Out of Nowhere (The Immortal Vagabond Healer Book 1) (14 page)

‘I know. It’s like he bought a defective cell phone. Or like the transmission in his Audi is slipping and he expects me to make it right.’

‘Well, I’m sure he’s not the first important man to expect things to be handed to his sons,’ I said.

‘He’s an entitled yuppie douchebag,’ she agreed.

‘A species that thrives in temperate suburban climates.’

‘How do you do it?’ She turned her head to look at me. ‘You must see stupidity and repeat customers all the time.’

‘Yep. I don’t want to brag, but I’m on a first-name basis with half the drunks and addicts in the Greater Philips Mills area.’

‘Doesn’t it ever frustrate you?’

I shrugged. ‘Not really. You need to want to do it. The pay’s lousy. It has to be its own reward.’

‘The tragedy and stupidity don’t wear you down? How do you keep from smacking them or cutting your wrists?’

‘A lot of medics burn out,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t feel that coming any time soon. I mean, you can’t focus on the bad outcomes. People die, people get hurt. You can’t save everybody, and you certainly can’t help people who won’t be saved. Once in a great while a call does bother me. If it’s kids or when you watch a patient you’ve gotten to know slowly fall apart. Mostly I look at it like dinner theater.’

‘Dinner theater?’

‘Seriously. Where else can you get called out by the cops to evaluate the injuries of the John and the she-male hooker who got into a broken bottle fight over the quality of the crack tendered as payment? And get paid for it!’

She laughed. ‘OK, but what about the drunks and addicts? You don’t think it’s futile, when they’re just going to overdose again?’

‘You can’t think of it that way. We can enjoy a great meal right? But we’re going to be hungry again in the morning. That doesn’t make the meal futile, or diminish it in any way. It’s never futile to alleviate suffering, even temporarily.’

‘You make it sound noble.’

‘Only by accident. I think of it as being in the moment. Life is fleeting. Enjoy what you have while you have it. Don’t just eat, suck the marrow and lick your fingers.’

I rubbed a bit harder with my thumbs, loosening a cramped muscle. She groaned and hung her head. I ran my fingertips up her neck, through her hair, massaging her scalp. I leaned in and kissed the back of her neck, still flushed and warm from the massage. She sighed and leaned back against me.

‘I’ll give you no more than an hour to knock that off,’ she threatened.

‘Or what?’ I breathed between kisses.

‘I shall have to ravish you, kidnap you and force you to spend your days slaving in my kitchen and bedroom.’ She twisted around, wrapping her arms and legs around me and kissing me. ‘Now, your first order is to carry me to my bed. I wish to learn more of this marrow sucking, finger-licking approach to life.’

‘As you wish,’ I replied. I was always capable of following orders. Provided they were what I wanted to do anyway.

I was gentler and slower this time. I could tell she was still tired and wanted to relax, not try and wake the neighbors. I took my time, paid attention to her cues, prolonging and luxuriating in the moment. The first night, we’d both been like people stumbling onto an oasis after starving in the wilderness. This time I savored her like dessert.

Hunger of a more mundane sort eventually got us out of bed and dressed. We ordered food from Giovanni’s, a better-than-average Italian takeout joint, and settled on the couch. I got us two new beers to replace the ones that had gone warm and flat while we were in the bedroom.

‘I never seem to finish my beer around you.’ She smiled.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I try to do the gentlemanly thing and get you drunk before taking advantage of you, but you keep dragging me into the sack before I can.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I’m too slutty to be a good tramp. It’s really embarrassing.’

After our food arrived, we settled down and she turned on the TV.

‘So, what are we watching?’

‘A romantic comedy,’ she replied, hitting a button on the remote.

I resigned myself to sit through whatever was coming. Anything would be bearable so long as I had this beautiful woman beside me and a good dinner in front of me. I sat up suddenly once the film started.

‘
The Three Musketeers!
’ I exclaimed. ‘The good version!’

