Death of a Cure

by Steven H Jackson

  “Are you hurt? I spoke into her ear, not releasing my grip, not allowing her to move. She remained still, waiting for me.

  “Everywhere,” she said more in exasperation than in pain but with complete awareness. She wasn’t fading on me.

  “Everywhere is good. Can you feel each hand and each foot? Try them separately,” I ordered, keeping my voice calm.

  “Yes. I can feel and move each OK.”

  So far, so good. “I am going to slip my arm out. Be still. Try not to move.” I managed to get my left arm out from under her shoulders, my forearm complaining where it had been the fender between her head and the granite. My elbow set off a new series of electric shocks. I managed not to pull her hair out where it had been trapped under me. Getting to my hands and knees, I got my little 9-volt LED light out of my pocket. There would be a bruise-outline of it later. Turning it on, I scanned up and down her body. Dress torn at the shoulder, destroyed nylons, one sandal heel bent at 90 degrees.

  “Can I get up?” she asked, rather nicely all things considered.

  “No,” I responded without the niceness.

  I used my hands to search for damage and was rewarded with two small exclamations of pain and one giggle that she tried to hide. I slid my hands under her, one at the rib cage and one at mid thigh. Gently pulling, she slid out on the grass away from the wall, and then I supported her head and spine as I rolled her onto her back. She tried to lift her head up as a first step to sitting. I stopped her with my left hand.

  “Give me a minute,” I ordered — no request. Shining the light to her face, I carefully checked each pupil — reactive and even. “I can’t see anything serious, but you are going to feel it later,” I said, my relief evident.

  I helped her to a sitting position and brushed a dead leaf from her hair. She looked at me, “As much as I appreciate the professional concern for my health and the opportunity it has provided for you to feel me up, shouldn’t you be letting someone do the same for you?”

  “It’s too soon for paramedics, and I’m pretty good at self-assessment.” Her expression said that she didn’t believe the last part, so I followed up with, “Don’t worry, I’m pretty hard headed. I’m fine.” She took the light from me and did her own inspection. Deciding that I wasn’t going to pass out on her, she let it go.

  My next concern was preserving the scene. My Beretta had shifted, and I moved it back. Looking for Marilena’s purse I located it about ten feet away. I got up and retrieved it, not so much worried about some bystander lifting her wallet as I was about the Glock. By the time I had returned, she was on her feet looking at the tire tracks in the grass back to the street where the mud had left marks. Taking her purse, she removed her cell phone. With the camera function on, she held the phone in front of her looking at the ground.

  “Not enough light here in the grass,” she said, pointing out the deficiency of most cell phone cameras.

  We moved to the sidewalk. Several onlookers had stopped and one reported that he had called 911. I thanked him. Marilena took several pictures of the tire tracks better illuminated closer to the street lamp. We looked at the hedges and couldn’t find any car parts stuck in among them.

  The first patrolman, excuse me, patrolwoman (patrolperson?) arrived and demanded to know what had happened. What had we been doing? Marilena sensed that my response was going to be at the very least argumentative and probably offensive. She produced her FBI badge and ID, both in a leather holder, and held it out to the beat cop for inspection, not collection.

  “I’m Special Agent Rigatti,” she spoke in her official, cop-to-cop voice. My friend and I were almost run down by a yellow cab.” Her tone accusatory and setting the cop back as if the incident could have been prevented by better local law enforcement. Also, she must have seen more of the yellow car than I had. “We were walking on the sidewalk when it left the street.”

  “You jumped over these here bushes?” the uniform asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “Did you know the cab driver? Do you think it was intentional?” Both questions amazed me.

  “No,” I answered again. Marilena lifted one eyebrow a millimeter, maybe two.

  “Did anyone else here see anything or get a plate number? A cab number?” she unenthusiastically addressed the small crowd and got blank looks and shrugs for her trouble. Looking back at us, she continued, “Well, almost a hit and run as you didn’t get hit. Do either of you want to make a complaint or go to the hospital?”

  We declined and she spoke into her radio. Her report to her supervisor seemed to have more to do with the property damage than us. By listening to the cop and given her lack of enthusiasm reporting the event, you would think that pedestrian run-downs were a common occurrence. Then it dawned on me — they were. I love this town.

  We provided names, addresses, and contact info, and started back for the condo. So much for interdepartmental concern between New York’s finest and the FBI, I was less than impressed. Once again I placed myself between Marilena and the street. This time, my head was on a swivel, looking for homicidal motorists.

  We managed the block and a half without incident. The first of the night shift doormen popped out to hold open the entry. When he noticed Marilena’s torn dress and one remaining shoe in hand, his eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. He didn’t give me a first look, much less a second.

  “Signora! What happened? Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice genuinely concerned. A definite improvement over the cop.

  “We’re OK. A car came up on the sidewalk and almost hit us,” she explained.

  “Oh, my God. We have a doctor on call. Do you want me to get him?”

  “No thank you,” she answered. “I have my own personal physician right here.”

  “Oh, yes. Dr. Briggs.” He paused. And then, to me a little late, “Dr. Briggs, are you OK?”

