by Thomas Scott
“So what gives?”
“Come on, sit down with me for a minute.”
“It’s from the I.V. line,” Sandy said. “Bell put it in after you were out. The catheter too.”
“Catheter?” Virgil looked down at his groin. It took him a few seconds, but he finally got it. “This isn’t Tuesday morning, is it?”
Sandy shook her head.
“It’s been more than just a few hours, then?”
“You could say that.”
“How long?”
Sandy rubbed the bottom of her nose with the back of her index finger. “Bell wanted you out for the worst of it, Virgil. He said if you’d been awake it would take twice as long and be twice as hard. He’s been here the entire time. He’s downstairs right now. So are Murton and Delroy. They hardly left your side the whole time.”
“How long?”
“Bell put you on a very mild I.V. sedation that kept you under for the most part. Hydrated too. Also, the vitamins were an essential part of—”
He was starting to get irritated. “Sandy, how long?”
“Let’s see, tonight is fish Thursday at the bar, so…”
“What? Three days?” Virgil couldn’t believe it. “He kept me under for three days?”
“It was really only two and a half.”
“Sandy, he told me it was going to be twenty-four hours tops.”
She shook her head. “No, he said it’d be at least twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”
Virgil’s hands were trembling slightly. Adrenaline, he thought. He also heard a loud grinding noise coming from the other room. “What the hell is that? It sounds like someone is running a wood chipper in the kitchen.”
“It’s probably Delroy. He’s fascinated with our new juicer.”
“I have to tell you Sandy, I feel sort of violated or something.”
“How else do you feel though?”
“Kind of pissed, actually.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Sandy kissed him on the cheek, patted his thigh and stood from the bed. “Take a shower, Virgil. And you’re welcome. I’ll be in the kitchen. You might want to think about keeping that beard going too. I kind of like it.”
She closed the door softly behind her.
Virgil took his time in the shower. He also shaved. Three days?
When he walked into the kitchen, Delroy and Murton were there with Sandy and Bell. The four of them all had evil grins on their faces. It didn’t take long though before Virgil was grinning right along with them. Sandy handed him about a hundred vitamins, which he took with another glass of juice. Delroy was leaning against the counter, munching on a raw carrot. Sandy walked over and stood next to him and when she did, he leaned close and whispered something in her ear. Then he smiled, pointed the end of his half-eaten carrot at Virgil and said, “How you do, you?”
Virgil set the empty juice glass down on the table and thought for a moment before he said anything. “This is later, isn’t it?”
Delroy tilted his head, turned the corners of his mouth down and nodded just so. “Dat up to more of you than more of me, but, yeah, mon, it might be.”
“Thank you, Delroy.”
Delroy threw his head back and laughed his big, loud Jamaican laugh. “Respect, mon, respect.” Then he set about chopping up more fruits and vegetables. “You know what Delroy tink?” He pointed a carrot at Virgil again. “Delroy tink we should get some of these juicers for the bar. We could open up earlier in da morning and sell fresh juice. Five bucks a cup. I tell you something else, mon. If we start using fresh juice in our mixed drinks instead of dat pre-made mix we always buy, they be knocking down the door for more. You wait and see.”
He was completely serious. Virgil looked at Murton, who simply shrugged. “Whatever you think Delroy. You manage the bar.”
“Good. Delroy get some then. Maybe a new sign too. We call it Jonesy’s Rastabarian. How ‘bout dat, mon?”
“How about one thing at a time and we’ll see?”
Delroy laughed his big Jamaican laugh again. Yeah, mon. One ting at a time. Nothing wrong with dat, no.” Then he looked at Murton and pointed his finger at him, the change in his expression quick and serious. “Keep him out of trouble. It on you.” Then he walked over to the back door. “Delroy have to get to work now. It fish Thursday.”
After the door was closed Virgil looked at Sandy. “What did he say to you?”
Sandy looked like she was trying to decide whether or not to say anything, but she finally did. She tucked her chin into her chest before she spoke. “He said, ‘I know dat man like he my own child. You watch, you. He going to say tank you to Delroy.’”
“Jesus Christ, Small,” Murton said. “I love you and all, but that might be the worst attempt at a Jamaican accent I’ve ever heard.”
Sandy picked up a dishrag and threw it at Murton. It hit him square in the face, but did little to muffle his laughter…or Virgil’s.
They all stood there laughing and Virgil could feel the relief, like a weight had been lifted from his soul and the thought crossed his mind that the people in his life had once again saved him. He was free.
Or so he thought.
The doc got him seated at the kitchen table and gave Virgil another exam. Then he started in with more questions.
“Tell me how you’re feeling.”
Still a little pissed that you kept me under for three days. “I feel pretty damn good, Doc. I guess I needed the rest, huh?”
“You could say that. The type of strain your system has been under for the last few months is not to be taken lightly, Virgil. You’ve stressed yourself physically—not to mention emotionally—to the breaking point. That’s not an exaggeration. If you were ten years older, based on what I’ve seen, you wouldn’t have made it.”
Virgil tried not to let his skepticism show. “Bell, that seems a little…dramatic. I feel fine.”
