Dr. Death

by Jonathan Kellerman

  "No, San Francisco. I walked all the way here because this glorious place is where I wanted to be treated." His head rolled toward me. "Better get me outta here or give me my Tegretol. When I'm out of my Tegretol, I get interesting."

  "You suffer from seizures?"

  "No, stupid. Cognitive dysfunction, affective scrambling, inability to regulate emotional outbursts. I'm prone to a mood disorder, get too unhappy, everything gets scrambled, no telling what I'll do." His wrists shot upward. The cuffs rattled louder.

  "Who prescribed the Tegretol for you?"

  "I did. Got a hoard at my place, but you supposed healers won't let me get to it."

  "Where's your place?"

  "Me to know, you to find out."

  "What dosage do you take?"

  "Depends," he said, grinning. His gums were swollen, inflamed, rotted black at the tooth line. "Three hundred migs on a good day, more if I'm feeling baaad— better be careful, I'm getting that baaad feeling right now. The old prodrome: everything turning glassy, circular, convex, pistons pumping, heart jumping. Soon I'm going to be all scrambled, who knows, maybe I could break free of these, eat you up—where's your white coat, what kind of doctor are you, anyway?"

  "Psychologist."

  "Fuck. Useless. Get me someone who can prescribe. Or let me outta here. I'm the victim, once this story gets out you and everyone else associated with it are not going to look good. Assuming the publishers print it. But they won't. They're part of it, too."

  "Part of what?"

  "The great conspiracy to denude my brain." Smile. "Nah, that's bullshit. I'm not paranoid, I've got a mood disorder."

  "Who attacked you?" I said.

  "Mexicans. Gangbangers. Punks. Illegal aliens, refuse of society."

  "Did they try to rob you?"

  "They tried and they succeeded. I'm walking down the street, minding my own, they drive up to the curb, get out, beat the shit out of me, go through my pockets."

  "What did they get?"

  "Everything in my pockets." He shook his head. "You're useless, I'm terminating this interview."

  "Were you carrying a weapon?" I said.

  He began to hum.

  "Poinsettia is three blocks from your father's place."

  The humming got louder. His eyelids twitched. He started breathing faster.

  "Planning a visit to your father's place?" I said, talking over it. "Last time you tried, the lady downstairs interrupted you. How many times have you gotten inside?"

  His head snapped toward me. "I am going to bite off your nose. Eye for an eye— avenge what that other psychologist did— Lecter. No, he was a psychiatrist, that was a great movie. I watched it and ate fava beans for weeks afterward."

  "Did you kill your father?" I said.

  "Sure," he said. "Bit off his nose, too. Had it with pinto beans and . . . some kind of wine . . . why am I thinking Chablis? Get me my fucking Tegretol."

  "I'll see what I can do," I said.

  "Don't lie to me, degree-boy."

  "I'll do what I can."

  "No, you won't."

  I left him, returned to the station, paged the doc- tor who'd written the last note— early this morning. A woman named Greenbaum, first-year resident. Meaning she'd only been in training for a few months. She called back, saying she was at County General, wouldn't be rotating back in Hollywood until tomorrow. I told her why I was with Salcido and asked her about the medication.

  "Yes," she said, "he claims he needs it to maintain 'internal stability.' He played that tune for me, too. I'm waiting to talk to the attending."

  "He's self-medicating for assaultiveness and mood swings. If he's already on Tegretol, he's probably gone through lithium and the neuroleptics. Maybe in prison."

  "Maybe, but I can't get anything out of him re- sembling a clinical history. Tegretol's okay, but there's the issue of side effects. I need blood levels on him."

  "Did you have a chance to talk to him?"

  "He didn't talk."

  "He's a bit more verbal now," I said. "There's some IQ there. He knows how it feels before the assaultiveness comes on, is fighting to maintain control."

  "So what're you saying?"

  "I'm suggesting that at least in one respect he may know what's best for him."

  "Did you see that skin of his?" she said.

  "Hard to miss."

  "Pretty disorganized for someone who knows what's best for him."

  "True, but—"

  "I get it," she said. "The police sent you to see him and you want him coherent so he'll talk to you."

  "That's part of it. The other part is he's already been assaultive and if something works for him, maybe it should be considered. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job—"

  "No, actually you are." She laughed. "But sure, why not? Everyone else does. Okay, no sense having him freak out and me getting a three A.M. call. I'll try to get hold of the attending again. If she okays it, he gets dosed."

  "He says he's been taking three hundred milligrams daily."

  "He says? The lunatics run the asylum?"

  "Look at Washington, D.C."

  She laughed harder. "What do the police want with him?"

  "Information."

  "On what?"

  "A homicide."

  "Oh. Great. A murderer. Can't wait to see him again."

