“Sorrell Maltzman,” Bobbie said. “The doctor told you that passing gas down below is good for you.”
It’s not good for me, I decided
“My ass is killing me,” he said, then started playing the tuba.
I put a pillow over my head and tried to suffocate myself.
A nurse came to take my vital signs.
“Mr. Perlmutter, please remove the pillow from your face,”
“I will not,” I said through the pillow.
She sniffed the air and covered her nose with her hand.
“Whew,” was all she needed to say.
She went to the bathroom, returned with a can of air freshener, and sprayed my area. I removed the pillow from my face.
“God bless you, Lourdes,” I said to the Hispanic nurse, reading her name tag.
She removed her hand from her face. “Mr. Maltzman had an abdominal hernia repaired this morning,” she said. “He’s filled with a lot of gas.”
“Not as much as he was a minute ago,” I said, waving at the air.
She checked my vitals and prepared to go.
“Can you leave the can?” I begged her.
“It’s the least I can do.” Lourdes rolled her eyes sympathetically.
“By the way, what’s this heavy weight on my groin?” I pointed.
Yeah, I’m squashed down here, Mr. Johnson complained.
“It’s a sandbag to keep you immobile while you heal,” she said. “You have to keep it on for about six hours.”
I’ll suffocate, Mr. Johnson worried.
I’ll air you out, I promised.
How about inviting that nice Jewish divorcee over to lighten my load? he suggested
You know she’s not too happy with me right now, I said, referring to Alicia Fine, the fabulous woman I dated last year who stopped seeing me when she couldn’t change me. The only way we can see her is if we stop seeing Claudette and I stop being me.
Just lie to her, Mr. Johnson said, trying the same penis logic on me he had used for years.
Before I could answer, Sorrell farted again.
“Wonderful, dear,” Bobbie clapped her hands at the trombone solo.
“Thank you, Tommy Dorsey,” I moaned loud enough for them to hear.
“Hey, sorry,” Sorrell called through the curtain. “I’m full of gas.”
“No shit.”
“No, just gas. I feel terrible.”
“So do I.”
“What are you in for?”
“Nothing that deserves the gas chamber,” I told him. “I had a heart procedure.”
“How’d it go?”
“Good . . . until now,” I said. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”
Bobbie opened the curtain a little. “Would you two like to talk face to face?”
We agreed, and she pulled back the curtain. Sorrell looked to be in his late sixties, bald, and pleasant looking. His wife was much more pleasant looking and she had hair.
“You look familiar,” Bobbie said to me.
“He’s the Boca Knight,” Sorrell said as he pointed and farted.
I sprayed.
The three of us laughed.
I couldn’t describe the Maltzmans from Detroit as a breath of fresh air but they were good company for a man with his Johnson stuck in a sand dune.
I made the mistake of explaining my heart ablation to them, which opened the floodgates for a senior-citizen symposium of sickness.
“In 1999, I had abdominal surgery for colon cancer,” he told me. “The surgery was a success but resulted in a hernia. I just had it fixed.”
Sorrell did a really good impression of a frog exploding.
“You should have that fixed, too,” I laughed.
Sorrell laughed but Bobbie didn’t. “Why do guys think passing gas is so funny?” she scolded us. “You’re like little boys.”
She was right. Guys do think farts are funny. I’ve never known a girl to tell another girl to “pull my finger” and then fart when her finger is pulled. Guys do it all the time. Guys can talk while they burp, too, and think that’s hilarious. It’s a guy thing.
“Some friends of ours have more serious medical problems,” Sorrell said, trying to be serious and get back into Bobbie’s good graces.
“That’s true,” Bobbie nodded. “Homer Berger just lost his leg to diabetes.”
“Penny Dobson has lung cancer,” Sorrell added somberly.
“Abe Dorfman can’t remember a thing, poor man.”
“Who’s Abe Dorfman?” Sorrell asked.
“Bob Livermore got dengue fever in Africa,” Bobbie moved on. “Carly Camfour’s face looks like it melted after her stroke.”
“It looked that way before the stroke,” Sorrell said.
“Selma Drake looks like Michael Jackson since her nose job,” Bobbie commented.
“Joan Sloan’s tummy tuck got infected,” Sorrell said.
“She’s suing her doctor for malpractice,” Bobbie informed us.
“Look out below.” Sorrell sounded the alarm this time just before he bombed us.
“I’m going to the air-raid shelter,” I said and laughed.
Sorrell laughed.
Bobbie left the room muttering something about “big babies.”
Later, a nurse woke me to take my vital signs.
“Your blood pressure is a little high,” she said.
“You just woke me from a dead sleep and scared the shit out of me,” I told her.
The Maltzmans were gone and the air was clear. I took a deep breath. I watched television and went back to sleep in the early evening. When I woke up in the morning I knew what I had to do about Lou Dewey.
Claudette picked me up at the hospital and drove me to my apartment. She made me some chicken soup, fed me, and went to work.
