by Nick Trout
Her thumbs begin clicking on the phone’s keypad like she’s typing code.
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m a professional.”
I’m left in no doubt.
“Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll call my mom and have her drop off the money. I’ve put my phone number in your contact list so that if there are any problems, you go through me, capisce?”
If she’s trying to distract me from her sketchy behavior with a famous phrase from Coppola’s The Godfather, it’s not working.
“And, um, this just in… you need to get some friends. In the meantime, treat yourself to a sundae.”
Charlize hands over the ice cream voucher, along with my phone. There are nine perfect holes, three rows of three, punched into the card, and the announcement—tenth sundae is on the house.
I thank her and step out into the cold.
“No,” she says, “thank you, Tommy Lovelace.”
6
IT’S THE ONLY OTHER VEHICLE IN THE PRACTICE lot—the gray minivan. It’s got windowless double doors at the back and what was probably a business ad or a logo brushed out by hand with mismatched house paint.
Looks like someone still needs that big favor.
I jump down from the Silverado as the driver’s side door swings open.
“You free to see me now?” asks the gaunt man behind the wheel.
Even though the dog next to him doesn’t move a muscle, I can almost sense the creature’s anticipation.
“Sure. Come on in.”
The man swings his legs out to the side and shuffles to the edge of his seat, preparing to rise. His jeans ride up above his socks, exposing bony ankles and blue bruises on alabaster white skin.
“Need a hand?”
“No,” insists the man, “we’ve got this. Stash, stick.”
The command is quiet and relaxed, a throwaway line, but Stash leaps between the front seats and into the back of the van before emerging with a wooden walking stick balanced between his jaws. Somehow the dog negotiates the ninety-degree turn, the seats, and the steering wheel like a skilled waiter carrying a platter through a crowded restaurant. What the dog lacks in appearance (he sports a wild dreadlock coat) he makes up for with remarkable dexterity, depositing the curved handle in his master’s open palm.
No reward, simply on to the next instruction. “Stash, stand.” On a dime, the poodle spins around and comes to rest in a standing position adjacent to the open door. I note the way Stash drops his head and neck ever so slightly, bracing, locking his elbows, before taking the brunt of the man’s trembling weight as he eases into a full upright position, the walking stick more for balance than support.
Seconds pass as the man sucks down mouthfuls of icy air before saying, “Stash, come.” I hold the front door open and the two of them amble into the waiting room, no leash necessary, the dog’s nose never more than a few inches from the man’s left thigh.
“Why don’t you give Doris here your details. She’ll make up a file and then we can head over to the exam room. Just got to dump my stuff.”
I raise my doctor’s bag and keep moving toward the door marked PRIVATE that leads to the central work area.
“Won’t need a file,” says the man. “Only want a quick word. In private.”
It’s not easy to guess the man’s age, but I’m betting he’s a whole lot younger than he looks. A black woolen cap accentuates his baby-bird features and jug-handle ears, and I can’t tell the color of his eyes because they live in the eclipse of his sockets. His leather bomber jacket looks empty and stiff, as if it’s full of helium, the white fur collar drawing the eye to a garish Adam’s apple, slung under the angle of his wishbone jaw, the cartilage sharp and agitated.
The pathologist in me imagines all sorts of grim diseases. He reminds me of one of those tragic final photos of Rock Hudson or Patrick Swayze. A quick word. How big can this favor possibly be?
Doris stares at me. Stash stares at his master. Doris is hard to read—leery or irritated or both. I’m pretty sure she thinks he’s not going to pay for my time.
“Okay,” I say. “This way.”
I ignore Doris as she shakes her head and clucks her tongue. If the man catches her disapproval, he doesn’t let on.
I gesture for the man to take a seat on the wooden bench, but presumably for practical reasons, he waves the offer away.
“What can I do for you, Mr.…”
“Better you don’t know my name, Dr. Mills. Better you don’t know nothing about me, period.”
Uh-oh. Maybe Doris was right.
