Howard Shrier - Buffalo jump

“Yes. Though as Alice may have mentioned, I’d be happy to serve as your mother’s physician. If that made things easier for you.”

“But you don’t know Mom’s history like her doctor does.”

“It’s her current reality that matters, not her history. I would see her virtually every day. I could monitor her condition and adjust her medications with greater subtlety and precision than someone who sees her twice a year.”

“I guess that makes sense.” I looked at Jenn. “Doesn’t it, hon?”

“It does. It really does.”

“Though I’d reserve the right to keep Mom’s doctor involved if the change seemed overwhelming. If she needed… I don’t know, continuity?”

“I suppose so.”

“Terrific,” I said. “I feel much better.”

Jenn swivelled in her chair to face Alice Stockwell. “Is there a bathroom nearby?”

Stockwell pointed to a door down the hall. “It’s a staff room so I’ll have to swipe you in.”

“Thank you,” Jenn said, and the two of them left.

“About your mother’s stroke,” Dr. Bader said, his pen poised over the assessment form. “Was it diagnosed as ischemic or hemorrhagic?”

A little warning bell tinkled in the back of my mind. I hadn’t done a lick of research on strokes, which I normally would have done in prepping a story. But it wasn’t my case and Franny had given me no time. “You know,” I said, “we don’t have to do this part now. We’ve taken enough of your time. Linda and I should get back downtown. I’ll get the details from her physician and call you.”

“Why don’t you give me his number. I can call him directly.”

“I don’t have it on me.”

Bader’s phone burred softly. He picked it up and spun around in his studded leather chair. He listened briefly, spoke even more briefly and hung up. He pushed off with his feet and spun slowly back to me. “Where was your mother admitted after her stroke?”

“Beth Israel.”

“What day, please?”

He had me and he knew it. “It was night.”

“All right then. What night?”

“It’s all a blur. Listen, thanks again,” I said. “I’m just going to wait for Linda in the hall.”

When I got to the doorway, it was filled by Big John from the front desk. He clamped his hand hard around my left arm. I looked down the hall where Jenn had gone and saw no one.

“Sir?” John said. “Why don’t you come with me back to the lobby.”

“Where’s my wife?”

“Ms. Stockwell will bring her along when she’s done in the little girls’ room.”

Getting tossed out of the place didn’t worry me as long as they tossed Jenn too, so I went along. But as we entered the lobby area, I saw two men getting out of an SUV outside the main entrance. One was the round-faced melonhead who’d been smoking outside when we arrived. The other was a tall concave guy in a mournful black suit. The Melonhead walked briskly toward the main entrance while the Suit took a paved walkway toward the rear. This did not bode well for me or Jenn. Time to loosen Big John’s grip. I kicked back with my heel and caught him sharply on the knee. He gasped and let go of my arm. I drove my elbow back into his nose and felt cartilage give. I turned, grabbed his hair, pulled his head down and hit him again in the same spot with my knee. He dropped to the floor, moaning, gurgling and spitting blood.

The Melonhead was steps from the front door. I ran behind John’s desk and scanned the monitors. Most showed empty entrances and exit doors. The day room. The dining room. Corridors in the residential area. The corridor outside Bader’s office. A rear exit. There! Alice Stockwell was trying to push Jenn out the door from the inside; the Suit was trying to pull her out. Jenn was braced in the doorway, kicking any part of him that came close.

I grabbed the swipe card off John’s belt as the Melonhead strode into the lobby. His eyes took in John’s legs lying across the floor. I bolted out from behind the console and swiped myself back into the hall that led to Bader’ office, pulling it shut behind me. I ran down the hall, hoping I was going the right way, looking left and right for a weapon of some kind. Around a corner I saw a woman in a pale blue uniform loading metal bedpans from a closet onto a wheeled cart. I grabbed one of the bedpans as I ran past her.

Jonah Geller: armed and ridiculous.

As I neared the end of the corridor, I could hear shoes scuffing against a tile floor. I peered around the corner to my left. Stockwell and the Suit had made no progress getting Jenn outside. The three of them were grappling in the hall. Stockwell’s chignon was coming apart and the Suit had a fresh welt on the bridge of his nose. When the Suit heard me coming, he squared himself to face me and reached into his jacket. Stockwell, suddenly without her tag-team partner, bolted out the open door onto the lawn with Jenn in hot pursuit. I whipped the bedpan at the Suit like a discus as he yanked a small automatic from his waistband. It caught him flush on the crown, where any cut bleeds like an oil find. Blood squirted straight up in the air and down into his eyes. I moved in and twisted the pistol out of his hand, then drove my knee into his solar plexus. He gasped and fell over in a fetal position. I ejected the magazine and pocketed it, ejected the round that was in the chamber and pocketed that too, wiped the pistol with my shirttail and dropped it in a wastebasket across the hall.

Out on the lawn was a sight to see. Jenn had Stockwell face down on the ground, rubbing her face in the sod. The cream silk suit was taking on a grassy hue. Stockwell was trying to push herself up off the ground but I didn’t like her chances, not against my Estonian wonder girl.

No matter how much dirt Stockwell deserved to eat, it was time to go. The Suit and Big John were out of it but the Melonhead was still on the grounds somewhere. I pulled Jenn off Stockwell and we ran to the parking lot. We got into the car and peeled out just as the Melonhead came barrelling out of a side entrance, setting off an insistent alarm. I couldn’t tell whether there was a gun in his hand but I assumed there was and shouted to Jenn to keep her head down.

We got out of there without a single shot being fired.

After dropping Jenn at the office, I drove home to shower and change out of my bloody clothes. Then I headed out to the Med-E-Mart to see Jay Silver in his work habitat. I took Broadview north until it became O’Connor, then crossed the Don Valley on the Leaside Bridge. I had the windows down and Uncle Tupelo blasting through its live version of “We’ve Been Had” when my cellphone rang. I looked at the caller ID, lowered the sound, raised the windows and mustered my chipperest voice. “Hi, Ma.”

“Everything okay, dear?”

“Sure. Why?”

“I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“We spoke last week.”

“Are we down to once a week now?”

“Come on, Ma. The last three times I called, you weren’t home.” A call to a Jewish mother must count whether she is there to answer or not. Elsewhere madness lies.

“When were these alleged calls?” she asked. “Give me days and times, mister. Let’s see how your story stands up.”

“Tuesday suppertime. Friday around seven. Sunday afternoon.”

“Tuesday, I was at the museum,” she said. “They had a members-only preview of the new Chinese ceramics exhibit. It hasn’t even gone to New York yet-we got it first. Friday was Shabbas dinner with the Golds. It’s one meal I hate to eat alone, and both you and Daniel were busy. Maybe this week you’ll come to me.”

“We’ll see.”

“Which means you won’t. And Sunday… Sunday I had a board meeting at shul,” she said. “Did I tell you I was re-elected president of the sisterhood?”