I placed a call to the Atlantic City Park Department and confirmed the existence of the PFC Stewart Dewey Memorial Park. A donation of twenty thousand dollars came in every January from Louis Dewey, his brother, to pay the park’s taxes and maintenance.
I was relieved to learn he told me the truth. I phoned him.
“I’m coming over,” I said when he answered.
“Why?”
“Rehabilitation or incarceration.”
“I’ve heard rehabilitation isn’t your specialty.”
“Things change,” I told him.
I went to Lou’s apartment and explained my proposition.
“You want me to return all the money I’ve conned since I’ve been in Florida?” Lou stammered.
“Every dime.”
“I think saving your life is going to prove too expensive for me.”
“Look, you saved me but now I have to live with myself,” I said. “Besides, you don’t even spend the money you steal.”
“That’s up to me, isn’t it?” he said defensively.
“Not anymore,” I told him.
“If I refuse?”
“I’ll visit you on weekends.”
He stared at me incredulously. “You’re serious?” he said.
“Well, maybe not every weekend,” I hedged.
The little guy shook his head ruefully. He sighed with resignation and swept a stack of papers off the one chair in the room. He sat down and started pressing buttons on the computer. His fingers flew across the keyboard and lists appeared on the screen. He looked up at me. “You’re making me nervous,” he told me. “Why don’t you go rescue someone? I’ll return the money.”
“Are you telling me to trust you?”
“Yes,” Dewey said. “As strange as that may seem.”
“Okay,” I said, surprising myself.
“You will?” Dewey also sounded surprised.
“You didn’t lie to me about your brother’s memorial park,” I said.
“You checked my story?”
“Yes, and you were honest with me,” I told him. “That’s why I’m giving you a chance.”
“Well, as long as we’re being totally honest
with each other,” he said, “I want you to know I intend to keep at least a hundred and fifty grand for myself. I earned that money honestly before I got to Boca.”
“Okay,” I said, accepting his explanation without asking for proof.
What the hell is the matter with me?
I went to my office and checked my messages. Betsy Blackstone had called three times in two days. Izzy Fryberg had called twice. I had four new calls from women wanting me to follow their husbands on Valentine’s Day.
I decided to deal with Betsy Blackstone first. I called my urologist, Dr. Alan Koblentz.
“Eddie, how are you?” he asked.
“I’m still peeing like a full-grown gerbil,” I told him.
“When you get down to a baby gerbil, call me,” he said. “So, what can I do for you today?”
“I want to talk to you about pregnancy.”
“You should talk to your gynecologist,” he joked.
“I have a hypothetical question,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll give you a hypothetical answer.”
I told him about Betsy Blackstone without using her name. “If this woman was your patient, what advice would you give her?”
“I probably would have sent her to a specialist after the first miscarriage,” he said.
“You wouldn’t just tell her to try again after two miscarriages, would you?” I asked for verification.
“Certainly not,” he said, and then lowered his voice. “Can we talk off the record?”
“Of course, not a word to anyone,” I promised. “You have my word.”
“Is Dr. Ronald Cohen involved?”
“How did you know?”
“There’s been a lot of speculation about his competence for the past few years,” Koblentz said quietly. “I don’t like to talk about other doctors but I’ve heard things.”
“I’m told he’s very popular,” I said.
“He is . . . and he’s delivered thousands of healthy babies,” Koblentz told me.” But there’s definitely been some talk the past few years.”
“Any advice?”
“Tell your client to see a specialist.”
“Can you help?”
“I’m not a specialist.”
“Can you give me a name?”
“The best I know is Albert Dunn,” he said.
“Can you get my friend an appointment?”
“I know him well enough to ask for a favor.”
“Your mother would be proud of you, Doc,” I said.
“Speaking of my mother, she wants to meet you,” he told me.
“Tell her to come to my office at three, and I’ll see her at five.”
Dr. Koblentz didn’t respond immediately but then he laughed.
I called Izzy Fryberg and left a message on his answering machine, telling him I was working on his case and would get back to him in a day or two. I slouched back in my chair exhausted, and started to doze.
“Call on line one, Eddie.” Olivia’s voice jolted me awake.
“Olivia, I only have one line,” I said, looking at my watch. It was nearly five.
“Cool,” she said. “His name is Howard Larkey, and he talks funny.”
I picked up the phone and identified myself. “Eddie Perlmutter.”
“Hi Eddie, this is Howard Larkey.”
His voice wasn’t funny, but it was different.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Larkey?”
“Oh, you’re one of those men who get right to the point. I like that.” His inflection was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “First, let me tell you that I’m calling from Wilton Manors, where I live.”
“Should that mean something to me?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “How about the word ‘gayborhood’?”
“I can guess,” I said, finally identifying his speech pattern.
Tell him we’re not interested, Mr. Johnson said nervously.
“I’m a gay man-”
“I’m not,” I interrupted.
“I assumed that,” he said. “But would you have a problem working for a gay man on a gay issue in a gay community?”
“I never thought about it,” I said honestly.
“Have you had any experience with gay people?” Howard asked.
