Blood Test

I was famished but he looked too grungy to take to a restaurant so I bought a couple of burgers and Cokes at a stand in Santa Ana and pulled to the side of the road near a small municipal park. I gave Raoul his food and ate mine while watching a group of teenagers play softball, racing to finish before nightfall. When I turned to look at him, he was asleep, the food still wrapped and lying in his lap. I took it, stowed it in a trashcan and started up the Seville. He stirred but didn’t awaken and by the time I got back on the freeway he was snoring peacefully.

We reached L.A. by seven, just as traffic on the downtown interchange was untangling. When I turned off at the Los Feliz exit he opened his eyes.

“What’s your address?”

“No, take me back to the hospital.”

“You’re in no shape to go back there.”

“I must. Helen will be waiting.”

“You’ll only scare her looking like that. At least go home and freshen up first.”

“I have a change of clothes in my office. Please, Alex.”

I threw up my hands and drove to Western Peds. After parking in the doctors’ lot I walked him to the front door of Prinzley.

“Thank you,” he said, looking at his feet.

“Take care of yourself.”

On the way back to the car I met Beverly Lucas leaving the wards. She looked tired and worn, the oversized purse seeming to weigh her down.

“Alex, I’m so glad to see you.”

“What’s the matter?”

She looked around to make sure no one was listening.

“It’s Augie. He’s been making my life miserable ever since your friend interrogated him, calling me unfaithful, a quisling. He even tried to embarrass me on rounds but the attending doc stopped it.”

“Bastard.”

She shook her head.

“What makes it hard is that I see his point. We were — close, once. What he did in bed was nobody’s business.”

I took her by the shoulders.

“What you did was right. If you got enough distance to see straight that would be obvious. Don’t let him get to you.”

She flinched at the harshness in my voice.

“I know you’re right. Intellectually. But he’s falling apart and it hurts me. I can’t help my feelings.”

She started to cry. A trio of nurses walked our way. I steered her off the walkway and into the stairwell to the doctors’ level.

“What do you mean falling apart?”

“Acting strange. Doping and drinking more heavily than usual. He’s bound to get caught. This morning he pulled me off the ward and into a conference room, locked the door, and came on to me.”

She lowered her eyes in embarrassment.

“He told me I was the best he’d ever had, actually tried to get physical. When I stopped him he looked crushed. Then he started to rant about Melendez-Lynch — how he’d scapegoated him and was going to try to use the Swope case to terminate the fellowship. He started to laugh — it was a freaky laugh, Alex, full of anger. He said he had an ace up his sleeve. That Melendez-Lynch would never get rid of him.”

“Did he say what that was?”

“I asked him. He just laughed again and walked out. Alex, I’m worried. I was just on my way to the residents’ dorm. To make sure he was okay.”

I tried to talk her out of it but she was resolute. She had an infinite capacity for guilt. Someday she’d make someone a wonderful doormat.

It was clear she wanted me to accompany her to his apartment, and tired as I was, I agreed to go with her, in case things got hairy. And on the off-chance Valcroix really had an ace and might show it.

The residents’ dorm across the boulevard from the hospital was a utilitarian affair, three stories of unfinished concrete over a subterranean parking lot. Some of the windows had been brightened up with plants and flower arrangements resting on sills or hanging from macrame harnesses. But that didn’t stop it from looking like what it was: low-cost housing.

An elderly black guard was stationed at the door — there had been rapes in the neighborhood and the residents had screamed for security. He looked at our hospital badges and let us pass.

Valcroix’s apartment was on the second floor.

“It’s the one with the red door,” said Beverly, pointing.

The corridor and all the other doors were beige. Valcroix’s was scarlet and stood out like a wound.

“Amateur paint job?” I ran my hand over the wood, which was rough and bubbled. A segment from a doper comic had been pasted to the door — furry people popping pills and hallucinating in technicolor, their fantasies sexually explicit and excessive.

“Uh huh.”

She knocked several times. When there was no answer she bit her lip.

“Maybe he went out,” I suggested.

“No. He always stays home when he’s not on call. That was one thing that bothered me about our relationship. We never went out.”

I didn’t remind her that she’d spotted him in a restaurant with Nona Swope. No doubt he was one of those men as stingy about giving as he was greedy about taking. He’d do the least amount possible to enter a woman’s body. With her lowered expectations, Beverly would have been his dream. Until he got bored with her.

“I’m worried, Alex. I know he’s in there. He could be OD’ed on something.”