Red Rum Murders
by
Clifford Roberts
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any semblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Printed in the United States of America
BOOKS BY CLIFFORD ROBERTS
Fiction
Dead Nobles
Glacier Point
The Mystic Killings
In a Killers Eye
Red Rum Murders
OR3
Poison Blood
Run Lee Run
Reference
Dictionary of Idioms & Phrases
Chapter One
“Who are you?”
“I’m with EMS.”
“What in God’s name happened?
“You were in a bad accident.”
“Am I in one piece?”
“Too soon to tell.”
“Do you always not come clean with victims of accidents?”
“Excuse me?” Smoot’s expression changed from a smile to frowning concentration, to a rime of scowling anger, as he felt the right side of his face starting to burn. That last question had come out of nowhere, and struck him hard like an openhanded slap. Suddenly, imagery of a hoary lunatic waggling his tongue took shape in his mind. The gray with aged man gave out a wicked chuckle and disappeared.
Wound up, the imagery yet a figment of his imagination, Smoot stood upright and looked down at the injured man. When their eyes met, Smoot turned his head away, and fished the hypodermic needle from his black satchel.
With the ambulance’s siren blaring, quick as a cat, he stuck the needle into the veins on the man’s right arm, inoculating him before he had the chance to protest.
“What did you do that for?”
“It’s just a relaxant,” Smoot said, cocking his head with an innocent look of confusion, as his gaze hardened.
“Of all the damn luck,” said the man, “I had to end up here.”
“You sound as though it’s been a life of Reilly for you, is that so?”
The man put his hand to his chest, and grunted. “Without being long-winded, I would say it’s like a roller coaster. You know with up’s and down’s.”
Smoot shook his head. “Have you been in an accident before?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you say more than two or more? Then again, let me guess; how about more than two?”
“You are right, my man; I would.”
“How did you feel about them?”
“What do you mean?”
“Were there sleepless nights or remorse?”
“Oh, no; I think I know where you are going with that. If you are implying all the accidents were my fault, I say no to that.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying anything of that sort.”
“Oh, I know it, my man, I know it. What’s your name by the way?”
Smoot said with lackluster, “Why do you ask?”
“I ask you that, because it seems strange to me for an EMS personnel would ask so many damn questions. Just like black people, always sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Smoot sighed exasperatingly. “We don’t have to dreg up our prejudices, do we?”
“Why in the fuck not?” said the man with an icy visage.
Not wanting to sound like a lackey, Smoot said, “Well…”
“The way I see it,” the man butted in, “it would be like, better all around for everyone if you blacks were put on freighters back to Africa. Get my drift.”
“I think you are like, overreacting; I was only trying to be friendly. No ulterior motive.”
The man threw up his hands. “Oh, here you go with that lah-di-dah crap, like you some elegant dude. Whatever in god’s name got you thinking you are someone to respect?”
“I respect you as a human being,” said Smoot. “So, there should be no reason for you to not respect me too.”
The man shook his head with a wildish pitiful motion. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing. What will it take for you monkey’s to wake up and go back to where you were originally? Even slavery was good for you. You didn’t have responsibilities. Your master took care of you from cradle to grave. What more can you ask for, huh?”
“We don’t need to go there,” said Smoot, the tenor of his voice rising up a peg. Though the affect of the shot was longer than usual, it shouldn’t be long, he thought.
Smoot closed his eyes for a moment, hoping against hope for things to end, not knowing he was soon to be blessed.
The man grabbed at his head with shaky hands. “Oh, mother of god; my head’s starting to feel like it’s going to explode. What on earth did you do to me?”
Smoot grumbled and fell back into the rhythm. “Steady there. Try to stay calm. Getting yourself all worked up won’t help.”
The man’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. “Shit! How can I not? Just give me something to stop the pain?”
Smoot seethed with self-righteous indignation. “No way!” he rasped, his mouth a grim slash in his face, looking searchingly at him, seeing the strain, the pain, and the uncertainty. Irritation had set in right off the bat the instant the man had questioned the fabric of whom and what he was, and felt the imbecile could see with his eyes the EMS insignia in big letters on front of his uniform.
Even a blind man could see the thin, angry line of his mouth, and angrily clenched jaw, had Smoot tire of the man’s whimpering.
He then gave out a disparaging snort, “See here, it’s not a habit of me to explain to patients about the medication.” Then he offered by explanation as the man looked up at him, “But I will tell you, that one-shot usually does it. Haven’t had to give no more than that?”
“But—? Will I be all right? I mean … the pain frightens me to death. For the love of God man—what have you done to—?”
“Oh, please!” Smoot interrupted him, looking sternly over the man’s burgeoning stomach, thinking the man was a crud, “Not another word—or I might not have a choice but to strangle you first and think about the consequences later. You’re one emotional wreck of a guy. And to answer your question: I know it probably sounds insane—but I just can’t tell you right now.”
With his eyes alight like flies, flitting; and then with a flash of teeth, with agitation nipping at him, Smoot nodded, and patted the man gently on his arm. “It’s only temporary. Just a few seconds more and you’ll be in a comfortable sleep. Don’t try to fight it. Just let go. Don’t sweat it. You’re not at death door yet. When the angle of death comes a callin’, you won’t know it. Believe me, if I’m lyin’ I’m flyin’. If you were to pop your clogs right now, I’ll say a pray for you. But don’t fret, I think there’s a great chance you’ll pull through.” Smoot flashed a devil of a smile, his eyes sparkling. “Trust me.”
