“What time?”
“Around four A.M., it was still dark. I could hear rats, smell the garbage- they dumped me like garbage!”
I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”
“Kafka. I tried to get up, couldn't. My back was starting to hurt like hell. A throbbing, dull pain, right over my hipbone. And it felt tight, really tight, as if I was being squeezed. I reached around, touched something- gauze. I'd been wrapped. Like a mummy. Then my arm started throbbing, too, and I managed to roll up my sleeve and saw a black-and-blue mark- a needle stick.”
He touched his inner elbow.
“At first I thought someone had screwed with my head, too- given me dope, though I couldn't figure out why. Later I realized it was the anesthesia. I was woozy, nauseous, started to throw up, heaved my guts for a long time. Finally, I managed to stand, made it to my apartment somehow and collapsed. Slept all day. When I woke up, I was still in the dream and the pain was unbearable and I knew I had a fever. I drove myself to the free clinic and the doctor took off the bandage and this look came on his face. Like how can you be walking around? Then he told me, you've been operated on, man. Don't you remember? I started to freak out, he held up a mirror so I could see the stitches. Like a fucking football.”
He played with his hair some more, rubbed his eyes, shook his head.
“Oh, man. It was like… you have no idea. No idea, the violation. Fritz Lang, Hitchcock. This hippie doctor's telling me I've had surgery and I'm saying no way. He must have thought I was nuts.”
“Hitchcock,” I said.
“The classic plot line: innocent man gets caught up. Only the star hadn't been told. The star had been improvised on.”
“Horrible,” I said.
“Beyond horror- splatter cinema. Then I started to remember things. Desiree- Mandy. Us getting into my car, her leaning over to me, kissing. Jamming her tongue down my throat. Then fade to black. Boom.”
He put the palm of one hand over his eyes.
“The free clinic doctor's saying calm down, man, you've got a fever, better check into the hospital.”
“Did the doctor say what kind of operation you'd had?” I asked.
“He asked me if I'd had kidney disease and when I said no, what the hell are you talking about, he took an X ray. And told me. That's when he said I should be in the hospital.”
“Did you check yourself in?”
“With what? I don't have insurance.”
“What about County?”
“No,” he said. “Place is a zoo… and I didn't want any more documentation. I didn't want to go anywhere. Because I was already thinking.”
“About getting back at them?”
“About regaining my self-respect. It was only Desiree- Mandy- at that point. But I knew she'd just been the bait.”
“Did you suspect Professor Devane?”
“No, not yet. I didn't suspect anyone. But I was damned well going to find out.”
“So what'd you do?”
“Wangled a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics from the free clinic doc and went home.”
“You weren't worried he'd report it?”
“He said he wouldn't. They're cool over there.”
“So you went home to recuperate.” Telling Mrs. Green it was a back injury. “What about the stitches?”
He winced. “I took them out myself.”
“Must have been tricky.”
“Dosed myself up with the painkiller, rubbed Neosporin all over and used a mirror. It hurt like hell but I wasn't going to have anyone else knowing.”
“So you never saw another doctor?”
“Never. I should've, the scar's all fucked up- keloided. One day when I can afford it, I'll have it fixed.”
I wrote some more.
“It's still tough to talk about,” he said.
“I can imagine.”
“Oster asked me if I'd experienced mental anguish. I had to control myself from laughing in his face.”
“No kidding,” I said, nodding. “Talk about understatement- okay, let's move on. How'd you find Mandy?”
“A few weeks later- when I could walk- I went back to the club and saw the waitress who'd served us.”
He put his hands behind his neck, flexed to the sides, back and forward. “Stiff. I stretch each morning but it must be damp in the walls.”
“It's an old building,” I said. “So you saw the waitress. Then what?”
He dropped his hands and moved closer to the glass. Smiled. Stretched again. “I waited until she was off-shift. She parked out in back- in the alley- poetic justice, huh? I was a regular alley cat. Meow, meow.”
He scratched the glass partition. The deputy turned, looked at the wall clock and said, “Twenty more minutes.”
“So she came out to the alley after work,” I said.
“And I was there waiting.” Grin. “Being the hunter is so much better than being the prey… I put a hand over her mouth, a knee in the small of her back so she lost her balance, twisted her arm up behind her- hammerlock. Dragged her behind a dumpster and said I'm going to remove my hand, honey, but if you make a sound I'll fucking kill you. She started to breathe hard- hyperventilating. I said shut up or I'll cut your fucking throat. Even though I didn't have a knife, or anything else. Then I said, all I want is information about the girl I was with a few weeks ago. Desiree. And she said I don't know any Desiree. And I said maybe that's not her name but you remember her- remember me. 'Cause I'd left a big tip. I always do, waitering myself. She still tried to deny it and I said let me refresh your memory: She was wearing a tight white dress, drinking a Manhattan, and I was drinking a Sam Adams. 'Cause I know from waitering that sometimes it's the drink you remember, not the customer. She said I remember her but I don't know her. So I twisted her arm a little bit more and covered her mouth and nose- cutting off her air. She started to strangle and I let go and said, come on, honey, who's she to you to suffer for. Because I'd seen the way she and Mandy were acting- friendly, was sure they knew each other. She cried, stalled, got choked off some more, finally told me her real name was Mandy, she was from Vegas and that's all she knew, honest. I twisted the arm almost to the breaking point but all she did was whimper and say please believe me, that's all I know. So I said thanks, put my hand around her throat and squeezed.”
“Because she was a witness.”
“That and because she'd been part of it. The entire club was, contextually. I should've gone back and bombed the whole fucking building. Maybe I would've.”
“If?”
“If I wasn't here.”
The deputy consulted the clock again.
“Mandy from Vegas,” I said. “So you went there.”
“I had time,” he said. “Nothing but. I'd dropped out of school to get the Embassy Row part, then lost it.”
“Because of the scar.”
“Only that. Before they saw the scar, they loved me. It was cable and I was just getting scale, but to me it would've been major wealth. I'd already been thinking of moving to a new place, maybe a nice rental near the beach.”
His jaw clenched and his mouth tightened.
“So you went to Vegas,” I said. “How'd you get there?”
“Took the bus, went from casino to casino. Figuring a whore that good-looking would be working out of one of them. And I was right- you know, that's the amazing thing about all of this.”
“What is?”
“How easy it is.”
“Finding people?”
“Finding and… taking care of them. I mean I'd never even come close to doing anything like that to anyone before I handled the girl in the alley.” He snapped his fingers. “I've had harder parts to play.”
“Was Mandy easy, too?”
“Easier. Because I had even more motivation. And she made it easy. Driving around in a Ferrari convertible. Ostentatious little bitch, right there in the open. I watched her park it at a casino, give the valet a big tip- Miss Hotshot. I followed her, watched her for two days, found out where she lived, waited until she came home alone, and surprised her.”