Ill Will (10 page)

And she coughed on me when she opened the door. Only once, but how many coughs was too many?

Denial is a powerful thing. Don’t want to take your drugs and don’t want to deal with the disconcerting thought that you might be killing yourself by not taking them? Just come up with a way to rationalize it—get a bogus test that tells you don’t have the disease. Claim you can’t get an appointment when your records show that you’ve been coming in on a regular basis.

Maybe she would go in and see Cordelia and maybe my gorgeous girlfriend could talk some sense into her.

Mission—sort of—accomplished. I had seen Eugenia Hopkins, talked to her about seeking medical care, and she seemed in right enough of a mind that she could make her own decisions. Even if they were the wrong ones.

I could only hope that I’d have better luck with Reginald Banks.

Reginald Banks’s house was even in more need of paint than Eugenia’s. At least it was a sedate creamy beige instead of what-were-you-thinking pink. As I had at her place, I drove past it, parking near the corner. This area had flooded; several houses appeared abandoned, with green vines twining up the clapboard and onto the roof. One of them was almost more plant than house. But other houses were restored, one even with the tamed nature of potted plants lining the porch. This wasn’t a bad neighborhood, but it wasn’t a good one either. Down the block I could see a laced-together pair of old sneakers tossed over a power line, often the signal that you could get drugs here.

But on this sunny afternoon, few people were out. Maybe it was early enough that people weren’t interested in going to the methamphetamine mall.

I got out of my car and walked back to Reginald’s house.

The first knock got no response.

Neither did the second.

Three strikes and you’re out. My third try was as unproductive as the first two.

The door to the house next door opened. A woman poked her head out. “You lookin’ for Reginald?”

“Yeah, you have any idea when he might be back?”

“I don’t know he left. Saw him coming in about a week ago—maybe two weeks, it was around my aunt’s birthday ’cause she mentioned all the leaves on the roof and that was three weeks back—not sure—carrying some groceries. I occasionally have him do some work so I asked him about cleaning my gutters. He said he was not feeling well and needed to eat and rest. Haven’t seen him since then.” She pointed across the street. “That’s his car over there. It’s been sitting there the entire time.”

I glanced at his car. Early springtime (aka still winter elsewhere) in New Orleans is high pollen season, and his car was covered with a greenish tinge that indicated it probably hadn’t moved recently.

“So you haven’t seen him in at least a week? Have you called anyone to check up on him?”

“Nope, don’t know anyone to call.”

Cordelia is right, I am good at this. Right now I wanted to ask this woman why the fuck she hadn’t called someone like the police if she didn’t know anyone else to call, but I didn’t do that. I kept a pleasant smile on my face, like, yes, of course, if someone tells you they’re feeling sick and then you don’t see them for over a week, it makes perfect sense to do nothing.

“You seen anyone go in or out? Or heard any noises from over here?” I asked.

“Nope, haven’t seen anyone or heard nothin’.”

“Maybe we should call the authorities,” I said. “He might be sick.”

“You want to go check on him? He gave me a spare key a while back, just in case he lost his.”

Somehow I managed to keep my pleasant smile on my face. She had a key, she could have checked on him but hadn’t, instead waited for some random stranger to show up and do it for her.

“Let me see if he answers his phone,” I said. I had his number on the information sheet Lydia had given me. I hadn’t called initially because the doctors had already tried contacting him by the telephone.

I dialed his number.

After a beat or two I could hear it ringing inside. It rang three times, then switched to his voice mail. I hung up, counted slowly to ten, and dialed again. Three rings and voice mail. I got the same result the third time I tried.

I put my phone away and banged loudly on the door. “Reginald? Are you in there? Are you okay?”

“We call him Reggie,” his neighbor ever so helpfully let me know.

“Reggie, we’re worried about you,” I called. “I’m from your doctor’s office and we need to make sure you’re okay.”

Nothing.

Very faintly, I thought I heard a thump, like something—or someone—falling. It was hard to hear if it came from the house or not. Or it I had been listening so hard I was imagining it.

I pounded on the door again. “Reggie? Are you in there? Make a noise, anything and I’ll come in.”

I listened. Cars blocks away, the remote call of a bird, the shush then cease of wind. The quiet stretched, only small sounds that never really went away in a city, tires on asphalt, distant voices, real and electric.

It was probably time to call the police.

But then it happened again, a faint thump. It could have been inside the house, or a block away behind it. Some noise, some movement.

Something human.

I put the key in the lock.

It turned slowly, as if it had been dry and dusty for a week.

I opened the door, not yet stepping in. “Reggie, are you in here? I need to check on you.”

Again, I listened. Nothing. Too silent for a house that should have someone living in it.

I stepped over the threshold, into the dim stillness.

This is when smart detectives call the police
, I told myself. But it could be hours before they arrived, this wasn’t a murder or a break-in, just a man who hadn’t been seen recently and an indistinct sound.

I took a step in, then stopped to listen again.

The room had no lights on, no TV or radio anywhere. The furniture was old and secondhand, a hodgepodge that seemed assembled more for function than style, an olive green stuffed chair clashing next to a turquoise sofa, an end table that was glass and a coffee table that was colonial. A glass sat on the coffee table, but it was empty, rings of evaporation that had dried long ago. In the far corner, on a rickety table, was the phone I’d heard, cheap and ice blue in color, another clash of hues. It was old enough to be plugged into the wall.

“Reggie,” I called as I crossed the room.

No answer.

