Regeneration

by Max Allan Collins

  His grin faded; both hands were on the wheel. “We’re already in a lot of trouble, baby.”

  Though what he’d said was troubling, she found herself smiling. It was so nice, so old-fashioned, so … Bogart of him to call her that: baby.

  “Don’t you get it?” he was saying. “The kinda hot water we’re both in?”

  She slumped further down. “Well, I won’t be any part of this— you can leave me in the car.”

  “Come on, Nancy Drew, where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “I think it was removed with my ovaries. Jack, we’re not young anymore, however good we may look—why are we rocking the boat?”

  “It’s already rocked. We’re already targeted. Too late to just play along with these bastards.”

  “Jack, stop it—you’re frightening me.”

  “Good.”

  “But … what are you looking for … what do you hope to find?”

  Jack was pulling the car into a parking spot on the same block as the clinic, one street over.

  “Answers,” he said, turning off the engine. He looked at her, pointedly. “Wasn’t that what we were about, our generation? Bringing down the establishment? Seeking truth and love and enlightenment?”

  “Not me,” she said, shaking her head. “I was in a sorority.”

  He let out a single laugh. “Yeah, well, I was kind of a toga party guy myself. But when this is over, we’ll find some love beads and maybe try smoking a little grass—all my crowd says it’s outta sight.”

  She laughed, too.

  “All right, then,” he said. And he sang a line from an old song, “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, I’m ready,” she sang back, feeling silly. And young. And, unlike Jack, singing in tune …

  “Then let’s go,” he said.

  As they walked down the street of commercial businesses, glittering art galleries and high-rent expresso shops, a few of which were still open despite the lateness of the hour, Jack put an arm around Joy, nuzzled her neck.

  “See, we’re undercover, now,” he whispered, “and I’m pretending we’re lovers.”

  She stopped and kissed him. Then she looked into the dark eyes and said, “Who’s pretending? And I can’t wait to get you under the covers.”

  His arm around her waist, they walked on. “You got to trust me on this, Joy. I know what’s best.”

  “Now you sound like our parents’ generation.”

  “Well, they did some things right. People even fell in love and stayed in love and lived together till they died.”

  “Not always.”

  “No, but more often than not. More often than now, anyway.”

  They stopped walking. He put his hand under her chin, tilted her face up to his; his dark eyes were deadly serious. “You can trust me, Joy.”

  “Why should I, Jack?”

  “It’s an old reason—no generation has a lock on it. Because I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she said softly. The last man she’d said that to was Henry. “It’s just … well, can you blame me for being afraid?”

  “None of that—not with me around. You don’t ever have to be afraid.” And he kissed her again, soft and warm, a kiss she felt down to her toes.

  Suddenly, in his arms, with his lips on hers, she wasn’t scared anymore. Suddenly she was Nancy Fucking Drew and when their lips parted, she said, “Okay, Big Boy. What’s the plan?”

  At a service entrance at the back of the clinic, Jack and Joy huddled; the bright street lights in Beverly Hills made their presence far more noticeable than in the gloomy back alley behind Susan’s apartment. But quicker than Joy could say “breaking and entering,” Jack had picked the door’s lock with a pair of slender metal tools from the leather case.

  They stepped inside the sterile modern building, into a dark entryway with a carpet runner and a coat rack that contained a few unclaimed umbrellas. A push broom leaned in one corner as if resting between sweeps.

  Joy looked at Jack, eyebrows raised. “No alarm?”

  He gave her a one-sided smile. “Only the room with the narcotics cabinet.”

  “No bugs?”

  “Just us cockroaches.”

  “You’re sure….”

  “I handle their security, remember?”

  Another door loomed just ahead, to the right, but this one was open, leading to the clinic’s back waiting room, a smaller, cozier one than the reception area up front. This was where Joy would be inevitably situated upon her arrival, and—after her monthly consultation—the way through which she would be shown out; she assumed this procedure was to keep her and other X-Gen clients apart.

