Blood Test (3 page)

As I contemplated, he bounded up and charged toward me
shouting gibberish. My pity for him had made me too careless and he was able to
connect with a punch to the shoulder that made my body rattle. Still stunned, I
cleared my eyes soon enough to see the follow-through: a left hook aimed
squarely at my man-made jaw. Self-preservation won out over pity and I slid away,
took hold of his arm, and threw him full-force against the car. Before he could
have second thoughts I jerked him up, yanked the arm behind him, and pulled up
to the point where it was just short of snapping. It had to be agonizing but he
evinced no sign of suffering. Manics could get like that, on a perpetual speed
trip, impervious to minor details like pain.

I kicked him in the butt as hard as I could and he
went flying. Grabbing for my keys, I jumped in the Seville and spun out.

I caught a glimpse of him in the rear-view mirror just
before turning onto the street. He was sitting on the asphalt, head in hands,
rocking back and forth and, I was pretty sure, weeping.

THE BIG black and gold koi was the first to surface,
but the other fish soon followed his lead and within seconds all fourteen of
them were sticking whiskered snouts out of the water and gobbling down food
pellets as fast as I tossed them in. I knelt by a large smooth rock fringed
with creeping juniper and lavender azaleas and held three pellets in my fingers
just beneath the surface of the water. The big one caught the scent and
hesitated, but gluttony got the better of him and his glistening muscular body
snaked its way over. He stopped inches from my hand and looked up at me. I
tried to appear trustworthy.

The sun was on its way down but enough light lingered
over the foothills to catch the metallic glint of the gold scales, dramatizing
the contrast with the velvety black patches on his back. A truly magnificent
kin-ki-utsuri.

Suddenly the big carp darted and the pellets were gone
from my hand. I replaced them. A red and white kohaku joined in, then a
platinum ohgon in a moonlight-colored blur. Soon all the fish were nibbling at
my fingers, their mouths soft as baby kisses.

The pond and surrounding garden refuge had been a gift
from Robin during the painful months of recuperation from the shattered jaw and
all the unwanted publicity. She’d suggested it, sensing the value of something
to calm me down during the period of enforced inactivity, and knowing of my
fondness for things oriental.

At first I’d thought it unfeasible. My home is one of
those creations peculiar to southern California, tucked into a hillside at an
improbable angle. It’s an architectural gem with spectacular views from three
sides but there’s very little usable flat land and I couldn’t envision room for
a pond.

But Robin had done some research, sounding out the
idea with several of her craftsmen friends, and had been put in touch with an
inarticulate lad from Oxnard—a young man so outwardly stuporous his nickname
was Hazy Clifton. He had arrived with cement mixers, wooden forms, and a ton or
two of crushed rock, and had created an elegant, meandering, naturalistic pond,
complete with waterfall and rock border, that weaved its way in and around the
sloping terrain.

An elderly Asian gnome materialized after Hazy Clifton’s
departure and proceeded to embroider the young man’s artistry with bonsai, zen
grass, juniper, Japanese maple, long-necked lilies, azalea, and bamboo.
Strategically placed boulders established meditative spots and patches of snowy
gravel suggested serenity. Within a week the garden looked centuries old.

I could stand on the deck that bisected the two levels
of the house and look down on the pond, letting my eyes trace patterns etched
in the gravel by the wind, watching the koi, jewellike and languid in their
movement. Or I could descend to the floor of the garden and sit by the water’s
edge feeding the fish, the surface breaking gently in concentric waves.

It became a ritual: each day before sunset I tossed
pellets to the koi and reflected on how good life could be. I learned how to
banish unwanted images—of death and falsehood and betrayal—from my mind with
Pavlovian efficiency.

Now I listened to the gurgling of the waterfall and
put aside the memory of Richard Moody’s debasement.

The sky darkened and the peacock-colored fish grayed
and finally melted into the blackness of the water. I sat in the dark, content,
tension a vanquished enemy.

The first time the phone rang I was in the middle of
dinner and I ignored it. Twenty minutes later it rang again and I picked it up.

“Dr. Delaware? This is Kathy from your service. I had
an emergency call for you a few minutes ago but nobody answered.”

“What’s the message, Kathy?”

“It’s from a Mr. Moody. He said it was urgent.”

“Shit.”

“Dr. D?”

“Nothing, Kathy. Please give me the number.”

She did and I asked her if Moody had sounded strange.

“He
was
kind of upset. Talking real fast—I had
to ask him to slow down to get the message.”

“Okay. Thanks for calling.”

“I’ve got another one, came in this afternoon. Do you
want to take it?”

“Just one? Sure.”

“This one’s from a doctor—let me get the pronunciation
right—Melendrez—no Melende
z
-Lynch. With a hyphen.”

Now that was a blast from the past…

“He gave me this number.” She recited an exchange I
recognized as Melendez-Lynch’s office at Western Peds. “Said he’d be there
until eleven tonight.”

That figured. Raoul was a notable workaholic in a
profession famous for them. I recalled seeing his Volvo in the doctors’ lot no
matter how early I arrived at the hospital or how late I left.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, Dr. D. Have a nice one and thanks for the
cookies. Me and the other girls finished ’em off in one hour.”

“Glad you enjoyed them.” That was a five-pound box she
was talking about. “Munchies?”

“What can I say?” she giggled.

A switchboard staffed by potheads and they never
fouled up a message. Someone should be researching it.

I drank a Coors before addressing the question of
whether or not to return Moody’s call. The last thing I wanted was to be on the
receiving end of a manic tirade. On the other hand, he might be calmer and more
receptive to suggestions for treatment. Unlikely, but there’s enough of the
therapist left in me to be optimistic past the point of realism. Recalling that
afternoon’s scuffle on the parking lot made me feel like a jerk, though I was
damned if I knew how it could have been avoided.

