W Is for Wasted

24

When I reached the Santa Teresa Hospital, visiting hours had wound to a close, but there was still foot traffic in and out. The Intensive Care Unit was quiet. I passed the empty waiting room. Even with the corridor lights dimmed, the business of life and death went on behind the scenes. This was the time for clerical work; charts to be caught up, supplies ordered, reports prepared for the shift change. There was no one in the hall. At the nurses’ station, I inquired about Felix. A young Hispanic woman in blue scrubs got up from a rolling office chair and indicated that I was to follow. “Where’d Pearl disappear to?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Don’t know. I’ll have to look into it,” I said.

She had me wait in the hall while she slipped into Felix’s room and pushed the curtain aside, sliding it along the track above his bed. She stood on the far side and watched him as I did. Felix lay in a pool of light, attached to machinery that monitored and recorded his progress for good or for ill. Blood pressure, respiration, pulse. His head was heavily swaddled in white, both legs in casts. There was none of the usual in-patient detritus in range. No bed table. No flowers, no get-well cards propped up, no bucket of ice, and no oversize plastic cup with a flexible drinking straw. Life-sustaining fluids dripped into him from the clear bag that hung from the IV pole beside him and waste fluids trickled into a container out of sight under his bed. His sheets were snowy; the light in the rest of the room was subdued.

Poor Felix. The big Boggart, who’d stumbled into the camp while Pearl and Felix were trashing it, must have known she was the instigator. Felix responded to life in the moment, ill equipped to form a long-range plan and act on it. I could picture their desire to retaliate against Pearl, but why him? And why so savagely? Surely not for sport. Maybe this was better revenge from their perspective than attacking her directly.

Where I stood, no sound reached me. Felix didn’t move. Even the rise and fall of his breathing was difficult to discern. He was alive. He was safe. He was warm. He didn’t seem to be in pain. Sleep was all that remained to him. So much of the “stuff” of life was already gone, leaving him undisturbed. Maybe he would swim into consciousness again or maybe the gods would set him adrift. I kissed the tip of my index finger and pressed it to the glass. I’d come back the next day. Maybe by then, he’d be surfacing from his long sleep.

• • •

Sunday morning, by all rights, I should have slept in. Instead, I woke at 6:00 and while I didn’t stir from my bed, I lay under the weight of my quilt and savored the warmth. The Plexiglas skylight above my bed showed a half dome of blue. I’d slept with my windows open to the full, and the morning air wafting in was scented with seaweed and burning leaves. Dietz was less than a mile away. He was one of those people who needs very little sleep. In the time we’d spent together, he was typically up until two, down for four hours, and up again at six. Sundays in particular, he took a long time over coffee, reading the paper section by section, even the parts I skipped.

I pushed the covers back, got up, and then turned and made the bed like a good girl. Live alone and you have two choices—be a tidy bun or a slob. I brushed my teeth, showered, and threw on the clothes I’d worn the night before. I drove to the Edgewater Hotel and left my Mustang in the hands of a parking valet. I went through the entrance to the hotel, crossed the lobby, and moved along the wide corridor with its stretches of Oriental carpets over high-gloss Saltillo tiles. To my left, windows looked out onto an enclosed patio. Ficus trees, potted palms, and birds of paradise, like stiffly crested orange cranes, were arranged throughout, separating seating areas and providing the illusion of privacy. I spotted Dietz at a table against the stretch of windows that looked out toward the ocean. He was in jeans and a gray fleece shirt with a zippered placket and long sleeves that he’d pushed up. The paper was spread across the tabletop, one edge anchored by a coffee carafe. He wore round wire-rim glasses.

The hostess moved as though to greet me. I pointed at Dietz, indicating that I’d be sitting with him. She held up a menu that I waved off. Dietz looked up as I approached. He moved a hefty section of the Los Angeles Times from the nearest chair and I sat down. I could see now that my initial take had been correct. He looked tired and the gray in his hair had given way to white. He put his hand on the table, palm up, and gave me that crooked smile of his.

I placed my hand in his. “What happened to you?”

“Naomi died.”

“Of what?”