  Fingers of light filtered their way in and around the blinds of the windows in the back waiting room, providing just enough illumination for Jack and Joy to move toward the connecting hallway with the examination rooms, supply and drug room, and the doctor’s private office.

  The doctor’s door was, not surprisingly, locked, but Jack deftly remedied that with the same pair of picks. After a faint “click,” they went inside, where heavy curtains made moving about impossible without a light of some kind.

  Jack withdrew the small flashlight out from his sport-jacket pocket and sent its bright if narrow beam darting around the room.

  “Turn on a light,” he whispered.

  “It’s safe to?”

  “It’s safe to.”

  Joy reached for the wall switch, but he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “Not that one … the one on the desk … won’t be so bright.”

  In front of the curtained windows was an oversized cherry-wood desk, and on its top, next to some meticulously stacked papers, sat a banker’s-style reading lamp with jade shade and brass base. She went over to it and pulled its little gold chain, illuminating the room softly, giving Joy a better look at the doctor’s quarters.

  She’d never been in this surprisingly homey office, all of her consultations taking place in a cold examination room. As she glanced around at the doctor’s personal things—brown leather couch, art-book-arrayed coffee table, walls displaying academic certificates along with idyllic oil paintings of the ocean—she found herself smugly pleased. Now it was Green’s private life being pried into.

  The doctor even had his own private bathroom. She poked her head in, noticing that in addition to a shower there was also a little whirlpool tub—she’d always wanted one of those. Well, maybe in her next life …

  Behind her, she heard a scratching sound; across the room, Jack was using his picks on the lock of a three-drawer file cabinet.

  “What is it we’re looking for?” she asked sotto voce, edging up next to him.

  “Susan’s file. What was her last name?”

  She had to think for a second—Susan was just Susan to her. Then she said, a little too loudly, pleased with herself for remembering, “Henderson.”

  Jack bent over to pull open the middle drawer, labeled “H-M,” and crammed with manila files.

  “Good God,” Susan breathed. “Could all the folders in these drawers be relocated Boomers?”

  “Sure—and these are just Green’s patients. There’s a ‘Green’ in New York, in Chicago….”

  Her clinic in Chicago!

  “But there have to be hundreds of files here, Jack….”

  “No. Thousands.”

  Jack thumbed through the front third of the drawer, then plucked a folder out. He marched the folder over to the desk, placing it under the light of the desk lamp.

  “What are you expecting to find in there?” Joy asked, joining him by the desk, adding archly, “A great big rubber-stamp mark on her file that says, ‘Terminated’?”

  Jack flipped the folder open and on the first page was Susan’s name, photograph, current employment information—and boldly stamped through Susan’s name was that very word: TERMINATED.

  “Good call,” Jack said.

  She covered her mouth with a hand, muffled through her fingers: “Oh, shit …”

  “
Ready to start taking this seriously?”

  Drawing her hand away, she gestured toward the folder. “But … but that doesn’t have to mean anything sinister—she died, they closed her file.”

  “Her death wasn’t discovered until today. This is dated day before yesterday.”

  “That date could be a typo—or maybe she was going to be fired, and hadn’t been notified yet—”

  “You trying to convince me, or yourself?”

  Jack was examining the contents of the folder, which as far as Joy could see were test results, some personal correspondence and notes made during examinations.

  So Dr. Green did write down everything his patients said in their consultations! Joy wondered what he’d written about her….

  She went back to the cabinet, pulled the middle drawer out again and fingered through the folders till she found her own file. She brought it back to the desk and the light, next to Jack, and opened it up—thankfully the word TERMINATE didn’t appear.

  “Jack,” she said slowly, “what does this mean?” She pointed to the inside flap, beneath her name, where the initials T. D. came before a five-digit number. “Dr. Green’s first name is Vernon, so … and, I … no, this isn’t my X-Gen client number….”

