Gemelman frosted over. "We do not respond well to bluffs or threats, sir. We do respond to court orders properly issued. Feel free to pursue that course if you please. But now, if you don't mind . . ."
I rose. "Thanks for your time, Doctor."
I left his office and stopped near his secretary's desk to tie my shoelace. Her internal phone line buzzed. She picked it up, seemed to interrupt the caller by saying, "Oh, but he's still . . ." then simply said, "Yes, yes," several times while avoiding my gaze. I was pretty sure that she was being told by Gemelman to issue an incommunicado decree regarding me to the rest of the staff. I decided I ought to ask my landlord Karen if she ever mentioned Marek's name to Gemelman. I was pretty sure I hadn't told her his name, and I was damn sure I hadn't mentioned it to Gemelman before he'd used it himself. I called Jim from a public phone in the lobby. He said that most hospitals in the city were tight with information, especially when there might have been something nobody wanted to reveal. He said I'd need a lot more legalese on paper before a judge in Chicago would order one of its own to open up. I thanked him and said I might be back to him, but I doubted it. He asked if he could show me some more of the town that night, but I told him I had to leave. He promised to let me reciprocate if he ever got to Boston. He also said he'd have Karen call me about the matter when she got back from her conference.
I cabbed to the hotel, my insides not quite up to lunch yet. I called United and got my ticket changed to an earlier flight. I packed up, checked out, and was driven to O'Hare by someone who looked like nobody famous. I was on the ground in Philadelphia by 3:00 P.M. Eastern Time and in front of Philadelphia Lutheran Hospital on City Line Avenue by 4:00 nm.
I should have stayed in Chicago.
The administrative physician was on vacation. His secretary, a blond young woman with the complexion and shape of a Bartlett pear, told me that such information was not available without the permission of the subject or the direction of the secretary 's absent superior. My use of the name Clifford Marek brought a cough and a sidesaddle smile, more reaction, I thought, than recalling the name only from a pink telephone message should have produced. I tried to pry some information from that opening, but the secretary knew both her job and a con job when she heard one. I left her and went back downstairs.
I thought about continuing on to New York then, but as I went backward through Marek's career I was losing ground, and heart along with it. Instead, I checked into a cut-rate motel near the hospital and next to a mini-mall on City Line. Thanks to the previous night with Jim, dinner consisted of a bland deli sandwich, two pieces of Drake's Pound cake, and a quart of milk.
TWENTY-SIX
-•-
Considering time and distance to the respective airports, it is easier to travel from Philadelphia to New York by train than by plane. I caught the Amtrak Narragansett from Thirtieth Street Station at 8:30 A.M. and pulled into Penn Station at 10:20. Given my luck so far, I left my bag in a locker and took a taxi to New York Central Hospital. True to its name, the hospital building was located just off Central Park South. The exterior wore that dingy look that all but recently completed structures in the Big Apple seem to have. The interior, peeling linoleum floors and matching paint, was no improvement. The directory said I would find Psychiatric Services on the ninth floor.
There was a counter just off the elevator bank. The people behind it were dressed in no particular uniform. A thirtyish black male with hip-hugger pants and a caricatured lisp asked if he could help me.
"I'm a private investigator from Boston, and I'd like some information about a doctor who used to work here."
"Well, anyone who's come that kind of distance ought to get all the help I can give. What's the doctor's name?"
"Clifford Marek."
The man stiffened, then crossed his arms. "I've worked in this office for eleven years and that kind of information . is not available without the doctor's authorization or Ms. Smith's approval."
"Who's Ms. Smith?"
He swiveled around, pointing to a barely readable plaque on a closed door behind the counter. "The boss."
"Look, I'm not trying to be a wise-ass, but I've been chasing this thing for a couple of thousand miles now. Can I speak to Ms. Smith and explain things to her?"
"Certainly. Your name, please?"