“Cancer. It wasn’t easy, but it was mercifully brief. Six weeks from diagnosis to the end. The boys were there and so was I.”

“When was this?”

“May 10. I got back to Carson City on the fifteenth and four days later, the call from Pete Wolinsky came in. If you’ll pardon the hocus-pocus sentiment, it felt like a sign. There’s no question I’d have done the work . . . anything to distract myself . . . but there was something in the idea it was coming from you. Naomi always said I used work to avoid being close, a claim I hotly denied until the truth of it came home.”

“Where are the boys at this point?”

“Nick’s in San Francisco, working for a brokerage firm. He graduated from Santa Cruz with a degree in accounting. Naomi steered him toward finance and it seems to agree with him. Graham got his degree this past December. He hung around with Nick for a while and then took off. He’s footloose and fancy-free, for the time being at any rate.”

“Sounds like you.”

“He is like me. Nick was always more like Naomi. Her coloring, her temperament.”

“She got married, didn’t she?”

“Two years ago. He’s the one I feel for. Poor bastard. Marriage was a good one from everything I heard. He’d lost his first wife to cancer and he thought he’d survived the worst of it. Then Naomi got sick and now he’s right back where he was.”

“What about you?”

“She was my touchstone—another revelation in the wake of her death. Whatever happened, I knew she’d be there. I couldn’t live with the woman, but we had those two boys and she was part of my life. I probably only saw her every three or four years. I’m off balance. They say it’s like that when you lose a toe. You take for granted you can walk just fine. You’ve been doing it all your life without giving it a second thought. Suddenly your gait goes wobbly.”

He signaled the waitress and I saw her moving toward the table with a fresh carafe of coffee. Dietz got up and retrieved a coffee cup and silverware setup from the table next to us. It was a nice way of creating emotional space so I could absorb what he’d said. I’d never met Naomi. I’d seen photographs of her and I’d been startled by how beautiful she was. She and Dietz had been apart longer than they’d been a couple. They’d lived together for a time, but she’d refused to marry him. Or maybe he’d never asked.

He returned to the table and sat down.

I said, “The minute you walked into Henry’s kitchen, I knew something was wrong. I could see it in your face.”

“Surprised the hell out of me. This is what’s so weird. We were never in love. There was some kind of chemistry I wouldn’t even classify as sexual. It was more fundamental than that. Ours was a bad mix of personalities. We drove each other nuts. Happiest day of my life was when I left her the last time. Then she died and the bottom dropped out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Being angry with you was a relief.”

“Easier than grief.”

“Right,” he said. “Look, I know you were mad that I left.”

“Don’t project. I wasn’t that mad,” I said.

“Could have fooled me. Times I thought about you, I didn’t have the nerve to call. I figured you’d cut me down and rightly so. After a while, the absence just seemed to compound itself. When Pete didn’t pay me I figured it was your revenge.”

“Too subtle. If I take revenge, it’ll have my name written all over it.”

“So now what?”

“I could use some breakfast. I’m starving,” I said.

Dietz joined me in an orgy of bacon and eggs and all the accompaniments. It was a meal that never ceased to satisfy. I was still munching on a piece of buttered rye toast when he returned to the subject that had brought him to town.

“So here’s what bothers me,” he said. “Pete hires me to do a job and next thing you know he’s dead. What’s that about?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite like that,” I said. “You did the work when, the last weekend in May? The robbery went down in August.”

“I know, but I keep thinking the two might be linked. This isn’t a gig you see much these days. One spouse spying on the other? We live in the land of no-fault divorce, so it struck me as odd.”

“Why’d you take the job?”

“It sounded like fun. I can’t remember the last time I was asked to skulk around a hotel taking pictures with a telephoto lens. I did a damn fine job of it even if I say so myself. Then the guy who hired me gets shot to death and I don’t like it so much.”

“Just because one event follows another doesn’t mean the first caused the second,” I said.

“I get that and I hope you’re right, but as long as I’m here I’d like to satisfy myself.”

“Tell me about the surveillance again. When you talked about it last night I was feeling so defensive I didn’t hear a word you said.”