  And so it went all through the lobby, the hired help very concerned about the lady, a little about me. At one point, when we seemed to have the greatest number of worried attendants, Marilena looked at me with a devilish smile and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “You sure know how to show a lady a good time!” For the second time that night, I was concerned about my personal safety.

  We made it upstairs to the condo leaving a small, angry mob of doormen defending the portal from assault, each wondering why I had not done more to protect the lovely Signora.

  “Like some aspirin?” I inquired with a smile.

  “Is that all you doctors know?”

  “First year, first day, first class in med school,” I answered.

  “I think I am going to sadly throw this dress, one of my favorites, in the trash. You will buy me two tomorrow. Then, I am going to take a hot bath. Think you can keep any crazed drivers at bay until I am done?”

  “No problem. We’ll hear them gunning their engines as they come up the stairs. Give us plenty of time to barricade the door.”

  Off she went. I was going to let her use the single guest bath first and wait my turn. I didn’t have it in me yet to use Ron’s. Even though she had not closed the bathroom door, attempting to use the shower stall while she was in the tub would be begging for trouble. Anyway, I had something important to do, and I didn’t want to wait.

  I removed my pistol from the pancake holster and took Marilena’s out of her purse. In the den-turned-into-a-shop, I unloaded and broke down each weapon. Her firearm, in spite of her previous commentary, had been recently cleaned and lightly oiled. A lighted magnifier allowed for a careful inspection of each piece making sure that there were no broken or bent parts. Cleaning and reassembly forced an even more careful examination. Once returned to a supposedly operable condition, I dry fired each gun. All joking aside about murderous cars coming up the stairs, I felt a lot better after I had reloaded.

  Later, after a shower and having returned to the living room, I joined Marilena on the couch.

  “Two questions,” I said.

  “A
nd they are?” she responded knowing what one of them was, curious as to the other.

  “Inept driver or inept killer?”

  “Killer, and not so inept. He came close, very close,” she said somberly. “By the way, thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Whatever did you see or hear that made you move so fast? One minute I’m walking next to you thinking about how to take your mind off of your brother’s death if only for dinner and then I am flying through the air. It wasn’t until I was rolling across the grass with you that I saw the cab chasing us across the lawn.”

  “The traffic on Central Park West is one way. It’s northbound and we were walking against it,” I said.

  “And.”

  “The car behind us was getting closer, and it was on our side of the street. He was at the curb driving against the oncoming traffic. The carriage driver tipped me.”

  “Not that I am complaining, but from that you acted? A car driving the wrong way on a one-way street?”

  “My sense of self-preservation is highly tuned. Dying on the street in New York would be bad for my rep. I jump out of harm’s way in a flash. It seemed convenient to take you with me,” trying again unsuccessfully to make light of it. It’s a defensive mechanism used by those of us in jobs that are sometimes dangerous. If you can joke about a close call, then you won’t dwell on it to the point where the memory gets in the way.

  “Do you agree with me?” she asked, referring to her belief that we were targeted and not just in the wrong place.

  “Yes. The driver worked pretty hard coming after us after getting up on the sidewalk. He wasn’t drunk. He managed to get between a fire hydrant and a phone pole on his way back to the street. He came as close to the building wall as he could given his speed. No, it was not an accident followed up by someone fleeing the scene.”

  “Not tonight, but tomorrow I want to see your list — the list of suspects that the precinct commander gave you. I want to compare it with whom you have been speaking,” she said, back in investigator mode so soon after the attempt on her life. She was something else, tougher than she looked.

  “What is your second question,” she asked remembering.

  “Are you still hungry?”

  I was happy to hear her laugh. “You are thinking about food?”

  “Yep. Gotta keep the old furnace fueled. Man can’t live on unfulfilled promises of fine dining alone — he must have pizza!”

  She laughed some more and said she would take care of it. Calling downstairs, she asked a member of her personal fan club how to go about “procuring a pizza.” With an enthusiastic promise of “no problema!” our team of doormen got the operation underway with an energy level and attention to detail that would have impressed NASA.

  Later, we drank ice-cold beer to wash down pepperoni and sausage-laced bread dough from a purported Chicago-style pizzeria conveniently located right here in New York City. We talked about anything but the problem we were here to resolve. Until we got some more answers, hopefully tomorrow, there was nowhere to go with that conversation.

  She steered the talk to my childhood and my adult life with Ron. At first I thought she was trying to fill in the holes about me. But the more she gently probed, the more it became obvious that she just wanted me to talk about Ron. When the realization hit me, I surprised myself by continuing to do as she asked and not clamming up, having realized that I was being somewhat manipulated. It was comforting to talk about him to Marilena. I told her things that I would never have imagined myself revealing to anyone. The more I spoke, the more the anger inside of me diminished. She knew it would.

  Hours later, neither of us wanting to be alone, we sat close together watching the late news. She had brought the comforter from her bed to the sofa. I had my arm around her as she leaned against me using me as a support and pillow. It wasn’t sexual. It was simply two people staying close after a harrowing experience. Somehow the TV got turned off and two tired friends, having shared a very scary event, fell asleep. Security, different for each, enhanced by the other’s presence.

