Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries)

by Matthew Storm

  The world around me felt as if it had shrunk to the size of the exam room. I was starting to get dizzy. Everything I had believed about myself and my future had just been shattered. “What are you…” I began. I looked at him. “How?”

  “How?” he repeated. “The liver is a very durable organ, Nevada. It has an incredible power to heal itself. That’s how.”

  “I was sure I was drinking myself to death,” I said. “I mean I know a guy…he may be here right now, actually. He quit twenty years ago and he still needs a transplant. I was still a drunk a year ago and I’m fine?”

  He nodded. “I think I know who you’re talking about. Another ex-cop?” I didn’t say anything and he continued. “There’s a point of no return,” he said. “Once you cross it there’s no going back. We can’t do anything about it unless you’re one of the lucky ones who can get a transplant. But if you didn’t cross it, you’ve got a shot. And so here we are.”

  I was still dizzy. “I’m not dying,” I said. I needed to try the words on for size.

  “No.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say besides, “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Wow.” His smirk seemed to be getting smirkier, if that was even a word.

  “You’re just enjoying the hell out of this, aren’t you?” I asked. “Mr. Funny Doctor? I’m not sure why you find this so amusing.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “Maybe it’s because of the way you swore at me last year. I have to admit, I’ve never heard a person talk like that.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I mean, at one point you accused me of having an orgy with a group of barnyard animals, and you made an Animal Farm reference that I didn’t think quite worked, but you seemed to think it was pretty clever. You spent about two minutes cracking up over it.”

  What had I said about Animal Farm? For that matter, when had I even read Animal Farm? High school? “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was pretty out of my head then.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I didn’t take it personally.”

  “So…” I started “What is this? Why are you so amused? I thought you were having a go at me to retaliate, but…”

  “You think I’m that petty?”

  “I don’t actually know you,” I pointed out. “You might be.”

  “Well, I’m not,” he said. “I’m amused because I actually expected that I was going to have to call you and give you exactly the news you thought you’d get. I was going to tell you we’d do our best to keep you comfortable but it was going to be a long, hard road. Liver failure isn’t pretty. But instead…” he shrugged. “I got to see your face while I told you the opposite. Pretty good day for me, really.”

  “Oh,” I said. I seemed to be saying that a lot lately. I wasn’t sure how much sense it made, but I supposed that to the doctor, we must have been almost like old friends. I wished I could remember him. And also whatever I’d said about Animal Farm. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

  “No problem.” He held out a hand and I shook it. Was that something doctors and patients normally did? I had no idea, but I guess it seemed appropriate. “So with your new lease on life, what do you think you’re going to do with yourself?”

  What was I going to do? That wasn’t a question I’d expected I’d ever have to answer. “Honestly,” I said. “I really have no idea.”

  Chapter 14

  It had been a very strange day. First the conversation with Abercrombie, and then the unexpected news from Dr. Slatkin. I needed to get back to Second Star and follow up with them, but my head was spinning. Everything I’d believed about my life had changed in an instant.

  I needed to talk to someone, and given my reclusive and somewhat misanthropic lifestyle, I didn’t have a lot of options. I’d tell Dan about the test results eventually, but I didn’t want to see him right now. He’d sniff out that I’d been working Krystal’s murder, and that couldn’t possibly work out well for me. There was always another A.A. meeting, but that was a few hours away, and I wasn’t really in the mood, anyway. I could hardly tell them I’d been at the hospital and somehow forgotten to go see Paul. Nobody would believe I’d forgotten. They knew me too well.

  I took my phone and dialed Molly Malone, instead. She answered on the second ring. “What’s going on, Nevada?”

  “Why do you think there’s something going on?” I asked.

  “You never call unless there’s something going on,” she said.

  I thought about that. “I’m not sure that’s entirely true,” I said. I come by the dojo and let you kick my ass sometimes and there’s nothing going on then.” I had a black belt in Shotokan karate, but Molly’s skill level was so far above mine that our sparring sessions were never much of a challenge for her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Fine. So what’s going on?”

  I sighed. “Do you have time to talk?”

  “Not about Sarah Winters, I don’t. You should know better than to even ask me that.”

  To be completely honest, I’d forgotten that Sarah was seeing Molly for therapy. “No,” I said. “Nothing to do with Sarah. Why? Did Dan give you a heads up that I might be asking?”

  “He called me and told me he’d accidentally let slip that I’m her therapist.”

  “Well, this is nothing to do with it. This is about me.”

  “Nevada…” There was a long pause. “I’ve told you before, I can be your therapist or I can be your friend. I can’t be both.”

  “I don’t need therapy.”

  “You need so much therapy some lucky doctor is going to make a fortune off you.”

  “Whatever. Can we just get a late lunch or something and have a conversation like two normal people?”

  “I don’t think we’ve actually done that in years. We can try, though” she said. “Half an hour?”

  “That works. I’m near…well, in half an hour I can be anywhere. Thai Spice?” That was an easy drive for me and near enough the dojo that Molly wouldn’t be going far out of her way. I didn’t want to drive all the way into Pacific Beach if I could avoid it. Getting into Pacific Beach was a pain in the ass.

