A Reason to Live (Marty Singer1) (6 page)

I nodded.

"The pathology of the biopsy taken from you a few weeks ago shows that you're in early stage two. While the cancer has spread to your lymph nodes, it's not terribly advanced."

"That's great," I said. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, we have options, and that's the good thing. If this were a later stage--if you'd waited a year, perhaps, or the cancer were more aggressive--we'd have to schedule surgery immediately. These kinds of surgeries can be extensive and often end up with the patient requiring a full colostomy."

"And in my case?"

"We have options, as I said. We don't need to rush into surgery, so we'll begin with chemotherapy."

"Chemo?"

"Not the full blown variety you're probably thinking of. The idea here is to remove the cancer using chemo, but even if it isn't entirely effective, it may reduce the size of the tumors before we would have to surgically remove them. It's a simple equation: if the tumors are smaller, we have to remove less tissue, both good and bad. Removing less tissue is a good thing. There's a higher likelihood of preserving the sphincter that way."

"By all means," I said, feeling light-headed, "preserve the sphincter."

He smiled. "We'll do our best. There'll be some adjustment as your body gets used the drugs. We're attacking some of the body's cells, after all. Poisoning them, if you will. But we're well aware of the side-effects and can help you get through them. Any questions?"

I took a breath. "Just the big one."

He looked at me for a moment before answering. "Marty, I know you want a number, but I don't hand out percentages here. If I did, you'd be weighing things in your mind, trying to figure out what it would take to beat the odds. What I want you to do, instead, is concentrate on doing what we tell you, on getting better, on living. You do that, and your chances are great."

With that he clapped me on the back and left. It had been a pep-talk and I wanted to call bullshit, but he had a point. I was sitting there, still digesting what Demitri had said, when there was a rapid knock and Nurse Leah came back in. I stared at her like she was part of the doorframe.

She studied me for a second. "Hard to wrap your head around, huh?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. "I always thought I'd get my ticket punched on the job, not in a hospital bed."

"Don't be so down," she said. "You're in better shape than a lot of our patients."

"Okay, I never thought I'd say, ‘I'd like to schedule my chemo appointment.'"

She picked up a chart and fussed with it. "Chemo isn't what it used to be. Most wonder what the big deal is afterwards. People have reactions, sure, but it's probably nothing worse than you had after a long night out or a bout of iffy Mexican food."

"Great."

"Look at it this way," she said, putting a hand on one hip. "What's the worst thing that ever happened to you? Physically, I mean."

"I was shot."

That stopped her for a second, but she pushed on. "Would you rather be shot again or feel like you had the flu for a couple weeks?"

"I'd rather have neither."

She shook her head. "Sorry, it doesn't work that way."

"Then I don't want to get shot."

"Right. So chemo is something that may save your life and it won't even be close to the worst thing that's ever happened to you."

"You got a funny way of looking at things," I said.

She smiled. "It's cancer. You take the good news when you can get it."

Heading home was out. I'd only sit around and mope. I toyed with the idea of going to the gym, but my energy level had been holding steady at somewhere between zero and one lately. I imagined myself having to be revived by an attendant after passing out on the treadmill. And, anyway, what was I doing, thinking about the gym? I said I'd help Amanda and that's what I should be doing. The obvious answer was: I was stalling. I didn't want to take the logical next step towards getting some answers on the case, which was to talk to the person who--next to me and Amanda--knew the most about it.

With a sinking feeling, I pointed the car downtown. Traffic was bad, but luckily for me all the bad mojo was going in the other direction as people tried to beat it out of town at the end of the work day. You'd think there was a bomb scare, the way the cars were jammed together on the highways out of the city. I zipped along against traffic, making it to Dupont Circle in twenty minutes, though it took twenty more to find parking. This wasn't something I was used to; for the last thirty years, I'd just parked on the sidewalk if I wanted.