‘Of course it’s the good version. My degree is in literature, you know,’ she replied. ‘Plus, Richard Chamberlain was gorgeous back then.’

I put my arm around her and smiled. ‘I think I could adjust to the life of your kitchen and bedroom slave.’

Chapter 15

I WALKED INTO THE AMBULANCE BASE, dropped my bag in the day room and headed out to the garage. On the way through the kitchen, I noticed the deep utility sink full of assorted debris. The whiteboard where the daily assignments were written had been taken off the wall and put there, as had one of the old, unreliable portable radios. I shrugged and continued out to the truck.

Pete was standing by the open side door, going through the checklist, a styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand.

‘Morning,’ I said.

‘Hey,’ he muttered. ‘How’s it hangin’?’

‘Listing to starboard. What’s up with the slop sink?’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, that. Marty got a hair across his ass about people leaving dishes in the sink. I guess he wants us to wash up before running out the door when we get a call or something. He posted a memo saying “Anything found in the sink after five PM will be thrown out”. I threw the chore board in, Nique got fed up when P20’s portable wouldn’t hold a charge and tossed that in. We tried to wrestle Burton in, but he’s a scrappy little fucker.’

I laughed. ‘Think I can drive Ambulance 18 into the sink?’

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘If the tranny doesn’t drop out halfway there.’ He took a sip of his coffee, made a face. ‘Jesus, is Dunk’s trying to hire the dumbest employees they can find or does it just happen? No fucking sugar.’ He opened the drug box, rummaged around and came out with a prefilled syringe of dextrose solution. He popped the cap off, injected about ten cc into his coffee cup, then tossed the syringe into the trash. ‘Thank God D50 isn’t a controlled substance.’

‘That’d stop you?’

‘Nah, but I’d need you to perjure yourself as a witness in the drug log.’

‘Let’s get this checksheet done and get out of here before the boss gets in,’ I said. ‘Then I’m gonna go get a decent cup of coffee.’

‘Where you gonna do that in this town? Half the employees at Dunkin Donuts don’t speak enough English to understand “cream and sugar”.’

‘
Yo
q
uiero un café medio con crema y dos azucares
,’ I replied. ‘If they still don’t get it, just talk really loud.’

‘See, I knew that worked.’

‘Anyway, let’s hit the Korean doughnut shop.’

‘What the hell do gooks know about doughnuts?’

I shrugged. ‘Dunno where they picked it up, but the coffee is good and they put Dunk’s pastry to shame. I’m sure they still use lard in the dough.’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘And it’s convenient to Park Street, for all your heroin and crack cocaine needs.’

‘One-stop shopping for the discriminating addict?’ asked Pete.

‘Pretty much.’

We drove over and I bought a coffee and a raspberry turnover with a flaky, dense, buttery crust that would harden an artery at ten paces. I pulled out of the parking lot of the doughnut shop and raised my coffee to my lips when the radio squawked.

‘P20, respond to 135 Overlook Heights for the possible sudden. PD is responding.’

‘Possible sudden,’ mused Pete. ‘That mean it might be a gradual?’

For reasons beyond my humble understanding, a patient found in cardiac arrest was often dispatched to us as a “sudden death” or “sudden”.

‘20. Responding.’ I flipped the lights on and set off toward the address. Overlook Heights was a wooded hill sitting above a curve of the Merrimack River. It was where the mill owners built their homes back when the city was planned. As promised, it had offered a sweeping vista of the bustling, thriving immigrant city that the textile industry built. Now it offered a sweeping vista of the abandoned brick mill buildings, leaning three deckers, hourly-rate rooming houses, low-income housing projects and the shiny, tricked-out sports cars that the heroin industry built.

We pulled up in front of a nicely renovated old Victorian house, two SUVs in the driveway, and even under a foot of snow I could see more than six months of my rent’s worth of money sunk into landscaping. The engine crew was leaning on the truck, laughing with the two cops. Even with my too-often-justified dim view of their clinical skills, I figured that meant the patient was beyond any urgency.