“Okay. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
The man leans into the exam table for support. He flexes the fingers of his left hand, a subtle beckoning gesture, and Stash instantly sits and backs into a position so his flanks are touching the leg of his master’s jeans.
“See, I spoke to people round town. They told me about you, said you were a good man, said you helped out a pregnant girl, found a missing dog, ran a free clinic.”
Boy, everyone loves free.
“Figured you for the kind of guy who’d be receptive to my proposal. Figured you for a doctor with a heart. A doctor with a conscience.”
Where is this headed? I flash back to when I was maybe six or seven, my mother taking the stranger-danger lecture to the next level.
Beware of compliments from people you don’t know. They want something you won’t want to give.
I glance at Stash. This cannot be good.
“It’s an unusual request, but you and I have a whole lot more in common than you know.”
Now we’re cut from the same cloth?
“I grew up round here as well. Like you, I eventually came home, only you got this practice and I got this dog.”
I got Bedside Manor and he got Stash? What’s that supposed to mean?
“And I wouldn’t ask unless I was totally desperate and had nowhere else to turn.”
“Let me just stop you right there, whoever you are, because if you’re going to ask me to put your dog to sleep and this dog doesn’t have a painful or terminal illness, then you’re wasting your time.”
The man recoils. “Not him. Not Stash. I want you to help put me to sleep, in so many words.”
Should I be looking for the hidden camera? Is this a joke? Then the man arches into the table and the overhead light chases away the shadows, just for a second, and I see what lies beneath—the black hopelessness of eyes that are already dead.
“You’re a man who can end suffering.” His tone is in control, not accusatory. “Well, I think I’ve suffered enough. Modern medicine has given me a life in which I can lose everything and spend my days fighting insurance companies. Only thing of value left is this poor dog, and what kind of a life does he have?”
Maybe I could extol the dog’s talents, drop a few platitudes about the way companion animals help us look forward, give us purpose, but in this moment it feels wrong—trite and woefully inadequate.
“You want me to help you kill yourself?” I ask, unable to keep the shock out of my voice.
“I’m not a well man, Dr. Mills. And I’m never going to get better. We’re talking days, not weeks. What remains for me is miserable and inevitable and, most of all, undignified. I don’t need pain relief. I need the pain to stop forever. I know you know what I’m saying. It’s what you do. Delivering a dose of mercy because nature can take its course and shove it.”
I’m not sure where to begin. Last week I was a doctor disturbed by the way pet owners get so personal, trying to suck me into their overwrought lives. Now I’m being asked if I’ll be Dr. Kevorkian.
“Oh no,” he says, clearly reading my shocked expression, “I didn’t mean for you to do it.” He laughs, as though I should be relieved by this clarification. “I just need the euthanasia solution, the barbiturate. Point me in the direction of the drug box, leave the key out or tell me where I can find it, and I’ll do the rest. It’ll be a break-in. You’ve got insur
ance, right? Police won’t care. They’ll blame kids looking for Special K.”
Ketamine. Special K. He’s serious, in the worst possible way; a tragic, disturbed, unreachable serious. This total stranger wants me to help him commit suicide, and his tone is so casual, so relaxed, he’s like a neighbor who drops by to ask if he can borrow your stepladder or whether you can help him move some heavy furniture. It’s surreal. But then Stash glances my way for a split second, and the reality of this predicament becomes plain and simple.
“I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
The man cants his head to one side and a trace of acquiescence crawls between his gray, cracked lips, careful not to let me see his teeth and gums. It’s as if he knew this was a long shot but worth a try.
“Hell,” he says. “If the plane’s going to crash, might as well lay down and go to sleep.”
This is a man resigned to his fate. The time for anger and fighting has past.
“Thanks for hearing me out,” he says, heading for the door, Stash right by his side.
“But what about your poodle?” I ask.
The man hesitates and turns my way, visibly disappointed.
“He’s a doodle, not a poodle. Australian. Fourth generation.”