I finally found a spot a couple blocks from the Circle and strolled up 19th Street, noting the businesses and restaurants that had already closed or changed hands in the short time since I'd quit the force. I realized with a shock that it was already a few months since I'd been here. The streets were packed with people, all hustling somewhere. Some had just knocked off work and were heading home for the night. Others were on their way out for a dinner or a drink with friends. People took long, purposeful strides, chatting as they walked, wrapped up in their personal dramas. I missed it. Despite the cold, there was energy in the air, a feeling of
doing
, a sense of expectation. The faces looked young and well-scrubbed. I felt old and crummy.

The flow of foot traffic took me northwards to the Circle. Clumps of people waited at the crosswalks, stamping their feet and leaning into a chill wind that swept down the street and pushed against all of us. I turned my collar up and jammed my hands in my pockets as I crossed the street, then paced the perimeter of the Circle, taking in the local color.

Die-hard chess players sat at the stone tables on the east side, blowing on their hands to keep their fingers warm between moves. A couple of budding documentarians from one of the local colleges interviewed homeless guys, offering sandwiches and coffee in return for answering questions. Non-profit case workers and admin assistants chatted or sipped from Starbucks cups, somehow managing to look chic and modern on wages hovering a smidge above poverty level.

I needed to kill some time, so I picked a bench near the top of the Circle, slouching down to keep warm. A girl Amanda's age sat at the opposite end, eating some French fries. She gave me the wary, oblique glance of a city-dweller, trying to check me out for potential danger and attraction simultaneously. After a pause, she went back to eating, indicating that I was apparently both harmless and sexless.

At five thirty, I got up and walked across to the east side, skirting the marble fountain in the center, with its eyeless sylphs forever looking to the sea, the stars, and the wind. Most of the chess players had packed it in, but one table was still going at it. A few of the guys, with their portable sets tucked under their arms, had formed a small crowd around the table, smoking and watching the two men at the last table duke it out. I took up a position behind one player, an old black guy with a white beard who looked like he'd learned chess when it had been invented. His moves were precise, economical. He never touched a piece until he was ready to move, considering the whole board before ever raising his hand.

The other had changed remarkably little since I'd last seen him. His black suit, blue shirt, and red tie said he was dressed to take on all the bureaucracy the city could throw at him, though the permanently down-turned mouth registered how much he liked having to do so. His face had the same ascetic, knife's edge features I remembered, though he'd acquired deep lines straight down each cheek and a permanent trench dug along his brow. He was whip thin, having fought off the paunchiness that seemed to be the legacy of all cops over twenty-five. Then again, Vice kept most of its cops simultaneously busy, nervous, and depressed, which might explain the lack of weight gain.

"He got you, Desmond," one of the players said to the old black guy.

"Shut up, man. He's trying to think," said another.

Desmond took a long look at the board as we all watched the clock next to them. I'm not a chess player, so I couldn't have told you who was winning or losing. I knew black was one side and white the other and they had to make their move before the alarm went off on the clock. A few spectators whispered, heads together, pointing out what they would've done or where one of the players had gone wrong. Finally, Desmond let out a long breath that steamed the air.

"Not this time, man," he said and moved a piece shaped like a salt shaker across the board. The crowd erupted with groans and hoots and a couple of laughs. I stared at the board, lost.

"Stalemate, Des?" his opponent said, the shade of a grin coming across his face. "I'm shocked."

"Gotta do what you gotta do," the other said. He didn't look happy about it.

They shook hands across the board and the one named Des started putting the pieces in a box as the crowd melted away, heading for home, or dinner, or a drink. His opponent got up from the table and walked alone towards the north end of the Circle, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulder hunched against the cold.

"Kransky," I called after him. "Jim."

He stopped in his tracks and turned around. He peered at me like he was looking through a fog, though I was standing fifteen feet away. The small grin he'd given his chess partner was gone and the severe frown was back in its place. He gazed at me for a long moment with the blank, noncommittal gaze of a lizard looking at a fly.

