SIX WEEKS
Martin pulled over. He was sweating. Goddamn it was hot in the car. He fiddled with the wheel on the center of the dash. The radio blasted to life, some Hispanic female shrieked unintelligible lyrics over a pounding dance beat.
He fumbled with it, squinting. Suddenly a cold blast of air blessed his face. He tried to turn on the dome light and a disembodied voice said, “One half mile, take a right at the signal.”
“Son of a bitch!” He almost took out his gun. He was gonna shoot that son of a bitchin’ god damn spool in the center of its unblinking eye.
Again he asked himself, “What’s so bad about a switch? Huh? How about a goddamn knob.? Or a lever? What in THE hell was so bad with that?” He was getting agitated. “Someday I’m gonna blow that bitch right back to Bavaria.”
“And,” he added sourly, “If I had the time, I’d go after the bastard who thought you were a good idea in the first place.”
The voice repeated its directions. He took a deep breath, no need to settle the score now. He had done it one better already tonight. Just drove down the alley, right on cue, Trent Kelso came around the corner of his garage lugging his recycling. He looked up. Did he recognize the car? Probably. So what? He got the message. Right between the eyes. He dropped like an anvil through ether. It made no difference to Martin whether old Trent recognized him or not. Martin wasn’t out to gloat, just get the job done.
He fished a little black leather book out of the inside packet of his sport coat. He opened it and adjusted his glasses. He crossed Trent Kelso off the list. He smiled briefly and then frowned.
He recalled the day clearly, once again. Had thought about it a lot over the last year. He had left the dealership that day after a long lesson with the late Trent Kelso. He thought of one more question and returned. Trent, good old Trent – he’d sold him his last 3 BMW’s – had his back to him, was talking to the kid from the detail shop. Martin paused when he heard his name mentioned., “The good Dr Goldberg, can’t figure out his iDrive system,” he snorted, ( HE SNORTED!!! the bastard) “Don’t think he ever will….I tell you Evan, doctors are a car salesman’s dream, “ he took a long pull from his Coke, “They aint as smart as they think they are.”
Martin slipped out of the dealership with his face burning. He pulled out his little book and entered Trent’s name there. The late Trent Kelso, BMW salesman of the month, eight times in 2004!
He got the idea for his little book one day at lunch when a drug detail man had idly mentioned adding a balky receptionist to his “Dying of Cancer List.”
“What’s that?” Martin had asked, curious.
“Well”, the patronizing rep replied out of the side of his mouth, “If one of you guys ever give me 3 months to live, I’m gonna shoot all the people that were a pain in the ass to me.” He laughed and Martin joined him. The first interesting thing a drug rep had ever told him.
That night Martin had started his own list. Over the years it had been a comfort to him.
He replaced the book and attempted to turn off the dome. “Right at the next signal’ blurted out again, sounding just a bit nervous to Martin’s ear.
He cruised through the city, picked up his cell phone and dialed a number he had impressed into his brain. Always do your homework. Just like with the now 3 eyed salesman of the month. It had taken him just a week. Garbage night, Tuesday. Come home to the little lady, take out the trash.
A young sounding female answered, “Dr Friedman’s service.”
“Yes, this is Dr. Abe Weinstien at Mount Sinai Myrtlewood E.D. I need to speak with Dr Friedman.”
Without pause the young lady said, “Please give me your number and I’ll have him call you right away.”
“I’d rather have you put me through to him,” he paused, “I have Pamella Anderson here in the ED and it is kind of urgent…”
“I understand,” she replied with expert understanding. “Hold the line.”
A few moments passed. Martin practicing his best Abe Wienstien. So fortunate Ben was on call on a Tuesday evening.
A voice came on the line, “Abe, how are you? What can I do for you?”
Martin started, “Well, Ben, it’s probably nothing really,” he cleared his throat. “I can most likely just patch her and have her come see you in the morning but...just thought I’d run it by you…”
“What is it?” Ben asked solicitously.
“Well Pamela Anderson, she is one of your patients, right?”
“Certainly. What happened?’
“Well, she was doing something with her nails, using an adhesive, Poison Control says its just a sort of jazzed up super glue, well anyway, she got some in her eyes..”
