Ed Gorman - Short Stories, Volume 1

“I got the print-outs,” Paulie said nineteen hours later. “You want me to fax them?”

“Yeah,” Favor said.

“Sounds like a pretty boring evening to me. Going through all these check print-outs.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be naked while I’m doing it.”

“Careful, you can get arrested for stuff like that, Favor.”

“Don’t remind me. I used to work vice.”

Couple hours later, Favor was seriously thinking about getting naked. Anything to break the monotony of poring over and over the print-outs of where Sam Evans had written the checks, and in what amount. There was a Cubs game on. Every time the crowd groaned, he looked up to see a Cub player looking embarrassed. Cub fans didn’t cheer, they sighed.

He went through the lists six times before he saw that there was only one really interesting name on the whole print-out: nine months ago, Sam Evans had spent $61.00 at Zenith Pharmacy. Favor wondered why a male nurse who worked for a hospital that had its own pharmacy would spend money at another pharmacy. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that the hospital pharmacy didn’t stock certain things. Maybe. The Cubs lost a close one, 14-3, and then Favor went to bed.

“Good morning.”

“Accounting please.”

“Thank you.”

This was the next morning in Favor’s combination apartment office. Favor was gagging down a cup of instant coffee while Mr. Coffee took his good sweet time about making the first real cup of the day, the sonofabitch.

“Hello. This is Ruth.”

“Hi, Ruth. My name’s Bob Powell and I’m a tax accountant. I’ve got a client named Sam Evans and we’re filing a late return this year. But Sam isn’t exactly great at keeping receipts. He’s got a canceled check here written to Zenith and I wondered if you could tell me what he bought that day.”

“I can help you if he’s got an account here. Sam Evans?”

“Right.”

“Thank you.”

She went away and then she came back. “The check paid the balance of his old account.”

“I see. Do you have a list of what the check paid for?”

“The specific items?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s see here. Two hypodermic needles. Looks like the large ones with very fine points. And a bottle of insulin.”

The accountant Bob Powell wrote down everything she said. “Well, that’s about all I need, I guess.”

“He in trouble?”

“Trouble?”

“You know, the IRS.”

“Oh. No, not really. Just a late file. A lot of people do that.”

“We got audited once, my husband and I, I mean, and it was terrible.”

“I bet. Well, listen Ruth, thanks a lot.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not sure there was an autopsy,” Jane Carson said on the phone half an hour later.

“He died of what?”

“A heart attack.”

“Did he have a history of heart problems?”

“No.”

“Did he see a doctor within two weeks of his death for heart problems?”

“No.”

“Then there was an autopsy. Had to be. Legally.”

“God, how’d you ever learn all this stuff, Favor?”

“I just picked it up.”

“I keep wanting to ask him about that male nurse.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“No, I won’t. But it’s tempting.” Then: “Why did you want to know about an autopsy?”

Princess Jane had one of those circuitous conversational styles. You never knew when she was going to circle back to the original topic.

“Because a week before your father died, Sam Evans bought some insulin at a medical supply house.”

“Insulin? You mean for diabetes?”

He didn’t want to share his suspicions with her just yet. “I’m not sure why he bought it,” Favor said. “It may not have anything to do with this at all.”

“How will you find out?”

“Talk to the medical examiner.”

“He a friend of yours?”

“More or less.”

She laughed. “You don’t sound real thrilled about him.”

“He borrowed fifty bucks from me two Christmases ago and never paid me back.”

“Why don’t you ask him for it?”

“Because if I asked him, he might get mad, and if he got mad then he wouldn’t help me any more.”

“Maybe he was drunk and forgot about it.”

“Maybe.”

“Then just figure out some subtle way to ask him, if it really bothers you, I mean.”

“We’ll see. I’ll check in with you after I talk to him.”

“I just can’t figure out,” Princess Jane said, “why David’d pay off a male nurse.”

“I think,” Favor said, “we’re about to find out.”

Bryce Lenihan, MD, it said. He was fat, bald with a little cherub Irish face. The shoulders of his dark suit coats were invariably snowy with dandruff and his teeth were invariably clogged with bits of his most recent meal. He had been medical examiner for twelve years, as long as Mayor O’Toole had been mayor. O’Toole was his uncle. You figure it out.

Favor decided now was the time to give Lenihan the Big Hint.

“You like my tie, Lenihan?”

“Your tie?”

“Yeah. This one.” He waggled the tie at him the way a big dog waggles his tongue at you.

“Yeah, I mean it’s nice and all.”

“Guy owed me fifty bucks for so long, I figured he’d forgotten about it. And when I open my mail box the other day, and there’s a nice new fifty in an envelope. Guy said he was just walking down the street and remembered it all of a sudden, after all these years. You ever do that, Lenihan, forget you owe somebody money I mean?”

“Not that I remember.”

As if on cue, so he wouldn’t have to pursue the subject any more, Lenihan’s phone rang and he got into this five-minute discussion about spots on a dead guy’s liver, and what the spots did or didn’t signify. Favor didn’t see how anybody could be a doctor.

After Lenihan hung up, he said, “I gotta go down to the morgue. That’s why I don’t think chicks should be doctors. Dizzy bitch can’t ever figure things out for herself, my assistant I mean. So what can I do for you, Favor, and make it fast.”

Favor knew he could forget all about his fifty bucks. Probably forever.

“I got three things I’m trying to put together here,” he said. “First I got a guy who had a heart attack with no history of heart attacks.”

“Which doesn’t mean diddly. Lots of guys with no history of heart trouble die from heart attacks.”

“Two, I’ve got a male nurse who may or may not be involved in this whole thing. And three—”

The phone rang again.

“Yeah?” Lenihan said, after snapping up the receiver. Then: “Then let him do his own fucking autopsy, he’s so goddamned smart. I say the guy suffocated and if he doesn’t like it, tell him to put it up his ass.”

Lenihan slammed the phone. “Lawyers.”

He glanced at his watch. Would Favor be able to finish his question?

“I gotta haul ass, Favor,” Lenihan said, standing up. He did what he usually did when he stood up, whisked dandruff off his shoulders with his fingers.

“Number three is, four days before this guy has a heart attack, the male nurse buys two large syringes with fine points—”

“—probably 60 ccs—”

“And some insulin—” That’s when the first knock came.

“And I’d like to find out,” Favor said, “if there’s a connection between these things.”

Lenihan looked as if he were about to say something to Favor when the second knock came. “Yeah?” Lenihan shouted.

The woman who came through the door literally cowered when she saw Dr. Lenihan. She looked as if he might turn on her and throw her into the wall or something.

“What the hell is it, Martha?”

A trembling hand held out a single piece of paper.