The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy

by Robert Power

  11

  Alligators on the jukebox

  Caitlin cannot sleep, but she cannot wake. Her hair is matted; her lips are cracked. The eczema she had as a child is back with a vengeance and is raging. Her fingers are dirty, but she has to scratch the backs of her hands, they itch so. The skin is red raw and bleeds at the touch. She lies on her back on the mattress. There is a small lamp beside her and a pile of books. The One with Eyebrows brought them the other day, after there were no more sounds of people walking about above, after he pulled the tape from her mouth, taking skin and hair with it.

  He said, ‘Here are some books, and a torch to read by.’ She was turned away from him then, staring at the bricks in the wall. But after he left and the door was locked shut she looked to see what was there. Three books. Book club editions, with mock leather and gilt covers. Romance seemed to be the theme, if the titles were anything to go by. She turned the torch light on and off. On and off. Spotlighting the rough wood ceiling. Shining the light into her own face. The bulb was sealed into the head of the lamp, which was made of hard transparent plastic. No chance of breaking glass, of slitting wrists. Not that she had any intention of doing that. It would be okay. Anthony would save her. She leaves the books in a pile, unread.

  Much later. Days later. The door opens. ‘Here’s a radio. You can listen to the radio,’ he says. Caitlin stares at the bricks in the wall. ‘There’s a pizza here for you.’ She hears the turn of a knob and then the quiet refrain of a cello. ‘I’ve set the volume, you can’t turn it any higher,’ he says. ‘It’s fixed. You understand? You can turn it down or off, but not up any louder.’

  A short silence and the door closes and is locked. Caitlin turns to look at the radio. It is an old Bakelite, the type she remembers as a child. She puts her ear to the speaker. A cello is playing a deep melodic tune she does not recognize. She picks up the pizza and chews on the dry crust. Afterwards, she feels fat with dough. She longs for fresh vegetables. Spinach, sugar snap peas and broccoli. Most of all for broccoli.

  My hangover lasts for days. When I emerge from my room, Priss, as bright and breezy as a new button, hands me the letter that’s arrived in the post. It’s from Taneffe, instructing me to check in to a reserved hotel room in a sleepy town just outside of Milwaukee, one hundred miles north, where the biggest river in the state empties itself into Lake Michigan. It is, the note reads, to be a working weekend break, with the emphasis on the latter. The weekend in question is only a day away. So, still feeling the worse for wear, but relieved to be given a reason to move on, I hire a convertible, tune the radio to the first country station I find, and head out of the city. It is still windy from the aftermath of the storm and the drive is long and straight and hot. When I arrive there’s only one hotel in town, so I can hardly go wrong. The streets are quiet and empty. The only things missing are tumbleweed and Anthony Perkins. I park, leave my luggage in the boot and head across the street for the Lucky Strike Saloon.

  The Wurlitzer plays ‘Blueberry Hill’. The morning sun pierces the slatted walls of the bar, fighting against the neon lights advertising beers past and present. The bartender casts a cursory glance at me as I stand in the open doorway. He continues to toss peanuts into the air, catching and crunching them in his mouth. The eight ball clunks into the bottom right pocket of the pool table, a ten-dollar bill passes between the players. In the corner, a bear of a man squats by the TV watching Roger Rabbit. Against the wall four men sit clutching their surfboards like sentinel guards. Each is blond and tanned. Each wears a sleeveless T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and reflective sunglasses in a variety of electric colours. One nods to me to join them. I sit down at their table.

  ‘You here for the wave?’ asks one of the men with a deeply lined face and bleached shoulder-length hair. ‘It’s about to break any day.’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ I reply.

  I look up at the fan whirring above. I wipe the sweat and grime from my forehead, squashing a mosquito in the process. Examining the mixture of blood, sweat and insect in the palm of my hand, I pull some crumpled notes from my trouser pocket and stand up.

  ‘I need a drink, how about you guys?’

  No response, just a realignment of surfboards, like Zulu warriors awaiting Rorke’s Drift.

