Bitter Medicine (18 page)

As I left the room, Mr. Contreras said in an urgent undertone, “Go apologize to her. She’s just doing her job—don’t blow a good thing over a little incident like this.”

Peter seemed to think this was sound advice. He caught up with me as I started up the stairs. “Sorry, Vic. Didn’t mean to criticize. The thing is I’ve been drinking more than I should. These the documents? Here, let me carry ’em for you.”

He took the books from me and followed me up the stairs. I carried my malodorous shoes into the kitchen
and began pouring water and Clorox on them. I was really furious, both with his criticism, and also with myself for having said anything. It’s never a good idea to let people know that you’ve been obtaining information through questionable means. If I hadn’t been startled, guilty, feeling at ease with Mr. Contreras, and pissed as hell with Dick, I wouldn’t have said one word about it. Goes to show.

Peter gave me a tentative, alcoholic kiss behind my ear. “C’mon, Vic. Scout’s honor, I won’t say anything more about your—uh—business methods. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” I finished rinsing my shoes. My hands now smelled of Clorox, not as bad as vomit, but not good. I rubbed lemon juice into them. Not all the perfumes of Arabia. “No one likes being criticized, Peter. Least of all me. At least not on stuff that’s connected with my job.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Did I ever tell you I was descended from the General Burgoyne who did so badly for the British at Saratoga? I know just how he felt. The Americans fought dirty, and he got squeamish. So put down my idiotic objections to burglary as squeamishness. Okay, General Washington?”

“Okay.” I couldn’t help laughing. “Done… I need to get some food and there ain’t a hell of a lot to eat here. Are you up to a trip to the all-night diner or have you had it for the day?”

He put both arms around me. “No, sure. Let’s go. Maybe a walk’ll clear my head.”

Before going out I called the
Herald-Star
’s city desk and told them drunks were pawing through IckPiff’s headquarters. In case that wasn’t enough, I called the police, too—not 911, where all the lines are monitored, but the Central District Headquarters.

Well pleased with myself, I walked with Peter, who was still a bit unsteady, to the Belmont Diner, a twenty-four-hour place where old Mrs. Bielsen bakes her own pies and cooks fresh soups. He excused himself to make a phone call while I ate cold tomato soup—called gazpacho in upscale restaurants where it’s half as good at twice the price—and a BLT on whole-wheat. I was paying the bill when Peter finally returned, his narrow, mobile face troubled.

“Bad news on the delivery front?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “Personal problem.” His face cleared and he tried for a lighter note. “I keep a boat up on Pistakee Lake. It’s not a real big lake, so it’s not a real big boat—twenty-footer with one sail. How about coming up tomorrow—spend the day on the water? I don’t have any patients to see and I can cancel all my meetings.”

The weather was still so hot that a day in the country sounded great. And if the Downers Grove box factory hired me, this might be my last free day for some time. We went back to my apartment in good humor, Peter making a successful effort to keep his private worries at bay. Mr. Contreras popped his head out the door as we came in.

“Ah, good. You took my advice, young man. You won’t be sorry.”

Peter flushed and stiffened. I felt slightly embarrassed myself. Mr. Contreras watched us go up the stairs together, hands solemnly at our sides, and finally closed his door when we disappeared around the landing. We burst into an explosion of guilty laughter when we got to the top.

The
Herald-Star
had a nice little story about IckPiff headlined
VANDALS WRECK ABORTION FOE OFFICE.
I was afraid they might relegate it to the second section, where the previous day’s haul of rapists, murderers, car wrecks, and drug busts are reported, but they tucked the lead into the bottom of the front page. Dieter Monkfish attributed the break-in to the machinations of the evil baby murderers, retaliating for the destruction of Lotty’s clinic, but the police said they’d found five drunks having a fight, flinging drawers open and throwing paper at each other.

The five men had been charged with breaking and entering, disorderly conduct, and vandalism. The story was nice and short—it didn’t include room for comments from the drunks on mysterious ladies who might have sent them up to IckPiff in the first place.

I’d gone to the corner store for the paper and some
food while Peter continued to sleep off the grappa. He staggered into the kitchen as I was finishing my second cup of coffee, wearing his underpants and my bathrobe, his eyes squinted shut. He held out a hand and said piteously: “Coffee.”

