Falling Angel (2 page)

“What happened then?”

“Something very curious. Johnny’s hospital is outside Poughkeepsie. I was in that vicinity on business and, quite on the spur of the moment, decided to pay my old acquaintance a visit. Perhaps I wanted to see what sixteen years in bed does to a man. At the hospital, I was told visiting hours were on weekday afternoons only. I insisted, and the doctor in charge made an appearance. He informed me that Johnny was undergoing special therapy and could not be disturbed until the following Monday.”

I said: “Sounds like you were getting the runaround.”

“Indeed. There was something about the fellow’s manner I didn’t like.” Cyphre slipped his cigar holder into his vest pocket and folded his hands on the table. “I stayed over in Poughkeepsie until Monday and returned to the hospital, making certain to arrive during visiting hours. I never saw the doctor again, but when I gave Johnny’s name, the girl at the reception desk asked if I was a relative. Naturally, I said no. She said only family members were permitted to visit with the patients.”

“No mention of this the previous time around?”

“Not a word. I grew quite indignant. I’m afraid I made something of a scene. That was a mistake. The receptionist threatened to call the police unless I left immediately.”

“What did you do?”

“I left. What else could I do? It’s a private hospital. I didn’t want any trouble. That’s why I’m engaging your services.”

“You want me to go up there and check it out for you?”

“Exactly.” Cyphre gestured expansively, turning his palms upward like a man showing he has nothing to hide. “First, I need to know if Johnny Favorite is still alive — that’s essential. If he is, I’d like to know where.”

I reached inside my jacket and got out a small leatherbound notebook and a mechanical pencil. “Sounds simple enough. What’s the name and address of the hospital?”

“The Emma Dodd Harvest Memorial Clinic; it’s located east of the city on Pleasant Valley Road.”

I wrote it down and asked the name of the doctor who gave Cyphre the runaround.

“Fowler. I believe the first name was either Albert or Alfred.”

I made a note of it. “Is Favorite registered under his actual name?”

“Yes. Jonathan Liebling.”

“That should do it.” I put the notebook back and got to my feet. “How can I get in touch with you?”

“Through my attorney would be best.” Cyphre smoothed his moustache with the tip of his forefinger. “But you’re not leaving? I thought we were having lunch.”

“Hate to miss a free meal, but if I get started right away I can make it up to Poughkeepsie before quitting time.”

“Hospitals don’t keep business hours.”

“The office staff does. Any cover I use depends on it. It’ll cost you money if I wait until Monday. I get fifty dollars a day, plus expenses.”

“Sounds reasonable for a job well done.”

“The job will get done. Satisfaction guaranteed. I’ll give Winesap a call as soon anything turns up.”

“Perfect. A pleasure meeting you, Mr. Angel.”

The maître d’ was still sneering when I stopped for my overcoat and attaché case on the way out.

THREE

My six-year-old Chevy was parked in the Hippodrome Garage on 44th, near Sixth Avenue. Only the name remained to mark the site of the legendary theater. Pavlova danced at the Hipp. John Philip Sousa led the house band. Now it stank of automobile exhaust, and the only music came from a portable radio in the office, between bursts of the Puerto Rican announcer’s machine-gun Spanish.

By two o’clock I was heading north up the West Side Highway. The weekend exodus had yet to start, and traffic was light along the Saw Mill River Parkway. I stopped in Yonkers and bought a pint of bourbon for company. By the time I passed Peekskill it was half gone, and I filed it in the glove compartment for the return trip.

I drove in mellow silence through the snow-covered countryside. It was a nice afternoon, too nice to spoil with the car radio’s hit parade lineup of adenoidal retards. After the yellow slush of the city, everything looked white and clean, like a Grandma Moses landscape.

I reached the outskirts of Poughkeepsie a little after three and found Pleasant Valley Road without spotting a single Vassar girl. Five miles out of town I came to a walled estate with an ornately arched wrought-iron gate and large bronze letters in tike brickwork: EMMA DODD HARVEST MEMORIAL CLINIC. I turned off onto a graveled drive and meandered for half a mile or so through dense hemlocks, emerging in front of a six-story redbrick Georgian building that looked more like a college dormitory than a hospital.