A moment in the trice, the patient made one final effort to free himself by fumbling with the buckle to loosen the strap that had him tied to the stretcher. “Brr—my body’s caught a chill!” He pointed a straight finger at Smoot. “Whatever you done, I’m tellin’ you right here and now, that God don’t like ugly. You here me?” The guy mumbled a few more syllables. He went mouching along like croaking.
Smoot always would go into long explanations when a simple “yes” or “no” would do. This time he didn’t respond.
Shortly, the man’s breathing became strained, intermittent, and after a couple of minutes, stopped altogether, followed by one last deep gurgling breath.
The color of the man’s skin drew pale. Smoot touched his forearm and felt the tautness. He was impressed with the swift acting poison.
Not long after—because of loss of bladder and bowel contents—Smoot’s nose crinkled at the smell of the body odor. Breathing a sigh, he sat down and looked at the man as he lay still; not uttering a sound as the emergency vehicle sped through the night, its red stroll lights flashing, blinking like some remotely seaside lighthouse, only to slow to a crawl at a busy intersection, and grind to a halt.
Across the street on the opposite side, Smoot spotted a middle-aged woman thwack the back of a child’s knee with a cane for trying to cross to the other side of the street when the signal didn't say walk. He felt the kid’s pain, but felt even sadder when his eyes showed that even the hostile gaze of the decent did not prevent men and women ‘on the cross,’ from getting into mischief. The men appeared to be elderly, the women unusually young. He frowned as a woman showed a man her private charms, and invited him to enjoy them. ‘Angels of the night,’ whispered a remotely soft voice from a dark corner in his consciousness.
Smoot shook his head as the light turned green. He then turned his head to look at his patient.
The driver of the vehicle pushed the accelerator, and caused the van to put on more speed again, swerving in and out of traffic, hastening through a yellow light. The Deadwood Medical Center set off on the edge of the San Francisco Bay area, 20 miles from the junction at the Sacramento San Joaquin Rivers, laid out in 1849 and later incorporated in 1903.
As the EMS van started to travel slightly downward, Smoot looked out a side window. He noticed the light from the atomy ticky-tacky buildings ablaze by the bay and bright-lit houses reared up and packed cheek by jowl on a jutting cliff, chalky with little vegetation, which seen end on, their sharp, saw-tooth mountain range’s rocky summits pointing like arrows, as the lights coruscating in the dusting sky. He found the view breathtaking and couldn’t help but feel deeply and uncritically enamored that his hometown of Deadwood set but a mere fifteen miles from the city of Pittsburg—home of Pittsburg State University. He had attended the university. When he was there, on his way to a degree in Medical Engineering, he had learned the city manufactured packaging equipment, construction materials, machinery, chemicals, industrial glass; and coal mined until 1902; also that the city’s Camp Stoneman stood as an important embarkation point during World War 11 and the Korean War. Moreover, that the City’s industry includes transport, electric equipment; printing and publishing; chemicals; machinery; paper, fabricated metal, limestone, clay, and plastic products, all occurring under the watchful eye of father time.
Deadwood, an aspect of Pennsylvania almost every citizen adored. It was the country’s second hottest town for singles, according to the town’s standard newspaper the Criterion. The better-off people lived in the older section of town, where Smoot also lived.
A squeak of the brakes and a slight bump, coupled with a glance out of the back windows of the van, and Smoot was acutely aware that they had arrived at the Medical Center, which was a glass and concrete hospital complex.
The double doors wrung open just as Smoot and another EMS person rolled the stretcher over the threshold and entered the Emergency Room. A doctor standing nearby with a stethoscope dangling from around his neck ambled over to them.
“What do we have here Smoot?” asked Doctor Benseloun, a tall, sprite 36-year old prematurely gray-haired Oriental, just two weeks since having gone under the knife, his baggy eyes looking brighter and his jowls tighter. ‘He looks like my son,’ another doctor had joked, and who was four years younger.
Not many knew the image-conscious Doctor Benseloun had used a brief shopping trip in the heart of France as the stage for his return to the limelight. He brushed aside fellow colleague’s questions about the nip and tuck, saying he had a “road check.”
Smoot was one of the one’s that knew the reason for the Doctor’s brief fain vacation. He also was aware the dear doctor was going to a doctor here in the states to help remove unwanted wrinkles and clear away irksome crow’s-feet. He had an aversion to unsightly neckbands. From a reliable source, Smoot was told that according to some science people, many people are having Botox injections to regain a more youthful appearance. It was also said, some people are even hosting Botox parties—where several women and men, ‘yes, men,’ gather for cocktail and wrinkle-banishing injections.
Pointing to the man on the stretcher, Smoot’s smile turned to a frown. “Well, Doctor, it appears this man was in a bad accident and is suffering from internal injuries. I couldn’t get a full reading of his injuries.”
“I see,” said the doctor, moseying closer, and placing the stethoscope to the patient’s chest. After several moments, he grasped the patient’s risk and looked at his own watch—apparently to detect a pulse. Getting no pulse, he started a visual inspection, first noticing the purplish and waxy look of the skin, the blue-gray-color-paleness of the nails and lips, and flattening of the eyes because of loss of fluids. Seeing the body lying on its back, and knowing that blood had collected along the back and on the underside of the arms and legs, he did not place pressure on the skin.
Deciding there was no life, the doctor shook his head, grimly. “I’m afraid we’re too late. It’s hard to say if he would still be living were he brought here sooner.” He then took the man’s wallet out of his pants pocket, opened it, and then emptied the contents out on the stretcher beside the body.