  The barman lifts the lid of the icebox, pulls out a bottle of beer, cracks off the top on the edge of the counter and hands it to me. He licks the froth from his fingers and flicks another peanut into the air.

  ‘If you’re standing on the river’s edge,’ says the barman, cleaning a dirty glass on a dirtier cloth, ‘and you’re fishing or watching the water, feeling good about things, feeling alive, and an alligator comes swimming up to you, you’ve got three choices. Did you know that?’

  I shake my head, letting the icy cold beer run slowly down my throat. The barman runs his hand over his unshaven face and takes the remnants of a cigar from his waistcoat pocket. He lights it and sucks deeply.

  ‘Alligators prefer smaller animals, mammals mainly. Dogs, deer, raccoons, that sort of thing. So one choice is to stand your ground and blow yourself up as big as you can. Like this. It kinda confuses them, they might just slink away.’

  He blows out his cheeks, inflates his chest, stands on his tiptoes, stretches out his arms, then slowly deflates to his normal size. He throws and catches another peanut. I drain my bottle of beer; the man reaches into the icebox for another.

  ‘You need a lot of nerve for that one though. You gotta out-stare a twelve-foot dinosaur. The second thing to do is turn and run for it. But if you run in a straight line it’ll get yer. They may be big, but they’re hellish fast. To stand a chance you gotta swerve from side to side, like a football player making for the end zone. Them alligators have a low centre of gravity. They have big trouble turning on land.’

  The barman flips off the bottle top and hands me the beer. We both turn at the sound of a car pulling up outside the bar. I listen as the engine dies and a door opens and slams. A woman dressed in a tight black dress with a body to match walks into the room and sits on a stool at the far end of the counter. The barman takes a glass from the shelf and pours tequila from a dark brown bottle.

  ‘No bean,’ she says, and he lays the drink down on the bar beside her.

  ‘So what’s the third choice?’ I ask the barman.

  ‘Why, you take a deep breath of that wet Mississippi air and you walk right into the mouth of the sonofabitch,’ replies the man, laughing heartily at his own joke.

  Still laughing, he reaches beneath the counter, pulls up a tattered lump of horsemeat and tosses it through the air to the farthest corner of the room. There is a rustle and clattering in the darkness, a swish of tail and scales. I can just make out the silhouette of the alligator behind the bars of the cage as it tears and thrashes at the meat.

  The woman looks over to where I stand, indicating with a shake of her head we should sit at an empty table away from the bar. And away from the alligator. The eyes of all the men, even those of the surfers behind their sunglasses, follow the woman as she walks across the wooden floor.

  She sits down next to me and continues to drink her tequila in silence. The alligator rattles the bars of its cage, excited by the newly charged atmosphere. I fancy I catch a glimpse of its teeth flashing in the sunlight. The juke box switches to Waylon Jennings.

  ‘Care for a Camel?’ I ask, offering a packet to the woman. ‘I’m Anthony Malloy,’ I say, as she takes a cigarette, accepting the strike of my match.

  ‘I know. I’ve seen your photo, been following you in the news. I’ve been waiting for you.’

  ‘Not long I hope.’

  ‘No, not long. I knew you’d be along.’

  There is a commotion in the corner over the pool table. Two men in denims, grubby vests and braces argue over a foul shot. The woman, ignoring the scene, sips on her drink and turns to me.

  ‘I’m from the Company. This is my patch, so I was asked to meet with you to clarify everything’s in place.’ S
he looks long and hard at me. ‘Can I assume everything is in place? That all your luggage arrived safely from Bangkok?’

  ‘Yes,’ I respond, realising a simple answer is all that is required. ‘It’s waiting in transit at the airport.’

  ‘That’s good. I’ll contact our office in Bogotá and inform them to make all the necessary arrangements for your visit.’

  She takes a small envelope from her purse and lays it on the table in front of me.

  ‘In there are your plane tickets and hotel reservations. Everything else will be taken care of. You leave for Bogotá in two days’ time.’

  With that she stands up, straightening her dress.

  ‘Is that all?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, that’s all. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. I’m sure you’ll find some fun around here.’