Ben exclaimed, “Dear God!” A little too emphatically, Martin noticed.
Martin smiled, tried to fake a sigh, not convincingly, but it was lost anyway on Ben, “Yeah, I know, well I got her under the slit lamp here and her corneas look like the craters on the moon, I’d usually do the standard, you know, eye patches, a bead of antibiotic, see you in the morning?”
“I know, but Abe, this could be more serious than it appears, I’ll be right down.”
Martin was following Ben’s Mercedes within ten minutes. At the first light he pulled up and motioned for Ben to roll his window down. Ben recognized him, and did it, obviously surprised. Martin looked up and down the empty boulevard and then shot him in the face. The late opthalmologist slumped sideways and the Mercedes shot forward, engine screaming it arced through the intersection , leapt over the distant curb and plunged into the dark, a drop of God knows how far in this L.A. Canyon neighborhood. Martin hung a left and heard a muffled thud. He noticed a faint flash in the darkness behind.
He got home and crossed Ben’s name off the list. The bastard. Had come up to Martin at the Foundation Gala, swirled his martini and said, “Sorry about that lawsuit,” He extended his head back and rolled it around in an act of physical nonchalance, hand plunged into his side pocket, the son of a bitch, “I hope you don’t take it personally...it’s only business Martin.”
Business? Business?! It had been the talk of the office for a day or two, Martin just knew it, although no one ever mentioned it to him. Martin that night had given him his best Oh Shucks shrug and swirled his own drink. Some kind of tropical thing that made him want to puke. He wanted to poke the little umbrella right into the eye of that preening opthalmalogist.
Sue me about the outcome on your daughter’s crooked toes? I worked like hell on those claws you call toes. All the specialties and all the surgeons in the world would never make a silk purse out of Ben Wiesman’s club footed, buck toothed, crosseyed, honknosed redheaded daughter. Hell, even old Ben himself couldn’t straighten her eyes out…completely. The late old Ben.
Martin crossed the foyer into the dining room and then the kitchen. He listened to the usual messages and then, his wife, sounding tired but happy. “We’re doing fine, honey, wish you were here with us…only 6 weeks and we’ll all be together!”
He smiled at that. He thought of them, all the way across the country. Spending time with her folks in Fort Lauderdale. Six weeks.
“Six weeks” the consulting oncologist had told him. Martin didn’t even have to ask. Martin had known. Even a podiatrist knows something about cancer. No one ever gives a podiatrist credit. He had sent his family off to Florida knowing it. Had read all the books before he even visited his internist. The biopsy, according to the oncologist, revealed, “An especially aggressive, rare form of gastric Ca, er, ah , cancer. Very, rare Dr. Goldberg, I mean, Martin.”
It only had confirmed what Martin had been suspecting for months now. The heartburn, the gnawing pain, the dyspepsia, bloating, anorexia.
“Get your things in order,” the oncologist had advised. Martin only half heard it. He was thinking about his little black book.
Martin crossed the glittering expanse of kitchen and headed for his bathroom. Instinctively he reached for his antacids. He paused, funny, not much burn tonight, think I can get by without ‘em.
For a change he was taking deliberate action, taking control, for maybe the first time in his beleaguered life and it felt good. Damn good, he mused. He gave himself a kind of giddy thumbs up in the medicine chest mirror.
He pulled onto the searing black asphalt of Vista Manor at 2 in the afternoon. He’d driven 130 miles into the arid interior of southern California, past Joshua trees and miles of windmills spinning electricity to the insatiable appetites back along the coast. He got out of his car and nearly swooned in the shimmering heat. He looked around. What vista? he thought as he looked around. Not unless you count the back side of a strip mall as a vista. At least the front of the place had a manor façade, big columns, fancy lights hanging in the portico. Martin noted however, that extending in a V behind this manor mirage there stretched rather ordinary, metal prefab arms, like some sort of high output supercharged chicken hatchery.
He crossed the plush carpet to the directory. Just like he learned on Google last night, there it was: Herbert Clark. Mister Clark to a student like Martin. “Coach” to the ascendant jocks who made high school such a misery.