I told him and he walked to the door, knocked, and waited. He frowned impatiently, knocked again, then opened the door and disappeared inside. He emerged a minute later leading a thickset middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense look to her.
"Mr. Cuddy, is it?" she said.
"Yes."
"Come in. Suley, hold my calls."
"Yessam," he said, derision in his voice.
I walked through the opening in the counter and into Ms. Smith's office. She indicated a seat for me and then plopped decisively into her own chair. "Now, what's this all about?"
I told her, including names and places.
She shook her head. "I can't release any such information about Dr. Marek."
"Ms. Smith—"
"Mr. Cuddy, either you obtain the doctor's authorization or a court order. We simply can't give out that kind of information otherwise. Every administrative superior in this hospital will back me on that."
"Tel1 me, does this insistence on procedures get triggered just by Dr. Marek's name?" I
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean that every time this particular man is mentioned in a hospital setting, everyday reasonable people go immediately bureaucratic on me." I regretted my choice of words before the last one was out of my mouth. You don't call a bureaucrat a bureaucrat and hope to receive any cooperation.
She buttoned up and stood up. "Have a nice day, Mr. Cuddy."
"Thanks. You too."
I let myself out of her office and walked toward the opening in the counter.
"Oh, Mr. Cuddy," said Suley, extending a folded piece of paper to me.
"Yes?"
"You dropped this on the way in to Ms. Smith."
I looked down at his hand. "I don't-"
"You did," he said, pushing the paper toward me. "I saw you."
"Thanks," I said, taking it from him.
He arched an eyebrow and said, "Glad to help," then returned to some other documents on the counter. I waited until I was in the elevator before opening the paper. In ornate handwriting, it read: "Talk to Agnes Zerle, somewhere on the Boulevard in West New York. Tell her Diana Ross sent you. If Smith finds out, I'm blackened dogfish."
I smiled, refolded the note, and stuck it in my pocket.
* * *
"You mean New Jersey, pal," said the cabbie.
"No, I was told West New York."
"Yeah, but West New York is in New Jersey. Like a town there, get it?"
"Not exactly. How far is it?"
"Maybe ten miles. You'd be better off taking a bus."
"Where can I catch one'?"
"Port Authority. Eighth and Forty-first. You wanna go there?"
"Please."
It was a short hop to the Port Authority building. I found a telephone book that had Ms. Zerle listed. I got no answer. I copied down her address and unsuccessfully asked some people where I could get a bus for West New York. After fending off two incredibly aggressive panhandlers, I found a ticket window for New Jersey Transit and bought a round-trip ticket on the number 165 local, departing platform 62. I found the platform up several nonconnecting flights of stairs and got on a huge, air-conditioned bus with contiguous lines of orange, lavender, and blue as racing stripes along the side. The bus was crowded, and I sat next to a dark-featured man reading a newspaper in what I believed were Arabic characters. From what I could hear around me, about half the passengers spoke Spanish. We crawled through the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey and through several mazes of over- and underpasses. Then we began driving along a high, wide road paralleling the Hudson River, on the right and several hundred feet down. At the first stop, I noticed a street sign that said
BOULEVARD EAST. I left my seat and took one across from the driver.
"I want number sixty-three fifteen on the boulevard."
"In West New York?"
"Right."
"We got a ways to go yet. I'll let you know."
"Thanks."
I watched the view of the river and the New York skyline across it, alternately spectacular and obstructed, depending upon whether someone had built a massive condominium between the cliff and the road. I could recognize only the twin towers of the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building, and the Citicorp Building, the last looking like a white, visored robot. In the Hudson itself, an ivory and red excursion boat plowed northward. Back on my side of the river, the inland edge of the boulevard had gas stations, Elks and VFWs, and lots of funeral homes. Spaced among them was old-fashioned two-story immigrant housing, upgraded from wood to fieldstone by the second generation. Now it was being disfigured by picture windows and sun decks, courtesy of the yuppies who probably were pushing out the third generation.