  FUNERAL HOME

  It’s an occupational side effect. I wake up in strange places, sometimes not remembering how I got there. You get used to it and the thought that some day you would have a routine way of life, secure by society’s standards, is actually unsettling. I had briefly awakened twenty minutes earlier when Marilena disentangled herself and carefully moved from the sofa, immediately falling back to sleep as she slipped away. She had tried not to wake me — that would have been impossible. Now in the nearby kitchen, she was working hard at not making any noise. She couldn’t, however, disguise the aroma of frying sausage. Given the way it smelled, I wouldn’t have wanted her to.

  Getting up required stretching out the kinks acquired from a night on the leather sectional and not on a mattress. My right shoulder a little sore from bearing up under the girl-weight throughout the night. I wasn’t going to complain about that. I might, however, mention the collection of aches and pains that had emerged from our previous evening’s gymnastics. There was still some numbness in my left arm where I had whacked the granite. I’d be happy when the paresthesia had departed.

  Moving to my bedroom, I changed into shorts and a sweatshirt. After a quick trip to the shared facilities to brush my teeth, I walked into the kitchen. I was surprised to see that Marilena had changed into a USMC T-shirt complete with the picture of Chesty, the English bulldog, and, unless I was mistaken, it belonged to me. Due to its size, she was lost in it, and it made an acceptable cover up with the short sleeves coming down to her elbows. Still, when she moved, Chesty became very animated making it obvious that there was nothing on underneath. If the Marine Corps could film this as a recruiting tool, they would be beating the highly motivated, prospective enlistees off with a stick. I elected not to comment about that and only hoped that the shirt she appropriated was the remaining clean one from my bag. She was getting comfortable with me, too comfortable.

  She had discovered where the pans and cooking implements were located. Although we had shared several meals in restaurants, I had never seen her cook anything before. I was greeted with a smile and she seemed happy to be preparing a meal.

  “Good morning!” she said brightly.

  “Good morning yourself, Marine,” I replied resigning myself to the fact that I did not have any clean Tshirts left. Oh, well. She looked better in it than I did.

  She smiled and delivered food from pans to plates. As someone who does not enjoy cooking, I am always extremely appreciative of anyone who will prepare something for me to eat. I made the right thank you comments that she accepted with more pleasure than I would have expected. An hour later we were showered, shaved, and shined. I did the dishes while she made phone calls. Marilena reappeared in time to show me the proper storage locations for the kitchen stuff. She only re-washed two items. It was ten o’clock when we left for the funeral home.

  We had both dressed in casual clothes and were wearing shoes that could go the distance. In this case, the distance was eleven blocks. Franklin and Franklin, a converted brownstone was located without difficulty. Because the door was at street level, it was unlike most of the businesses now occupying a former mini-mansion. A flight of stairs, even a short one, would have made it difficult for their elderly clientele to make it to viewings. Young people, those who can handle stairs, for the most part don’t go to viewings anymore. We were greeted by Oliver Franklin, fourth generation embalmer, and a cold handshake.

  “Colonel Briggs?” he rhetorically asked.

  “Yes. This is Miss Rigatti,” I added. He actually bowed in Marilena’s direction. All undertakers must belong to the same union where they ascribe to mannerisms that would be strange if affected by anyone but them.

  “I am saddened to meet you in this time of personal and family sorrow,” he recited his follow-up lines from well-practiced memory. Unless we behaved in some unexpected way, he could conduct our entire meeting employing a creepy au
topilot.

  “Let me escort you inside so we can finalize arrangements for the deceased,” he said.

  By referring to Ron as the “deceased,” he did not have to worry about mistaking my relationship to the body — another auto-mechanism hiding the fact that this was to him just another yet-to-be-planted-corpse while feigning a personal alignment with our expected grieving.

  We followed him down the hall to the “Taft Memorial Room” so identified by the well-polished engraving next to the doorway. They had prepared for the sale with practiced ease. As we walked in, we were confronted with eight caskets. All of them one-half open, showing stuffed, satin linings. They were arranged with a simpler box, albeit highly polished, at one end, progressing steadily to more and more elaborate and ornate entombments as you moved down the line. The casket at the far end was the objective of the sale. Before I let him start on the features, advantages and benefits of the different coffins, I cut him off.

  “I’m not interested in caskets. Where’s the body?” I asked quietly, but with an edge.

  “That would be unwise at this time. Most people find it traumatic to see a loved one before we have completed our work. It is always best to wait until we have had time to dress and prepare the body. I believe that you might want to select an appropriate vessel for your loved one prior to viewing the body, which at this time, by the way, is wholly unnecessary.”

  “The body. Now.” I glared at him. Marilena added to the heat with an unblinking frown.

  “If you must,” he said backing down but his tone patronizing.

  I started for the door, and trying to stay in charge, he actually had to move quickly to beat me there so he could get in front and lead us. Probably the fastest six feet he had covered in fifteen years. On the way, I saddened Franklin, a rare event I believe, by informing him that my brother would be cremated: no casket required and I was not in the market for an expensive urn. His grief, genuine for once, at losing a pricey casket sale was poorly hidden.