Good old Herb Clark. Always anxious to use Martin as an example. An example of how not to dribble, how not to block, how not to throw a goddam softball, let alone catch it. With his classmates laughing and the jocks sneering, the humiliation was complete.
Dribble a basketball? What? Bouncing a ball and running at the same time? That was supposed to be valuable, laudable, worthwhile? It looks ridiculous even when experts do it. The cromagnon miscreants absolutely shivered with glee whenever “Coach” would choose Martin to demonstrate something oh so important, like catching a grounder. In his mitt. Mitt? Jesus Christ.
Room 188. He walked down a long hallway approaching an intersection, not really comfortable with the smell in there. Some kind of nurses station was at the cross roads ahead. He heard voices, bits of laughter. The hallways were empty except for far in the distance a lone stooped old women appeared to be ramming her wheelchair, again and again, into an apparently locked exit.
Motion caught the corner of his eye. An old man was poised on the pinnacle of a railing that ran along his bed. Martin was about to shout but the old man pitched over the fence and landed on a thin mat placed along his bed. Sounded like a bag of bones hitting floor. A shrill alarm sounded ahead. So that’s what the mat was, Martin figured, an alarm. Well, that’s good, attention will be drawn away from me with all that racket.
He kept walking, trying to shake the sound the old man’s impact had made. He recalled hearing a pro wrestler once say in a radio tell-all interview that a good body slam doesn’t hurt when it is just one “Smack!” on the mat, all the body parts hitting simultaneously. But when there are multiple “Smacks!” it hurts. This particular slam had a sound to it that, Martin figured, Coach Clark would’ve cherished as an example of how not to do a body slam. His only regret would’ve been that Martin was not the subject.
Still, ahead, no one materialized into the hallway. No concerned nurses or aides. He walked past the station. No one looked up. The alarm squalled but no one paid it any mind, no one paid Martin any mind either. That’s good, he thought.
He paused outside 188. He strode in. He was shocked to see what remained of the once tyrannical nemesis he had known. A scrawny man laid, skeletal, on a rumpled bed.
It was him though. Could tell by the crew cut. The bastard. Crew cut all white now, thin, but still a remnant redneck exclamation point on an otherwise pathetic creature.
Martin was slightly taken aback. Old Clark was decrepit. He would’ve turned around and walked out, feeling his job would certainly be done for him, and soon, but, a flash caught his vision. There it was. Hanging on the crummy little corkboard. A whistle. Silver, dull and worn at the edges. Under it someone had pinned a recipe card with a loving “Coach” neatly penciled on it. That did it.
Martin looked around. No one. Herb’s roommate snored with a death rattle himself.
Martin said “Hey! Coach?”
The old man’s crusted eyes fluttered. Martin Grabbed a pillow and pushed it down on coach’s face, hard, so hard he could almost feel the bed frame. Coach’s hands did not lift off the bed. Palms down, he did not struggle.
Martin did not care, he was taking care of business. It didn’t matter to him a bit if Coach had recognized him, fought him, felt pain or fear. Coach was just another name on a list.
Martin straightened his tie and walked out, past the nurse station. The siren shrieked, a phone was ringing too. He couldn’t resist looking at them in disbelief. No one raised an eye. They continued with their banter. Martin understood. Shift change. One of them was snapping her bubble gum. They would all have made his list, if he had someone that he cared about in this wretched place.
He cast a glance into the room where the old man had dashed to the floor. There was a dark smear of blood across the mat/alarm. The old man had wormed his way under his bed. His skinny legs were protruding and appeared to be jerking a spasm of some sort. Convulsion, Martin concluded as he crossed the elegant lobby. Idly he wondered, how are they gonna drag him out of there?
It was a long hot drive into the sun. He got back home and headed for the medicine chest. Again he reached for the Prilosec but, he was surprised, he didn’t need any. He felt hungry for a change too. He shrugged. Palmed a few Tylenol’s for his headache.
He punched the answering machine, “This is Dr. Reynolds. I need to see you.”