The doctor looked awhile—plunged in thought; then he looked up with a satisfied light in his eye, and said, “Well Smoot, looks like you just got busier. We’re filled to the brim with dead corpses in our autopsy suites, not to mention the morgue; we got seven stiffs in the icebox. Smoot, you know that most patients who die in the hospital do not undergo autopsy. In recent years, there has been a decreased interest in the autopsy in the medical community. I cannot rightly say that the reason when an autopsy is requested, it is done by either the attending physician or the patient’s family. Normally, our hospital’s pathologist performs those cases of the former type for the educational benefit of the medical staff. Sometimes an independent pathologist hired by the family handles the cases. Usually, autopsies performed by the hospital pathologist do not result in cost to the patient’s estate; rather, the cost is absorbed by the hospital. Private autopsies hired by the family cost between $1200 and $2500. I say all that, to say, that if you do decide to do the autopsy, the hospital will pick up the tab.” The doctor held a piece of paper in his hand. “I found this brief document in the pocket of the decease, it states that should he die, let it be known that he had no known relatives. A doctor signed it. A Doctor Singleton. I know of him. He is reputable. ”
The doctor handed the document to Smoot. He looked it over and saw that it was indeed signed by a doctor.
Doctor Ben sighed as his lips hinted at a grimly smirk. “I just wanna cover all bases and see that nothing comes back to haunt us. I realize your place ain’t setup as we are here, I’m confidant you will do okay. So, what you say Smoot? You want to take a stab?—you are licensed to do that. As I remember, your pere did them. I know you’ve performed autopsies before at your funeral home. That’s why I’m confident you can do it. Before I forget to mention, that’s sure one nice Funeral Pallor you got. If I wasn’t kept so backlogged with patients, I be damned if I wouldn’t offer to be your partner.”
Smoot smiled. “Why, thank you Doctor. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Doctor Benseloun bowed his head, and said; “I’ll see that the deceased is made ready for further transport. Oh, before I forget, give my regards to Fidel for me will you. As I understand it, he’s coming along just find as your Diener.”
“Yes, that’s right, that he is.”
The doctor gave Smoot a nod of his head, and then marched out of the room.
Smoot stood by patiently and watched as two ICU nurses, starched and businesslike, stepped over to wrap the corpse in a shroud.
Her kind gesture wasn’t unthanked.
“Thank you,” Smoot said, with a winning smile and a confident air. “If there’s nothing else to be considered, I’ll take the deceased and put him in the refrigeration unit until the autopsy.”
Chapter Two
For three mortal days, it had rained and then stopped. With the clouds hanging low in the welkin, and the rough overgrown prickly bramble, the abounding viny laden weather-beaten sign, wearing out idle days and the whirligig of time, with the moniker, “Forever Funeral Home,” was obscure. Someone even had mentioned it looked like a landlocked lone soldier standing near the stone steps galled by years of heavy use, on the environmentally friendly croquet lawn. As the grass bowed down before the wind, the new gardener short and snappily put the lid on the fire works of skittering radical autumn leaves and cut back all the year’s growth to about four leaves. He then mowed the grass and took a scythe to the weeds, skillfully avoiding the fingered roots of the giant trees on a narrow finger of the yard. Then he swept the debris off the curving driveway bordered with withered chrysanthemums and finished up raking a flat, wet clot of dead leaves into an open plastic bag. He took a billhook and used it to prune, a shrub of spreading habit, and loop branches and some other vegetation about the property.
The billow of clouds shifted eastward slightly as the glaring meridian sun at it’s apex peeped out behind the clouds and shone down on two stone ferociously recumbent lions, golden in the sunlight, their heads raised like they listened—like some patient goddesses come down to woo him, one Smoot Mathews.
To add more privacy, Smoot Mathews, a buppie, a red-blooded purse-proud weal, in an ancient pair of jeans, had soiled himself when he had flanked the driveway and allee lined with trees and tall shrubs. A non-resident alien, and an old head on young shoulders, and keeping with a tight purse string, he had gotten where he was by dint of hard work, and priding himself on being a self-confessed and proud bourgeois.
The funeral home was every bit a barn of a country house in size, with taupe siding set off at a short distance away from the street. His pere had longed to one day have ample room. The wish was the mother of the deed, because soon after the death of his pere, Smoot, a great person for utilizing waste power, had plowed right into working on finishing that dream. With enough financial resources at his disposal, left by his pere, he finished the rear building attached to the funeral home. There was enough room to perform autopsies and store bodies, as well. There grew some berry brushes along the sides of the rear building. At first, the berries were green, but when they ripened, they turned bright red.
Smoot sluiced his face in cold water and yarned as his rakish, debonair demeanor appeared in the bathroom mirror, water slopping over the edge of the sink. Here was a man with a whiff of danger about him. He smiled at the mirrored image of himself, but frowned at the white strain of hair on his head. He gave the hair follicle a quick pull, and it came out by the roots.
After washing up, and flossing his teeth, he sprayed air freshener into the air. He put the can of freshener in the medicine cabinet, then took out another can, spritzed his under arms, put the can back, closing the door. Almost as an after thought, he hoisted the windowed dormer above the sink and left it ajar to give the room a thorough airing.
Taking a piece of cloth, he went behind himself, wiping and cleaning up his mess to make the bathroom spick-and-span once again. He even wiped the specks of water off the marble’s characteristic surface veining. After looking in the mirror at his mug, he left the bathroom.
Scaling two hundred and eighty pounds, his feet toed out as he entered the hallway, and schlep with a chirpy wag of his head, to the front office.
As he entered the office, dappled sunlight lay on his secretary’s long straight auburn hair. With her back to him and sitting at her desk, she did not notice him walk in.
