by Farris, John
Nick ordered a second double-malt whiskey from the waiter. "Statistics are unavailable. Probably all of them." His eyes followed a couple of lissome teenagers past their outdoor table. "Look at that. So near. So ready. The female is at her freshest and most appealing when she is untouchable, as a matter of law, by those men like ourselves who have the experience, wisdom and sensual refinement to most fully appreciate them. Life is truly not worth living today."
"Something's bound to turn up," Laddy said soothingly.
"Sixty-four percent of teenage girls have had sex by the time they're seventeen. Funny how none of them ever sat by me in one of my classes."
"Statistics fascinate," Laddy said; his deep voice sounded entombed. "They say more than they mean, and mean less than they say."
"Of course. No area of investigation is so circumscribed that it cannot support hives of statistics. Statistics create light without heat, a metaphysical aura of community. Forty-seven percent of Americans confess to having had one or more paranoid episodes last year, up two and a half percent from the previous year. Seventeen percent own guns they can neither load nor fire. Thirty-nine percent keep dogs that have never had obedience training. The percentage for children is considerably higher." Nick quivered, following with his eyes a tall redhead in a deerslayer jacket to her table. "Jesus. There she is. Right Out of my Fenimore Cooper fantasies. What if I told her I could happily spend my nights licking corn-dodger crumbs off her mons veneris?"
"I'll get her over here and we'll find out," Joe offered.
"Wait," Nick said, putting a hand on Joe's arm as he was getting up. "It's only one o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm not drunk enough."
"Why don't we deal with Joe's problem before we deal with yours?" Laddy suggested.
"Why not? The paraplegic with the curious symptoms? Is she gorgeous, Joe?"
"Very."
"No name's?"
"Not yet."
"So tell me about her."
Joe explained what he knew of Pamela Abelard's condition, and Dr. Lucas Thomason's course of treatment.
"Right away I have to wonder about the steroid protocol," the neuropathologist said, and Laddy Langford nodded in agreement. "Steroids, whatever proprietary names they go by, have notorious side effects, even-short-term. Cushing's syndrome includes swelling of the face, a hump of fat on the upper back, outsized appetfte and the kind of lunatic mood swings that used to get sufferers confined to Bedlam. Laughing, weeping, violent rage, abject depression. But your lady is fair of face and not subject to such fits. More of an enchanted princess, who falls into swoons now and then. Except for the episode a few nights ago, when she convulsed and you thought she was going to die."
"It was damned scary."
"You've observed spasticity. What about pain?"
"Either she's learned to sublimate so that she doesn't pay attention to it, or pain is absent."
"Not likely, if the spinal pain tracks weren't severed. Amitriptyline might give her some distance from the pain, but it won't shut it down. Because, in the case of most paraplegics, pain is apocryphal: the brain is happiest when it's processing information from all over the body. Cancel that flow of information and the brain gets anxious and, in one of its more mysterious moods, sends intense pain to the vicinity of the unresponsive site. Sort of a neural wake-up call. Her legs are no longer useful, for whatever reason, but the brain refuses to concede."
Their lunches came then: seafood tortellini in garlic cream for Joe, which Nick looked at enviously while he was served plain linguini with a side of breaded veal cutlet, and gnocchi with tomato sauce and wild mushrooms for Laddy Langford. Joe and Laddy had Sicilian red with their meals; Nick finished his second malt whiskey and thereafter drank ice water.
"Should have ordered the pizza," he said, after sampling his linguini. "God, I love pizza. Fifty-one percent of married men over forty admit to having fantasies involving cheap motels, young prostitutes in stiletto heels, and pizzas with extra cheese." He sipped ice water to cool his imagination. "By the way, what was your lady drinking the night she convulsed?"
"Vodka on the rocks, mostly. Is that a clue?"
"No," Nick admitted.
"But you don't think she's on steroids."
"I'd have to see her; but from what you've told me, there's not much chance. Her country doctor is shooting her up with something else."
"That he wants her to believe is steroids."