“I was tailing a woman named Mary Lee Bryce and her boss, a doctor named Dr. Linton Reed. Both work at a local research institute. Apparently, they knew each other years ago and were involved in a romance of some kind. I have no idea if it was serious or not. The point is, her current husband was worried about the two of them in Reno staying in the same hotel.”

“Why’d they go to Reno?”

“They attended a conference over the long holiday weekend.”

“And was she having an affair with him?”

“Not that I picked up on. The two barely spoke.”

“Might be camouflage.”

“I considered that. They ignore one another in public and bang away in private. Problem is they had no personal contact at all. I’d be willing to swear to it.”

“Didn’t you say she met with an old high school friend?”

“Now, see, you were listening,” he said with a smile. “You’re right. A fellow named Owen Pensky, an investigative journalist. I ran a background check on him. Big scandal in his past.”

“What kind?”

“He was fired from the New York Times for plagiarizing someone else’s work.”

“What was he doing in Reno?”

“He lives there. He picked up a job at one of the Reno papers.”

“You think her relationship with him was business or personal?”

“I have no idea. She and Pensky met twice, but I couldn’t get audio. Place was too heavily populated. If I’d known in advance where they were meeting, I’d have planted a bug. I guarantee they didn’t go to his room or hers.”

“But she could have been having an affair with him.”

“If so, the two of them did a flawless job of keeping it under wraps.”

“How did you frame it in your report?”

“I was careful. I drew no inferences and I didn’t offer my unsolicited opinion. Nice neutral language not meant to inflame.”

“What are the ethics in a situation like this? With Pete dead, can you talk to her husband about whether the bill was paid?”

“I’ll have to. I doubt the wife has any idea Pete hired me to keep an eye on her. I tip her off and the situation could turn ugly.”

“I still don’t see what this has to do with Pete’s death. Feels like a fishing expedition.”

“Sure it is, but why not? Somebody owes me.”

“Pete could have collected and just not paid you.”

“In which case, I’m probably out of luck. Meanwhile, I don’t like thinking the guy got killed because of me. If there’s no link, then fine. If I manage to collect my money, it’s better yet.”

“You have a plan?”

“I’m hoping I can talk Pete’s wife into letting us have a look at his accounts. Meanwhile, what’s on your plate?”

“I have to get the Mustang over to the service station. Some asshole drove a roofing nail into my sidewall tire,” I said. “What about you?”

“I thought I’d pay Con Dolan a visit and see what he knows. Maybe the cops have a suspect in sight, or one already in jail. If so, I’ll quit worrying the job was in any way linked to his departure from the planet Earth.”

“You know where Con lives?”

“I do and it shouldn’t take me long. After that, if you’re free, I’ll treat you to dinner at Emile’s.”

“Sounds good. You want me to check with Henry?”

“We’ll save that for another occasion.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Don’t know yet,” he said.

After breakfast, we reclaimed our respective vehicles from the parking valet and then he set off for Con Dolan’s house while I continued on to the nearest gas station, where I dropped off my tire. The service bays were closed, but the two mechanics would be in Monday morning, and the fellow manning the pumps said he’d have one of them get on it first thing. He’d call when the tire had been fixed and was ready to be picked up. In the interim, the spare tire, while not optimal, was sufficient to get me around.

That issue out of the way, the job I assigned myself was to round up Dandy and Pearl, who by all accounts were using Felix’s precarious medical state as one more excuse to misbehave. I was reasonably certain the sports bar where they played darts on weekends was one called the Dugout I’d seen on Milagro, a block and a half past the minimart where I’d bought the three packs of cigarettes a lifetime ago.

I found street parking around the corner from the Dugout and hoofed my way back. A judiciously placed waste container had done double duty as a trash can and as a barf receptacle for a patron who’d almost managed to reach it.

The place was open, of course. Ten in the morning on a Sunday was the same as church to some folks. As this was the Pacific time zone, football games being broadcast from the Midwest and the East Coast would soon be underway. The bar itself looked like every other sports bar you’ve ever seen. Booths, free-standing tables and chairs, six big-screen television sets mounted at intervals, each tuned to a different sporting event. The bar itself extended the length of the room on the left-hand side, with stools lined up smartly, most of them occupied. A second room was furnished with foosball tables and pool tables. I caught a glimpse at the rear of a series of dartboards, but no one was throwing at that hour. Twelve men at the bar turned to look at me as I walked in and then went back to their drinks.