  “See you there.”

  I arrived ten minutes early and got a table. Molly was in sweat pants and a t-shirt when she walked in. She looked like she’d just gotten out of the shower, which was entirely likely. Molly spent most of her time these days teaching karate at the dojo she’d bought with the money she’d made as a high-priced therapist. She didn’t practice much anymore, except in special circumstances. One of those special circumstances had been me, a long time ago. It hadn’t gone well. Sarah was another special case. I hoped Molly was having better luck with her than she had when I’d been in her chair.

  I stood up and she gave me a hug. Molly was a hugger and I’d learned to deal with it. She was exactly five feet tall and weighed maybe a hundred pounds. I was always afraid if I squeezed her too tight she’d shatter, but she was a great deal tougher than she looked.

  “You really look like hell,” Molly said.

  We took our chairs and I pointed at my new stitching. “Jumped through a window,” I said.

  “I heard. Did it ever occur to you to take the stairs, Nevada?”

  “Right after I jumped through the window,” I said. “It would have been a much better plan.” I cocked my head. “How did you hear? Dan tell you that, too?”

  “Does it matter who told me?”

  “Sarah, then?”

  “We’re not talking about Sarah.”

  “That doesn’t count as talking about Sarah!” I protested.

  Molly smirked at me. “Maybe you were trying to angle things in that direction.” I glared at her. “Okay, okay,” she said. She raised her hands. “I’ll accept you’re not trying to trick me into giving something away here.”

  The waiter came by and we ordered food. I wasn’t especially hungry, but I figured the restaurant staff would prefer their place not be used for impromptu meetings without them getting
something out of it. Besides, I could always get my food boxed up if I didn’t want to eat it and take it home for later. It was like getting take-out the long way.

  “So,” Molly said once the waiter had gone. “What did you want to see me about?”

  “I got some news,” I said. “I’ve been freaking out over it for the last hour or so.”

  “You’re always freaking out over something,” Molly said, “but you don’t always call me. This must be big.”

  “It’s big.”

  “So…” She waited. “Are you going to tell me what it is or did you want me to guess?”

  I sighed. “I went to the doctor,” I said. I pointed at my stitches again. “This wasn’t something I could fix myself.”

  “Sure.”

  “They took a lot of blood and tested the hell out of me.”

  Molly nodded but her face went a shade paler. She reached across the table and took my hand. “I was afraid of this,” she said. She looked into my eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Well, no, not really.”

  “Of course you’re not,” she said. “Did they give you any idea how long you have?”

  “How long?” I asked. Oh. She’d reached the same conclusion I had, of course. Clever girl. “No,” I said. “That’s just the thing. I’m fine.”

  Molly had been reaching for her glass of water with her free hand but it froze in midair. She put her hand back down on the table and shook her head. “Wait. What?”

  “I’m fine.” I nodded. “My liver is fine. It checked out. There’s no sign of organ damage.”

  “You’re fine,” Molly said. She shook her head again. “You’re fine. You can’t be fine. A year ago…”

  “A year ago my liver was dog shit,” I said. “It got better. I can’t believe it, but I’m actually healthy.”

  Molly went back to her water glass and took a drink. She swirled the liquid around, making the ice clank as she stared at it. “My god,” she finally said. “My god, Nevada.”

  “Yeah.”

  Molly put her glass down. “Okay,” she said. “That’s not the news I was expecting at all, but it’s great news.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why is it bothering you so much? You didn’t call and say you wanted to celebrate. You should be celebrating. You should be dancing in the streets after what you’ve done to yourself. Good god. You got away with it.”

  “I think you know exactly why it’s bothering me,” I said.

  Molly nodded.

  “And you’re going to make me say it,” I said.

  “Of course I am.”

  “Christ’s sake,” I said. I looked away. “It changes…because this…” I ran my fingers through my hair and hit a tangle. I really needed to start taking better care of myself. “My entire world view just got taken away. I’ve been living with…”

  “Living with what?”

  “With the assumption that I was dying,” I said. “That it didn’t matter what I did. Nothing I did. Because in two years, or maybe three at the outside, I’d be dead. And I was fine with it, as long as I caught the Laughing Man first.”

  “You could curse out your friends, live alone in a house with no furniture, jump through windows…”

  “Well,” I said. “Yeah.”

  Molly nodded. “And look at you now. Suddenly you’re faced with the prospect of having to live a real life. Suddenly it does matter what you do.” She smirked at me. Everyone seemed to be smirking at me today. “What’s that like, Nevada?”

  Our waiter came back to our table with food. We’d both ordered flat rice noodles with basil and chicken. Mine was spicy. Hers wasn’t. She started rolling her noodles onto her fork while I thought. “It’s goddamn weird,” I finally said.

  “I would think so.” She nodded.

  “Maybe I should…I don’t know…buy a couch or something.”

  “Maybe you should get a life. That’s what we’re actually talking about here.”