  Jack stared at where she was pointing. “You really want to know what I think?”

  “Do I?”

  “I think T. D. represents ‘termination date.’”

  “The day our job ends.”

  “You wish. That’s the date they’re going to kill you.” He said this as calmly as if telling her the time of day.

  Joy slapped the folder shut. “Will you stop it?” she huffed. “Now you’re scaring me again! That date just means how long they estimate I can keep working.” She opened the folder again. Now the number did look like a date to her. She did the math….

  “Oh, my,” she exclaimed, almost giddily. “I’m going to be working until I’m eighty-two.”

  “And that makes you happy?”

  “Of course it does. I think it’s great … I just hope I’m up to it.”

  “And if you’re not, you wind up like Susan.”

  “Stop it.” But she was fascinated, and couldn’t keep her eyes off the date on her folder. “How do you suppose they calculate that?”

  “I’m sure they’ve got some wonderful scientific equation based on medical test results and current longevity stats.” He interrupted his sarcasm to shrug. “Of course that means the equation can change every month, with every checkup.”

  Joy cocked her head, her file held to her chest. “Are you miffed at me?”

  “Watch your language—‘miffed’ dates you, baby.”

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  He sighed. “No—just frustrated. Just wishing to hell I could make you believe me.”

  “I’m trying, I really am. But the whole thing sounds preposterous. To me everything X-Gen has done is designed to give us a second chance, Jack—a second life. We should be grateful, not … sneaking around their offices, spying.”

  “Then maybe we should go.” He plucked the file out of her hands, and put it back in its place in the middle drawer, Susan’s, too.

  “Well, as, uh, as long as we’re here in the principal’s office,” Joy said, breaking the silence, “why don’t we sneak a peek at your school records?”

  Mock childish, he said, “Let’s not and say we did.”

  “Something you don’t want me to see?”

  “Why bother? It’s an evaluation that says I’m insolent, arrogant and untrustworthy, or words to that effect….”

  “I could have told them that,” she said, kneeling and pulling out the bottom drawer. “Maybe X-Gen should come to me for background checks.” She quickly found his name and withdrew and opened his file. She looked at the inside cover, her smile fading.

  “Four more years…. that’s all?” Joy looked at him wide-eyed.

  Jack grabbed the folder. “What? It was fifteen, last time I checked …”

  Beyond the office windows, something slammed shut.

  “What’s that?” Joy whispered.

  “Sounded like a car door … outside in back … we better skedaddle….”

  “Now who’s dating himself?” she gulped.

  Quickly Jack stuffed his folder back, closing the drawer.

  Joy was turning off the desk lamp, eyes frantically checking the desk for anything they might have left there, when keys jingled out in the hall, behind the closed office door.

  Now in the dark, Joy reached out frantically for Jack with one hand, while pulling him toward the bathroom with the other, even as a key was being inserted into the lock, turning in the lock….

  As they fled to the bathroom, Joy could hear the office door open behind them, then a click of the wall light switch, and the thud of footsteps on carpet—all mingled with the wild thumping of her own heart. There hadn’t been time to close the bathroom door completely, and as the outer room flooded with light, they clung to each other, backed in the dark corner behind the bathroom door.

  Terrified of being discovered, she looked up into Jack’s eyes, which seemed amazingly calm; if he was at all frightened, he was hiding it well. She tightened her grip on him.

  The desk chair creaked, its leather squeaking as someone sat down and began punching in a phone number.

  After a moment a male voice beyond the bathroom door said, “Larue? Green.” The doctor’s voice had an edge to it. “No, I stopped by the office…. Yeah, another goddamn charity event…. Look, what the hell happened? I thought it was supposed to look like an accident.”

  Joy looked at Jack, whose tight eyes seemed to ask, Now do you believe me?