Inside, the place was all hospital, walls a pale, institutional green and the gray linoleum floor clean enough to operate on. A glass-topped admissions desk was built into a recessed alcove along one wall. Across from it hung a large oil portrait of a bulldozer-faced dowager who I guessed was Emma Dodd Harvest without reading the little plaque screwed to the gilt frame. Straight ahead, I could see a gleaming corridor where a white-clad orderly pushing an empty wheelchair turned a corner and disappeared from view.

I’ve always hated hospitals, having spent too many months recovering in them during the war. There was something depressing about the efficient sterility of such places. The hushed tread of rubber soles down bright hallways reeking with Lysol. Faceless attendants anonymous in crisp, white uniforms. A routine so monotonous that even changing a bedpan takes on ritual importance. Memories of the ward rose in me with a choking horror. Hospitals, like prisons, are all the same from the inside.

The girl behind the admissions desk was young and homely. She was dressed in white and wore a small black nametag that said R. FLEECE. The alcove opened onto an office lined with filing cabinets. “May I help you?” Miss Fleece had a voice as sweet as angel’s breath. Fluorescent light glinted on her thick, rimless glasses.

“I certainly hope so,” I said. “My name is Andrew Conroy; I do field work for the National Institute of Health.” I set my black calfskin attaché case on the glass-topped desk and showed her some fake I.D. in an extra wallet I carry as a dummy. I rigged it going down in the elevator back at 666 Fifth, changing the front card in the glassine window.

Miss Fleece regarded me suspiciously, her dim, watery eyes wavering behind the thick lenses like tropical fish in an aquarium. I could tell she didn’t like my wrinkled suit or the soup stains on my tie, but the Mark Cross attaché case carried the day. “Is there anyone in particular you’d like to see, Mr. Conroy?” she asked, experimenting with a weak smile.

“Perhaps you’ll know the answer to that.” I slipped my dummy wallet back inside my jacket and leaned against the desk top. “The Institute is conducting a survey of incurable trauma cases. My job is to gather information about surviving victims currently in private hospitals. I understand you have a patient here fitting that description.”

“What is the patient’s name, please?”

“Jonathan Liebling. Any information you can provide will be kept strictly confidential. In fact, no names at all will be used in the official report.”

“One moment, please.” The homely receptionist with the heavenly voice retreated into the inner office and pulled out a lower drawer in one of the filing cabinets. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. She returned carrying an open manila folder and slid it across the glass top in front of me. “We did have such a patient at one time, but as you can see, Jonathan Liebling was transferred to the V.A. hospital up in Albany years ago. These are his records. Anything we’d have on him would be in there.”

The transfer was duly recorded on the form, and beside it the date, 5/12/45. I got out my notebook and went through the motions of jotting down a few statistics. “Who was the physician attending this case, do you know?”

She reached over and turned the folder so she could read it. “It was Dr. Fowler.” She tapped the name with her forefinger.

“He still work here in the hospital?”

“Why, of course. He’s on duty right now. Would you like to speak with him?”

“If it’s no trouble.”

She made another attempt at a smile. “I’ll call and see if he’s free.” She stepped to the switchboard and spoke quietly into a small microphone. Her amplified voice echoed down a distant corridor: “Dr. Fowler to the reception desk, please … Dr. Fowler to the reception desk.”

“Were you working last weekend?” I asked as we waited.

“No, I was away for a few days. My sister got married.”

“Catch the bouquet?”

“I’m not that lucky.”

Dr. Fowler appeared as if out of nowhere, cat-silent on his crepe-soled shoes. He was a tall man, well over six feet, and walked with a stoop that made him look slightly hunchbacked. He wore a rumpled brown herringbone suit several sizes too large. I guessed him to be somewhere near seventy. What little hair he had left was the color of pewter.

Miss Fleece introduced me as Mr. Conroy and I fed him the line about the N.I.H., adding, “If there’s anything at all you can tell me regarding Jonathan Liebling, I’d appreciate it very much.”

Dr. Fowler picked up the manila folder. It might have been palsy that made his fingers tremble, but I had my doubts.

“So long ago,” he said. “He was an entertainer before the war. Sad case. There was no physical evidence of neural damage, yet he didn’t respond to treatment. There seemed no point in keeping him here, what with the expense and all, so we transferred him to Albany. He was a veteran and entitled to a bed for the rest of his life.”