Nick nodded uncomfortably. "If there's deception involved, it brings us close to some serious illegalities. She ought to be examined by somebody good. And right now, in my opinion."
"I'm trying to get her to do just that."
"She's resisting?"
"She has, or says she has, complete confidence in her doctor."
"Does anyone care what I think?" Laddy Langford said, smiling. "Of course I only run a chop-shop. But I know a lot about human weaknesses and vanities."
"Go," Nick said.
"It may be possible that she likes being paralyzed."
Portuguese nodded thoughtfully. Laddy looked at Joe, who said, troubled, "I don't know her that well."
"She has spasticity, apparently without pain. She could willfully be denying herself the effective use of her legs. And, let me add, in subconscious collusion with the man who's caring for her."
"She was involved in a serious accident. Her fiancé was killed. Those are the facts."
"It was a hit-and-run," Nick said. "What does she remember about it?"
"Nothing."
"Do you know if she had psychiatric counseling?"
"No."
"It could have been helpful," Laddy said. "Particularly if she was harboring any suspicions that she might have been able to do something to prevent her fiancé's death."
"She survived," Nick said. "And paraplegia was the compromise she made with her sense of guilt. I think the name for it is hysterical conversion reaction."
Joe shook his head. "I really have problems buying into this."
Nick said, "I have a credo that ought to be engraved in bronze over the doorways of every health-care facility in the world. 'There are no limits to the perversities of human beings.' You should have stuck around the medical profession, Joe. If nothing else, the practice of medicine keeps your shit-detector in good working order."
"I don't think it was a sense of guilt that caused her to convulse, turn red all over and otherwise exhibit a severe allergic reaction, I want to know what's in those syringes her doctor keeps emptying into her system. If he's not treating a persistent inflammation, what is he treating?"
Nick looked at Laddy, and rubbed his eyes, thinking it over.
"Do you have a sample?"
"I know where I can get one."
"Why do I cringe at the sound of that?"
"You wouldn't be breaking any laws or compromising medical ethics. You won't be deposed into the next century. The sample turns up in your mailbox at the hospital, tomorrow or the next day. You send it up to the lab along with whatever else you send on a daily basis to be analyzed. Then, let's say Friday of this week, same time, we have lunch again here and admire the lovelies, and you give me an oral rundown on substance X. In the meantime, I'll persuade Ab—my lady—to come into town for a three-day stay under the supervision of whoever you recommend to me now."
"Petersen. He's the best I've ever worked with."
"Can you have her booked right away?"
"What name?"
"Pond. Holly Pond will do."
"That's a very interesting alias."
"It was my mother's stage name," Joe said. "She used to be an exotic dancer, in New Orleans."
Chapter Thirty
A Chicora County school bus was dropping Lizzie at the gates to the Barony when Joe returned from Charleston. She looked around at the sound of his horn; her grumpy expression lightened at once and she lugged her book bag over to the Laredo.
"Hi, where've you been?" Lizzie said, settling into the front seat beside him for the s
hort drive to the house.
"Charleston."
"Oh. Who do you know there?"
"A physician friend of mine from Atlanta is delivering a series of lectures at the Medical College. We had lunch. How was your day?"
Lizzie slumped in her seat. "Awful," she mourned.
"That bad, huh?"
"Somebody did a snot rocket all over my combination lock. I'm pretty sure I know who, and if he doesn't let up I'm gonna punch him in the eye." Lizzie hunched her narrow shoulders. "I did the wrong assignment for geography. Then I farted in gym class, and everybody knew it was me."
"I've had days like that."