The bartender ambled in my direction. He was a middle-aged man, short and stocky, wearing chinos and a vintage jersey of some vague hockey-like sort. He placed a cocktail napkin on the bar in front of me. I said, “I’m looking for Pearl.”

“Too late. Her and Dandy came in yesterday, kicking up a fuss. Now they’re eighty-sixed.”

Being eighty-sixed was the drunkard’s equivalent of being barred for life, though most bar owners would eventually relent.

“You know where they went?”

“Shape they were in, it wasn’t Harbor House. Curfew’s at seven. Last I saw ’em it was two A.M.”

“They were here all that time?”

“They went out for a while and then came back in. Spreading the joy, I guess.”

“What kind of trouble did they make?”

Mockingly, he put a hand to his chin. He twiddled his fingers and looked skyward, as though trying to remember and calculate. “Well, let’s see. Second time they showed up, they started knocking back shots. Dandy’s not a maudlin drunk like she is, but he gets in everyone’s face. He’s a guy who wants to engage in long, rambling chats. Folks don’t want to deal with that. The two of ’em tried throwing darts but neither one could see straight. Pearl fell over backward and busted up a chair and then he weighed in and broke a second one for good luck. She got sick and then he fell down. I should have called the cops at that point, but I got too big a heart.”

“I heard they were on a bender.”

“I can testify to that. Here’s the deal: I like Pearl. I wish her the best and I mean that. Who knows what put me where I am and put her on the street? Call it the Fickle Finger of Fate, but she’s wanking on about how everything’s so unfair. I got no patience for that. Like I said to her, I didn’t invent the game and I didn’t make the rules. Maybe it all stinks and I’m sorry as hell, but I got a bar to run.”

“She’s a tough one,” I said, hoping to defuse his irritation and sidestep an argument.

“She says she’s down on her luck but luck’s got nothing to do with it. She makes choices the same as I do. I don’t know if she’s lazy or stupid or mentally ill, and I don’t care. Point is, I got fifteen employees dependent on me, but how the hell can I run a business when Pearl and her ilk come in here and puke all over the place?”

I shook my head, saying, “I hear you” in what I hoped was a sympathetic tone. In truth, I was more interested in their current whereabouts than a history of their bad behavior.

“Fact is, my taxes pay for her room and board and her medical care. You ever think about that? And you know what? My wife got sick and ended up in St. Terry’s for ten days. You want to know how much that cost me? Ninety thousand bucks. I kid you not. I’ll be paying that off until I’m ninety myself. Pearl gets sick? It’s not gonna cost her a dime. They got programs. Shelter and clothing and three meals a day. I should be so unfortunate. Point is, I’m done with her and I’m done with her friend. Tell you something else and this makes no sense: Dandy’s a smart guy. His father taught math at the high school. You ever hear about that?”

“Actually, I did.”

“Dandy could have made something of himself, you know? He decides to take the low road, why does that obligate me?”

I made a few more mouth noises and then excused myself. Raise the subject of the homeless and everybody has a strong opinion. Fifty percent of the local citizens are sympathetic and the other fifty are pissed as hell. Does the problem get solved? No, it does not.

I retrieved my car and headed back down Milagro toward the beach, hanging a right when I reached the small side street where Harbor House was located. Again, I parked the car, hoofed the half block, and went in. The common room was largely empty, but there they were, Pearl and Dandy sprawled on adjacent couches, both of them dead to the world. She had her jacket pulled over her head but her body type was distinct. I couldn’t miss the bulk of her, swaddled in fake leather. Dandy reclined in an upholstered chair, hands clasped across his lap, his legs extended in front of him. He was slack-mouthed and snoring. The air around them smelled of fruitcake.

I found a chair and watched for a while, wondering at the life they led. I couldn’t handle it myself. I don’t have the discipline. I might manage to be idle for half a day and then I’d be back in my routine: getting up at six, jogging my three miles, going into the office, walking up to Rosie’s for a bite to eat. Doing nothing makes me itch. I don’t have the temperament or the strength of character.

