W Is for Wasted

by Sue Grafton

  Pete paid for copies of the documents he thought relevant and put them into a file folder. When he returned to his car, he put the folder into one of the boxes he was taking home. First chance he had, he’d consolidate all the paperwork, organizing the files for easy access. Pete spent way too much time hunting down documents he should have had at his fingertips.

  • • •

  First thing Monday morning, Pete called the UCST Health Sciences Building. He’d picked up the number from Willard, who was blissfully ignorant of what was going on behind the scenes. Dr. Linton Reed wasn’t important enough to have a secretary of his own. The gal Pete talked to was the gatekeeper for the whole medical facility and took her job much too seriously. She mentioned her name in a clipped fashion when she picked up his call, but Pete missed it. After that, she did everything possible to thwart and obstruct his desire for a meeting. First she claimed Dr. Reed was in his clinic office only two days a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. When Pete pressed for an appointment the next day, she wanted to know the nature of his business, suggesting it might be something she could help him with, thus saving the oh-so-important Dr. Linton Reed the bother of having to deal with the likes of him.

  “This is strictly personal,” Pete said.

  “Personal” was a word that apparently had no place in this woman’s vocabulary.

  She said, “I understand you may feel that way, but the fact remains that Dr. Reed is tied up this week. The next possible appointment is on Thursday, the twenty-eighth.”

  “Let me tell you something, Miss . . . What was your name again?”

  “Greta Sobel.”

  “What you should be aware of, Miss Sobel, is that my proposal to Dr. Reed is not only personal, it’s date sensitive. He’s not going to appreciate your making my life difficult. All I need is twenty minutes of his time, so you can either work me in tomorrow or he’s going to know how uncooperative you’ve been.”

  “There’s no reason to take that tone.”

  “Apparently there is, given your attitude.”

  “If you’ll give me your name and number, I’ll check with Dr. Reed and get back to you.”

  “How about you figure it out right now or I’ll come over there myself and tell him what’s going on.”

  Silence. “Just one moment.”

  She put him on hold. He suspected she was giving herself a little breathing room to get her temper under control. She clicked back in. “One o’clock.”

  He said, “Thank you,” but she’d hung up on him by then.

  • • •

  Tuesday morning, he cruised by his office, circling the block once. He spotted his landlady’s car parked in the adjacent lot and continued on his way. He drove down to the beach, following Cabana Boulevard as far as the bird refuge. He had ways to make good use of his time. Before he got out of the car, he adjusted his scarf to keep the chill off his neck. He opened his trunk and unlocked the briefcase where he kept his Glock, which he slid into the pocket of his sport coat. He extracted his gun-cleaning kit from behind the boxes of books and old files that he was gradually moving from his office to his garage at home. In the event his landlady served an eviction notice, he’d be able to clear the premises in short order.

  He carried the kit and yesterday’s newspaper to a picnic table, where he spread the first section across the crude wood surface. He set out a tin of CLP, his cleaning rags, Q-tips, a barrel brush, a cleaning rod, and an old toothbrush and then removed the Smith & Wesson Escort from his shoulder holster and Glock 17 from his coat pocket.

  He worked on the Escort first, pulling the slide back to assure himself the chamber was empty. He popped out the magazine, sighted down the barrel, aimed, and dry-fired at one of the ducks, which took no interest in him whatever. He fieldstripped the gun, removing the recoil spring and the barrel from the frame. He wiped down the parts, eliminating any excess lubrication, then took a dry brush and cleaned all the surfaces. He’d done it so many times, he probably could have done it by feel. His mind wandered first to Dr. Reed; then to Willard; and then to his own wife, Ruthie, the love of his life. For their fortieth anniversary, coming up the following year, he wanted to surprise her with a river cruise, which was why he’d picked up the brochure from the travel agent. This was something she’d always wanted to do. He liked the idea himself, gliding down a river in Germany. He imagined the quiet, the sumpy smell of inland waterways, excursions to nearby points of interest. He pictured villages, stretches of empty countryside, the occasional larger town where they might venture out to see the sights. His hope was to do it in style—maybe not first class, which they couldn’t afford, but not on the cheap by a long shot.