Lizzie swung a fist sideways and banged him on the bicep. "Shut up. You have not. Everybody's making fun of me all the time." She chewed anxiously on her lower lip. "Now I have to practice the piano. If we got it back. Charlene said it had scratches. She just runs all over everybody in that house, does what she pleases, and Abby thinks it's fine. Did you read in Newsweek about that ten-year-old girl who flew solo across the Atlantic? I wrote a paper for English about her. I hate writing. Abby got all the talent in the family. School is such a waste of time. I knock my butt off for A's but nobody gets low grades anymore, even if they're dumb as chickens, it's bad for their self-esteem. Anyway, I should be doing stuff with my life. What if I sailed solo around the world? I'll bet nobody my age has done anything like that! I'm a good sailor. My stepfather taught me. Of course that girl had a copilot, an adult, with her. So I guess I'd have to have somebody with me, who could do repairs and stuff." She gave him a look over one hunched shoulder. "You're a good sailor, aren't you, Joe?"
"Yes."
Lizzie squirmed herself upright in the seat, hopefulness expanding in her breast like a large balloon, filling with the cheery winds of her imagination.
"Why don't we do it then? We've got a boat! Big one. Luke doesn't use it anymore since he took up polo, it's just rotting away down by the bay. We could leave as soon as school's out next year. Can we sail around the world in three months? Doesn't matter, I could do my schoolwork by satellite! It would be such a great learning experience don't you think?"
"Hey, Liz."
The balloon burst; she gasped forlornly. "You think I'm just a stupid kid. You wouldn't even kiss me back. I looked up perdition in the dictionary."
"What did that tell you?"
She didn't answer until he had parked the Laredo with half a dozen other vehicles on the motor court. They sat together in silence for a few moments.
"I guess," Lizzie said slowly, "I wouldn't have respected you very much if you had—if you tried—"
"There are all kinds of useful learning experiences, Miss Liz. Some you don't recognize until they're long over with."
She nodded, looked at him, smiled in a weepy sort of way. "I really didn't have a very good day. Did you?"
"Let's keep this just between us, but I think we're making progress where Abby is concerned."
"Oh. Ohhh! That's why you had lunch with your—"
"I'm trusting you, Lizzie," he said, with a stern note of caution.
"Sure! I won't say anything. When do you think you can tell me about what you're gonna do"
"In a couple of days."
"Really? Oh, that's great news! I need to get something to eat. I'm starved. All they had for lunch today was noodles with this urp on it, and the tomatoes in the salad weren't ripe. I hate that. Would you like me to make you a peanut-butter sandwich?"
"I'm fine, Lizzie."
"Where're you going now?" she asked, as she got out of the Jeep.
"To find Abby."
"If the piano didn't come back I'll see you all later; otherwise it's practice, practice, practice," Lizzie said, throwing her book bag over her shoulder and trudging up the steps to the house.
The workroom doors were open and he heard Abby as he approached.
"I don't know how you could be that careless, Frosty."
"I don't either; nothing like this happen before."
"You probably misfiled the tape."
"I think you're right about that; the problem is, there's hundreds of tapes to go through to find the right one. I'm truly sorry, Abby."
"Oh, well. I wasn't in the mood to work tonight, anyway. Are there more letters to sign?"
"No, they're all taken care of. What do you want me to say to Grant when he calls back?"
"Tell him I understand how the Hollywood types feel about giving novelists creative control—"
"I think what he said was 'It's easier to get an elephant to tango.'"
"I at least would like to have some say about who they cast in the miniseries, regardless of TVQ and all that."
"Maybe it's negotiable," Frosty said, as the telephone rang. "Here he is now. Do you want me to tell him you think Rachael Karey should play Abigail?"
From the doorway Joe saw Abby grin. "Tell him the idea positively knocks my dick in the dirt."
She turned her head as Joe knocked. "Hey, come on in I was just brushing up on my Hollywood agent-type talk. Those people are hysterical. In every sense of the word."
Frosty glanced atJoe, failed to return his smile, then turned her back at her desk to devote herself to conversation with the agent.
Abby was surrounded by cartons and packages, including a stack of bulky mailing envelopes that contained copies of her books. There was an opened tin of homemade cookies in her lap.
"Here, have one of these," she said to Joe. "Every other month this this woman in North Dakota bakes them for me. Molasses and raisins and nuts, and are they ever tasty."
"Fan worship?"Joe asked, helping himself to a saucer-size cookie.