The kitchen was in shambles, dirty dishes in the sink, plates and soup cans left on the counter, the smell of rotting food that had gone past ripe. I opened the refrigerator, but that was a mistake. Rotted food was oozing down the shelves and the bearable smell turned into a putrid waft that sent me back into the living room.

His electricity had been turned off and had clearly been off for days, long enough for anything in the refrigerator to have rotted into green and gray. Only the phone still worked, and only because it wasn’t cordless. In a day or two, it would probably be cut off as well.

I covered my nose with my hand. My instinct was to leave, barrel out of the house and the stench and dial a number that would bring someone else here, wash my hands of it. If he was here, he was dead, and it is not my job to discover the dead.

I turned to leave.

And heard the noise again. Somewhere in this house, something fell or pushed or moved, a small, faint sound. A cat or a dog?

It was a little house, two bedrooms at most. I just needed to do a quick search, find the animal left behind, then get out of here. At least I might save a furry life.

I covered my nose with my sleeve, bypassed the kitchen, and headed down the center hall. The house was dark, little light filtering in from outside, the cheap blinds all shut.

The first door I opened was a bathroom, like the kitchen a mess, stains on the toilet and sink I didn’t want to think about. I hastily closed the door.

The next was a study with an old, heavy computer, a large monitor taking up most of the desk. Like the first room, it was dusty, as if no one had used it for a long time. I quickly looked inside the closet in this room, but it only contained stacks of books. A cat could hide anywhere and I didn’t have a flashlight with me. I could only hope that if there was a cat or dog here, the animal would have enough sense—or be desperate enough—to come to me.

There was only one more door.

I opened it.

Like the kitchen and the bathroom, this place was rancid with use, a fetid smell of unclean, unwell. In the dim light it was hard to make out the shapes and lumps of the disorder.

Then I saw a body on the bed. Half-covered, half-out, an emaciated arm clutching the blanket, the other arm falling off the bed into a half light.

I pressed my sleeve harder against my nose to keep out the smell of death.

The hand moved and knocked a pill bottle off the nightstand onto the floor.

That was the noise I had heard. There were several objects scattered on the bare pine planks, a swath of the nightstand empty.

“Reggie?” I said softly, afraid to breathe.

He made a bare gurgle, someone trying to speak, but far beyond it.

I grabbed my cell phone, stepped back into the hallway, into air I could inhale and not retch. I choked out the words to the 911 operator—
someone very ill, needed help right away.

Yes, I would stay, I told her.

I folded my phone and was left in the silence and the stench with a man about to die.

I came back to his doorway. “Reggie, help is on the way. They’ll be here in a few minutes. You’ll be okay.”

I had to cover my nose with my sleeve again, afraid I might vomit. I tried to take a step into the room, but couldn’t.

Some deaths are sudden, a flash from life into what’s on the other side. His was not; it was a slow descent into illness, into a body giving up, the bowels letting go, sweat and urine on older sweat and urine, no dignity or grace, disease eating away everything save for a shallow breath and barely beating heart.

“They’ll be here soon,” I said. I didn’t know whether I was talking to him or myself.

I thought to offer him water, to remind us both that he wasn’t a dying animal. But he wasn’t able to reply and I had no way of knowing whether he was capable of drinking.

They’d be here soon with IV fluids, medical people who had the knowledge to save this dying man.

I finally admitted my cowardice and left him. I tried to tell myself I would do him more good by being out front to wave the ambulance in, but I knew the truth. I was starting to gag, my lungs feeling invaded by the rancid smell, and I had to get air that was clean, baptized by sunshine, into my lungs.

Opening his front door, I put one foot out onto the top step, enough to get my head out into the fresh breeze. I could finally take my sleeve away from my face.

I could feel the neighbor who had given me the key looking in my direction, but I pointedly ignored her. If she wanted to know what had happened to him, she should have taken her key and checked.
You’re lucky, lady
, I silently told her.
If I wasn’t ignoring you, I’d be screaming at you.
All she’d know would be the arrival of the ambulance.

Time seemed to have stopped. The bright sunshine, the distant hiss of cars passing, a breeze picking up, then falling, nothing to distract me from knowing there was a man in there dying and I could do nothing for him except stand as far away as I could from him.

Then, finally, finally, the faint and growing siren, adding to it the engine, and the solid shape of the ambulance turning the corner, pulling in front. It was followed by a police car.

I quickly stepped into the street to meet them. Our talk was spare, a quick briefing for the EMTs, what I’d found, what they’d find.

Then I crossed the street, out of their way. I was a stranger here, not family, not friend, only here through a thin web of coincidence.

But the police had questions, and they had little to do other than question me.

I told them what had happened, why I was here.

The older one seemed content with my story, but the younger one asked, “Let me see your license.”

I pulled out my wallet and showed it to him. The older woman gave it a quick look, the younger one examined it closely.

“So you came here as a favor to a friend?” he queried after he finally gave me the license back.

I had called Cordelia a friend because this didn’t seem the place to have to explain the homosexual agenda. “Yes, she did a favor for my cousin, so I felt I owed her one,” I told them. I again went over the broken pipe, the rescheduling mess, being as redundant and boring as possible.

The older cop yawned.

The younger cop asked, “Any chance it was foul play?”

A young man doesn’t get medical treatment, gets so sick he almost dies. I would call it foul, but I didn’t think the law did.

But his line of questioning was interrupted by the clattering of the EMTs taking Reginald Banks out of the house.