Uh-oh. In the sheltered world of veterinary pathology I’ve noticed the popular trend of mixing poodles with all manner of different breeds, earning the moniker “designer dogs.” I’ve never met one in the flesh. Or should I say the fur. That’s why it’s so ratty—he doesn’t shed and, by the looks of things, doesn’t get groomed.
“Stash has Labrador loyalty with standard poodle brains.”
“Got it,” I say, noting the pride in his voice. “What’s going to happen to him?”
The man shrugs inside his jacket, but the shoulders barely move. He turns away and doesn’t look back.
“That’s up to you,” he says as the front door chimes and the two of them slip away.
What a strange comment, I think. Why or how would his dog have anything to do with me?
Doris sidles over as I watch Stash help the man get back into his van.
“Before you start,” I say, “that is an incredible dog. Faithful, attentive, and really smart.”
“Smart enough to be billed for your time?” Doris lets the question simmer for a few seconds before adding, “By the way, there’s a doctor been holding on line two. Wants to talk to you about a case. Says it’s important.”
“Doris, why didn’t you say so?”
I practically sprint for the phone in the work area because, for the second time in one day, my expertise is being sought as a second opinion. Perhaps I have misjudged general practice, thinking it would never tax my brain, days blurring with the endless monotony of vaccines and health checks. Yes, I’m rusty with the hands-on stuff and the challenge of extracting a meaningful history from well-intentioned but long-winded owners, yet fellow professionals still want a slice of what counts—insight, knowledge, and the ability to uncover the truth.
I press the red line two button on the phone.
“Hello.”
“Is this Dr. Mills?”
A reserved female voice.
“It is.”
“Well, well, well, you’ve got a nerve. This is Dr. Honey over at Healthy Paws, and I don’t know where you came from or what kind of voodoo medicine you like to practice, but around these parts we don’t go poaching cases from one another.”
My silence is borne of genuine shock, but she keeps going. “Oh please, I’m referring to Sox Sauer, the boxer, small lump on the shoulder. Are you really so desperate? Would it help if I handed out your business card at our local dog park? You’re like the veterinary version of an ambulance-chasing lawyer. Do not, repeat, do not let this happen again. If you do, I will be forced to seek legal counsel.”
The line goes dead before I can say another word.
7
NO BRIBE, NO NEGOTIATIONS, NO PREEMPTIVE white flag. Right now I’m angry enough to risk life and limb, charging straight into enemy territory, a human microburst, rifling through Doris’s reception desk in search of the Sox Sauer file.
There’s a savage rap on the glass and then a pointy finger insists I cease and desist followed by an aggressive shooing motion that makes me retreat to the other side of the waiting room. Doris is on the other side of the window looking in with a murderous glare, my crime so serious, I watch as a half-smoked cigarette (you heard me right) swan dives off the ends of her fingertips and lands in the snow.
The front door chimes.
“What on earth are you doing, Dr. Mills? There’s a precise system to my record keeping.”
“Sox Sauer. I need his file. Now.”
Doris comes around the desk and, making a point of keeping her eyes on me, shuffles a sheet of paper here, a bill there, and suddenly there it is in her quick yellow talons.
“You mean this, Dr. Mills?” Her words are clipped, an angry hornet determined to sting.
I take it, my nod all the thanks she will get. It’s not the case notes I want. It’s the phone number for Ms. Sauer.
“If Healthy Paws thinks I’m out to steal a client, I’d best find out what this client has been saying to them.”
“Marjorie Sauer might act confrontational,” says Doris, “but she prefers to whisper. Not like me. I prefer to see the fear in their eyes.”
Why am I not surprised?
Back in the work area I dial the number from the page marked “Client Information.”
“Hello, Ms. Sauer, this is Dr. Mills from Bedside Manor. Tell me, have you been in contact with Dr. Honey following our consultation this morning?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“But that office manager called me up. Dork, Dorkus, or something.”
“Mr. Dorkin.”