  She was right. The problems with my lifestyle had very little to do with furniture. It had everything to do with the fact that I lived as if there were no consequences to anything I did. I’d been a dead woman walking, and the truth was I’d kind of liked it.

  “It’s tempting,” I said. “I wonder what it would be like to live like a normal person. And not like…well, me.”

  Molly wiped her mouth with her napkin. “You know,” she said, “people come to me sometimes and have this idea that they’re unique. That nobody else has their problems, you know?”

  “That they’re all special sparkly unicorns.”

  “Well, okay,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t have put it like that.”

  “I would.”

  “But anyway, what I try to show them is that they’re not unique. Other people have had the same experiences they have and found ways to deal with them. But you’re a strange case. You actually are unique. Your relationship with the Laughing Man…I’m not sure relationship is even the right word…”

  “I’m not, either.”

  “It is, though, in a way. You two have been fighting a war against each other for years. Having an enemy has defined you, and…I’m not sure what it does for him, honestly. You have this sick kind of symbiosis that people in my field write textbooks about.”

  “Symbiosis? You’re pulling out the big words now.”

  “You know what it means. If this was a mystery novel I’d say you’re two sides of the same coin. Or that you can’t exist without each other. You’re like Batman and the Joker.”

  “You like Batman?”

  “Everyone likes Batman. Stop changing the subject. The thing is you’ve had this going on for so long.”

  “Not for lack of my trying to end it. I just can’t find the motherfucker.”

  “And that might be the only way to end it,” Molly said. “You could stop chasing him, Nevada, but I don’t think he’d ever stop chasing you. It isn’t over until…”

  “One of us is dead,” I finished the sentence for her.

  Molly nodded. “If you just gave up, what do you think he’d do?”

  “I think he’d visit me at my house and make me smile,” I said. The Laughing Man’s calling card was the exaggerated grin he carved into the faces of his victims. He’d promised to give me one someday.

  “He probably would,” Molly said. “So I don’t know how you’d ever have a normal life until he’s out of the picture.” She shook her head. “It’s like you have to deal with that first. You could never settle down or have a family while he’s out there.”

  “I never said I wanted a family,” I said.

  “You used to talk about it,” she said. “A long time ago.”

  “I did?” How long had I known Molly? It had to have been a long time. I hadn’t said anything like that in recent memory.

  “You did. And I know you won’t believe this, but you have a lot to offer. I know someone I could introduce you to.”

  I was about to ask how much she hated that person, but decided not to. “It’s irrelevant,” I said. “Even if I thought I could live with another person, and I’m not sure I could at this point, anyone I was involved with would be a target for the Laughing Man.”

  “Yes,” Molly said. “They would.”

  “I wouldn’t even risk getting a cat. I’d come home one night and…god knows what I’d find.”

  Molly nodded. “So I guess that’s an obstacle that has to be overcome. No big changes until the Laughing Man has been dealt with. You could at least do some small things, though. Now that you’re going to have to get yourself a life. Maybe start with getting a couch. It would be nice to go over to your house and have a place to sit for a change.” She frowned. “And also to feel like I’m not in Fort Knox. You practically live in a bank vault.”

  “Well, that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

  “I know.”

  “Watch the Laughing Man kill someone in your house while you’re taped to a chair and a bank vault doesn
’t seem like a bad place to live.”

  “I said I know, Nevada. I wasn’t criticizing you.”

  “A couch, though. Maybe a couch.” I shrugged. “It’s not the worst idea in the world.”

  I thought about telling her what Abercrombie had offered me, but decided against it. I knew what she’d say. She’d say I couldn’t run away from my problems. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about it myself, honestly. I had a lot of thinking to do.

  Chapter 15

  Molly and I finished our lunch and went our separate ways. It was getting too late to head out to the women’s crisis center. I decided to go there first thing in the morning. I wound up arriving just before 10:00 am. That was as close to “first thing” that I ever got.

  Vanessa was behind the counter at reception. Today she wore a bolero cardigan and she’d put her hair into pigtails, which made me do a double-take when I saw her. I hadn’t seen anyone wearing pigtails since junior high school. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen an adult try them. I wondered if it was a new trend I wasn’t aware of. I didn’t know anything about trends. I’d barely bothered to brush my own hair this morning, although I was pretty sure there weren’t any more tangles in it.

  Vanessa’s eyes widened slightly when she saw me. “Oh, Detective James,” she said. She squinted. “Did something go wrong with your stitches? The one looks new.” She pointed at her cheek.

  “I had an itch,” I said. “How are you, Vanessa?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. Would you care for a coffee?”

  “Not really.”

  She nodded. “Forgive me if this is an awkward question, but why are you here? I told you that the person you were looking for hadn’t been here.”

  “Ah.” I held up a finger. “But it turns out she had been here.”

  Vanessa’s eyes widened slightly. “Well, okay,” she said. “Like I said, maybe I was away from the desk at the time.”

  “Any of your usual replacements here now?”

  “I guess all of them are,” Vanessa said. She frowned. “I couldn’t tell you who might have been sitting up here when your friend came by.”