  As she leaves the bar all eyes follow her. The alligator shifts position, the pool players continue their game. After a short while, wondering quite what fun might be on offer, I decide another drink might help me find it.

  ‘I like your sister,’ says the barman, peanut in midair. ‘Remember, just suck in the sweet Mississippi air and dive into the mouth of that sonofabitch.’

  His laugh is worrisome. The alligator thrashes the bars of its cage with its tail.

  Somewhere in my dream the sun shines so brightly, so warmly. The sky: a massive blue; the clouds: somewhere else, far away. The creek: at the end of the track, caressed by the wattle tree. You look so beautiful, your white frock with the big red flowers. The blue leather belt around your waist and your hair smelling of the waterfall at the end of the rainbow. The sandwiches you made, the fruitcake and bottle of orange barley squash in the hamper. I look up at your profile, dazzling in the sunlight, as we walk through the garden gate, my toy boat in one hand, your hand, my very own mother’s hand, in the other.

  On awakening I find myself lying on the bathroom floor of another hotel room. The tile is cold on my cheek. My tongue is glued to my teeth like a dead lizard baked on a desert rock. My brain is pounding. This is too much. This has to be the end of it. Why does one drink always lead to mayhem?

  I crawl to the bedroom, haul myself onto the mattress and under the covers. In time, sleep relieves me of anguish. More time slides by. I awaken to the encroaching dark of a Michigan night-time. I stare up at the ceiling fan until sleep blankets me again.

  I sleep and dream.

  I struggle to limp out of the room and drink soda from the drinks machine in the corridor. I place a ‘Do not disturb’ sign outside my door. I go nowhere. I watch night turn to day and day back to night. I go nowhere on my ‘weekend break’ until it is time to retrace my steps to O’Hare airport and board another plane to another place.

  12

  Zoo time

  At the arrivals exit of Bogotá airport I’m met by a well-dressed man, nonchalantly holding a name sign across his chest. The contact is Fritz, a German bodyguard employed at the British Embassy. Soon I will learn he was targeted and recruited by the Medellin cartel following an indiscretion at the Bar Casa de La Mer. Three sailors, a jar of Vaseline, a tub of cocaine and some Polaroid snapshots had been Fritz’s downfall. Not that he considered it a downfall these days, what with being paid to guard the British Ambassador’s wife on the one hand and run some errands for the new bad boys on the block on the other. What the left hand doesn’t know, as they say, and double pay every payday. Nice work if you can get it, eh Fritz? And, it goes without saying, all the white powder he can hoover up his ample Prussian nostrils. In fact, it’s the first thing he does when we get to my hotel room later that evening. A little pile of powder on the little square mirror. Chop, chop, chop, chop, divide, divide, chop, chop, chop, chop. Customised silver straw. Woof.

  ‘I know you don’t mind,’ he says, his eyes smarting and grinning at the same time, only the slightest hint of a German accent. ‘I’m reliably informed you have a penchant for the stuff.’

  ‘Not just now, thanks,’ I hear myself saying.

  On the plane I’d resolved to stay straight for this leg of the trip. To keep a clear head. Maybe not sober, maybe not recovery in the way the Friary counsellors would deem it. But I will not drink. I will not drug. Fritz looks bemused. To confuse him more, to undermine whatever intelligence he received on me, I open the minibar and pull out a bottle of mineral water.

  ‘Care for a drink?’ I ask. ‘I’m on the wagon.’

  Fritz seems unsettled, like a newsreader who has lost the script.

  Within the hour we are in the very same bar where, two years earlier, Fritz had been offered the career move. I feel uncomfortable and jittery with the glass of lemonade in my hand. I ditch the straw and light a cigarette.

  ‘I wasn’t worried about losing my job,’ explains Fritz, drinking his beer straight from the bottle. The backdrop to the bar is a painted scene of dockland debauchery. On the raised platform across the room the female prostitutes chat as they dance to 1970s music.

  ‘It was my wife, my boys. If they’d seen the photos my life would have been over. And my parents? No thank you.’

