Heads You Lose (11 page)

“Terry says if you use it enough, it becomes a word. And since it’s a word based on a word, how bad can it be?”

“What if we all started making up words all the time, Sook? Then nobody would understand what anybody else was saying.”

“Did you come here to tell me to stop using the non-word ‘turtling’?” Sook asked.

“No. I’m taking you on an excursion.”

“Count me in,” Sook said. “Closest we have to drama around here is the latest escapee from We Care down the street. Poor old gal in her nightgown woke up the whole damn place banging on our front door at two a.m. last night. Half the We Care staff were out looking for her. You ask me, something must be messed up over there if people are trying to break
into
this place.”

“Well, beats prison, right?” Lacey asked.

“Let me get back to you on that,” said Sook. “Anyway, I do believe I’m up for an outing. Are we going to the movies?”

“Nope.”

“Diner? I could use some of those fries. Wouldn’t mind a chocolate shake, either.”

“No, we’re not going to Diner.”

“Then where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to the doctor,” Lacey explained.

Sook sat back down in his chair. “That sounds about as fun as a bee sting.”

“Would you rather stay here?”

On the drive to Doc Egan’s office, Lacey informed Sook of his symptoms.

“What seems to be the problem?” Doc Egan asked when Lacey and Sook arrived in his waiting room.

“I have no appetite and my ears are ringing,” Sook said.

“What’s your last name, Sook?” Doc Egan asked on the threshold to the examination room.

“Felton,” Lacey answered.

“Hang on a second,” Doc Egan said, “I’ll get your file.”

Egan disappeared behind the door only to return empty-handed.

“Were you a patient of Doctor Holland’s?”

“Nope,” Sook replied.

“You weren’t?” Lacey asked.

“No. I used to go to that osteopath in Emery.”

While Lacey tangled with the idea that both Sook and her ex (or
the
ex-Hart) were patients of an inconveniently located osteopath, Doctor Egan attached a pen to a clipboard and passed it to Sook.

“Once you fill out the questionnaire, we can start the exam.” Doc Egan turned to Lacey. “Have you cleaned and re-dressed your wound yet?” he asked.

“What wound?” Sook asked.

“I got into a knife fight with Big Marv Babalato,” Lacey said, pulling up her sleeve.

“Come into my office,” Doc Egan said.

While Sook reminisced about his medical history, Doc Egan re-dressed Lacey’s wound and she interrogated him about his financial responsibilities.

“Just out of curiosity,” Lacey asked. “How much is malpractice insurance?”

“Depends on where and what kind of practice.”

“Well, for example, how much would malpractice insurance be in a town like Mercer, with your current patient load?”

“Can I ask why you’re asking?”

“Will you answer if I don’t?”

Matthew Egan sighed, washed his hands in that special way that only doctors do, and removed Lacey’s old wound dressing, tossing it in the bin.

“I think it runs around three thousand,” he replied.

“A month?”

“No. A year.”

The patients then swapped places. During the half-hour that Sook was getting poked and prodded, Lacey excused herself to make a phone call and slipped into Egan’s private office. Technically, it was a closet converted to an office. Her first day on the job, Betty lasted a full two hours in the four-by-six-foot space before her claustrophobia took charge. After that she worked from home, accessing Holland’s voicemail and scheduling appointments.

Eventually Lacey located Egan’s check register and saw a payment to Kimbell and Company for $750.00, which was listed as a quarterly insurance payment. Just when Lacey was about to start hunting for the bill in the file cabinet, she heard voices in the waiting room.

Lacey checked the office for signs of disruption, adjusted the calendar, and closed the desk drawer. She exited the office just in time to take a seat on the threadbare couch.

“So, how is he?” she asked.

“Starving,” Sook replied.

Lacey shot him a hostile glance.

“Your friend is fine,” Doc Egan said. “Maybe he could get a little more exercise.”

“We’ll work on that. Oh, before I forget,” Lacey said, reaching into her bag, “Here’s your shirt. It’s clean and everything.”

“I’ll see you in eight days, Lacey.”

“Why?”

“To get your stitches out.”

“Right. See you later, Doc,” Lacey said, ushering Sook out of the office.

Sook and Lacey sat in the corner booth of Diner, feasting on chocolate shakes and french fries.

“How come you never went to see Doc Holland?” Lacey asked.

“Don’t know,” Sook replied. “Habit, I guess.”

“No, that’s not it,” Lacey said, sliding Sook’s fries out of arm’s reach. “You should tell me the truth. Otherwise, these Diner visits might become very infrequent.”

Sook drained the last bit of shake from his tall glass, making that annoying sound. He put the glass down, consulted the ceiling, and finally spoke the truth.

“Sometimes people aren’t who you think they are.”

“Get to the point, Sook.”

“Doc Holland wasn’t a real doctor.”

NOTES:

Dostoyevsky,

Back to you. Just a quick refresher: We have a murder to solve—a dead body and a killer on the loose. I’ve been looking back at some of your previous chapters. Your storyline with Terry Jakes is bordering on incoherent. How about we keep him out of the picture for a while and work on creating more viable suspects?

Also, let’s work on making this more cinematic, but not like
The Fop
. There was way too much drinking and talking in that script. In fact, that sounds like a fitting description of our whole relationship.