Martin wheeled into the gastroenterologist’s shady lot. The palm trees made a nice border along the lane and secluded parking lot. He wanted only to stop here today for a moment and thank Reynolds, not so much to hear what he had to say. Dr. Reynolds was the only guy who just went right to the biopsy, his fool internist wanted to rule out this and that and order such and such a study, exam, or test. Tests? Dammit, Martin knew what was wrong, he had suspected, hell, knew, from the start but…nobody listens to a podiatrist. Treat him like a goddam child, explaining things ever so painstakingly, like he was a moron.
Reynolds was different. Had this place here. Did what Martin wanted, none of this screwing around chasing expensive frivolities. He knew the message of last night meant that the oncologists had probably contacted Reynolds again, offering some more false hope, a possible excruciating procedure, a tedious treatment, or a clinical trial perhaps, some new toxic potion they wanted to pour down him. No way, he had but 3 weeks left and had never felt so alive.
“These six weeks are what I was born for!” He had exclaimed this morning, giving himself another thumbs up in the bathroom mirror.
But he was resigned, the ride was coming to an end. Today he’d screwed up. The problem was, this morning, tellers saw him. Customers saw him. They heard the booms he supposed, even though he had a rag over the muzzle. Witnesses now.
A certain officious little banker. Late banker, well ventilated, who had, so many years ago, took Liselle’s and his application fee and then, grinning all the time, told them they did not qualify for a mortgage on that bungalow on Yucca Court.. A bungalow? On Yucca Court?
He had to humble himself and ask Liselle’s father for the down payment. Her dad had been kind when Martin had told him about it, “Pricks like that, you gotta prove ya don’t need the money before they’ll loan it to ya.”
But he didn’t loan Martin the money either. “Bungalow’s not worth it.” Later Martin saw that both the banker and his father in law were right, but the banker had grinned. He acted like he thought he was cute or something. Well he’s cute, Martin thought, now with about 3 new holes in his big bald forehead. Strange, Martin didn’t recall him being bald before. Same guy though.
But all those screams in the bank lobby this morning…
He sighed and got out of the car.
He was escorted into Dr. Reynold’s plush office and not for the first time did Martin reflect on his own little cubbyhole at the medical center.
“Cubbyhole.” That’s what Eli Roth had laughed and called it when he came to meet Martin one day before golf. Martin was irritated by that remark, coming from a damn lawyer. So irritated he lost the round to Eli that afternoon. Never played with him again, imagine losing to a fat plug like Roth. He made a mental note to add him to the list, if he wasn’t there already.
Owen Reynolds entered his office and shook Maritn’s hand. “Thank you for coming down this morning, Martin.” He laughed a little and nodded reflectively, “Well, let’s see, I don’t know where to begin.”
Martin thought back with satisfaction on his productive morning. Sure, the banker will probably turn out to be a bust, but he celebrated inside as he crossed off 2 other names from the list before him.
First, a retired alderman. (He’d declined to support Martin’s request for a garage setback variance.) He made the mistake of jogging alone every morning. Just like clockwork.
Then the guy at the gun shop. Martin smiled, profoundly gratified. Smart ass. Just 3 weeks ago Martin had come in wanting to buy his gun.
The guy asked what kind. Martin had never owned a gun before, he had no idea what kind. Martin had said, “I don’t know, how about one of those little ones, like James Bond has?”
The guy was quiet for a minute, studying Martin, looked like he might say something or laugh. “Walther PPK? Sure I can sell you one of those.”
He turned and slid a drawer full of different guns out from a cabinet behind him. With his back to Martin he said, “I can sell you the gun, 007, but you’re gonna have to go down to the dime store for the decoder ring and the license to kill.”
He turned to face Martin and his smile evaporated.
A big guy at the end of the counter must not have seen Martin’s expression because he slapped the counter top and nearly choked on the meat stick he was gnawing on.
Martin whirled and glared at him. The guy never noticed and he returned to the assembly of the shotgun or rifle or whatever it was that he just moments before disassembled.
