“In Brazil?”
“Absolutely. Plastic surgery to the stars; that’s where it’s done. Any operation you can think of and some you probably can’t. Everybody goes there.”
“I didn’t know that,” he says.
Feeling kindly toward him, I explain as gently as I can: “That’s because you’re nobody.”
Not quite gentle enough, perhaps. Looking and sounding snippy, he says, “I’d always thought there were any number of plastic surgeons right here in Los Angeles.”
“Oh, sure,” I say. “Anybody can get hacked away at by those Bev Hills butchers, but if you want to be taken seriously in the industry, your face and body better say MADE IN BRAZIL.”
“I never guessed,” he says.
“I tell you, Michael,” I say, “I’ve had a standing reservation forever. I go down once a year, talk it over with the doctors, see what we want to snip and tuck.”
“You’ve had plastic surgery?” He’s peering at me, looking quite surprised at the idea.
“Are you kidding?” I ask him. “At my age, with the life I’ve led, there’s only two ways I could look the way I do: either a painting in the attic, or a plastic surgeon in Brazil. I go Brazil.”
“Gosh,” he says.
“You bet. Every spring, I arrange it so my time’s free, I fly on down to Rio and take in the carnival, and then go on to the clinic for the overhaul. Then back I come, feeling great, looking great, ready for another year of self-abuse.”
“So that’s where you planned to go with Dori Lunsford for your honeymoon.”
“Right. The doctors could have worked on the both of us at the same time. Dori was getting a little flabby around the edges; she needed tightening up.”
“But when the marriage ended, you went with Buddy instead.”
“The last few years, Buddy’s been coming down with me every time.” I chuckle, thinking of how serious Buddy can be when he puts his mind to it. “He really pays attention down there.” I say. “Takes notes, talks with the doctors, observes the operations. Not me; I don’t want to see what faces look like when they’re open.”
“But Buddy does.”
“I kid him sometimes,” I say. “When he’s around and not mad at me, you know?”
“Buddy gets mad at you?”
“Oh, nothing serious,” I say. “He worries about me, that’s all. You know what I mean.” But this conversation is making me edgy. Some sort of dark cloud is coming up from between the pieces of patio slate, swirling up, enveloping me. But it’s not a bad cloud, not an evil cloud, no; it’s a friendly cloud. It is here to help me, protect me, save me.
“Well, what do you kid Buddy about?” O’Connor is asking me, as the cloud rises between us. “During those times when he isn’t mad at you, what do you kid him about?”
“That he’s gonna know as much about the plastic surgery as the doctors pretty soon,” I say, “and I won’t have to go down there every spring; I can stay here and Buddy can do the nips and the tucks.”
“He’s that interested, is he?”
The cloud is obscuring everything. I try to remember what we’re talking about. Brazil. “I’m about due,” I say, reaching up and patting the back of my hand against the underpart of my chin, feeling the looseness there. “I may have to start going twice a year,” I say. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you,” I say, and I enter the cloud.
Lude
At first, O’Connor has no idea what’s happened. Pine was talking along, being coherent, making as much sense as he’s ever made today, and then all at once he said, “It’s been nice talking to you,” and he smiled and waved by-by, and now he’s just sitting there, unmoving. His eyes are glazed, his mouth holds a loose vague smile, and his hands rest easily in his lap. He is sitting up and his eyes are open, but he isn’t home.
“Mr. Pine?” O’Connor says, and repeats it louder: “Mr. Pine? Shit, again?” Shaking his head, he yells, “Hoskins!”
And that worthy appears at once, stepping rapidly from the house, hurrying this way, carrying in his right hand the familiar silver tray bearing a single tall glass of water, and in his left hand an old black doctor’s bag. Arriving, “You bellowed, sir?” he asks.
O’Connor indicates the frozen actor. “You see.”
Hoskins studies this latest manifestation. “Ah, yes,” he says. “I thought we might go next to Middle Earth. Particularly if we were feeling threatened or upset.”
“Maybe so,” O’Connor says. “I thought maybe we were finally getting somewhere. Can you bring him out of it?”
With cheery indomitability, Hoskins says, “Trust to luck, eh?”
O’Connor sits back, notebook resting in his lap, and watches Hoskins go to one knee, put the tray bearing the glass of water to one side on the patio slate, and open the doctor’s bag. For some little time he studies its contents, then frowns at O’Connor, saying, “How much longer will you need him?”
“Hard to say, exactly,” O’Connor answers, tapping his pen against the notebook.
“Less than an hour?”
“Oh, sure,” O’Connor says. “No problem.”
“Good,” Hoskins says. “All in all, one prefers not to use the suppositories.”
As Hoskins begins taking bottles and boxes from the bag, studying them, fiddling with them, O’Connor says, “Hoskins, do you have to keep readjusting him all the time like this?”
“Oh, no, sir,” Hoskins assures him. “Usually we let him set his own pace, you know. It’s only if he’s actually filming, or such. But today, of course, is rather different.”
“I see.” O’Connor nods, then says, “Hoskins, do you mind my asking? What do you think of Jack Pine?”
“Think of him, sir?” Hoskins ponders that question, then says, “One doesn’t normally think about one’s employer. It’s not quite seemly. Still, I would say he’s rather easier than most to get along with.”
“Particularly when he’s like this,” O’Connor suggests.
“Too true,” Hoskins agrees. “Nevertheless, he is rather a sweet person at heart.” Frowning at the sweet person, Hoskins says, “Our next adjustment is a two-stager. Do you mind my being here in the interval?”
“You mean, while I’m questioning him?”
“Well, yes, sir, or whatever you do.”
“Is that necessary?” O’Connor asks. He seems jealous of his privileged privacy with the actor.
“You could perhaps do the second part yourself, sir, if you wouldn’t object,” Hoskins suggests.
“No objection,” O’Connor says promptly. “What do I do?”
“You have a watch?”
“Sure,” O’Connor says, extending his left wrist, showing the Timex strapped there.
“Good.”
Hoskins places the tray bearing the glass of water next to O’Connor’s chair. He transfers three red capsules from a bottle out of the doctor’s bag to his palm and then to the tray, next to the water. “When I give you the sign,” he says, “look at your watch, and in exactly three minutes from that time, give him these three capsules. Make sure he takes them all and washes them down with all the water. We don’t want him going nova on us.”
“No, you’re right,” O’Connor says. Feeling something like awe, he looks at his watch and at the three capsules lying on the silver tray.
From the doctor’s bag, Hoskins takes a plastic tube with a ball at the end of it. There seems to be something inside the tube, which Hoskins inserts into Pine’s left nostril. Then he slowly squeezes the ball, counting aloud: “One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” Removing the tube from his employer’s nose, he turns and says to O’Connor, “Counting from now.”