Type, type, type, type, type went the sound of the typewriter, as she paused, thought, wondered, yawned, forgot, scratched, and resumed typing, type, type, type, type. She stopped typing, and started reading a book. She stopped reading the book, reached down and hoicked her bag on to the desk. She then fished a Kleenex from her bag, blew her nose, and continued to read.
“Good afternoon,” said Smoot in a cheerful tone to the young woman with her eyes glued to the folded page of an absorbing airport novel.
She straightened her shoulders; closed the book with a snap making it flat as a pancake, flipped it over and put it aside, and started to look at some papers in front of her.
Other then the airport novel and the papers, he noticed a medical textbook on the etiology of carpal tunnel syndrome. Smart girl, he thought, and probably spends hours poring over her books. She sees her Depend moment down the road, and she’s looking ahead to plan B already. He admired her willingness to want to brush up on schoolwork. It was a clear-cut sign she wearied of the sameness of her life.
Her name was Page Mayfield, six solars his secretary, charming, smart as a whip, 23 annuals high yaller African-American, junior Science Major at Pittsburg University.
Not the least bit aware the responsibility for breadwinning has devolved increasingly on women, on her own with a one-year old child, she pitied herself. After meeting a mother with three children under six, she discovered her troubles paled into insignificance.
Page moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and pushed her long straight hair out of her eyes. She craned her head slightly to look at Smoot and smiled. “Good morning to you.” Her voice was cool, a thousand miles away, wondering if he had seen her reading the book. She scowled herself. It was so careless of her. Subsequently, she flashed him a fake smile and turned her head to look at the papers on her desk again, wondering whether she ought to mention something to him.
She frowned in concentration, trying to keep it in. Then she gave up…she had to at least fling a hint at him, even if it would sweep the ground from under him.
In one movement, she swung her chair around to face him.
Smoot stopped his forward progress to look at her. He wondered why she was making goo-goo eyes at him. At least that’s what he thought. “Is there like, something on your mind, Page?”
There was a sphinx-like smile on a chiseled good-looking face, mysteriously so. Her directness was disarming. “Don’t look, but your shop-door is open. Or should I say, instead, that Johnny’s out of jail?” Her soft quiet laughter touched his ears with a velvet touch. She pushed her chair back in and pretended to busy herself.
As he looked at the door to the office and saw that, it was closed. He turned to look at her to ask her what she meant.
One mind told him to look down. Oops. He quickly realized her sudden oblique warning, usually to another male, was just to get him to correct his undone zipper. He turned and zipped up, then turned back around. In the end, he saw she was right. “Thank you, Page.”
In a dainty voice and giving him a slantwise glance, she said, “You’re welcome.”
Smoot half-believed her sincerity. “If you had put the statement of the shop door is open, as a question rather than a statement, I probably would have said, that I must have notice of that question.”
Fastly becoming acutely aware that he had the affectation of a man who measures every word for effect, she quickly said to him, “I know—I know, meaning you would not have intended to answer back. That’s a statement usually used on Radio and Television because they are too ephemeral for there to be a risk of your bluff being called.”
He smiled and then bowed his head. “Right on there sistah.” He glanced at her, and as always, found her one pleasing chic to look at and one fine piece of ass. She had those little elegant dips between her neck and shoulders. The kind a guy could put his chin on and fall right off to sleep.
Still, too, he liked her and was aware she had practically thrown herself at him trying to grab his interest. He found her to be, pretty and considerate, and pleasantly comforting to be around, at times. She was a handful and would be willing to bet she had all sorts of guys beating down her door. Whether that was so, he wasn’t that sure; she just did not seem to measure up to the sort of pretty playthings he was prone to date. But then again, he had never taken the time to try to figure her out. He knew he should have, but just never got around to letting her know to stop waiting in the wings, holding on to hope of settling for second to whatever conquests came his way. He thought her to be the marrying kind, wanting fine cars, expensive jewelry, wining and dining, and made to feel extra special. Frankly, he thought her to be a dangerous abyss. He had to admit his mind would at times drift off from the common every day run of the mill routine and fantasize about how she might be, au fond, pleasurably accommodating. Then that other self inside him would scold ‘for crying out-loud, she’s your secretary. Never mix business with pleasure. That’s rule number one you idiot.’
Smoot took several steps and stopped in front of her desk.
“How are things?” he enquired.
Page raised her head, leaned back in her chair. Staring at him, her face arranges itself into adorability the moment he gave her his attention. That meant a lot to her. “Not bad,” she answered, “things could always be better.” She smiled, inviting lips spreading into that same familiar shy smile.
“Ain’t it the truth?” He saw the gleam in her liquid dark eyes; the kind some guys would swim the deepest sea. He felt some guys go over board for a chick. Yo-ho-ho. Like the young man, Leander, the lover of the princess Hero, did eons ago. According to Greek Mythology, he drowned swimming across the Hellespont to visit her.
Well, maybe not swim the deepest sea, he thought, but at least consider the challenge. Hell, if there weren’t a lot going for him, women wise that is, he would be up for the challenge.
“So tell me,” Page queried, the metal legs of the soft chair squealed against the tile as she hiked to her feet with a proud toss of her head, smoothing her dress with her hands over an ample rump, “who’s the dead guy in the cooler?” She placed her hands on the lithest and graspable waist he ever saw.
Smoot looked at her. He was a head taller than she was. “Just a guy that met a bad end. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged her shoulders, looked at him with wishful eyes. “Just thought I’d ask.”
She noticed the confusion on his face.
Smoot said, “The reason I asked you is, since you started working here, there have been many dead people in and out of here.”
Her jet-black hair touching her shoulders, pushed behind her ears, Smoot scrutinized her as she sashayed in her soft print dress with her find self, across the brown carpet impervious to rough treatment, over to the window to drink in the view.