“Of course you do. Now. And if you continue to do what I say, you’ll continue to get better. But your body has to heal.”
“Okay. I get it. I’ll keep taking the vitamins and all that.”
Bell bit into his lower lip. “You sound sort of irritated, Virgil.”
“Well, if I’m being honest with you, Bell, I guess I’m sort of pissed that you had me out for so long.”
“It was the best way to control you, medically speaking. Think of it as a medical procedure, one where you had to be sedated, because that’s exactly what it was.”
“Yeah, except you didn’t tell me ahead of time.”
Bell reached into his bag and pulled out a clipboard with some paperwork attached and set it on the table. “Is that your signature on the bottom there?”
Virgil refused to look at the paper. “I didn’t get a chance to read it.”
“Did you read any of it?”
“Yes. I started to read it, but then you were talking and Sandy…”
Bell was still taking notes, as if the nature of their conversation was of little importance. He spoke without looking up from his notepad. “What does the first line say right there at the top? It’s the part that’s in big bold red letters. Never mind, I’ll tell you what it says. It says ‘Read this document in its entirety before signing.’ If I’m not mistaken—and I’m not—it goes on to say that failure to read the entire document before signing does not invalidate your signature or your consent to treatment. Always read the fine print, Jonesy. The bold print too.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Fucking doctors.
Bell put the paperwork away. “Listen, you and I, we’ve known each other a long time. You know damn well that anything I do to you is going to be with your best interest in mind.”
“I know, Bell. It’s just that when I was in the hospital after…well, after I got my ass kicked, when I realized how long I’d been under, it sort of freaked me out. This kind of feels the same way. It’s almost sort of claustrophobic after the fact. Maybe it shouldn’t bother m
e, but it does.”
“That’s understandable, Virgil, but hear me when I say this: You are not out of the woods yet.”
“I thought you said this would do the trick.”
“If by ‘this’ you mean the little nap you took and the intravenous fluids and vitamins I gave you, then no. That was just to get you over the hump. That was the part that helped you from an emotional and physiological standpoint. What I’m talking about is healing the damage you’ve done to your body. We’ve got to draw the toxins out of your liver and let your body repair itself.”
That sounded reasonable. “Okay. How do we do that?” Sandy was standing at the stove, stirring something in a pot and Virgil could smell the aroma of fresh ground coffee. Before Bell had a chance to answer, Virgil looked at Sandy and said, “Is something wrong with our coffee maker?”
“No, but this is the best way to do this.”
“It sure smells good.” Virgil looked back at Bell. “I can have coffee, right?”
“Oh yeah. You can have coffee. As a matter of fact, that’s how we’re going to get the toxins out of your liver.”
“Hey, no argument here.” Virgil smiled. Things were suddenly looking up. “You sure won’t need me to sign a release for this part of the treatment, I can tell you that. I love coffee.”
“Jonesy, I want you to give me your word,” he pointed his finger at Virgil as he spoke, “which I’ve never known you to break, that you’ll take this coffee as often as I tell you for as long as I tell you.”
“Sure, Bell. That’s no problem.”
“I mean it, Virgil. Give me your word.” He put his hand out to shake.
Virgil grasped his hand and they shook on it. “I give you my word, Bell. Whatever you say goes.”
“Great. Sandy, Murton? You guys heard him. You’re my witnesses.”
Sandy and Murton both agreed with Bell. When Virgil glanced at Murton he saw him chewing on the inside of his lip.
“Fine. That’s just fine, then,” Bell said.
“In fact,” Virgil said, “if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll have a cup right now. Can I get you one?”
Murton began laughing so hard his eyes started to water.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, Jonesy. Nothing at all. Say, I’m going to head down to the bar. Maybe I’ll see you later, okay?” He kissed Sandy on the cheek, gave Bell a pat on the shoulder and walked out the back door. Virgil thought he heard him say ‘oh boy’ under his breath.
“Will one of you guys please tell me what’s going on here?”
Bell looked at Sandy, then over to Virgil. “Ever heard of the Gerson Therapy?”
“You want me to do what?”
“It’s the only way, Virgil,” Bell said. “The toxins you’ve been putting into your body have to be drawn out. That’s what your liver does. The liver is the second largest organ in your body. Its main job is to filter the blood coming from the digestive tract before passing it to the rest of your system. In other words, it detoxifies chemicals and metabolizes drugs. You know what really fascinates me? It does so at the rate of almost fifteen-hundred liters of blood per day.”
“Can’t I just drink the coffee?”
Bell shook his head. “It’s not the same. It just doesn’t work that way. If you drink the coffee, by the time it goes through your stomach and the digestive process, the benefits of the chemical compounds are lost. You’ve got to get the coffee directly to the liver.”
Virgil had heard of coffee enemas before, but had always suspected that they were the product of quackery, a deception perpetrated on the uneducated or the uninsured as a last ditch effort to maintain some semblance of health and well being. “How long would I have to do this?”
“Twice a day, morning and night, but only for another two days,” Bell said.
“What do you mean by another two days?”