  He set the Escort aside and went to work on the Glock.

  With his office rent in arrears, he knew the money would be better spent catching up, but he was already so far behind he couldn’t see the point. He’d met Ruthie when she was a month shy of nursing school, an accelerated course she’d enrolled in after she got her AA degree. He’d finished his own education with no clear sense of what he wanted to do with his life. He’d tried a little bit of everything before he got a job doing repos for a small collection agency. Eventually, he apprenticed as a private investigator and for a while, he felt he was where he belonged. Things hadn’t quite panned out as he’d hoped. Lately, the work had dried up almost completely, leaving him scrambling to survive.

  He looked up. One of the on-ramp bums was standing on the path watching him. This was a big fellow he’d seen countless times; red baseball cap, red flannel shirt, jeans, and what looked like new boots tough enough to kick a man to death. He knew people who resented the homeless and wanted them chased off the grassy areas where they loitered from day to day. His policy was live and let live.

  Pete said, “Can I help you, son?”

  Fellow put his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t bad-looking, but he carried himself with the menacing posture of a thug. Pete gave him credit for persistence. He himself wouldn’t be able to tolerate a life of begging on off-ramps, or anywhere else for that matter.

  “My dad had a gun looked like that.”

  “Lot of semiautomatics look similar.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Glock 17.”

  “Is it new?”

  “New to me. The 17 came out in 1982. I didn’t acquire this one until recently.”

  “How much does a gun like that cost?”

  It crossed Pete’s mind that the fellow’s interest might be more than idle. With a gun in his possession, other methods of picking up pay would certainly be available.

  Pete said, “More money than I got now, I can tell you that for a fact. Important thing is to handle a weapon like this with the respect it deserves. Safety comes first.”

  “You ever kill anyone?”

  “I have not. How about yourself?”

  “Not me, but my dad was in the army and he killed a bunch. Messed with his head.”

  “I’d imagine so.”

  Pete let the conversation lapse. After a minute, he looked up. “Anything else on your mind?”

  He met the panhandler’s gaze and the fellow shook his head in the negative, saying, “Take care.”

  “You, too.”

  The bum backed up a few steps and then moved off, heading toward the scrub. Pete had heard there was a hobo camp up there somewhere, but he’d never seen it himself.

  When he finished cleaning and reassembling the Glock, he tidied up his rags and brushes, crumpling the newsprint into a wad that he tossed into the public trash container. He holstered his pocket pistol and returned his cleaning kit to the trunk. He pulled out a bag of birdseed and took a seat on the wooden bench. He wasn’t crazy about the ducks. Ducks were stupid and the geese could turn hostile if you didn’t watch your step, not that he begrudged any of them their place in the greater scheme of things. To his way of thinking, pigeons were the perfect birds; each intricately marked, gray and white with touches of iridescence.

 
The minute he opened his bag of seed, a high-pitched shriek would cut the air, a shrill announcement to any bird within range that there were treats in store. He liked that about birds, their willingness to share. He broadcast seeds in the area around him. He left a trail of seeds across the shoulders of his sport coat. The birds descended in a cloud, their wings batting and fluttering. They settled on him as though he were a tree, talons digging into the sleeves of his coat. They clustered on his lap, some flapping off and then on again. They ate from his outstretched hand. They pecked at the seeds he sprinkled in his hair. If children passed while the birds were feeding, they’d stare at Pete transfixed, recognizing the special magic known only to persons of a certain type. To the children, he must look like a scarecrow; tall and rangy and lean, crooked teeth, crooked smile, and fingers as long as sticks. He attracted birds from across the lagoon as though the wind had blown them into a darkened spiral, whirling around his head before they alighted.