  The man behind the bar, the caricature of a waiter with his pencil moustache, crisp white shirt and waistcoat, whispers into Fritz’s ear. Not Spanish, probably French. A small packet appears on the bar. Fritz hands the man a twenty-dollar bill.

  ‘The best coke in Bogotá,’ says Fritz, slipping the packet into his jacket pocket. ‘Five dollars a gram; one hundred percent pure.’ He scratches his nose. ‘Later my friend, yes?’

  I ignore the question, a trickling sensation running down the back of my throat.

  ‘So, as I explained in the car,’ says Fritz in impeccable, if somewhat ponderous, English, ‘I am meeting you as the representative of two groups. Firstly, in my formal capacity to discuss your itinerary as the guest of the British Ambassador. And secondly, in my other capacity, as my alter ego, to help ease the safe delivery of your package to the big man on the hill.’

  ‘You talk and I’ll listen,’ I say, taking in the floor show: a tall Amazon giving me the hundred-dollar eye. I feel tired and listless. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with this smug German coke fiend. And I don’t much like the idea of the big man on the hill.

  ‘It’s simple. Tomorrow night you go to dinner at the British Ambassador’s house. You will meet these people.’ He hands me a list of names and titles. I fold the paper and put it in my pocket.

  ‘As you will see, amongst other names is the mayor of Bogotá. He is running for the Presidency. Then there’s Professor Gomez from the university medical school laboratories, and Dr Suskind, who represents the consortium of businessmen interested in the production side of your syringe. These are the important people. Are you listening?’

  ‘I can listen and look at the same time,’ I reply. ‘Another drink, Fritz?’ I turn on my bar stool, irritable, ill at ease. He nods and I order a beer and a lemonade.

  ‘Tell me, Fritz, how is it a bodyguard acts as an undersecretary?’

  ‘Let’s just say I perform many services for the ambassador and his wife. For one, they delegate the care of guests to me.’

  ‘And the big man on the hill?’ I ask.

  ‘The next day, as part of your social program, I am charged with taking you on a trip around the city. Part of the trip will be to the zoo on the hill.’

  ‘The zoo?’

  ‘The zoo.’

  ‘Buns for the elephants, eh Fritz?’

  ‘Anything you like Dr Malloy.’

  When I get back to my hotel room the little red light is winking at me. I light another cigarette, having only just put one out in the middle of the fossilised logo in the sand bucket by the lifts.

  I sit on the bed and ring the number to connect to my voicemail. I recognize the voice instantly.

  ‘Oh, you’re not there. I got this number from Taneffe. I don’t want to leave a message in case you’ve moved on. I’ll call you later. It’s Peter. Peter Blake. Okay, bye for now.’

  I run it
again. He sounds odd, odd enough to warrant my calling him.

  ‘Peter,’ I say as he answers. ‘It’s Anthony, you left a message.’

  ‘Yes, did I?’ he says distractedly.

  ‘Are you alright? Alright about me being out here still?’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  There’s a silence. And then a sigh. And then he speaks in a low, sad voice.

  ‘Irene’s dead.’

  ‘Irene?’

  Another silence.

  ‘Yes, she’s dead.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The day you left. It’s been awful. Police enquiry. Coroner’s report.’

  ‘Oh my God, Peter,’ I say as the news sinks in.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She killed herself.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘It was coming. You know it was coming.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Peter.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ll live.’

  ‘Is the inquest over?’

  ‘At last. They only released her body a couple of days ago.’

  ‘When’s the funeral?’

  ‘Tomorrow at Christ the King.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘I’ll burn a candle.’

  ‘That’s nice. Matilda’s coming.’

  ‘That’s good. She and Irene were close for so many years.’

  ‘We all were, the four of us, back in the old days. Before you and Matilda split up.’

  ‘That’s true. I’m glad she’ll be there. Like family, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You okay, Peter?’

  ‘I’m okay. I must go, the doorbell’s just rung.’

  ‘Okay, call you soon.’

  ‘Do that. Bye.’