I thought it over and then called, because I owed it
to the Moody kids to give it my best shot.

The number he’d left had a Sun Valley exchange—a rough
neighborhood—and the voice on the other end belonged to the night clerk at the
Bedabye Motel. Moody’d found the perfect living quarters if he wanted to feed
his depression.

“Mr. Moody, please.”

“Second.”

A series of buzzes and clicks and Moody said, “Yeah.”

“Mr. Moody, it’s Dr. Delaware.”

“’lo, Doc. Don’t know what got into me, jus’ wanted to
say sorry, hope I dint shake you up too badly.”

“I’m fine. How are you?”

“Oh fine, jus’ fine. Got plans, gotta get myself
together. I can see that. What everyone’s saying, gotta have some sense to it.”

“Good. I’m glad you understand.”

“Oh, yeah, oh yeah. I’m catchin’ on, jus’ takes me a
while. Like the firs’ time I used a circular saw, supervisor tol’ me Richard—this
was back when I was a kid, jus learning the trade—gotta take your time, take it
slow, concentrate, ‘thwise this thing chew you up. And he’d hold up his left
hand with a stump where the thumb shoulda been, said, Richard, don’ learn the
hard way.”

He laughed hoarsely and cleared his throat.

“Guess sometimes I learn the hard way, huh? Like with
Darlene. Mighta listened to her before she got involved with that scumbag.”

The pitch of his voice rose when he talked about
Conley so I tried to ease him away from the subject.

“The important thing is that you’re learning now. You’re
a young man, Richard. You’ve got a lot ahead of you.”

“Yeah. Well… old as you feel, y’know, and I’m feeling
ninety.”

“This is the roughest time, before the final decree.
It can get better.”

“They say that—the lawyer tol’ me too—but I don feel
it. I feel shit on, y’know, shit on first class.”

He paused and I didn’t fill it in.

“Anyways, thanks for listenin’, and now you can talk
to the judge and tell her I can see the kids, take ’em with me fishin’ for a
week.”

So much for optimism.

“Richard, I’m glad you’re getting in touch with the
situation but you’re not ready to care for your children.”

“Whythefucknot?”

“You need help to stabilize your moods. There are
medications that are effective. And get someone to talk to, like you’re talking
to me.”

“Yeah?” he sneered, “If they’re assholes like you,
goddamn money-chasing fuckers, talkin’ to them ain’t gonna do me no good. I’m
telling you I’m gonna take care of the problems now don’t give me any shit, who
the fuckareyou to tell me when I can see my kids.”

“This conversation isn’t going anywhere—”

“Hunnerd procent right, Headshrinker. You listen and
you listen good, they’ll be hell to pay’f I’m not set up in my rightful place
as daddy…”

He emptied a bucket of verbal swill and after
listening for several minutes I hung up to avoid being sullied.

In the silence of the kitchen I became aware of the
pounding of my heart and the sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. Maybe I’d
lost the touch—the therapist’s ability to put distance between himself and the
ones who suffered so as to avoid being battered by a psychological hailstorm.

I looked down at the message pad. Raoul
Melendez-Lynch. He probably wanted me to give a seminar to the residents on the
psychological aspects of chronic disease or behavioral approaches to pain
control. Something nice and academic that would let me hide behind slides and
videotape and play professor again.

At that moment it seemed an especially attractive
prospect and I dialed his number.

A young woman answered the phone, breathless.

“Carcinogenesis lab.”

“Dr. Melendez-Lynch, please.”

“He’s not here.”

“This is Dr. Delaware returning his call.”

“I think he’s over at the hospital,” she said,
sounding preoccupied.

“Could you connect me to the page operator, please.”

“I’m not sure how to do that—I’m not his secretary,
Dr. Delray. I’m in the middle of an experiment and I really have to run. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I broke the connection, dialed the message desk at
Western Peds, and had him paged. Five minutes later the operator came and told
me he hadn’t answered. I left my name and number and hung up, thinking how
little had changed over the years. Working with Raoul had been stimulating and
challenging, but fraught with frustration. Trying to pin him down could be like
sculpting with shaving cream.

I went into the library and settled in my soft leather
chair with a paperback thriller. Just when I’d decided the plot was forced and
the dialogue too cute, the phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Alex!” His accent turned it into
Ahleex.
“So good of you to return my call.” As usual, he talked at a breakneck pace.

“I tried to reach you at the lab but the girl who
answered wasn’t too helpful.”

“Girl? Ah yes, that would be Helen. My new post-doc.
Brilliant young lady from Yale. She and I are collaborating on an N.I.H. study
aimed at clarifying the metastatic process. She worked with Brewer at New Haven—construction
of synthetic cell walls—and we’ve been examining the relative invasiveness of
varying tumor forms on specific models.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

“It is.” He paused. “Anyway, how have you been, my
friend?”

“Fine. And you?”

He chuckled.

“It’s—nine forty-three and I haven’t yet finished
charting. That tells you how I’ve been.”

“Oh come on, Raoul, you love it.”

“Ha! Yes I do. What did you call me years ago—the
quintessential type A personality?”

“A
plus.”

“I will die of a myocardial infarct but my paperwork
will be completed.”

It was only a partial jest. His father, dean of a
medical school in pre-Castro Havana, had keeled over on the tennis court and
died at forty-eight. Raoul was five years from that age and he’d inherited his
sire’s lifestyle as well as some bad genes. I’d once thought him changeable but
had long ago given up trying to slow him down. If four failed marriages hadn’t
done the trick, nothing would.