She peered out through the black out curtains. At first sight, she saw a cloud of orange butterflies aflutter as a feathered friend at close range rose like brime from apple boughs laden with blossoms, its plumage a mosaic of slate-gray, blue, and brown. She kept watch as it swooped pass the window, and ran along in a zigzag path, quivering its wings, and then dipped its wings in the lucid flow of air, and guided out of her peripheral. A slight gust of air entered through the half-opened window and caused the ends of her hair to flip forward, and to frame her delicate face.
He thought about her character and admitted to himself that she was strong and honest in that department. In contrast, he felt she was lacking in social graces and would be as hard to cut as rough diamonds.
At least that was how he felt at the time…but even a five-and dime Bolivar timepiece changes.
“I didn’t mean to get into your business. I just thought—you—you—”
“You just thought what?” he asked, a sudden flash of temper, cutting her to size.
She said in the most persuasive way she could command: “You didn’t let me finish. I just—”
“I know—I know,” he stopped her in midstream again, “you just thought. That’s the trouble with some sistahs these days, they think too much.”
“Oh, so it’s like, a black thing, huh?” she snorted.
“Not really…just wimmin in general. Just look around you and tell me what you see.”
She looked about the office. “I see some chairs, a desk and a—”
“That’s not the point.”
She stopped her accounting of furnishing and looked at him. “What is the point exactly?”
“The point is, a whole galaxy of sistah’, black and pink, values have been lost to the vestiges of time, thereby causing the bedrock of their ability to define who they are as a woman to become abysmal.”
“If you don’t mind,” she said, “let’s like…let’s not go there. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Why you wanna say that?”
“It’s just that I don’t see a reason to bring up the point about the system of value of African American Women. To my opinion, we women, despite color, are a frustrated lot, misunderstood and treated unfairly, forever inundated with the crass assumptions that men make about us.”
“Frustrated?” he said, “can you give me an example of some of the frustrations your gender face?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Just imagine for a moment if we were intimate. You know how it would feel if I wouldn’t let you sex me up, no matter how many times you tried.” she said. “That’s what frustrated feels like.”
He just stood there gazing at her as if he had been hit with the kitchen sink. Then his eyes brightened as though a light had suddenly lit up in his brain. “Oh uh, someone shoot me please, I do believe, the boiler room just got hot. All jokes aside, I think I understand. You’re right: I was being unfair and barking up the wrong tree. God knows womenfolk have and are going through pure-de hell in his country under scrutiny of the male psyche. Frankly, I say all if not most women of this country should be given more advantage to help balance the scale. They ought to be given every opportunity to narrow the gap between the two genders. You know as I, to do that…I mean for that to happen it probably would take a miracle. Because when it comes down to true equal rights for women in this country, it is as it has always been: out of sight, out of mind.”
Her eyes clouded with tears. She walked back to the desk and plopped down in the chair. Just as she lowered her head, he saw the tear roll down over her nose. A second later, another tear followed the first. She gave a convulsive sob, sniffled, and then wiped at the teardrops.
Crushed by her tearful display, Smoot came round the desk and let his fingers skim across her shoulders with a feather-light touch. Sniffling again, she pressed her head against his arm. “I’m sorry, Page, believe me, I meant you no discomfort.
She sniffled and burst out in a flood of tears and sobs, as he had never seen her do.
He tried to comfort her. “Ah, you know how we men get sometimes. We’re such cads.” He smiled a warm smile, feeling dorky. “So, stop your crying, before you flood the place.” He kissed her warmly on her forehead. “Peace, Okay?”
With a craterlike dimple and a slight moue on her face, she nodded her head. “Okay. It’s just that I was going to say I’m not interested in those deadly bores in frig.”
“I understand. Is that better?” he asked, taking her chin in his hands.
Page sniffled. “I feel better already.”
“Atta girl, that’s good. Or rather should I try to brighten your face by saying to you the words from a great poet’s lewd poem, ‘the upshot being: ‘Then she will get the upshot by cleaving the pin. Come, come, you talk lewdly; your lips grow foul.”
Her face brightened slightly as she essayed a smile. “That’s from Shakespeare’s ‘Labor of Love.’ I adore those words,” she said all chipper. “They get to me.”
With her coming back around, he decided to put on a little more. “Did I ever tell you how helpful you have been to me?”
She said softly, “No,” and then sniffled again.
“Well you have. Why, I just commented to Fidel, just yesterday, how much help you’ve contributed around here. Even he agrees with me, and feels I should give you a raise.”
That last sentence got more response from her.
Between sniffles, she said, “Did you really say that to him?”
“I did, and I will. Can’t think of anyone more deserves a raise in pay than you.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You won’t be sorry,” she said, giving him slavish attention. “I will even be willin’ to work overtime, without an added charge to you. I—I—”
“Hold on there,” he stopped her flow of words. “I believe you. There’s one more thing I want you to know. And even though, I think you might have thought about it already, I’ll say it anyway.”
She stopped her sniffling. “Wha—what is it?”
“I been thinking about after you graduate and get your degree, you work full time for me.”
She was like, wow.
She then said, “Ah, you’re goofing on me, right?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.” He noticed the familiar glow in her eyes followed with a winsome smile. That she seemed to have matured beyond her years. This should have been his first sign of an anxiousness hiding a more sinister intention. As usual, his mind was somewhere else.
Without warning, she rose from her chair, threw her arms around his broad shoulders, and kissed him flush on his lips as a curious bittersweet cloyed her senses.