Tell him to go fuck himself, Mr. Johnson urged.
“Professionally, yes,” I answered him.
“Of course, professionally,” he said. “I imagine you saw some gay-bashing when you were with the police in Boston.”
“Yes.”
“Did you do any yourself?”
“No,” I said, irritated.
“What was your reaction to the gay-bashing you witnessed?”
“I had two reactions,” I told him. “I saw a gay man beaten senseless for hitting on a teenage boy in a men’s room at South Station. I didn’t feel bad about that.”
“And the other time?”
“I saw an attack on a gay couple in South Boston just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t like that.”
“Both good answers, Mr. Knight,” he said. “My partner Derek and I would like to hire you for a job.
“What job, Mr. Larkey?”
“Call me Howard,” he said.
“If you’ll stop calling me Mr. Knight.”
“Okay, Eddie,” he said. “We’d like you to investigate the disappearance of two friends of ours, who vanished from Wilton Manors several weeks ago. We suspect foul play.”
“Have you called the police?” I asked.
“We can’t call the police.”
“Why?”
“I can’t talk about it on the phone,” he said. “We have to meet.”
“Let me ask a few questions first,” I insisted. “Is it possible your friends just went away on an extended vacation?”
“They travel a lot but they always coordinate with us,” Howard said.
“And this time they didn’t coordinate?”
“Correct,” Howard said. “And after not seeing or hearing from them for this amount of time I stopped by their house. I let myself in with the key they gave me for house-sitting. I found two airline receipts for two one-way trips to Frankfurt, Germany.”
“Case closed,” I said. “Your friends left town without saying goodbye.”
“They would never do that,” he insisted.
“Did you check with the airline to confirm they took the flight?”
“Yes,” Howard sighed. “I was a flight attendant in my youth and I used all my connections to get this very confidential information. The flight attendant on their flight said Mr. and Mrs. Dietrich got on the plane in wheelchairs accompanied by a traveling companion.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You just said, ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ Are you telling me this is not a gay couple?”
“Of course, it’s a gay couple,” Howard said.
“But you said it was a man and a woman.”
“No, I said it was a husband and wife.”
“I don’t think I want to get involved,” I said, exasperated. “It’s not my type of case if it’s even a case. I think your friends just took off without telling you.”
“What if I told you I was positive they would never do that?”
“I’d say you don’t know them as well as you think you do . . . and I still don’t want the case.”
“What if I told you Eileen is a very active seventy-six-year-old and has never been in a wheelchair? Neither has John.”
“I’d say maybe they got hurt . . . and no thank you.”
“Okay,” he said. “What if I told you they are very private people and would never hire a travel companion?”
“I’d say they decided they needed help,” I told him. “And then I’d say thank you for calling . . . and hang up.”
There was a silence on the line before Howard asked his next question.
“What would you say if I told you Eileen has a pair of testicles?”
“Figuratively or
literally?” I asked.
“Literally.”
“I would say . . . I’ll take the case,” I said.
“You’re hired.”
“When do you want me to start?”
“As soon as you can put on your little suit of armor and get here.”
“How do I get to Wilton Manors?” I asked.
“Just close your eyes, click your heels three times, and say ‘There’s no place like home.’”
“Cut the shit.”
“Alright, do you have GPS?”
“I don’t even have power windows,” I told him.
He told me to follow the yellow brick road, giggled . . . then gave me detailed directions to his gayborhood.
Wilton Manors is south of Boca Raton and northwest of Fort Lauderdale. I followed Howard Larkey’s instructions and arrived at his modest ranch house on NW 23rd Street late afternoon.
A handsome, white-haired man in his sixties opened the door. He was in khaki shorts and a loose-fitting flowered shirt. He wore flip-flops. He was round but not fat.
“Howard?” I asked.
“Hardly,” the man said, with a feminine hand gesture. “I’m Derek Benjamin.”
“I’m Howard.” A human block of granite appeared behind Derek.
Howard Larkey wasn’t as tall as he was massive. He had a full head of white hair cut short and combed forward, like a Roman senator. His soft facial features were incongruous with his hard body and bull neck.
Howard eased past Derek and held out his hand. His grip was firm.
“I can see I’m not what you expected,” Howard said, smiling.
“No one expects King Kong,” Derek said, retreating into the house. I followed.
We sat at a circular table in a dining area. A small, white poodle skittered to a stop at my feet and started humping my leg.
“Beau, you slut,” Howard scolded the dog, pulling him away.
The dog trotted to the kitchen where Derek was making coffee.
“He humps everyone, the little tramp,” Howard said. “So, where should we begin?”
“I think we should start at the testicles,” I said.
“I’d like that.” Derek chuckled and poked my shoulder with his index finger as he joined us at the table.
I recoiled like I’d been Tasered.
“I’m sorry,” Derek said immediately. “I was just joking.”
I felt like a homophobic idiot.
“Eddie, relax,” Howard intervened. “We don’t want to seduce you. We want to hire you.”
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