"Singer," he said, finally. "What the hell do you want?"

. . .

"Hi, Jim," I said, lamely. I hadn't given much thought to how I was going to approach this.

Kransky stared at me.

I took a step closer, stopped. "I figured I'd find you here. This is where you always went at five to chase the day away."

He got an impatient look on his face. "I know why I'm here. What do you want?"

"I need to talk. Have a sec?"

"No," he said and turned to walk away.

"Amanda Lane," I said.

He stopped and turned back again. "What?"

"Amanda Lane," I said. "Brenda Lane's daughter."

"I know who she is. What about her?"

"She's grown up, back in town, and in trouble," I said.

His face had all the warmth of one of the statues in the fountain. "Singer, it's cold, I'm on duty tonight, and--most important--I don't want to talk to you. You got something to say, I need to hear it. Now."

"It's complicated," I said. "I need a minute. That's all."

He stared at me, considering. We hadn't bumped into each other much over the years, despite both having careers in the MPDC. Having a couple thousand bodies on the force helped with that. It was probably a good thing, since we hadn't parted under the best terms. I could see him thinking those same things. He didn't owe me anything and had probably only stopped--and would only help me--out of curiosity. Whether that curiosity would win out over his feelings for me was a big gamble. I waited him out.

He jerked his head to one side. "Let's walk."

I fell into step beside him as we chased the loop out of the Circle and headed towards 18th Street. I was several inches taller than him, but we matched our pace, walking slowly, uncomfortable with each other and thinking carefully about what we wanted to say. The narrow sidewalk, crowded with outdoor seating, fences, and trees made it hard to maintain a safe distance.

Kransky broke the ice after half a block. "Alright. You came looking for me. What do you want?"

I ran a hand through my hair, composing my thoughts, then described my meeting with Amanda. I told him about her fears and what she'd told me about Wheeler's clandestine friendship: the flowers, the visits. I gave him my first impressions, which weren't good. Kransky was quiet during my monologue, only breaking the silence to swear once or twice and glower up the street. A couple walking towards us took a step into the street to get out of our way.

"You need to find Wheeler."

"Yep," I said. "Sooner rather than later."

"She should've called it in," he said. "And you should've bagged the flower."

"She'd already handled it, tossed it in her backpack. As for calling it in, what's she supposed to say? The guy acquitted of murdering her mom twelve years ago might be back for her? Or maybe somebody likes leaving flowers at her door?"

"It'd still be a place to start," he said.

"I hear what you're saying, but I know how I would've answered the call and you do, too. You'd take her name and a number and wait for something to happen. Except that might be too late."

We walked another half block in silence. A stab of pain lanced its way through my abdomen and I winced. It didn't hurt that much, but I couldn't help but wonder. Gas? Or cancer? I put it in the back of my head to deal with later.

Kransky, deep in thought, hadn't noticed. "Why me?"

I stepped carefully over the broken remnants of a cement sidewalk slab, victim of the roots of a large, sidewalk-bound oak tree. "Because you've been mad about this for twelve years. Because you felt like we let this girl down when Wheeler walked out of that courtroom."

"Because you need my help," he said.

"That, too."

"Why don't you ask Dods?" he asked, talking about my last partner, Kransky's replacement after he left Homicide to get away from me.

"Dods is a great guy, but he doesn't have the motivation you or I do to see Wheeler put away. He might do it as a favor to me, but the Lane case was just a headline to him when it happened. For us, it's something we lived through."

"Dods is Homicide. I'm Vice. He'd be in a better position."

"Maybe. I'll ask if I have to, but I thought you'd want a piece of this."

Kransky put his head down, his chin almost touching his chest as he walked, then shuddered. "Wheeler should've never gotten off in the first place."

"I agree," I said. "But it's ancient history. We have to focus on what's happening now."

"You can't talk about the one without the other," he said. "We had that son-of-a-bitch nailed to the wall and he walked. If that hadn't happened, we wouldn't be talking now."