The kiss was gentle, soft, warming his insides, sending a tingling sensation straight to the cockles of his heart. His instincts told him, she was schmoozing him and trying to put the make on him, that’s why he had to let her know that he wasn’t the type to gild the truth, no matter how delicious her kiss. He had to put a stop to this ‘do-face-time’ sort of a thing; kissing and necking was for kids. Since when did he get too far along to cuddle and pet? He would have to check himself on that point.
Convinced her reason for doing what she had done, laid squarely in the crosshairs of her ambition, he wrenched his mouth free, and said to her, “I can’t do this. It isn’t right.”
“Be real!” Page blew a raspberry, uttering her discontent. Sighing deeply, she then reclaimed her seat. Silently she berated her self for thinking that once she had kissed him they’d be getting on like a house on fire. Never was she so wrong, so disappointed of the brush off. “I heard what you said,” knowing all the while that she meant that she did not agree, and that her agreeing was just a convenient form of words because it avoided the need to enter an argument.
Mouth tight, eyes narrowed, feeling rejected, her fingers convulsively open and shut. Without question, her nettle was aroused to a sharp annoyance. Feeling things were getting to painful, and wanting to air her frustration, she shot back, “Why not? I’m no 13 or 14- year -old fickle-headed schoolchild, flighty in her hoity-toity thoughtless giddy behavior. The kind to run home the first time a guy stuck his tongue in her ear. I’m old enough to know what I am doing—to know what I want. If only you can believe, that I was not coming onto you just to get my feet under the table…just to achieve a more comfortable or desired situation. I hope you know that. I will admit I have never learned how to act aloof and unapproachable. I will admit to a habit of smiling at men I don’t even know. I am working on it. I have you to know, there’s not a permanent line of men hanging around outside my cubicle. As I said before, I was not coming on to you for the reasons you may have thought. You must know, I’m surely not a couch potato and am not lazy.”
He had to admit she was right as he saw her make sheep’s eyes at him. “You got my vote.”
Looking directly at him with goo-goo eyes, she adjusted her attitude. She then teasingly said, “After all, a wise woman once said, ‘if you don’t puck the fruit, you will never know the taste of its nectar. Furthermore, from a liquor point of view, if you don’t drink every drop, you rob yourself of the sweetest part of the treat; you get the whiskey, but you don’t get the sugar in the bottom of the glass. So, based on that premise, and you being a man and all, it behooves you at least to try….”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I don’t mean to confuse or impress you with a long meaningless explanation, by baffling you with bullshit. Flat-out, I want to be straight up with you and get right to the point. As hard as it is to say, I must say it. I want you to know that regretfully, I have to let this one pass. It’s just that I think it best that we keep our relationship on a straight business regimen. By being candid and straight up with you, I’m sure our relationship would go along much farther if we remain dognutz to each other. You know—like good friends.” He regretted having turned her down, and, regretted the regretting. Both feelings, while contradictory, were plausible.
“You mean like stay being your girl Friday.”
He heard that snide remark, so, rather than dignify her remark, he said, “I hope I’m not getting into your business, but I am curious about something.”
“What?” Page questioned, hiding her disappointment. She felt more than ever that he had his own agenda; all he wanted was for her to be his pawn. She knew the pay was good. There was no telling where things might go, yet.
“Aren’t you and that young handsome dude that dropped you off at work, still an item?”
“Well, sort of.”
“Meaning?”
She sighed. “We are not—how do you say it?—joined at the hip. Anyway, I would have thought out of curiosity, you being a man and all, you would’ve learned the skinny on my falling out with him and why I chucked that job. I can’t help but wonder how a guy who has shown a perfectly natural interest in the opposite sex would suddenly shun even the most innocence of advances.”
He just stood there with his hands at his side, laid-back.
She smiled a little wistfully, and noticed he had not responded to her last statement. She figured that if she updated him, he might start to notice her. She gave out a long sigh. “Oh, well, the truth is I used to work for him part time. He tried to put his hand down my blouse and got me upset. He brushed it off by having the gall to say I was insensitive and I was like, whatever.” Which meant, yeah, so? “Then he said I didn’t have the dedication to the job that he needed from his employees, and if I didn’t do well on my next review, I might not get a raise, and I was all whatever. I’m just not that interested. He’s one of those ‘seekers’ who doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and wouldn’t recognize an answer to the meaning of life if he tripped on it in the dark. I can’t help but feel his dalliance and playful flirtation was his try at marring my persona. When he saw it wouldn’t crack, he left me alone. But that didn’t matter, because the novelty of the job palled after a few weeks of commuting anyway. ”
Smoot respired, inhaling and exhaling. “It sounds as if he’s not the only one with an immature attitude. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Page huffed, “You’re talkin’ about me? That I’m immature. Whatever.” AS if she didn’t give a hang, the least bit concerned or worried.
“That’s what I mean. Do you see?”
“What?”
“That—attitude.”
He decided to be blunt and get back to the point about her boyfriend. “Have you been intimate with him?”
“What? Well, ah, I mean we’ve done things. Not, well, you know, all the way. My biggest gripe I have with him is, he has hand trouble. You know like—”
He cut in by saying thoughtfully, “I see…my next question may be a little more discomforting, but, I feel the need to ask.”
What’s that?”
“Let’s say, if he did ask you…to go all—”
“The way,” she finished off the sentence, she knew where he was going with it. “I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t feel the same way I feel about—”
“About me,” he said, finishing her train of thought this time. “You know what I told you. Why not try to banish that thought from out of your brain. It’s not like things are all up with, and you’re on death’s edge. I have all confidence; you’ll find the strength to bounce back. And find someone.”