“Yeah, him. Asked what I was doing at Bedside Manor this morning, and I told him, and he started out acting sympathetic, apologizing, wanting to know how Healthy Paws could do right by me and Sox, and I told him he could start by not trying to rip off conscientious and vulnerable pet owners by recommending unnecessary surgeries. And that’s when he went off on me, telling me we’re not welcome at Healthy Paws—fired is what he said, ‘You’re fired.’ Like he was Donald Trump.”
There’s a sniffle, a series of jagged little breaths, as Marjorie Sauer begins to lose her composure.
“Then, get this, he says he’d be happy to recommend alternative veterinary practices. I said, ‘Don’t bother, we’ll be going to Bedside Manor from now on,’ and that’s when he did this weird laughing thing and said, ‘That place will be in foreclosure by this time next week. You just burned your bridges, lady.’ And then he hung up.”
I was right. Dorkin did recognize Sox as a Healthy Paws client. And the guy’s got an ugly temper. But here’s the upside: he’d only be this serious about our rivalry for one reason—he’s worried.
My cell phone begins vibrating in my pocket.
“Have no fear, Ms. Sauer. Dorkin’s full of hot air. We’re not going anywhere.”
I hang up on one call and pick up the next, not recognizing the number on the screen.
“Hey, Doc, you free to talk?”
“Um, who is this?”
“It’s Charlie Brown, remember? Marmalade Succabone, feline porn star.”
“Right, Charlize.”
“I, like, spoke to my mom, and she’s going to be passing through Eden Falls on her way home. She’s going to give you a check for the house call. Any chance you could meet her at the diner on Main Street?”
“I suppose so.”
“Great. Seven?”
“Okay. But wouldn’t it be easier—”
“I’m just repeating what she said. You still wearing that ugly tie?”
“I beg your pardon. I happen to like this tie.”
I study the narrow strip of one hundred percent woven microfiber polyester dangling from my neck. It’s white with bold red stripes.
“Please! It loo
ks like a candy cane. But don’t take it off. That’s how she’s going to recognize you. That and my description of how you’re totally hot!”
I catch the laugh just before the line goes dead.
FIVE OF SEVEN and I have my choice of several empty booths, picking one close to the front door with a view of everyone who walks in. I wonder if the diner’s always quieter on nights when Amy’s “got plans.” Keeping my winter coat on but unzipped to adequately expose my “ugly” tie, I’ve barely settled in when a waitress I don’t recognize appears by my side.
“It’s Doc Mills, isn’t it?”
She’s young with spiky tangerine hair, some sort of sparkly piercing embedded in the skin adjacent to her right nostril, and a plastic tag that tells me her name is Mary.
“It is.”
“Coming to see you tomorrow. My dog, Gilligan. Amy said if anyone can sort him out, it’s Doc Mills.”
I smile, buoyed by the idea of Amy talking about me behind my back, giving me compliments.
“I’ll certainly try my best.” I glance at my watch, nearly seven. “So Amy’s off tonight?”
“Yep, she asked if I could fill in for her, and I can always use the extra money.”
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t push, but the twinge inside won’t go away. “Oh, is she doing something special?”
Her nose twitches, making her piercing catch the light, and I fear she’s on to me.
“Don’t know, but she was picking up a dress from the dry cleaner and getting her hair done, so it sounds like. But listen to me going on, what can I get you?”
“Actually, I’m meeting someone. Should be here any minute.” With Amy not here I have no intention of sticking around. As soon as Mrs. Brown hands over my check I’ll be on my way. “I’ll hang on if you don’t mind.”
“Coffee while you wait?”
“Why not.”
“Cream, no sugar, right?”
How did she know? Just how much did Amy share about me?
“Great.”
I ease back in my seat, wishing I’d brought something to read. I hate twiddling my thumbs when I could have been researching catastrophic diseases of cattle or Jenny Craig for cats instead of imagining Amy out somewhere nice, somewhere that necessitates a dress. Women get their hair done for one of two reasons—either to outdo the female competition or to attract a mate. What are the odds that this momentous date has nothing to do with the mysterious caller who could make her giggle?