"Next stop, buddy."
"Thanks."
Number 6315 was a five-story yellow-brick apartment building on the inland side. Ms. Zerle didn't answer her buzzer any better than she had her phone. I tried the superintendent's button and drew a gut-busting guy wearing a soiled plaid shirt and carrying a can of Piels. When I asked about Ms. Zerle, he waved to a stretch of grass and benches across the street and started to close the door. When I asked him how I'd recognize her, he said, "Can't miss Agnes. She's the only broad wearin' both blue hair and a bikini."
I thanked him and crossed the street.
I guess you could call it a park. There were a few young mothers with kids in strollers, speaking to them and each other in foreign languages or broken English. Mostly, though, there were old people, bundled up even in the warm May sunshine, perhaps three times as many women as men. Next to two young men stretched out on chaise longues was a woman in a tiger-stripe bikini. She looked near seventy, with that leathery surface the elderly get to their skin when they stay in the sun too long. The two men had black, close-cropped hair and a huge boom box radio between them. They were wearing a lot of coconut oil and a little span of Speedo trunks. The woman was tapping one finger against the slack flesh of her right thigh, following the music more than they were.
I said, "Excuse me. Ms. Zerle?"
She opened her eyes, levered up onto an elbow.
"Yeah?"
"My name's John Cuddy. I'd like some information about a doctor you might know."
"What makes you think I know him?"
"What makes you think it's a he?"
She rolled back down dismissively. "Because in my time, women weren't what you'd call encouraged to be doctors, so I don't know many that are. And I don't know you, and I'm not interested in answering any questions, so why don't you beat it?"
"Ms. Zerle, I've come a long way on a tough job, and I'd appreciate just a few minutes. I've—"
"Hey, Agnes," said one of the guys, looking first at me, then at her. "You want us to get rid of this guy?"
I was tempted, but I wasn't there to fight. Before she could answer him, I said, "Ms. Zerle, Diana Ross sent me."
The other guy cursed and started to sit up, but Agnes said, "Tony . . ." in a cautionary manner, and he stayed put. She turned to me and said, "Who told you to say that?"
"A guy at the hospital. He handed me this."
She took the paper from me, unfolded and read it. She laughed, offered it back to me. "That's his handwriting, all right. Why don't we move over toward the river. That bench." She said to the first guy, "Sal, watch my stuff, okay?"
He said, "Sure. Yell if you want us."
"Thanks."
Zerle moved toward the bench, me trailing. She strode purposefully, a woman used to walking in order to get from task to task during a busy day. While the unkindness of gravity made everything sag, she still was trim and even graceful in the revealing suit. She sat down, crossed her legs, and said, "Who do you want to know about?"
"A psychiatrist who's working in the Boston area now. I'm helping the defense of a college student. The student is, or rather was, a patient of his who's accused of murdering a girl who was also a patient. There's some indication that the girl and the doctor might have had a relationship outside the therapy group."
"Son, if you'd come to the point, we might finish quicker. You mean sexual relationship'?"
"Yes."
"Okay, what's the doctor's name?"
"Marek. Clifford Marek."
She stood up, seemed suddenly chilled. She crossed her arms as Suley had at the hospital, but she shivered a bit and hugged herself.
I started to take off my jacket, but she saw me peripherally and shook her head. "No, no. I'm not cold. It's just . . . Your situation doesn't sound like Marek. No, I don't think so."
"What do you mean?"
"I think you'd better go."
"Look . . ."
"Do you want me to call Sal and Tony— over here?"
"No, and I don't want to go a few rounds with them, either. But you're the closest thing to a wedge into this case that I've found, and if that's what it'll take to open you up, then call them."
She sighed, then looked as if she wanted to spit. "Did . . . What's the name of the patient they're accusing?"
"His name is Daniels, William Daniels. He was the dead girl's boyfr—well, lover."