At length she sighed. “That sounds like hopeless wishful thinking to me. I guess I’m just a bad hair day. Oh, well, so much for the thrill. I’m left with the defeat; there’s just not a damn thing I can do about it.”
“Ah, your day isn’t all that wrecked. Just try to look at it this way: In one way your day was bad when I declined your advances, but then your day became a good badical day when I told you about working for me after you get your degree.”
Pretty much, all Smoot had ever wanted was a fine romance, with no quarrels, with no insults, and all the morals. If a man could get that, life would be all the better. Besides, Page was a bachelor-mother, with a teensy weensy crumb-snatcher. Surely, he didn’t want to start a serious romance with a woman with a ready-made family—or maybe….
“I feel terribly bad about this, Page,” he said, the tenor of his words amounting to an apt remark. What do you say if you let me dine you Friday night?” He snapped his finger. “I forgot—it couldn’t be Friday.”
“Oh.” She gave him those big pretty, crazy eyes, still pining for the unattainable, refusing to throw in the towel. She decided to get rid of that hang done look. She would hang loose. Speak up for once. That’s what she was going to do.
“Not this Friday, because it’s the thirteenth. There’s this thing called Paraskevidekatria. It’s a fear of Friday the thirteen. Don’t ask how I got it or what causes it. I know I should see a doctor about it. You know how some men are when it comes to doctors. So, let’s say Saturday night. A place, anywhere you want. What do you think about that?”
“Whatever,” she said with a wry smile, and her response an indication his offer to her was too glib.
He smiled, knowing that her last statement, essentially, meant, ‘Ok, but I’m still going to sulk.’
What baloney that is.
“Before I continue with my day,” he said, “I leave four words for you to think over. They are, ‘Desire, ask, believe, receive.”
Except an indolent sigh, Page just set there mulling and chewing over the words.
Realizing she was sweet and forbearing, and that he came off as a crank, Smoot turned and bug assed out of the room, in a hurry to check in on his brother, but not before she said to him, “Can’t you see, I can’t work with you in my hair all day.”
Chapter Three
After closing the door to the office, Smoot went through an adjacent room and climbed the stairs to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, before going on, he stopped and looked at himself in a mirror. It returned him back a man, determined, with smiling, full lips, with big, cobalt eyes and an air of listening, waiting for something…unexpected to happen…that he felt would happen…infallibly.
Satisfied with the image peering back at him, he made a left turn and walked slowly to the first door on his left. Turning the doorknob, he entered the room. His brother Danny set, with a leg skewed in and pushed against the other one, in a wheelchair next to the bed, with thick eyeglasses on, inwardly juggling psychological contradictions. Optically challenged—his defective eyesight had been marginalized after a car had hit him while playing along the road in front of their home. The affects from the accidents, had left him depressed and physically broken, with a dropped foot, fractured skull, broken hip and a nearly severed sciatic nerve. Lately, all he did day by day is sit-glued to the boob tube. At the time of the accident, and taken to the hospital, and after being looked at, the doctor had spat out, “This poor innocence child is banged up so bad, if I hadn’t looked at him I would’ve sworn he had one over eight, that is to say that, an excessively intake of intoxicants on one occasion. If I had gone on that assumption, I would’ve been mistaken. And considering his internal damage and his partial loss of eyesight, there’s no tellin’ when things will return to normal or for that matter, if he will ever walk again.”
Added to that, the driver of the car that hit Danny got out and ran. The police checked out the situation. After a three- month search, they came up empty and stated that the driver of the car had left the state and possibly the country. There was just no way of finding out where he was.
Sweeping things under the rug was not what Smoot had in mind. He did some checking on his own. He found out the drivers identity, the type of clothes he liked, and the type of foods he eat, his taste. Without sayin’ a word to Danny, he had made him a silent promise; he would not rest until he got the person responsible for his condition. Having made that tacit contract with his self, it was his duty to abide by it.
In their salad days, before that terrible accident, the two of them had taken dancing lessons. They were two of a kind. Sometimes he would tell his parents that they were so uniquely bonded together that one could be on one side of the room doing movements, and the other on the other side doing the same thing and never knowing it until they turn and look at each other. They would just stop and say, “Whoa!”
“It’s not crazy,” I would say to my parents.
“Oh, then will one of you tell us what it is,” his mother had said with their pere at her side.
“Just strange,” Danny would say.
Their parents would just stand there looking at one another and than at their kids with amusement. They loved them equally and had always seen to it that both of their children respected one another.
For some outdoor adventure, they played shinny hockey on rivers, ponds, and iced barnyards, with tin cans on, which they displayed, keen agility.
They took care not to trample on each other, but to try, to let their steps take their own imperfect course. From the slope of their noses to their eyes, to their gesturing hands, when they looked at each other, they saw the same deep brown eyes, the same square jaw, and the same face—same lean limbs—same lifelines in the palm of their hands, and same rhythm in their strides. They even afforded each other breathing room. They realized it was normal to get on each other nerves. Even some people remarked how they looked so much alike. They tried not to force-fit into what it means to be—and to have an identical sibling.
As a sidelight, they sang duo for the Catholic Church they attended.
Since the accident, Smoot managed to share with his brother some afternoons at the mall. Shopping—whenever and wherever—was high on both of their list of pastimes.
They still managed to do other brother stuff, including eating out, and taking in movies.
Except for that, they were learning the ordinary details. Brown was Smoot’s favorite and Danny chose Red.
They were still much alike in strange, little ways, habits and idiosyncrasies. When they sit down to eat, they have the same look in their eyes. They look one way. They have the same hand movements. They still take breaks in the middle of a meal. Uhhh, smacking. They both would usually say simultaneously in unison at breakfast, “Oatmeal—ick!”
