Jeremiah Healy - Right To Die

"Why?"

"Well, he can't talk, can he? How's he going to make threatening calls?"

"I didn't say the threats came by phone."

"Oh," said Cuervo, shrugging again. "I thought you did."

I DROVE BACK INTO BOSTON, PUTTING THE CAR IN THE Trash-strewn alley behind my office building and grabbing a beer and burger at Friar Tuck's Pub. After lunch I called my answering service as I sorted through the mail. Four messages, one of which was from Inés Roja, asking me to reach her at the school by two.

My watch said two-fifteen. I tried anyway.

"Maisy Andrus."

"I didn't expect to get you directly."

"Who… oh, John." Her voice darkened. "Is something wrong?"

"Not that I know of. Inés left word for me to call."

"You just missed her. I can give you the number at the clinic?"

"Clinic?"

"Yes, she volunteers an afternoon a week, sometimes more."

"I thought Alec said Inés had to leave that?"

"This is a different clinic."

Recognizing the 269 exchange as South Boston, I did some paperwork first, then drove to it. The small parking area had one slot open, but there were plenty of spaces on the street as well. Just inside the door was a waiting area. An elderly woman had a wire carrying cage in her lap, a Siamese hunched down on its forepaws and looking out warily. Across from the cat lady was a fat man with a matched set of Airedales, straining at their leashes and licking their chops. The Siamese seemed pleased that the woman had remembered the cage.

I walked to the counter. A high school girl in a faded green smock and moussed hair asked if she could help me.

"I'm looking for Inés Roja?"

"She expecting you?"

"She called me."

The teenager sized me up, then nodded and beckoned. I followed her through one door and immediately another. I thought of Louis Doleman's spacelock as my guide opened the second door.

Containing cages stacked from floor to ceiling, the room sounded and smelled like a menagerie. The crying of birds, the mewling of cats, the staccato barks and mournful howls of dogs. But also the chattering of monkeys, raccoons, and a few other mammals I couldn't place even by continent.

The teenager spoke in a command voice over the din. "Inés?"

"Right here, Deb." Roja stood up from behind an examining table of some kind, cradling a gaunt monkey and holding a baby bottle that the monkey eyed eagerly. Roja wore a green smock, too, which was covered with stains old and new. She seemed surprised to see me as she brought the monkey toward us.

"John, I did not want to drag you all the way over here."

"It was on my way. Don't worry about it."

Deb said, "I've got to go back out front. Ines. Let me know if you need anything."

"Right."

The monkey began making "eek" noises. so Roja moved the bottle to its mouth. The creature began sucking, almost shyly.

Roja said, "You got my message, then."

"I did. Another note?"

"No. No, it is probably nothing really. That is why I just wanted you to call me."

I rested my rump against one of the tables. "Well, I'm here. Tell me."

Roja shifted the monkey to the other arm like an awkward bag of groceries. "The professor and Tucker are going on a vacation."

"I thought she had some kind of visitor thing already lined up?"

"She does. In San Diego. This vacation is to Sint Maarten."

"The Caribbean?"

"Yes. Tucker was invited long ago to participate in a masters-of-the-game tournament there."

"And she's going with him?"

"Yes. The tournament is in January, so they will vacation first, then be together while Tucker plays."

"First I've heard of it."

"I believe she decided to go only last night."

"I just talked to her an hour ago. She didn't even mention it."

Shifting the monkey again, Roja held it on her hip, an interspecies Madonna and Child. "You must not be harsh with her, John. Her mind is… different. She can concentrate on something and not think to say something else to you."

"What made her decide to join Tuck on this trip?"

"I think the pressure of the notes and all. But I am concerned about her being… vulnerable outside the United States."

"So am I. Are you going too?"

"No."

"How about Manolo?"

"He is to stay here as well."

"How's he going to take that?"

"I am…" Roja looked down, but not at the monkey. "I am feeling disloyal telling this to you."

"I can't help you much with that, Inés. Is it important for me to know?"

"The professor told me I am to tell Manolo after they are gone that they have left."

"So Manolo sees them get into a cab, and…"

"And he thinks they are going out to dinner instead of to the airport."

"What about luggage?"

"They are not to pack much, and I am supposed to occupy Manolo with some task as they leave."

"I don't like this, Inés."

Roja looked back up. "I am sorry to have to tell you, but I thought you should know."

"When do they leave?"

"Tonight. Their plane departs at eight-thirty, and they said they would be taking the taxi about seven."

"I'll be there by six."

Roja smiled. "Thank you."

"How do you get here?"

"How? By the subway."

The Red Line would take her only to within eight blocks or so of the clinic. "Still a long walk. Why do you volunteer'?"

"The animals, they do not know how sick they are. They know only the kindness you show to them." She nuzzled the baby monkey.

"And many will get better."

As opposed to the last clinic Roja had seen.

Deb let me use the phone at the counter. I called the D.A.'s office, leaving a message for Nancy that I'd still see her that night, just after eight o'clock. I figured by that time, either I'd have persuaded Maisy Andrus not to go with Hebert to the Caribbean or they'd be on their way.

I sat around the reception area, eavesdropping on Deb and the girl who came to relieve her at five. They gossiped about one of the vets, but I had the feeling that they were more interested in his "totally" blue eyes than in his "radical" rabies research. When Inés Roja came out, I insisted on driving her to the Andrus house with me. At first she declined, saying that the professor would realize that she had told me about the trip. I replied that I'd tell the boss I'd forced it out of her. That brought a feeble smile and a nod. Outside, the wind was shrieking. I opened the passenger door of the Prelude for Roja, and she scooted in, flipping her coat away

from the door that closed a little too quickly from the gale.

Once I got behind the wheel, Inés said, "This is a very nice car."

"It's old, but well maintained?

"Like…"

"Like what?"

Roja shook her head as I started the car. "Nothing." She gathered the coat around her neck.

"We'll have heat as soon as the engine warms up a bit."

"I am all right."

To make conversation, I said, "It ever get this cold in Cuba?"

She started to look at me, then turned away. "No. But there are worse things than cold, John."

We drove in silence for half a mile through Broadway traffic, crossing the overpass for the train yards that anticipate South Station.

Roja finally said, "I am sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about."

"In Cuba, my father did not support Castro. He was in prison. When your President Carter dared Castro to free those who would come to the United States, my father was one. He was too weak from the prison, but they said if we did not go then, perhaps there would be no time to go later, no boat to carry us. So we left Cuba, and my father got sick. He could not breathe… It was only ninety miles to Florida, but the other men would not keep his body on the boat with us. They simply threw him off, like he was… not a human being. Into the sea. Then my mother could not… Many of the men on the boat were prisoners too, but not political. Criminals, degenerados, do you understand?"