved closer.

His eyes strained from the sockets, sunken and shriveled. The flesh sagged at his jawline, bruises of purple and blue providing the only color on the bed. I'd seen Bacall at his office in January, eight weeks before. Given the changes, it could have been eight years.

"Alec."

He nodded again. "I'd say sit, but Del probably told you not to stay that long."

"Just as well. I've been tossing down booze all day at a St. Pat's party."

The eyes went left-right-left. "God, I've lost track of that sort of thing. You and Nancy went to the parade?"

I told him about Inés.

"Good, good. She needs that, and more." Something moved inside Bacall, a brief spasm traversing his face as well as his body.

Then, "About Maisy?"

"She's back in San Diego. No notes since February. No progress, either, I'm afraid."

"What do you make of the notes starting and stopping like that?"

"I don't know, Alec. It must be that the guy knows her movements, including major events like arriving in and leaving Boston. It could be that she's carrying her trouble with her."

"I don't understand."

I explained my views on Tucker Hebert and Manolo.

Bacall lolled his head from side to side on the linen. "I don't know much about investigating people, but I think I do know something about judging them. It just can't be Manolo or Tuck, John."

"I don't see many other prospects right now."

"Will you stay with it?"

"As long as I'm needed. Or wanted."

"Thank you." Bacall's pupils wandered, and his eyes closed. I'd almost turned to go when the lids rose. "John?"

"Yes?"

"I said I was a good judge of people, but sometimes being too close blurs the vision. How do you think Del is doing?"

"He's still smiling."

A forced laugh. "Do you know, do you know what is really unfair about his generation?"

"No."

"The smiles. Or, more precisely, the teeth themselves. Like half the kids his age, Del's never had a cavity."

"You're kidding?"

"Not kidding. Never, not one. The fluoridation came a little late for you and me, but he's never even heard a dentist's drill up close."

"Doesn't seem fair."

"No." Bacall hesitated. "No, it doesn't seem fair at all." Another hesitation. "I'm feeling pretty sleepy, John." He released the ball, and it sought the depression his hip made in the bed. "See you soon, eh?"

I took his hand the way he offered it, like a black solidarity shake.

"Take care, Alec."

Closing the door behind me, I watched Wonsley get up. "Alec said he was getting sleepy."

"They keep him pretty well sedated. That's one of the problems, balancing all the different dosages."

"I have kind of a hard question."

Wonsley's tongue darted between his teeth and back again. "Ask it.”

"He looks so much worse than the last time I saw him. Should I be – "

"Trying to visit him more often?"

"That's not how I wanted to sound, but basically, yes, that's my question."

"Like I said, I think Alec will come around from this bout. But he's not responding well to the drugs, and if that doesn't – well, it's no secret from you what we'll do then."

I dropped my voice. "The hospital will go along with that?"

"The only way it can. The doctor will let me sign Alec out for a home visit while he's back on an upswing so we don't need all those tubes and shit. Then Alec and I will enjoy the upswing as long as it lasts. When it's downhill again, I'll do for him."

Without my saying anything, Wonsley continued. "I grew up in Chicago, John, South Side. My daddy, he'd take me to the lake, Lake Michigan. We'd go down to a la-de-dah yacht club like Columbia, by where Monroe hits Lakeshore, and we'd fish from the concrete walls. Back then it was lamprey time. Not much salmon, but plenty of perch and other runts for me. Man, that water was blue. Like a glacier melting into a stream, blue like it would hurt your eyes. You don't expect that.

"Well, after my daddy died, I tried going to the lake alone. I found out something real important. I could still fish, because he'd taught me how to do it right. It wasn't as much fun without him, but it was still good.

"I'm going to lose Alec, John. I know roughly when, and I'm going to see to it that I know exactly when. And after I lose him, life won't be so good for a while. But Alec's helped teach me how to live, and it'll get better. I can't stop AIDS from taking him, but I can stop it from taking me too."

Wonsley drew in a breath. "So, if you need anything else, you give us a call."

"I will. But if I don't, let me know when he's coming home the last time?"

The tongue darting again, Wonsley nodded quickly and entered Bacall's room.