I poured him a cup. “I hope you feel better than you look, General Burgoyne. Want to call off the trip to Lake Pistakee?”

“No,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll be okay. I just need to get used to the idea that I’m not dead. Jesus Christ, what the hell did that guy give me last night?”

He sat morosely for a while, sipping the coffee and burying his face in its steam, shuddering at the mention of food. With a heartiness typical of the virtuous sober in the face of a friend’s hangover, I ate pita bread with swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce, and mustard. When Peter didn’t respond to the news that the Cubs had beaten the Braves in Atlanta last night—in thirteen innings—I left him huddled by the kitchen table and went into the living room to call Lotty.

“I read about this IckPiff burglary in the morning paper, Lotty. Dieter the Mad thinks it’s pro-choice monsters getting even with him for smashing up your clinic. Want me to send over the Streeter brothers to keep an eye on things in case his followers decide to come back for seconds?”

She’d read the article, too. “Just give me their number. If anyone shows up I’ll call them. You don’t know anything about this break-in, do you, Vic?”

“Me, boss? The paper says five drunks were up there getting ready for a ticker-tape parade.” I looked at the IckPiff files where Peter had perched them on the mountain of
Wall Street Journals
covering the coffee table.

“Yes, Vic. I can read. Also I know you. Thanks for calling—I have to run.”

I sat cross-legged on the floor with the card catalog on my lap. From the background sounds, Peter had decided to revive his life-support system in the shower. I started with the A’s. At a guess, there were six thousand names in the file. If I could go through ten a minute, that was ten hours. My favorite kind of work, the main reason I’m sorry the women’s movement came to life before I could use my B.A. to be a secretary.

I’d gotten to Attwood, Edna and Bill, who’d donated fifteen dollars a year for the last four years, when Peter came in. He was dressed and looked more like a human being, although not one I’d trust my obstetrical care to.

“Having any luck with your files?” he asked.

“I’ve just begun. I figure at the steady pace I’m working I should be at the end around Thanksgiving sometime.”

“Can you bear to leave them for a while? It’s nine-thirty now—I need to stop at home to change, so it’ll be noon or so before we get to the boat if we leave now.”

“Fine with me. These will certainly keep until tomorrow.” I stood up in one movement, pushing with my
quadriceps. We learned how in kindergarten and I’ve always been proud of being able to do it—not everybody can.

Even though the line in my face was disappearing, Dr. Pirwitz had stressed keeping it out of the sun for another several months. I had bought myself a little golfing cap with a long green polarized sun bill in front—twenty-five dollars at a pro shop, but worth it. That, with white jeans, a white sleeveless shirt, a bathing suit, and my Cubs jacket—in case it got cold on the lake—and I was ready.

Peter looked at me faintly. “The Cubs jacket
and
a green golfing cap? Please, Vic. My stomach can’t take it this time of day.”

He also objected to the Smith & Wesson. I, too, wondered about the point in carrying it around—nothing was happening. If Sergio was seeking revenge for my filing charges, he was taking a lot longer to act than the gangs usually do. I weighed the gun in my hand, finally compromising by promising to lock it in my glove compartment for the duration of the trip.

I followed the Maxima to his home in Barrington Hills. He had a beautiful place. Not a large house, maybe eight rooms, but set on three acres, with a little wood and a creek running through it. Birds were twittering in the midday heat. The air was fresh, no hydrocarbons to clog the sinuses. I had to admit it would be hard to leave it just for the joy of practicing medicine in the city.

His dog, a golden retriever named Princess Scheherazade of Du Page but called Peppy, bounded out to meet us. Peter had a fancy electronic dog feeder set up, since he often was away on business as well as pleasure, which measured out a ration of dog food at six every evening in her large, covered kennel. She seemed perfectly happy—never bearing a grudge for long periods of abandonment.

I’d been to Peter’s a few times already. The dog seemed to know me and was almost as glad to see me as him. I stayed in the yard to play fetch with her while Peter went inside to change into sailing gear. He came back half an hour later in faded jeans and a T-shirt, carrying a cooler.