  Green’s voice became more agitated. “Yeah, well some cop, uh, Ryan, came around asking questions about her…. No, he’s not one of ours…. Because my name was on the goddamn prescription bottle, that’s why! Jesus Christ, do those backwoods morons have shit for brains, or what…? Oh, they say they missed it, well, that’s different. Look, Larue, I know it’s been cost effective, but they’re idiots, we need to do something else…. Oh, I’m glad you agree—like I’m not still twisting here in the wind…. Easy for you, I’ve got this fucking thing leading right back to me….”

  Joy, feeling sick to her stomach, leaned her head against Jack.

  Green was saying, “Yeah…. Yeah…. Well, doctor-patient privilege ends when the goddamn patient dies, Larue. I can’t seem uncooperative or we’re all…. Okay, okay—I’ll change the file…. Bye.”

  The phone slammed down. Then a file drawer opened. Had Jack put Susan’s folder back in the right place? He’d done it so quickly! Joy did something she hadn’t since childhood: She prayed….

  The file drawer shut. Footsteps sounded on the carpet. Oh, please don’t be coming to use the bathroom, she thought, looking anxiously at Jack, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.

  But to her relief the overhead light out there clicked off. And the office door opened, then slammed shut.

  Trembling, Joy released a jagged lung full of air.

  “Let’s wait a while,” Jack whispered in her ear, still holding her tight, which was good because she felt her knees might buckle.

  They stayed in the corner of the bathroom forever, or a good three minutes anyway, clutching each other in the dark; the only sound now was Joy sobbing quietly against Jack’s chest.

  13

  “We Gotta Get Outa This Place”

  (The Animals, #13 Billboard, 1965)

  Seated on the edge of a lumpy bed in the Sunny View Motor Lodge at Sunset and La Brea, Joy was almost pleading with Jack.

  “Let’s go to the police in the morning—it’s the best thing, the smart thing—”

  Coca-Cola can in hand, Jack was slumped nearby in a nubby turquoise chair, his stockinged feet stretched out, heels on the bed; he was in his T-shirt and slacks and he did not have the physique of a man his real age, chest beneath the flimsy T-shirt beautifully well-formed, arms heavily muscular, and h
e bore only the slightest potbelly courtesy of his unstapled stomach.

  They were sitting in the dark because Joy was terrified of turning on a light, the plastic paisley curtains only partially open, letting a little street light leech in to enable them to see each other, in the shadows of cheap furniture and fixtures.

  After they had fled the clinic, Jack suggested they hide out somewhere safe for the rest of the night, until they could come to a mutual decision about their futures.

  In response to her suggestion, Jack was shaking his head. “Baby, give it a couple more days—then I’ll have the evidence we need to be taken seriously. And we’ll go to the authorities together.”

  “I think we should tell our story now, right now, no matter how crazy it may sound. What if something happens to us in the next few days? Like it did to Susan, and God knows how many others? Then no one would ever hear our story!”

  He was shaking his head. “We can’t go to the cops.”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you think I was X-Gen’s only plant in the PD?”

  “Jesus! Then where do we go?”

  “One of us goes to the media, the other to the FBI. I doubt X-Gen has anybody in the latter, and the former is our backup. We do it coordinated, with taped statements in safe-deposit boxes, and letters in the hands of attorneys….”

  “My God … it sounds like launching D-Day.”

  “Well, it’s a war, all right, Joy—us against them. As for tonight …” He nodded toward the bedstand, where a .38 revolver lay next to her unfinished can of Diet 7-Up. “Tonight, I’ll protect you.”

  “That thing makes me nervous.”

  “You’ll like it better if somebody comes barging through that door.”

  “Oh, you really know how to make a girl feel secure….” She flopped back on the bed, muttering, “What’s going to become of us?”

  It was not a question, really, not posed to Jack anyway; and it was no whine. She had just been struck by the realization that her comfortable world—and she had made it comfortable, despite the circumstances, regardless of limitations, and was proud of herself for it—had once again come crumbling down around her. How many times did one woman have to hit rock fucking bottom?