“Sure. Right away.” He got up enthusiastically. Action. That’s what hockey players thrive on. “Maybe you want me to take it around while you’re lying here?”
“Let me think about it … I know who I need to talk to and you might not be able to get to them.”
He took off in a cloud of antiseptic. I looked at my cousin’s calendar again. On the twenty-third he’d seen Margolis. Must have been over at the elevator. On the twenty-fourth, a Saturday, he’d been with Paige. He hadn’t written in any other appointments. On Monday he talked to MacKelvy, the dispatcher at Grafalk, and to two people whose names I didn’t recognize. I’d show Mattingly’s picture to Margolis. Maybe get Pierre to do that.
I looked at my watch, strapped awkwardly on my right wrist. Four-thirty—Paige was probably at the theater. I called, got her answering service, and left a message.
Lotty came in around five, noting the disarray of papers and bedclothes with her thick black eyebrows raised. “You’re a terrible patient, my dear. They tell me you’re rejecting all medication … Now I do not mind if you don’t want the pain pills—that’s your choice. But you must take the antibiotics. I don’t want any secondary infection in the arm.”
She straightened the mess around the bed with a few efficient motions. I like watching Lotty—she’s so compact and tidy. She sat down on the bed. A nurse, bringing a supper tray, pursed her lips in disapproval. No sitting on beds, but doctors are sacrosanct.
Lotty looked at the food. “Everything’s boiled to death. Good—no digestive problems for you.” She grinned wickedly.
“Pizza,” I groaned. “Pasta. Wine.”
She laughed. “Everything’s coming along nicely. If you can stand it for one more day I’ll take you home on Monday. Maybe spend a few days with me while you recover, okay?”
I looked at her through narrowed eyes. “I’ve got work to do, Lotty. I’m not going to lie in bed for two weeks waiting for these shoulder muscles to heal.”
“Don’t threaten me, Vic: I’m not one of these silly nurses. When have I ever tried to stop you from doing your job, even when you were being a pit dog?”
I struggled up. “Pit dog, Lotty? Pit dog! What the hell do you mean?”
“A dog that has to get down in the pit—the ring—and fight every damn person, even its friends.”
I lay down again. “You’re right, Lotty. Sorry. It’s very kind of you to invite me home. I would appreciate that.”
She brushed a kiss on my cheek and disappeared for a while, coming back with a deep-dish onion and anchovy pizza. My favorite. “No wine while you’re on antibiotics.”
We ate the pizza and played gin. Lotty won. She whiled away a lot of World War II in London bomb shelters playing gin with the family who had taken her in. She almost always beats me.
Sunday morning I tried Paige again but she still wasn’t home. Around noon, however, she showed up in person, looking beautiful in a green ruffled blouse and black and green Guatemalan skirt. She moved buoyantly into the room, smelling faintly of spring, and kissed me on the forehead.
“Paige! How nice to see you. Thanks so much for the flowers—they brighten the place up, as you can see.”
“Vic, I was so sorry about the accident. But I’m glad you weren’t hurt more seriously. My answering service said you were trying to get in touch with me—I thought I’d come in person and see how you’re doing.”
I asked how Pavane for a Dope Dealer was doing and she laughed and told me about the performance. We chatted for a few minutes, then I explained that I was trying to follow up on my cousin’s movements the last few days before he died.
Her arched brows snapped together in a momentary annoyance. “Are you still trailing him around? Don’t you think it’s time you let the dead bury the dead, Vic?”
I smiled with what calmness I could, feeling at a disadvantage with my hair unwashed and wearing a hospital gown. “I’m doing a favor for an old friend of Boom Boom’s—Pierre Bouchard.”
Yes, she’d met Pierre. He was a sweetheart. What did he want to know?
“If you’d seen Howard Mattingly recently.”
An indefinable expression crossed her face. “I don’t know who that is.”
“He’s one of the second-string players. Boom Boom didn’t like him, so he might never have introduced you to him … Where did you two go on that last Saturday? Anyplace that he might have seen the guy?”
She shrugged and gave me a disdainful look, designed to make me feel like a ghoul. I waited. “You’re being extremely vulgar, Vic. That was my last private day with Boom Boom. I want to keep it to myself.”
“You didn’t see him Monday night?”