“I packed us up some cheese and stuff for the boat,” he called. “You don’t mind if we take Peppy with us, do you?”

It was hard to see how we could keep her away. At the sight of Peter in civvies, she went wild, banging her tail madly into the side of the car, doing a little dance and panting. When he opened the door, she sprang into the backseat and sat there with a defiant grin on her face.

Lake Pistakee was another sixteen or so miles to the north. We drove slowly on country roads, the windows open, the rich air of late summer enveloping us voluptuously. Peppy kept her head out the window the whole time, giving little grunts of excitement as we got closer to the water. As soon as we stopped, she jumped through the window and bounded down to the lake.

I followed Peter out to the marina. It was a workday; despite the dozens of boats docked there, we had the place to ourselves. His was a pretty little boat, white fiberglass trimmed in red, just big enough for a couple of adults and a large dog. Peppy leaped in in front of us, slowing down the launching by running back and forth across the length of the boat while we were untying it.

We spent a delightful day on the water, swimming, picnicking, holding the boat steady while Peppy jumped over the side after a flock of ducks. The city, with Sergio, dead bodies, and Dieter Monkfish, receded into the background. Peter lapsed occasionally into a brooding silence, but whatever was bothering him he kept to himself.

At seven, as the sun set, we returned to the marina. It was crowded now with families taking to the water, escaping from the week’s pressures. Children screamed shrilly. I watched one little girl carefully pick up a plastic buggy holding a large doll family to carry it over the rough aluminum docks. Cabin cruisers filled the air with whining and gasoline, and freckled young businessmen hollered at each other with beery goodwill.

We drove into the quiet of the countryside and found dinner at a little place on a side road. It wasn’t much of a restaurant, the kind of place where you can get an average steak or awful quasi-French dishes and chilled red Inglenook. I drank Black Label while Peter had beer; we wrapped up the remains of our steak for Peppy and went back to Peter’s house.

While he checked in with the hospital from the phone in his study, I called my answering service on the other line in the kitchen. Lotty wanted me to call; it was urgent.

I dialed her number, my heart pounding: If she had been vandalized again. And because of my stupid burglary… She answered on the first ring, in a most un-Lotty-like frenzy.

“Vic!… No, no, the clinic’s all right. No one showed up today. But at noon I had a call from a lawyer. A man named”—she was apparently consulting a piece of paper—“Gerald Rutkowski. He wanted my records on Consuelo.”

“I see. A malpractice claim. Who filed it, I wonder? Does Carol know?”

“Oh, yes.” Lotty’s voice was bitter, the Viennese accent pronounced. “It was Fabiano. His revenge for harassment by you and her brothers, she thinks. Vic, the problem is—Consuelo’s file is missing.”

I said reasonably, “Well, we refiled everything last week. Maybe her stuff got stuck in with some other patient’s file.”

“Oh, believe me, Vic, that was my first thought. My first reaction. Mrs. Coltrain and Carol and I went through every file in there, every piece of paper. There is not one document about Consuelo.”

I couldn’t help being skeptical—it’s so easy to lose papers. I said as much, offering to go over in the morning to hunt for the file myself.

“Vic, Consuelo’s file is not in the clinic. Neither is Fabiano’s, or his mother’s. My only hope in calling you is that you might remember doing something with papers while you were working with them. Perhaps taken them home with you inadvertently.”

“No,” I said slowly, trying to visualize my movements while working in the clinic last week. “I’ll check my car, of course, and look through my place. But not a whole stack of documents—I don’t think I could walk off with those and not know I had them. No, if they’re really gone, one of the clinic vandals must have stolen them.”

Cleaning up the mess, we’d sorted records from broken glass, had cleaned and dried records sticky with spilled medication, had pulled paper from behind radiators and underneath cabinets. But we had not found any mutilated or shredded documents—nothing to indicate that files had been destroyed during the brief violent occupation.

“Why steal the Hernandez files?” I asked aloud. “Are any other patient records missing?”

She had spot-checked the records, but with two thousand or so patient files, it was tough to tell if any others were gone.

Peter came into the kitchen. He started to talk, then realized I was on the phone. When he heard me ask about the files, he looked concerned.