Lisa

Lisa,

You know what would help me create suspects? If you stopped turning all my potentially threatening characters into stuffed animals for Lacey to play with. Tate, for example, is supposed to be a menacing badass. Now he can’t even manage to wear pants or pronounce “laundromat”? Also, I seem to remember introducing Sook as a multifaceted war veteran, not a cuddly grandpa. I’d retaliate, but I wouldn’t even know where to start. Actually, I do, but I’d hate to see Dr. Dreamy end up in a ditch somewhere.

It’s funny that you remember our relationship as consisting entirely of drinking and talking. I remember it as drinking and listening.

You want cinematic, keep reading.

Dave

CHAPTER 10

Leaving Brandy’s Sunday night, Paul decided to confront her the next time they met. He’d been hoping she respected him enough to divulge her secret, but it was getting to the point where it was either stop with the charade or good-bye. The first sign was the biography of Wittgenstein he’d found under her bed. Then it was the game theory podcasts on her iPod. Her computer even had a bookmark for the Quorum Group, apparently a club for brainiacs who didn’t deign to mingle with the dim bulbs of Mensa.

On his way out of Tulac he stopped in an underlit park and slid the folded-up tarp into a trash bin. Lacey would be pleased to know he’d spared the ozone by not burning plastic. On the highway back toward Mercer, his mind wandered to Brandy again. Did she even like
Mythmatch,
or was she just patronizing him? She probably liked it, he decided. It was pretty sophisticated if you thought about it.

Paul’s cell phone interrupted his thoughts with the opening riff of “American Woman.” That could mean only one thing.

“Terry.”

“Don’t use names,” Terry said.

“You’re calling my personal cell phone from your personal cell phone.”

“We’ll have to do something about that,” Terry said. “You’ll never believe this, but while I was gone twenty beautiful Kush plants and a dozen Trainwrecks spontaneously germinated in my grow room. I shit you not. Somebody up there likes me.”

“Ha ha,” said Paul. “I’m coming by.”

“I’ll be here,” said Terry.

When Paul arrived, Terry was at work in the basement, trimming Paul’s plants. Wearing a Tulac Titans cap and a chipper expression, he bore no resemblance to the babbling mess he’d been the previous morning out at the tower. But that was typical. Terry could do a complete emotional 180 faster than anyone Paul knew. In another twenty-four hours he could be fetal again.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of these ladies’ visit?” Terry asked.

“I’ll explain later. I do appreciate the babysitting, but I need some explaining from you first. First, what’s going on with you and Tate?” Paul said.

“You give him the money?”

“Yep, but he wasn’t happy. He says no more partial payments. How much are you into him for?”

“Don’t worry about Tate. I wouldn’t say he’s all bark, but he’s not going to bite the hand that feeds him. I only owe him a little more. The two K will buy me enough time.”

“Time for?” Paul asked.

“A nice business deal I’ve been working on for a while. It’s in the closing stages. When it wraps up, I’ll have more than enough to pay Tate. And you, of course. Thank you, my brother. You know I’d do the same for you.”

“Wait a minute—this isn’t another koi breeding venture, is it?” Paul asked. He flashed on a memory of Terry screaming obscenities at a pond.

“Absolutely not,” Terry said. “Fish can go fuck themselves.”

“What about that Monopoly stuff—Marvin Gardens? I know you were talking about Marv at We Care Gardens. Don’t tell me you owe him, too?”

“I don’t,” said Terry.

“Come on, Terry. Don’t shut me out. Maybe I can help.”

“It’s best if I keep it need-to-know. You’re going to have to trust me for now. You know I’m good for the two grand. Within a month, scout’s honor.”

“I’m not worried about the money right now.”

“Good. So what’s with the plants?” Terry asked.

“Long story short, we found a dead body on our property Thursday night.”

Terry’s eyes went wide. Apparently it was news to him.

“We moved it to keep the cops away,” Paul continued. “Then it paid us a return visit Saturday night. Lacey figured out that it was Hart Drexel, flipped out, and called the sheriff. I cleared out my plants before they came. You were still at the tower, I guess, and this is the only place I could think to bring them.”

Terry made the
ert-ert-ert
backing-up sound. “You found a dead body three days ago and didn’t tell me? Man, who’s shutting out who?”

“You weren’t exactly primed to process that kind of news yesterday. What were you so freaked out about anyway, if everything’s going so great?”

“I thought the aforementioned business deal had been compromised,” Terry said. “At the same time, Tate was starting to make angry sounds about his money. You know me, I’m sensitive. Thankfully, you came through for me. Even when you were facing a much hairier situation of your own. I’ll never forget it.”

“Me neither,” said Paul.

Terry waited as long as he could, then added, “We just need to do this last bit of due diligence on the deal.”

“‘We?’ I thought you used up all your favors yesterday.”

“Come on, P-Funk. I’m not complaining about taking care of your plants. Indefinitely, I might add. We’ll be back here in an hour.”

“We’re doing due diligence at night?”

“Night time is the right time,” said Terry with a grin.

Terry hopped into Paul’s truck and said, “Head north.”

Paul took a right when he reached the highway. After twenty minutes Terry said to pull over, pointing to a little inlet off the shoulder.

“We’re about a half-mile from We Care Gardens,” Paul said. “That’s where we’re going, right?”

“Yep,” Terry admitted as they pulled to a stop. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out what looked like two small welder’s masks.

“Put these on,” Terry said.

“What are they?”