“And that’s where he can be found, up in Albany?”

“I would imagine so. If he’s still alive.”

“Well, doctor, I won’t take up any more of your time.”

“That’s quite all right. Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

“Not at all, you’ve been very helpful.” And he had. One look at his eyes told the whole story.

FOUR

I drove back into Poughkeepsie, stopping at the first bar and grill I came across. First, I called the V.A. hospital in Albany. It took a little time, but they confirmed what I already knew: there never was a transfer patient named Jonathan Liebling. Not in 1945; not anytime. I thanked them and let the phone dangle while looking up Dr. Fowler. I wrote the address and phone number in my notebook and gave the good doctor a call. No answer. I let it ring a dozen times before hanging up.

I had a quick drink and asked the bartender for directions to 419 South Kittridge Street. He drew a crude map on a napkin, remarking with studied indifference that it was a classy part of town. The bartender’s cartography proved right on the money. I even got to see a few Vassar girls in the bargain.

South Kittridge was a pleasant, tree-lined street not many blocks from the campus. The doctor’s house was a carpenter Gothic Victorian with a circular turret at one corner and quantities of elaborate scrollwork hanging under the eaves like lace on an old lady’s collar. A wide veranda with Doric columns surrounded the building, and tall lilac hedges screened the yard on either side from the neighboring houses.

I drove slowly past, checking things out, and parked the Chevy around the corner in front of an ashlar-walled church. The sign out front announced this Sunday’s sermon: SALVATION IS WITHIN YOU. I walked back to 419 South Kittridge Street carrying my black attaché case. Just another insurance salesman hunting a commission.

The front door framed a beveled-glass oval, allowing a glimpse of a dim, wainscoted hall and a set of carpeted steps leading up to the second floor. I rang the bell twice and waited. No one came. I rang again and tried the door. It was locked. The lock was at least forty years old and I had nothing to fit it.

I went along the side veranda trying each window without success. Around back, there was a lean-to cellar door. It was padlocked, but the unpainted wooden frame was soft and old. I got a jimmy out of my attaché case and pried off the hasp.

The steps were dark, festooned with cobwebs. My penlight flash kept me from breaking my neck. A coal furnace crouched in the center of the cellar like a pagan idol. I found the stairs and started up.

The door at the top was unlocked, and I stepped into a kitchen that would have been a modern miracle during the Hoover administration. There was a gas range with tall curving legs and a refrigerator whose circular motor perched on top like a hatbox. If the doctor lived alone, he was a tidy man. The breakfast dishes were washed and stacked on the drainboard. The linoleum floor was waxed. I left my case on the oilcoth-covered kitchen table and cased the rest of the house.

The dining room and front parlor looked never used. Dust powdered dark, ponderous furniture arranged with showroom precision. Upstairs were three bedrooms. The closets in two were empty. The smallest, with a single iron bed and plain oak dresser, was where Dr. Fowler lived.

I had a look through his dresser, not finding anything other than the usual round of shirts, handkerchiefs, and cotton underwear. Several musty woolen suits hung beside a shoe rack in the closet. I felt the pockets without knowing why and didn’t turn up a thing. There was a .455-caliber Webley Mark 5 revolver in his bedside table lying next to a small leatherbound Bible. This was the sidearm issued to British officers in World War I. Bibles were optional. I checked the breakfront action, but the Webley wasn’t loaded.

In the bathroom I got lucky. A sterilizer was steaming on the washstand. Inside, I found a half-dozen needles and three syringes. The medicine cabinet yielded nothing more than the standard array of aspirin and cough syrup bottles, toothpaste tubes and eye drops. I examined several vials containing prescription capsules, but they all seemed legit. None was narcotic.

I knew it had to be somewhere, so I went back downstairs and had a look in the old-fashioned fridge. It was on the same shelf with the milk and eggs. Morphine; at least twenty 50-cc bottles at rough count. Enough to keep a dozen junkies stoned for a month.

FIVE

It grew dark outside by degrees, the bare trees in the front yard becoming silhouettes against a cobalt sky before merging altogether into blackness. I chain-smoked, piling a pristine ash tray with spent butts. A few minutes before seven, the headlights of an automobile turned into the driveway and went out. I listened for the doctor’s footsteps on the porch but didn’t hear a thing until his key turned in the lock.