They use to egg each other sometimes on as brothers often do. Lately, Danny uttered little accept with his eyes, and that saddened Smoot even more.
Smoot smiled as he looked at his brother, and thought about the last guy he had done the autopsy on and silently said to Danny, “I got him my dear brother. I got him. He won’t hurt you or anyone else ever again.” He looked away.
He glanced at Danny again, and knew if he left him there alone, he’d sit in front of the teevee set and vegetate.
So far, the doctor was right, thought Smoot, noticing that Danny didn’t even flinch when he walked over to him.
“How’s my brother doing this morning, tough guy?”
Silence—not a peep.
Looking at Danny’s face, Smoot still felt like he was looking in the mirror, the same eyes, the same nose, the same facial structure, and the same height; face wise, they still were exact duplicates
Smoot piped up and shrugged his shoulders. “Not in a talkin’ move today, I see. I think I know why. It’s because I failed to look in on you yesterday. That was the last time that will happen. I promise. Just you wait and see.” Smoot snapped his fingers. “Hey, I got an idea. Let’s take a vacation. Don’t you think we can use a vacation? Get away from it all, a fresh start. Wouldn’t that be great?” Smoot needed a vacation and a trip to the Adirondack’ had been mooted. He had had too many things on his plate at the time.
Danny finally found his tongue. “OK, I mean, whatever,” and then grew silent.
Overtime, Smoot had grown accustomed to Danny’s sudden rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood. He took great care, splitting time between working and spending time with Danny. Caring for his brother, made him feel whole, and knew if he lost that, he didn’t know where he’d find his solace.
There was a perceptible sound as a door swooshed open, and then the gaunt, fearless Algonquian Native of about fifty, with dusky complexioned and piercing eyes, and graying hair entered the room from the adjoining bathroom. She had been deputed to look after Danny. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Mathews. I didn’t know you were in here.” Then with her eager anxiety to please, she said, “If I had known—”
Smoot held up his hand and let it drop to his side. “That’s all right, Inmuttooyahlatlat, I won’t be stayin.’ I have an autopsy to perform. I’ll try to come back later this evening to spend some time with Danny.”
She took her eyes off Smoot and looked at Danny. “Good, because it’s time for his afternoon therapy that usually consist of exercises, ending with a whirlpool bath in the Jacuzzi.”
Smoot was happy that he hired Inmuttooyahlatlat. She was worth her salt: a fraction nurse and a fraction hausfrau, and was meticulously squeaky-clean, from cooking right down to housecleaning, including scrubbing the ick off the back of the kitchen stove, and a cake of grime in the oven, and…gives the dinning room some extra spit and shine when needed.
He was also amazed how she could wield a broom and had told her so. She even swept the dust bunnies from under the beds. She simply was little more than a drudge around the place.
“Please don’t mind me,” said Smoot, as he patted his brother on the back, smiled at him, and turned to walk out the room. He stopped when Danny muttered something. “What is it Danny boy?”
Danny’s hands began to strike his kneecaps, lightly, gently, the noise sounding like a bird fluttering her wings. “I—I just wanted to wish you…success with the autopsy.” Then he stuttered again, his speech impediment causing his words to trip over his tongue, his voice becoming fainter with each second. The fitful tic in his neck caused his head to twitch. “Our—our pere would’ve loved to be here to help you. But I—I—”
Smoot placed his hands on Danny’s shoulder. “I know pere would have loved to be here. I’m grateful that you want to help me. All I ask of you is that you take your medicine and get as much rest as you can. That’s what I’m here for is to take care of you, for however long it may be. You’re my baby brother. Nothing can change that.”
Danny said nothing, but he did smile.
“That’s a fellow. You keep that smile. We’ll make it. Made it this far, there’s no reason we can’t keep on doing it.”
A moss suddenly appeared, wafting in the air about. Smoot watched as Inmuttooyahlatlat used a double-action can of moss killer. One good squirt was all it took to stuff out the life of the moss. She took a cloth, picked up the pest from the floor, and dropped it in a wastebasket.
Smoot then set his eyes back on Danny. Feeling his eyes about to water, he left the room and went to the laboratory. In raw reflection, he felt almost whole. He and his brother had been through a lot. No one knew which direction his life would go in, later.
Chapter Four
Just as Smoot entered the lab, a giant of a fellow, dressed in white uniform with plastic gloves on his hands approached him. “Howdy Smoot, said Fidel, a plain, honest man with no nonsense about him, and with a warm smile in a deathly cold place, the air-conditioning humming from the ceiling as torrents of icy air poured out of large vents onto the scene below. The waxy pale body laid naked and lifeless gray. “I just removed the body from the cooler. It's ready for the slaughter.” Fidel was well aware that doing an autopsy at a funeral home is one of the most dreaded things a pathologist has to face, as a funeral home typically is not as well equipped as a hospital autopsy suite.
“Howdy, Fidel.” Some of the times, they were together, whether working side-by-side in the lab or on the outside trying to drum up business, Smoot would think of how their paths had crossed. It happened on a rainy night. He had driven his Mercedes along the railroad tracks in an unfamiliar area of town. It was a reputed hangout location for ciphers, people with no influence or value—a nonentity, derelicts who could fit all their possessions in a paper bag.
Wiping at the condensation gathered on the windshield, and whistling a melody, unexpectedly, the profile of a man appeared. Smoot jammed on the brakes, but it was too late, the car was moving too fast for it to stop in time. He struck the man. He heard the thump as his body hit against the windshield and then rolled over the top of the car.