‘Hey, guys,’ Pete said as he ambled up. ‘What’ve we got?’

The assembled crew traded winks and snickers. One of the police officers beckoned us aside. I knew him from doing some calls together. Tony Angelo, promoted to detective as far as I remembered.

‘Hi guys,’ he said quietly when we were away from the group. ‘OK, this guy basically hung himself. Accidentally. While... well... you know. The wife is horrified and in denial. I kept the Bad News Bears out here. You guys just need to go in, confirm he’s dead and bang out a quick report for the ME.’

‘I think we can handle that.’

‘And, please, when you see him, keep it professional. For the wife, OK?’

‘You know, Tony,’ Pete said, ‘you’re insulting me. When have I ever been anything but professional?’

Tony shook his head. ‘Just do your thing, man.’

The interior of the house was gorgeous.
Better Homes and Gardens
cover story gorgeous. Hardwood floors, refinished molding around all the doors and windows, a kitchen I’d stab a guy for, set up with all new stainless steel appliances, pans better than what they use at your favorite restaurant hanging from a rack over the island. The whole place was a story of new hedge-fund money moving in to take advantage of low property prices. The comparative bargain of the most expensive neighborhood in a cheap town. The robber barons of the twenty-first century squatting in the palaces of the robber barons of the nineteenth.

The grieving widow could have been on a magazine herself. Probably early forties, but holding age back with a bulwark of cosmetics, surgery and personal training routines. She was dressed impeccably. I don’t follow fashion, but looking at her, I didn’t have to.

The detective led us up the stairs, through a tastefully decorated bedroom, through a small doorway into a crawlspace to the attic. There we found our patient.

He was in his mid-forties, in good shape, well groomed, stark naked, and may have been considered handsome if not for the fact that he’d been hanging from a rafter for the past few hours. A leather collar was around his neck, attached to a line which ran over a pulley fastened to a rafter. The loose end of the rope lay slack near his right hand. A pillow was on the floor in front of him; beside him was a glass of wine and a bottle of lotion.

This didn’t look much like a suicide to me. He hadn’t stepped off a chair or anything so dramatic. He was on his knees, sagged against the cinched rope. A close look at the set-up showed that the rope had slipped off the pulley and snagged. It looked as though he’d indulged in a little autoerotic asphyxiation, blacked out, let go of the rope, expecting to slump harmlessly onto the pillow—and the safety mechanism failed him.

‘The wife says she was out of town last night,’ said the detective. ‘Her story checks out. Looks like he took advantage of having the house to himself. Glass of wine, head to the secret love dungeon for some relaxation…’

‘I guess Whitney Houston was wrong,’ said Pete quietly.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Clearly, learning to love yourself isn’t the greatest love of all.’

While Pete finished his paperwork, I chatted with the cop. ‘How’d you get pulled into this one? I thought you were on Graffiti Patrol.’

He shook his head. ‘The guy’s wife’s in total denial. Called it in as an execution, so dispatch kicked it to the Gang Task Force. There’s a theory that the Russian Mob is trying to move into town.’

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Why does anybody think they’re moving in here?’

He shrugged. ‘Plenty of heroin comes through here. Plenty of cars get stolen and chopped. There’s money to be made. It may be nothing, but somebody’s been muscling a few dealers. White guys, which is rare enough. Sounds like Russians, from the descriptions, but how a Puerto Rican tells a Russian from a Swede I don’t know. Like when the Korean doughnut shop opened and I was getting tips about Cambodian gangs moving in. Shit, racism’s bad enough without getting your minorities wrong.’

A group of Russian sounding thugs moving in was the last thing I wanted to hear.

‘So,’ I angled, ‘any solid evidence?’

‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘Nothing I’d call definitive. Like I said, some Caucasian hoods have been moving on the small dealers. And there was a home invasion. Description from the neighbors was white guys speaking “probably Russian”, but who knows?’