“Are you calling me a highly developed child?” Saleh says.
“Aren’t we all?”
“Right on, brother,” Saleh says. “Hey, do you smoke pot?”
Janwar never has. He shakes his head. “Not my thing.”
“The prime minister sure does,” Saleh says. “Loves him a big ol’ jay and a bag of McChickens.”
Canada’s sweater-vested prime minister seems like the least likely person imaginable to smoke a joint and get takeout at McDonald’s, let alone multiple burgers, but who knows, cab drivers talk to everyone. Maybe some public servant with a taxi chit had a few too many at a diplomatic function and ran her mouth.
“How do you know that?”
Saleh taps his nose.
They pull into the Value Village parking lot, which is attached to a strip mall that could be anywhere in North America. Janwar retrieves his bag from the trunk and taps the trunk lid twice to send Saleh on his way.
After dashing up and down the men’s aisle a couple of times, Janwar’s able to find a pretty close approximation of the taxi driver’s outfit—ochre Ralph Lauren shirt (two sizes too big, making for extra chest hair exposure), toy-plastic aviators, Wrangler relaxed-fit jeans, brown Sears-brand loafers, black TVOntario baseball cap—which makes it extra-awkward when Saleh Azam’s cab is the one that picks him up again once he’s done. In deference to the social contract, Saleh doesn’t say anything about it, only raises a furry eyebrow and continues to sing along with the country music on the radio without shame.
Upon returning to the hospital, Janwar looks for a bathroom so he won’t have to leave his post while waiting for Shaughnessy. The men’s washroom has a “Closed for Cleaning” sign, so Janwar turns to the handicapped one across the hall. Despite all the talk among eager med students of constant hospital hookups, Janwar has yet to encounter any—either offers or accidental exposures. Until now, that is. He opens the door to the single-occupant bathroom, and, lost in thought, his ears full of the sound of the fan, he’s already well into the room before he notices the two people he’s interrupted are in the middle of vigorous intercourse. The man is seated on the toilet, his wrists bound together with oxygen tubing. The woman sits on his lap facing him.
She turns to look at the source of the noise, which is Janwar. Her head snaps back around and she covers her eyes with one hand while climbing off of her partner. With nowhere to hide in the square room, she moves to the corner. But it’s too late—Janwar has seen it all. He’s processed her identity: Teresa Galway from the emergency room, the middle-aged receptionist with the fingernail trimmer. Brett Rutan takes the opposite tactic, leaving his face exposed; his bound hands scrabble around and settle on one pointy boot as the best item to cover his genitals, which once installed looks like an Expressionist codpiece—the codpiece of Dr. Caligari.
Brett winces. Something drips out of the boot and onto the concrete floor. “I guess we forgot to lock the door,” he says, his voice thick. One of his nipples is much hairier than the other.
Teresa snorts from the corner.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brett says.
“What’s it to you? I’ll snort if I want to,” Teresa says.
Janwar breathes out through his nose. “We all make mistakes. I’ll leave you two to it.”
“Or not to it, as the case may be,” Teresa says.
“Don’t look so horrified, kid.” Brett looks over from Teresa back to Janwar. “Middle-aged people need to burn off stress too. Did you think only the young and beautiful have sex in intense environments?” He pinches his belly flab.
“I hadn’t thought about it, really. I’ve never had sex in an intense environment.” The first image that comes to Janwar’s mind is the end of Speed, when Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, after finally getting off the bus, get off with each other. Janwar moves to open the door and pauses. Something’s dinging in the back of his mind. Position. Leverage. “I have a question for you, Brett,” Janwar says.
“You’ve got me at a disadvantage.”
“You know who I am, right?”
“He was asking about the dead pool earlier,” Teresa says from the corner, where she’s trying to reach her clothes with one foot without turning around or bending over. “I knew he sounded familiar.”
“You’re the boy who killed a patient a few days ago,” Brett says. “Johnny? I almost didn’t recognize you without your scrubs. You should come by my office for some civilian-clothing tips.”