  Fondly, he shooed them away, smiling to himself. He folded over the neck of the bag of birdseed and secured it with a rubber band. He glanced at his watch. The lunch hour was coming up and he’d promised Ruthie he’d be home. She’d been doing private-duty nursing, working as needed, which seemed to be all the time, but she was off today.

  Home again in the kitchen, he felt at peace. She made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. He sat down at the kitchen table, watching her flip the two sandwiches until both sides were brown. She was unusually quiet as she ladled soup into two bowls, removed the sandwiches to a cutting board, and sliced them on the diagonal before she slid them onto the plates. It wasn’t until she sat down that she glanced at him with what he thought was a touch of guilt.

  She was looking worn. Her complexion was still clear, but her coloring had faded and a series of fine lines now radiated from the outer corners of her eyes. Her jawline had softened and now looked more touchable. Her beautiful long blond-gray hair was pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  “You had a phone call,” she said. “A man named Barnaby from Ajax Financial Recovery.”

  “Collection agency,” Pete said. “The guy’s been bugging me for weeks. I can’t think why he’d call here when I just sent off a check. I told him it was in the mail, but he wouldn’t back off. He’s the kind of fellow can’t admit he made a mistake.”

  “He said the account had been turned over to him because payment was overdue by six months. With late fees and charges, the total’s six hundred dollars.”

  “Well, then it’s lucky I took care of it before they jacked up the total again. Ask me, it’s a hell of a way to earn a living, harassing folks over something like that.”

  She studied his face carefully. “If you had problems you’d let me know, wouldn’t you?”

  “Absolutely, I would. Happily, that’s not the case. In fact, business is looking up. I’ve got an appointment at one o’clock that I think might net me a handsome chunk of change.”

  “But you know you can tell me, right? If there’s a problem?”

  “When have I not? That was the deal we made, how many years ago? Coming up on forty by my count.” He stretched out his hand on the table and she laced her fingers into his. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a surprise. I wasn’t going to tell you, but it occurred to me I better give you fair warning.”

  He removed the brochure from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table, elaborating as he went. He showed her the route along the Danube, pointing out some of the stops on the itinerary; Budapest, Vienna, Passau. He was honest about not having the entire sum set aside, but he was getting there, he said. She didn’t seem as excited as he’d hoped, but the idea might take some getting used to. They’d never traveled abroad. Europe was just a rumor as far as they were concerned. They had passports, which they were careful to keep renewed, but they’d never had occasion to use them. Her spirits seemed to pick up as he told her about the accommodations. He had ways of making it seem real; not an extravagance but something they deserved after forty years of being happily married and careful about the money they spent. They finished lunch. He cleared the table and made quick work of the dishes. By the time he left for his run to Colgate, she was her usual sunny self again and he felt better. No point in being depressed when there was so much to look forward to.

  • • •

  The meeting with Linton Reed started off on a bad note. Pete reached the university in ample time, but he was forced to drive around the campus in search of the Health Sciences Building, which he hadn’t spotted on the map he’d picked up at the campus information center. He pulled a ticket from the dispenser and circled the lot until he found a parking space. On reaching the clinic’s administrative offices, he made a point of asking to have his parking ticket validated. In the event the conversation didn’t go well, he didn’t want to get stuck paying the campus parking fees. The department secretary didn’t approve of his being there, but she didn’t have the nerve to refuse to validate his ticket. She pasted three stickers to the back. He took a sly satisfaction from her dislike of him, which she could barely conceal.

  To retaliate, Pete was made to wait thirty-five minutes before he was escorted down the hall and allowed into His Holy Presence. The good doctor was handsome; smooth cheeks, clear blue eyes, fleshy lips, and a nose with a slight upward tilt to it. His was the kind of face most would trust. Dr. Reed’s first glimpse of Pete had generated a nearly imperceptible flicker of surprise in the good doctor’s eyes. Pete caught it. He always caught that look.