  "He's not a suspect," I said. "He's a potential witness."

  "A witness? Guy like that, what kind of witness could he be?"

  "Hard to say. Right now, I'm trying to get some rapport. We're talking about his family."

  "His family? What, good old-fashioned psychoanalysis? The stuff you read about in books?"

  • • •

  I returned to Donny's room. He was facing the door. Waiting.

  "No promises," I said, "but the resident's calling the supervising doctor."

  "How long till I get my Tegretol?"

  "If she gets the okay, soon."

  "An eternity. What bullshit."

  "You're welcome, Mr. Salcido."

  He drew back his lips. Half his teeth were missing. The stragglers were cracked and discolored.

  I pulled a chair next to the bed and sat down. "Why were you on your way to your father's place?"

  "He never came to my place, why should I go to his place?"

  "But you did."

  "I know that, stupid! It's rhetorical— Ciceronian. I'm questioning my own motives— engaging in introspection. Isn't that good? A sign of progress?" He spat and I had to move away to avoid being the target.

  "I don't know why I do what I do," he said. "If I did, would I be here?"

  I said nothing.

  "I hope this happens to you one day," he said. "Feeling this passive. Weak. You think my skin's so weird? What's weird about it? Every shrink I talked to told me skin wasn't important, the thing was to look within. Get past the surface."

  "How many shrinks have you talked to?"

  "Too many. All assholes like you." He closed his eyes. "Talking faces, little crushing rooms just like this . . . Get past the skin, the skin, look inside. Man, I like the skin. The skin is all. The skin holds it all in."

  The eyes opened. "C'mon, man, get these things off, let me touch my skin. When I can't touch it I feel like I'm not there."

  "In time, Donny."

  He moaned and rolled his head away from me.

  "Your skin," I said. "Did you do all that yourself?"

  "Idiot. How could I do the back?"

  "What about the rest of it?"

  "What do you think?"

  "I think you did. It's good work. You're talented. I've seen your other artwork."

  Silence.

  "The Anatomy Lesson," I said. "All those other masterpieces. Zero Tollrance."

  His body jerked. I waited for him to speak.

  Nothing.

  "I think I understand why you chose that name, Donny. You have zero tolerance for stupidity. You don't suffer fools." Like father . . .

&
nbsp; He whispered something.

  "What's that?" I said.

  "Patience . . . is not a virtue."

  "Why not, Donny?"

  "You wait, nothing happens. You wait long enough, you choke. Rot. Time dies."

  "People die, time goes on."

  "You don't get it," he said, a bit louder. "People dying is nothing— worm food. Time dies, everything freezes."

  "When you paint," I said, "what happens to time?"

  A tiny smile showed itself amid the beard. "Eternity."

  "And when you're not painting?"

  "I'm too late."

  "Too late for what?"

  "Responses, being there, everything— my timing's off. I've got a sick brain, maybe the limbic system, maybe the prefrontal lobes, the temporals, the thalamus. Nothing moves at the right pace."

  "Do you have a place where you can paint now?"

  He stared at me. "Screw you. Get me out of here."

  "You offered your art to your father, but he wouldn't accept it," I said. "After he was gone, you tried to give it to the world. To show them what you were capable of."

  His lips folded inward and he chewed on them.

  "Did you kill him, Donny?"

  I bent closer. Close enough for him to bite my nose.

  He didn't. Just stayed in place, prone, staring at the ceiling.

  "Did you?" I said.

  "No," he finally said. "Too late. As usual."

  • • •

  After that, he shut up tight. Ten minutes into the impasse, the straw-haired nurse came in carrying a metal tray that held a plastic cup of water and two pills, one oblong and pink, the other a white disc.

  "Breakfast in bed," she announced. "Two-hundred-milligram morsel with a one-hundred chaser."

  Donny was panting. He forgot his restraints, tried to sit up. The cuffs snapped against his wrists and he slammed back down, breathing even faster.

  "No water," he said. "I won't be drowned."

  The nurse frowned at me as if I was to blame. "Suit yourself, Señor Salcido. But if you can't swallow it dry, I'm not going back to the doctor to authorize an injection."

  "Dry is good. Dry is safe."

  She handed me the tray. "Here, you give it to him, I'm not getting my fingers bit off."

  She watched as I took the pink pill and brought it close to Donny's face. His mouth was already wide open. His molars and most of his bicuspids were missing. Putrid breath streamed up at me. I dropped in the pink lozenge. He caught it on his gray tongue, flipped it backward, gulped, said, "Delicious."

  In went the white pill. He grinned. Burped. The nurse snatched the tray and left, looking disgusted.

  I sat back down.

  "There you go," I said.

  "Now you go," he said. "I had enough of you."