“Janwar, not Johnny. I do like those boots,” Janwar says. “I don’t want them though. Given the circumstances. Listen, was there anything ambiguous about what happened? In Diego’s death?”
“Ambiguous in what way? Can we talk later? This isn’t the right situation for a serious discussion.” Brett’s circular gesture takes in both the boot and Teresa. “And, actually, we shouldn’t be talking about this anyway. We already had our official conversation about it on the record. The report is final. It’s closed. Finito.”
Janwar shakes his head. “We’re going to talk now. It’s not like this is going to get any more embarrassing for you than it already is, unless I open the door. Which I’ll do if you stonewall me. Was what you found the same as the report you filed?”
“Yes,” Brett says, seeming honestly surprised. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Nobody leaned on you?”
“No.”
“Keep in mind that I can open the door wide right now,” Janwar says. He cups his ear to the door. A large group of people are standing outside, talking loudly in Japanese. Janwar’s private school in BC made Japanese mandatory in Grades 4 to 6, but all he remembers is that the Japanese word for four, shi, is the same as the word for death, so whereas North American buildings skip the thirteenth floor, Japanese buildings skip the fourth.
“We wouldn’t like that,” Brett says.
“We,” Teresa repeats.
Brett ignores her.
“What was the finding in your report?” Janwar says.
“There was a vial of the correct solution that was unopened and there was a vial of the stronger solution that was missing enough to have killed the patient. You were the only one injecting anything into the IV. It all seemed pretty straightforward. I talked to everyone present and I filled out my report. The legal counsel and I both signed it and then it went straight into records.”
So the report hasn’t been messed with, despite Venolia’s warning, if Brett is to be believed.
“Did you fingerprint the vials?”
“Who do you think I am, a cop? I’m a bureaucrat.”
Janwar sighs. “Oh, one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“Does anyone care that the surgeons are all on ’drines?”
“No.” No inflection to his voice, no hesitation.
No leverage to use on Victor then. Balls. Janwar opens the door a crack.
“Ready for round two?” Brett says.
“As if. No, we’re done here. The moment is finito,” Teresa says. “You wanted to get caught, admit it. You were on the edge for so long and then finished in your boot after he was already in the room. You’re a sicko.”
Janwar squeezes himself out through the door.
Three priests screech by Janwar on a golf cart. Fair enough. Not all priests are in good enough shape to spend the day running around the hospital.
As Janwar returns to the centre of the hallway, a shadow blocks out the overhead light. Janwar turns. Karan’s turban puts him a good eight inches taller than Janwar.
“I thought you specifically didn’t want to talk to me,” Janwar says, ruining his disguise.
Karan seems to have seen through it anyway. “Meet me outside the psychiatric care department in five minutes,” he hisses.
“Why?”
“No surgery or anaesthesiology there.”
Karan is sitting on a bench when Janwar arrives.
“Okay, what’s the deal?” Janwar says.
Karan’s body is rig
id. “Did you hook up with Fang?”
“What? No. We’re just friends. I thought you hated each—Oh.”
“She texted me she was with you at Flecktarn’s pad last night and she hasn’t texted me back or picked up her phone since.”
“Oh shit, no, she didn’t stay with me. Nothing happened. We watched a movie and then she left. Peter said she got in a fender-bender. But she’s okay, everyone’s okay,” Janwar adds quickly.
“You sure?”
“Promise,” Janwar says. “She’s probably got too much shit to deal with, insurance and everything. I mean, how serious are you two?”
Karan appraises him. “Not that serious.”
“You don’t seem happy about that.” Janwar remembers Fang saying, “Shit got way more awkward before,” and wonders if whatever she’s got going on with Karan is also a result of unconscious sleep-cuddling.
“Just because we’re outside the psychiatry department doesn’t mean you can psychoanalyze me.”
“Sure,” Janwar says. “Hey, speaking of Dr. Flecktarn’s apartment, nobody told me dude was in jail before I moved in. Couldn’t they have rented me a hotel room?”
“That’d be reasonable. Civic anaesthesiologists always take the sleazy way.”
“So you guys keep saying.”