Abby nodded. "This month alone I've gotten handmade jewelry from an Indian social worker in New Mexico, a wood-carving from the Ozarks—just exquisite—and dried flowers from Oregon. I send them hardcover books and try to say something worthy of their generosity. Joe, could you open that big box for me? Frosty didn't have the chance."
Joe used a pair of scissors to open the lightweight box. He lifted out a fedora-style straw hat, pale yellow, ornamented with tiny ceramic flowers.
"Isn't it gorgeous?" Abby unbound her hair and let it fall, tried on the hat immediately, tilting it this way and that. "I used to be a nut about hats. Haven't bought one in years. Look, it even ties under the chin for the beach." She posed for Joe. "What do you think?"
"Wear it. Let's go take some sun."
"Yeah, I need to get, out. Frosty? Later."
Outside she asked him, "Where've you been all day?"
"I went for a long drive. Did you go swimming this morning?"
"Yes. By the way, Norse has his jaw wired shut. You must have hit him with a Buick."
"I could strut around and say aw shucks. The fact is I don't feel very good about what happened."
Abby was searching through a ratsey bag. She squinted up at him. "Joe? Must have left my sunglasses inside. Dear heart, would you mind—?"
"I'll be right back."
In the workroom he found Frosty with her head in her hands. She heard his footsteps but didn't look up. There was a fizzing glass of Alka-Seltzer on the desk.
"What's the matter, Frosty?"
"Just my afternoon headache."
"You ought to try one of those little headsets, if you spend a lot of time on the telephone."
"Good advice. I'll look into it."
He put his hands gently on her shoulders. "I could loosen you up in no time."
Frosty's hands parted. She gave him a wise untrusting look.
"I'll bet you could. Just take your hands off me, please."
"Sorry. It's more than a headache, isn't it?"
"Don't know what you mean."
"I was at the Lost Sea Turtle the other night."
She sat back slowly in her squeaking office chair. "Know that. I saw you with your little friend you made there."
"Wasn't anything to it, Frosty."
"Just a quick boff, relieve your tensions?"
"I wo
nder why you don't like me, Frosty."
"Haven't give the matter all that much study."
"You think you see right through me. You don't see a thing, Frosty."
She drank some of her Alka-Seltzer, sighed and patted her trim stomach.
"Maybe you just don't have much use for men," Joe said, pursuing a sore subject.
"Could be you're right about that. So what?"
"I'd like to see you when we have more time to talk."
"No way," she objected, with a simmering malevolence.
"How about tonight, say ten o'clock? What's your address, Frosty?"
"Don't you be coming to my house."
Joe looked around, and saw Abby's Revo sunglasses on one of the round tables of Jamaican wood. He crossed the workroom to pick them up.—
"Ten o'clock, Frosty. It's a small town; I won't have any trouble finding out where you live."
Frosty smothered an Akla-Selzter belch. "You come around, my daddy Walter Lee will be on the porch with his shotgun across his knees."
"Better see he's in bed early," Joe advised, "unless you'd like to include him in the conversation."
"Just what the hell do you want?" she cried.
"I want to save Abby's life. Don't you?"
Frosty was not the fluttering kind, but for a couple of moments she was back on her heels, uncertain of Joe or of how to reply. Then she came back at him, almost harshly.
"I've been told it's not my business! Whose side you on, anyhow? You doctors stick together, just as cozy as ticks in a dog's ear."
"I'm not your ordinary-type doctor."
Abby was calling him, faintly, complainingly, from the garden. Frosty, responding to an uncontainable agitation, walked toward the workroom windows, reversed herself, came, reluctantly, closer to him, at the same time raising her hands breast high in a gesture that could have been protective or a surrender.
"What's she got? What is it she could die of?"
"I don't know. That's why I need the ampule you handed off to Reggie the other night in the parking lot at the Sea Turtle."
One hand fell; the other crept to the base of her throat, pulled at a slender gold chain there. She looked angry, more at herself than at Joe.