  I tried awhile longer, asking him if he'd ever actually gotten into the apartment, what did he think of his father's library, had he read Beowulf. Mention of the book drew no response from him.

  The closest I got to conversation was when I let him know I'd met his mother.

  "Yeah? How's she doing?"

  "She's concerned about you."

  "Go fuck yourself."

  I pressed him about novelty shop gags, phony books. Broken stethoscopes.

  He said, "What in the ripe rotten fuck are you talking about?"

  "You don't know?"

  "Hell no, but go ahead, talk all you want, I'm coasting now. Getting smooth."

  Then he closed his eyes, curled as fetally as the cuffs allowed, and went to sleep.

  Not faking; real slumber, chest rising and falling in a slow, easy beat. The rhythmic snores of one at peace.

  • • •

  I left Hollywood Mercy trying to classify him. Assaultive and deeply disturbed, but bright and manipulative.

  Combative and pigheaded, too. Eldon Mate had rejected his son unceasingly, but genetics couldn't be denied.

  Zero Tollrance. He'd turned himself into a walking canvas, drifting from squat to squat, numbed his pain with dope and anticonvulsants and anger and art.

  Painting his father's portrait, over and over.

  Offering his best to his father, getting rejected over and over.

  As good a motive for patricide as any. And Donny had considered it, he'd definitely considered it.

  Did you kill him?

  Too late. As usual.

  Denying he'd followed through. As did Richard. Brilliant, bloody production, and no one was willing to take credit.

  Despite Donny's slyness, I found myself believing him. The mental impairment was real. Tegretol was powerful stuff, end-stage medication for mood disorders when lithium failed. No fun, not an addict's choice. If Donny craved it, he'd suffered.

  He'd dissected his father on canvas, but the real-life murder reeked of a mix of calculation and brutality that seemed beyond him. I tried to picture him organizing what had happened up on Mulholland. Stalking, enticing, writing a mocking note, hiding a broken stethoscope in a box. Cleaning up perfectly, sufficiently meticulous not to leave a speck of DNA.

  This was a guy who got mugged and left in the gutter. Who got yelled at by an elderly landlady and fled.

  My mention of the book and the scope had elicited nothing from him. His clumsy attempt to enter his father's apartment in full view of Mrs. Krohnfeld was miles from that degree of sophistication. His entire life pattern was a series of failed attempts. I doubted he'd ever gotten past Eldon Mate's front door.

  No, someone a lot more intact than Donny Salcido Mate had planted that toy. The personality combination I'd suggested at the beginning— the same mixture suggested by Fusco.

  Smarts and rage. Outwardly coherent but with a bad temper problem.

  Someone like Richard.

  And his son. I thought of how the boy had pulverized six figures' worth of treasure.

  It kept coming back to Eric.

  Dispirited, I headed west on Beverly and considered how Eric might've lured Mate to Mulholland. Wanting to talk about his mother? To talk about what he'd done to his mother— for his mother. Claiming to Mate that he'd been inspired by the death doctor. The appeal to Mate's vanity might have worked.

  But if Eric had been the one in that motel room, why butcher Mate? Covering for himself? Thin. So perhaps Mate had been involved. And Eric, knowing of his father's hatred for the death doctor, perhaps even knowing about the failed contract with Quentin Goad, had taken it upon himself to act.

  Blood orgy to please the old man.

  Happy Traveling, You Sick Bastard. The phrasing had an adolescent flavor to it. I could hear the sentence tumbling from Eric's lips.

  But if Eric had slaughtered Mate, why was he now striking out against his father? Had he finally come to grips with what he'd done? Turned his anger on Richard— blaming, just as the old man was wont to do?

  Father and son rolling, wrestling, snorting on the floor. Tearing at each other, only to embrace. Ambivalence. Apparent reconciliation.

  But if what I suspected was true, the boy was unpredictable and dangerous. Joe Safer had sensed that, asked my opinion. I'd avoided an answer, claiming I needed to focus upon Stacy, but also wanting to avoid additional complications. Now I had to wonder if Eric's presence in the house put Stacy— and Richard— in danger.

  I'd call Safer as soon as I got home. Hold back my suspicions and keep my comments general— Eric's bad temper, the effects of stress, the need to be careful.

  The afternoon traffic had sludged to chrome cholesterol, cars lurching forward in fits and starts, tempers flaring. I allowed myself to be drawn into it, oblivious to petty resentments, thinking about real rage: Eric and Mate on Mulholland. Blunt-force injury to Mate's head. As in baseball bat.

  Perhaps the boy had gotten Mate up there with a simple lie: misrepresenting himself as a terminally ill patient pining for the love bite of the Humanitron.

  A young, male traveler. Mate, defensive about too many females, those nasty feminist jibes about his sexuality, would have
liked that.