“You’ve had them now for three days. You know, while you were under…”
Virgil looked at Sandy, then put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.
16
Later in the day, after assurances to both Sandy and Bell that he would stay on his schedule, Virgil went down to the bar. Murton was seated at one of the tables and Delroy was busy rearranging things to make room for the two new juicers he’d purchased. Virgil sat down with Murton and suddenly realized, other than boredom, there was no real reason for him to be at the bar. They were fully staffed, he wasn’t on the schedule and Delroy and Robert had a handle on the day-to-day operations. For the first time in his adult life, Virgil felt like he didn’t quite belong…anywhere.
“I’m not really sure what I should be doing,” he told Murton. “I mean, this is my bar, but it has always been sort of a backup plan for me. You know, something to do when I’m retired.”
“Aren’t you retired now?” Murton asked.
“Yeah. Aren’t you?”
Murton kept glancing at the clock behind the bar. “You know what I think you should do?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“I think you should go into business with me. I could use a partner and you’re the best investigator I’ve ever met. We’d be unstoppable.”
Virgil tried to keep his face neutral. “Ah, Murt. I don’t know…”
“No, no, just think about it for a second, will you? Here’s the way I see it.” He started ticking points off on his fingers. “One, we know everything there is to know about each other, so in that regard, we’d work well together. Hell, we already are working together right here at the bar. Two, if you were to examine the situation, you’d discover you are in the unfortunate position of what most anyone at all would refer to as limited employment opportunities. Three, I don’t have a drug policy…”
“Hey...”
“Relax, Jonesy, I’m just messing with you. I actually do have a drug policy. Anyway, four, a P.I. badge is bigger and shinier than that little state badge you used to carry around. So what do you say? Wheeler and Jones Investigations. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think so, Murt. Thanks just the same, but I think I’ll take a pass.”
“What? How can you turn down an offer like that? We’d have this city cleaned up in no time.” He was serious.
“Oh yeah? How exactly would that work? Hold on, let me guess. We sit around here and wait for clients to walk through the door who want to hire a couple of bartenders?”
He wagged his finger back and forth. “Wrong. Not bartenders. Bar owners. Bar owners who used to be cops. We’d have them lined up and waiting.”
Virgil chuckled for a few seconds. “Let me ask you this, how many clients do you have lined up and waiting?”
Murton sort of shrugged. “Hell Jonesy, I’m just getting started. But once the word gets out we’ll have to beat them back with a stick.”
“How many?” he asked again.
“You mean right now, at this very moment?”
“Yes, I mean right now, Murt, at this very moment.”
Murton did two things just then. He pushed one of the chairs out from under the table with his leg, then picked up his mug of coffee and blew the steam away from the top of the cup. As he did, an attractive young woman walked up to their table and sat down in the chair. She addressed her question to Murton, who to his credit—or perhaps his salesmanship—never took his eyes off of Virgil.
“Are you Murton Wheeler?” the young lady asked. “That nice Jamaican man behind the bar said you were. My name is Nichole Pope. I need your help.”
Virgil looked at Nichole Pope, the grown daughter of the man he’d shot and killed over twenty years ago, then looked back at Murton. “Are there benefits?”
“Nope. And the pay sucks too. In fact, after expenses there probably won’t be anything left over at all.”
“Then I’ll take it.” Virgil looked at Nichole Pope then pointed across the table. “He’s Murton Wheeler. I’m his partner. How may we help you, young lady?”
&n
bsp; Hendricks County is home to the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, where Sandy worked. Over the years as a state cop, first as a trooper, then an investigator, Virgil had built up any number of relationships with different county sheriffs and patrol officers, particularly in the counties closest to Indianapolis. Nichole Pope hadn’t even answered his question when Virgil noticed Hendricks County Sheriff Jerry Powell walk into the bar. He was in uniform, so Virgil knew he wasn’t there to eat or drink. “Excuse me for just a moment,” Virgil said to Murton and Nichole. He walked away from the table and met Sheriff Powell in the middle of the room. “Jerry, what is it? Is Sandy okay?”
Powell looked at him in confusion before he put it together. “Ah, Jesus, Jonesy, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I should have called first. Sandy’s fine. Haven’t seen her in quite some time, now that you mention it. How’s she doing, anyway? Hey no disrespect, but if I were twenty years younger…”
Virgil exhaled noticeably. “Come on, Jerry, have a seat at the bar with me for a minute.”
Powell slid onto a barstool, his gun belt squeaking in protest as he did. He removed his Smokey the Bear hat, set it crown down on the bar top, looked at Virgil and said, “You okay? You look sort of pale.”
“No, I’m fine,” Virgil said, frowning at the contradiction of his own statement. “What’s up?”
“I was going to call you at your office and put in an official request…”
“A request for what?”
“Got a little arson problem. Different spots, but we’re mostly getting hit in Plainfield and Danville. Was sort of hoping you could take a peek and see what you could see.”
Virgil watched in the mirror behind the bar as Nichole Pope stood from her seat and made her way to the restroom. He turned his attention back to the sheriff. “What’s the state’s arson inspector say?”