Richard Stevenson - Third man out

Ptak said he hadn't actually been in touch with the family for ten years, since Joyce broke up with him and announced that she had decided to become a nun. Then he laughed again, and was still chuckling when we both hung up.

I called Timmy at his office and said, "I'm flummoxed. I've spent the day threatening and badgering and attempting to blackmail people who probably don't deserve it. John Rutka would have been proud of me, going around terrorizing all kinds of poor bastards who mainly just want to be left alone to work a few of the harmless scams the republic is founded on and then at the end of the day climb into bed with some simpatico struggling soul and get a little comfort. I did all that and got nowhere and ended up with next to nothing." I described my meetings with Ronnie Linkletter, Jay Gladu, Royce McClosky, and the hapless car-lender Art Murphy.

"That doesn't sound like a washout to me," Timmy said. "Slinger told you last night that Linkletter's old boyfriend was top-secret stuff, and Ronnie confirmed it, and Ronnie also confirmed that the guy is someone very, very formidable-so formidable that Ronnie would not be able to stand the big man's exposure. If that isn't a perfect profile of Rutka's Mega-Hypocrite, I don't know who would be better. I think you're close."

"Maybe I am. It's just that I'm sick of it all."

"And the stuff that the motel people told you-the way the mirror man was spirited away in a big white Chrysler with taped plates. That sure sounds like a mega-hypocrite."

"Yeah."

"Did you just call me up to whine?"

"I guess I did."

"Maybe you need to take a break, get some distance on the whole thing."

"Nah, that never works for me. The picture doesn't clarify, it just blurs. I'll have to keep at it."

"You've got my sympathy and all my best wishes, but I've got to get back to work."

"Okay."

"See you later. Good luck."

"Thanks. I could use a little."

And within a matter of hours, I got some. Though maybe it's not called luck when, as you look around, you no longer fail to recognize the obvious.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the guest room, where I'd locked Rutka's files, rummaging through them trying to make some simple key I'd somehow missed before jump out at me. None jumped.

At five, with my headache back, and feeling sicker than ever of the whole thing, I went back down to the kitchen and faced what I realized was the other cause of my headache, which was a sickness of the heart. I opened the Fed-Ex package from New York.

The hypodermic and the vial accompanying it had been well insulated for shipping and had arrived intact along with a typewritten set of instructions that were so clear they appeared to be impossible not to follow. Loving care had gone into their composition. No personal note was enclosed in the package, just the hypodermic, the vial, and the well-written instructions.

I stuffed the instrument and the vial with its harmless-looking cloudy fluid into a flight bag along with the typed instructions for what felt to me exactly like murder, and I drove with a pounding heart over to Albany Med. I was Raskolnikov, General Schwarzkopf, Albert

Schweitzer, Leopold and Loeb, Mother Teresa, Charles Manson.

"Hi, how's he doing?" I said, standing next to the curtain with the skeletal Hispanic man behind it.

Mike said nothing, just stared at the bag that hung from my shoulder.

Mrs. Meserole said, "There's no change, Donald. All we can do is pray. It was good of you to come."

I wondered if there was some way I could stick the lethal needle into her, but this was not what Mike had in mind, or what Stu would have wanted-so far as I knew-so I acceded to the wishes of others in choosing who in the room would be eased over the precipice.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Yes, it's so sad. But he's so peaceful."

Mike followed me into the corridor. I handed him the bag. "There are clear instructions inside," I said.

He placed the strap over his shoulder and caressed the bag, as if examining its strange properties with his fingertips.

"She's leaving at six," Mike said, "to go with her sister to the movies. It seems I've finally earned her trust."

"Oh."

He shrugged miserably.

"You don't have to do it now," I said. "Or at all. He's not suffering."

"I'm not doing it for him," he said. "I'm doing it for me. I want this over with."

"Sure."

"Maybe I'm doing it for Rhoda and Al too, because it's what they want, but they don't know it. Is that too presumptuous?"

"I think it is."

He thought about it. "Yeah, but-I can't live this way. Maybe they can, but I can't. Don't I count?"

"Yes. What you're doing's not wrong. He's as good as dead, after all. Stu's long gone. What's going on now is just ceremony."

"Well, it's the longest damn ceremony I've ever had anything to do with."

This was where Stu was supposed to stick his head around the corner and say, "Didn't you watch the Academy Awards this year?"

But he didn't do it.

I said, "I'd do it for you, but I don't think you want me to. It's too- It's about as intimate as two people can get."

"That's right, Don," he said. "That's exactly what it is. Thanks for your help." He pulled my cheek against his and held it there, and then he turned with the bag on his shoulder and walked back into the room.

I stood there for a minute, feeling light-headed, and wondering if there was a lounge nearby where I could sit down for a while, or maybe curl up in fetal position and weep, when two people walked out of the room across the hall where the comatose truck driver and Bishop McFee lay.

One of the two was a middle-aged woman with a tight perm in a primary color. She said, "Arthur's been a tower of strength through all of this, Edna, so I don't think it's up to you to criticize him."

"June," said the other woman, equally permed to within an inch of her life, "he had no right to talk to you that way about your own brother. I'm sure the Murphys have a skeleton or two in their own closet somewhere, and Arthur just had no right."

"Mrs. Murphy," I said, and she turned. "I'm so sorry about your brother. Has he shown any signs of improvement?"

"No," she said, and both women gazed at me mournfully. "The bishop is sleeping peacefully, but we don't know if he's going to wake up or not."

"It doesn't look good," the other woman said.

June Murphy said, "All we can do is pray. We just hope the bishop is having sweet dreams."

"It's a tragedy," I said. "How long has he been in his coma?"

"Since June eleventh. It's coming up on seven weeks now. We're all praying for a miracle."

"But it doesn't look good," the other woman said.

"Your brother-what? Slipped in the rectory?"

"One of the brothers had just waxed the floor," June Murphy said somberly. "Mort was hurrying down the hall and he slipped and fell backwards, and he tragically landed on the back of his head and it affected his brain. And he'd been so vigorous and active right up until the time of the accident."

"And so admired throughout the diocese," I said. "I'm Bob Mills, by the way, and I know your husband, Art. We've bowled together." They both nodded and smiled wanly. "Sometimes I gave your husband a lift on Wednesday night when your brother was using his car."

It took a second for this to register, but then it did, and she said, "Oh, yes, the bishop always left his car to be waxed out at Byrne's Wednesday night and Mortimer used Art's car to make his calls. Wednesday night was his night to visit the homeless.

Mortimer never forgot the unfortunate, even after he became a media personality."

"I suppose the bishop's accident must have been almost as hard on Art as it was on you, Mrs. Murphy."

I could see that this made them both a little uncomfortable, and she said, "Yes, Arthur is deeply saddened," and let it go at that.