After a few moments, Pearl roused herself and sat up. Her face was high-blood-pressure pink, her hair as stiff and dry as straw. She’d bleached it blond once upon a time and what was left had worked its way down to the tips. In the wake of her drinking binge, I could tell that many of her elementary body parts were in full mutiny. I didn’t feel sorry for her, but I could identify to some extent. She must have felt she’d been stricken with a tropical disease, some hideous malady she’d done nothing to deserve. I could see her looking inward, perhaps measuring her nausea level on a scale of one to ten. I would have pegged her at a six and rising.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked.

She said, “Man, oh man.”

She ran a hand across her face and peered at me as though the light hurt her eyes. “Where’d you come from?”

“Back from Bakersfield.”

“How’d it go?”

“Not that well. What about you?”

“I think I picked up that stomach bug that’s going around.”

“It’s a bad one from what I hear.”

She held a hand up. “Hang on a sec.” She pushed herself to her feet. She pressed two fingers against her lips and walked with great purpose toward the ladies’ room, speeding up as she got closer. Even with the door closed, I could hear the misery. Such are the charms of drink. Dandy would be lucky if he managed to sleep for a while, letting his body metabolize the excess alcohol in his poor beleaguered system.

Pearl was moving slowly when she returned. I could tell she’d splashed some water on her face and I was hoping she’d had a chance to rinse her mouth. She eased herself back down on the couch by degrees as though her back had gone out on her.

“Word has it, you and Dandy got eighty-sixed from the Dugout,” I said, mildly.

“Won’t last. You know why?”

“I’d love to hear your analysis.”

“Guy’s got a big heart. Besides, he likes me.”

“He’d have to.”

“Anyway, what’d we do to him? Hey, so once in a while we mess up, but who don’t? . . . doesn’t,” she said. She slid a pained look in my direction and I imagined I was the only thing standing between her and another round of sleep. “You stop by for some reason in particular?” she asked.

“Just wondering where you were. Last night I went over to St. Terry’s to see Felix.”

“Bummer,” she said. “I been there for hours. Anyone tell you that?”

“I heard you were faithful as a hound.”

“You got that right. You don’t happen to have any Vicodin.”

I shook my head in the negative.

“Percocet?”

“Fresh out,” I said.

I heard the phone ringing at the desk behind me. Someone picked up and when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw a volunteer standing with her palm across the mouthpiece. “Pearl?”

She held up the handset by way of summons.

“What’d I tell you?” she said, struggling to her feet again.

“Guy owes me an apology big time. I don’t know if I’m accepting it or not. I don’t like abuse, especially when I didn’t do nothing to him.”

“Well, good luck,” I said. “Show the guy some mercy.”

Pearl said, “Ha.”

Meanwhile, Dandy had pulled himself upright. Maybe our conversation had reached him in the depths of his inebriated state. As much as he’d had to drink, he wouldn’t be sober for another two days. If Pearl’s condition was a harbinger, he’d be in a hurt locker the size of hers.

From the direction of the desk, I heard Pearl’s voice rise. “DO NOT SAY THAT. Don’t you say that to me, you son of a bitch!”

There was a silence and Pearl’s voice rose. “Shut your trap! That is not TRUE! You’re a lying sack of shit.”

Another silence while someone on the other end had a few more things to say.

Pearl’s response was to the point. “Hey! You say that again, I’ll come down there and punch you in the face!”

She listened briefly, and then slammed down the handset. “That’s bullshit. What kind of bullshit is that?”

She headed toward us at a lumbering pace, still in too much pain to move with any speed. She was sweating and her skin had turned blotchy in the wake of her rage. Dandy pushed himself to his feet. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you what’s up. You want to know what’s up? That asshole’s telling me Felix died.”

“I saw him last night,” I said.

“Yeah, well, he died an hour ago. How could he do that when I loved the guy? Hey. You know what? Hey . . .”

Her voice broke. Whatever she meant to add, a howl went up instead. The sound was sufficient to freeze everyone in place and then send half the residents scurrying to her aid as though her hand had been caught in the blades of a fan.