  Linton Reed observed him with clinical detachment and Pete could see his mental processes at work. Dr. Reed had doubtless read about Pete’s disorder in medical texts, but this might have been the first real live instance he’d come across. Naturally, that would make Pete a curiosity. Dr. Reed said, “Which of your parents suffered from Marfan syndrome?”

  “My father,” Pete said. He felt an instant dislike for the young man, who apparently thought his being a doctor entitled him to probe Pete’s genetic history when the two had only just been introduced. Marfan was an autosomal dominant condition, which meant that a defective gene from only one parent was needed to pass the disease on. It also meant that each child of an affected parent has a 50-50 chance of inheriting the defective gene. It annoyed Pete that in his “doctor” role, Linton Reed had adopted a deeper tone of voice. This was meant to underscore his authority, conveying the rights vested in him as a medical wizard entitled to pry into everybody else’s private business.

  The good doctor probably hoped to open up a whole discussion of Pete’s condition, but Pete had something else on his mind. Linton Reed was a charmer and fully accustomed to exercising his personal magnetism. He was a sheepdog at heart. He looked harmless, but he couldn’t resist herding his fellow man. He’d been born with an unerring instinct for bending others to his will. Pete had had a dog like that once, a border collie named Shep who just couldn’t help himself. Take a walk in the woods with friends and Shep would dash ahead and behind, keeping everyone together whether they wanted that or not. The urge was inbred and the implication was always that the dog knew better than you did.

  Pete loathed the man sitting across the desk from him. He remembered prigs like him in grade school, smart, but soft from sitting on their big fat superior white asses while kids like Pete rose to the challenge of the bullies. Linton—shit, even his name was prissy—would dissolve in tears while Pete fought down to the bitter end. His nose might be bloody and his shirt torn, the back of his pants streaked with dirt and grass stains, but the other guy always backed off first. His opponents took to coming after him with chains and stones, at which point he was sometimes forced to concede. Anything short of that, Pete was fearless.

  Dr. Reed adjusted his watchband, not checking the face, which would have been rude, but making his point nonetheless.

  “Ms. Sobel mentioned you had a personal matter to discuss.”

  “I’m here to do you a favor.”

  The set smile app
eared. “And what might that be?”

  Pete opened the folder he’d brought with him and placed it on the desk. He wet his index finger and turned a page or two. “It’s come to my attention that you’re in a bit of a sticky situation.”

  “Oh?”

  “This is in regard to the Phase II clinical trials involving a drug called Glucotace. I confess I don’t understand all the nitty-gritty details, but according to my sources, the drug was originally intended for diabetics until it was taken off the market for what turned out to be, in some instances, fatal side effects. Your current hypothesis is that in combination with Acamprosate and another drug . . .”

  “Naltrexone, which is in common use. Studies have shown it mitigates the craving for alcohol.”

  Pete held up a piece of paper. “I’m aware of that. It says so right here. Your theory is those two drugs plus Glucotace might prove effective in the treatment of nicotine and alcohol addiction.”

  “Statistics show alcoholic smokers are more prone to severe nicotine dependence than are nonalcoholics with higher smoking rates.” Dr. Reed’s tone was bemused and slightly professorial, as though Pete might benefit from enlightenment. “We’re just beginning to address the relationship.”

  “And we appreciate your attention to the matter,” Pete said. “With regard to Glucotace, your observation was that patients in treatment for alcohol dependence often develop a craving for sweets, which naturally plays havoc with their insulin levels. Your idea was to control glucose as a means of minimizing the peaks and valleys. Use of Glucotace, in this instance, would be classified as off-label.”

  The doctor smiled. “And you know this how? I’m just curious.”

  “Get an NIH grant and much of this is public record. The rest I picked up on my own. Success here would go a long way toward boosting your career. Comes to publishing, you’re already ahead of the curve. How many papers in this year alone? Forty-seven by my count. You’re a busy boy.”