“Because it’s true. Except for Fang. She’s on the up and up. But, what I told you about me and Fang, don’t repeat it.”
“I get you. Surgio and Anaesthesiette.”
“Thanks,” Karan says gruffly.
“Now you gotta do something for me.”
“What?” Karan adjusts his scrubs, revealing his kirpan in its scabbard.
Janwar continues anyway. A kirpan is a ceremonial weapon and if it’s anything like his Sikh friend Manavinder’s, it’s dull as fuck. Although a surgeon would know how to keep a blade sharp, and might even take pride in it. Well, fuck it. Bombs away. “Was there anything off about the operation where Diego died?”
Karan makes a face. “No. And so you know, everyone knows you’re going around playing detective. People are telling jokes about it now. ‘Why did Janwar drop his cellphone? So he could crack the case.’”
“That’s brutal.”
“I didn’t say I was the one telling that joke. Accept you messed up.”
“You know I’ve got your thing with Fang over you. Victor wouldn’t be happy to hear about it.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Karan says. “I didn’t see anything other than you mixing up your vials. All you whiny Gen Yers can’t accept responsibility for failure. You call everything bad ‘fail,’ but you can’t deal with failing.”
Janwar thinks about revealing the Karan-Fang affair to the anaesthesiologists and the surgeons out of spite, but he doesn’t want to fuck over Fang, or for anyone to get their orbits cracked or lose a tooth.
Anyway, he has to run to be outside the OR when Shaughnessy gets out.
“I’ve got to go.” He stands up and almost runs into a gurney.
“Check your blind spot, taxi driver,” Karan says.
“You talkin’ to me?” Janwar shoots over his shoulder.
Once he gets into position outside the OR, Janwar passes the remaining few minutes of lurking focused on a bug crawling slowly across the bench. A silverfish, he thinks it’s called, a many-limbed sonofabitch. The fact that he’s able to hold his attention on something so mundane for so long suggests his caffeine tank is nearing empty. He wants to get coffee, but then he might miss Shaughnessy. He weighs the options and decides the thrill of the chase might wake him up enough to hold off making a dark roast pit stop.
It doesn’t, because rather than leaving the hospital, Shaughnessy leads him no more than fifty feet. Janwar is stuck looking like a taxi driver where he’d stand out less if he’d kept his scrubs on. At least Shaughnessy led him to the Tulip Cafe, where he could get coffee. The Irishman eats alone, taking far longer than he needs, checking his watch every five minutes. Janwar reads today’s Ottawa Citizen and drinks his coffee fast enough to make his skin crawl. The newspaper is full of ads for the football team playing in Lansdowne Stadium, by Dr. Flecktarn’s condo. They’re called the Ottawa Redblacks, which Janwar can’t help feeling uneasy about. Sure, it’s not technically racist. But the name seems like it’s purposely pushing the boundaries of political correctness. “The Nepean Redskins had to give up their name? Fuck bleeding hearts. Let’s denigrate two minorities at once,” Janwar imagines the owner saying to his business associates.
Shaughnessy stands right as the clock strikes eight, and leaves his tray on the table like an asshole. Janwar keeps an eye on the man as he deposits his coffee cup into the appropriate receptacle, and then follows him up the stairs at a discreet distance. Shaughnessy’s next stop is back in the anaesthesiology department. The lights are off but Shaughnessy slips inside. Janwar follows him in.
Janwar hears Shaughnessy’s voice, rising and falling, under a lot of stress, coming from Sylvie Dalsgaard’s office, but he can’t make out the words. Janwar pauses outside the office, flattens himself against the wall, and listens. Four shadows are visible through the frosted glass. One is short and squat: Shaughnessy. Another tall and thin, presumably Sylvie, who Janwar has still not yet met. The third is too indistinct to tell. And the fourth is massive, a football player gone to fat.
“What the fuck, Shaun?” the woman snaps.
“You and Llew used to do it,” Shaughnessy says. “Don’t get on your high horse.”