Martin took inventory of him. Big, jowly redneck. Wearing cammo. It was almost time for Martin to laugh. Hell, there wasn’t even so much as a green blade of grass around here for blocks, let alone a leaf. Obviously the man sported the cammo just to be noticed. If he would’ve craved a disguise in this neighborhood, he would’ve been better served if his jacket were of a cinder block pattern with scattered spray paint scrawlings all over it.
Both men would make Martin’s book, the latter, as “Big fat cammo redneck..”
This morning “Gun shop guy” was not smiling. Martin had came in, first customer of the day. The man looked up at him, dimly recognizing him from somewhere, “What can I for do you?”
Martin beamed, “Got it.”
The man looked at him curiously, tilted his head a bit, “What’s that?”
Martin slapped his hand on the counter just like the “Big fat cammo redneck” had done about 3 weeks before.
Martin removed his hand and the man looked down puzzled at the little black book there on the countertop . On the front was printed “Glaxo” in gold letters.
The man looked up at Martin, “What?” he said, shaking his head, confused.
“License to kill!” Martin yelled.
The man saw the little automatic in Martin’s hand and quickly bent sideways as if reaching for the floor. Martin shot him in the ear.
Martin wriggled up, clawed his way over the top of the counter so he could look down at the man.. He was sprawled there, motionless. Martin noticed the man had a little gun strapped to his leg, above his ankle. Huh, so that’s what he was reaching for, Martin concluded, stupid ass place to keep a gun, especially when you really needed one. His own expert opinion on the man’s gunmanship startled him. Martin shook his head, he was getting good at this gun business. He wished “Big fat cammo redneck” would’ve walked in just then.
His attention was drawn back to Dr. Reynolds, he heard something about biopsies. Reynolds was saying, “I pity the poor doctor who is right now having a conversation with the patient whose biopsy was switched with yours, Martin. As well as you can probably all too well understand how that unfortunate patient must feel.”
Martin tried to focus, had he said something about gastric reflux? GERD? He looked down, he blinked, rubbed his eyes. Reynolds was facing the window, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head and laughing, “You’re a lucky man, Martin. You’ve been given a new lease here.”
“What a mistake,” he continued, marveling, “I trust you know how it is. Same biopsy, same symptoms. Similar names, same pathologist, lab etc. it happens. I apologize for this. I only hope this good news will erase the memory of what you’ve been going through these last few weeks.” He added that last part, hopefully, defensively. Martin thought about why. Because Martin might want to conduct business on him? Nothing personal?
Well it was personal now. Somehow there were 3 holes in Reynold’s back. It looked like it was sizzling in there, smoke came out too. Then blood. Dr Reynolds was hurled against the window so hard it cracked. Martin was surprised, he looked down at his hand. Yes, the gun was there. He felt vaguely uneasy, Reynolds wasn’t on the list.
Somehow he was at his car. Sirens were on the way, approaching. Just one more thing left to do now. He slammed the door.
The police surrounded the car and waited. Dispatch had told them a caller from inside the doctor’s office had reported seeing a muzzle flash from within the vehicle, heard a muffled report. The cops could see Martin in there, he wasn’t moving. They finally approached the car, slowly, weapons trained on the motionless shape inside. When they finally flung open the car door they discovered that there was a bullet hole in the center of Martin’s……dashboard.
Martin stared down at the paper the screw had given him. It was from his attorney. Detached, he read it again:
I am informing you that your wish has been granted. The mandatory appeals have been exhausted and I shall field no further appeals on your behalf. As per your request all possible delays and stays have been waived. I hope you know our firm gave your defense our best efforts.
Execution, by lethal injection, is scheduled for 12:01 AM, on third of November, next….
It went on about his family, estate etc, just a bunch of talk. He looked up at the calendar over the Screw’s desk. The third? Let’s see, from today that gives me, exactly…. six weeks.
He picked up his little black book. He had been making very many revisions and additions to it. He considered the law firm, no, they did their best. Who else did he know? The screws? The bastards. But they were just doing their job, he only put the names in his book of those who did him wrong of their own volition.
It made him feel good, this book. He considered and then wrote in it again adding the names of a couple of the cons who gang raped him in the Paint Shop. And how about that kid back in camp? What was his name? The guy who put the Ex Lax in his cocoa?