"Daniels."
"Yes."
She took a minute, then made up her mind and asked, face to the river, "This Daniels, is he black?"
TWENTY-SEVEN
-•-
"Suley's a female impersonator. On the side, that is, to make a few extra dollars. He does a great Diana Ross. You'd swear you were watching her. More tea?"
I said, "No, thanks," and she looked down into her own cup, wrapping her robe around her more tightly but not speaking. We had come back to her place so that we could talk privately, but she hadn't wanted to get into it, so I was smart for a change and didn't push.
"Yeah, old Suley—and he is old, don't let that unlined face and swishy style fool you; Suley, he's pushing forty-five—old Suley is a talented fella, and a smart one too. He would have had my job when I retired if he just weren't such a flamer that he made everybody upstairs nervous. So instead they bring in Smith from some small law firm she was running—as office manager; she's not a lawyer herself—and old Suley stays where he is."
Zerle played with her spoon, started to wring out a little more from the tea bag into her cup, then put everything down. She said, "If I talk to you now, what are the chances of me having to testify about it?"
"In court in Boston?"
"Yeah."
"I could be cute and say I won't know that until I've heard what you've got to say, but basically I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, either. But I think you ought to assume you might have to. This is a murder case, and I think that witnesses can be made to cross state lines if they have important enough information. It might be out of my hands."
Zerle seemed to like honest better than cute. She sank back into her chair and started speaking, slowly, as though she were narrating for children.
"It happened in the early seventies sometime. The records would have the exact dates and all, if the records are still there, and they were there when I left four years ago. Marek came to us as a psychiatry resident. He was on a two-year program. I think he didn't go right to medical school from college, because he seemed older somehow than the other residents, but I'm not too sure now. Anyway, he came in, and was assigned some groups, and individuals, and began treating them. It was a while before anything . . . before anybody started saying anything, but there was something not quite right about him. Like he'd have the most interest in some of the easiest cases and spend too much time on them and not enough on some of the real bad ones he had. Usually, that just means the chief resident or even somebody higher has a talk with him, and he straightens out his priorities. But with Marek, I don'
t know, it didn't seem so much like oversight on his part as intention, that he started to sneak the time to see these less sick patients.
"What was weird is that he was doing all right by his other patients-the real bad ones, I mean. He was doing average anyway, if you're talking in terms of results. But anyone who dealt with him could tell he really had a knack of cutting through and getting to most of the sick ones, and so we kind of resented, I guess, his not spending the time with them so that his knack could work more good for them. Then some of the patients . . . She looked up at me.
"Yes?"
She looked down again. "The black patients, they started saying things, at first among themselves, then some of the braver ones to us—to me, that is. That Marek was, well, using them for sex. At first, you tend to dismiss that kind of talk. I mean, you really can't take straight what most of the patients say because a lot of them are in there because of what they say. But the talk, not complaints so much as just gossip, started to get out of hand and then one of them . . . She stopped, but this time she didn't look to me for a prompt, so I kept still.
Zerle made a noise with her tongue off the roof of her mouth. "One of the patients got a cord off some blinds somewhere and hanged himself. He left kind of a note, about Marek. That tore it. I thought, if only I'd done something sooner. But the dead patient was black, destitute, and had no family we knew of, so nothing happened directly to the hospital. We had an intemal review, and Marek left soon after that."
She didn't appear to be close to starting again, so I said, "I had the impression that when Marek came to Massachusetts, part of the application was a certification from his last job and state, in Illinois, that he was basically competent and of good character."
"Probably."
"But how?"
"How?"
"How could he go from here even to Philly, which was his next stop, much less on to Chicago and then Boston, with this kind of a mess in his record?"
A faint smile of experience faded quickly. "We didn't fire him, Mr. Cuddy. We allowed him to resign from the hospital's residency program."
"Why?"
"Because of what he did."
So Like Sleep - Jeremiah Healy Page 16