“That’s the seventies. We did all sorts of things we regret in the seventies. And we didn’t have something else going on. Something that affected other people besides ourselves. Get the fuck out right now and shut it down. Don’t talk to him until this is all over. We can’t let it break down even for a second. You never know who’s watching.”
“But—”
“Do it, you paddy shitstain,” the fat man rumbles, with a clipped accent that might be from New Zealand.
Janwar doesn’t have time to duck out of the way, so he holds himself still as Shaughnessy storms out. His luck, perhaps aided by his earth-toned disguise, holds: Shaughnessy turns left, not right, and Janwar is able to creep after him undetected. Do what? Do what, Shaughnessy?
But Shaughnessy gives him the slip, stepping into the elevator alone and facing out, meaning Janwar’s disguise won’t stand up if he joins Shaughnessy in there. Despite Janwar’s running down the stairs, sliding his hand down the bannister fast enough for it to tingle with heat, Shaughnessy is gone by the time Janwar reaches the main floor.
Janwar gets off the bus at Bank Street and the 417 and stops at the art store to buy a corkboard, pushpins, and index cards, like a real detective. The OC Transpo app tells him the next bus isn’t coming for ten minutes, so he decides to walk the rest of the way back to Dr. Flecktarn’s; he’ll plan out the corkboard as he walks. He’ll put a card with Diego’s name in the centre. And then around it cards for Shaughnessy, Henry, José, Aspen, Venolia, Ellis, the whole sick crew, including the presumed New Zealander who had berated Shaughnessy. The big Kiwi.
There’s a liquor store across the street a couple of blocks back. Janwar makes an about-face, turning down a request for change from the panhandler outside for the second time. The panhandler gives him the cut eye.
He purchases another bottle of Wild Turkey to replace the one he almost polished off the other night.. The act of finding the bourbon takes far more effort than he’d anticipated. Eventually he locates it not with the other whiskies but in the middle of the Argentinian wine shelf, which he has to tell himself isn’t a clue. He also purchases a bottle of Kraken spiced rum for himself. As he enters his PIN, he realizes he’s buying a replacement bottle of whisky for a convicted rapist, but he’s already partway through the transaction and he can’t face stopping now.
Janwar climbs the stairs to the fourth floor of Dr. Flecktarn’s building with his supplies.
Once in the apartment, he first has to confront the fact that not only have the flie
s not left, they have multiplied, sprayed across the cupboards like birdshot. He flattens a few with a rolled-up copy of the Ottawa Sun and then jettisons the bloodstained newspaper and makes a flycatcher—pours whisky in a glass, covers the top with cling wrap, and pokes holes in the thin plastic. Better the whisky go to the flies than to Dr. Flecktarn. The insects circle the glass warily at first, but soon one lands, and the fact that it can’t get out doesn’t seem to worry the other flies, who are also drawn one by one to the sweet liquor. Janwar, also drawn by liquor, pours a glass of rum for himself and watches the insects die, until Ajay and Garati inevitably call to check up on him again, asking if he’s okay, which he obviously isn’t.
Exhibit F
TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO RECORDING FOUND ON SUSAN JONESTOWN’S CELLPHONE
SPEAKING: SUSAN JONESTOWN, SHAUGHNESSY O’DEADY, ALEJANDRO MONDRAKER
Saturday July 5
I’m sitting on the patio of the Sir John A, ready for a quick escape. I kept the bottle of 50 even though the waiter poured it into the glass. Self defence.
I can see Shaughnessy coming down the street. He’s wearing a gross fedora.
SHAUGHNESSY O’DEADY: How was the rest of your day?
SUSAN JONESTOWN: Oh, you know. Smile, grind the coffee, tamp the coffee, brew the coffee, repeat. How about you?
SO: Similar. TKO after TKO.
SJ: I guess you don’t ever want a partial knockout.
SO: You sure don’t. That’s when you wake up partway through surgery and you can’t move and can’t scream.
SJ: Horrifying.
SO: That sort of thing is pretty rare now. We’ve got the technology. But let’s not start with work. Where’d you grow up?
SJ: Nova Scotia. Dartmouth.
SO: Pardon my ignorance, but where’s that?
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