Fry Me a Liver (9 page)

“You assume correctly, citizen,” he said with a wink.

I smiled as we reached my floor. He got out with me and put his hands on his hips. I couldn't decide whether he was just into this or insane or both.

“But I cannot share that information with just any civilian,” he said. “Gwen Katz, you look like you could use some—”

“No, I'm okay, thanks.”

“—coffee.”

The unaffected voice was back, still manly but sweet. That voice, like the unexpected words, was nice to hear. He removed his hands from his hips, locked them behind him, and winked. He might be a little nuts, but he made me smile.

“You're on, Captain Health. Where and when?”

“I have three kids to visit. One book reading, one balloon animals”—he patted a little pouch on his hip—“and one playing a computer game. How about forty-five minutes, in the lobby?”

Kids. Hence, the kneepads for kneeling at bedsides. I felt like a jerk. “Sounds good. Will you still be wearing . . . ?”

“Yes I will,” he said. “Kids must not see me except as the Defeater of Disease. I will make my astonishing quick-change in the Health-Mobile, which I have craftily parked out front.”

I had to smile. The guy was committed. He was also cute. Beneath the owl-like mask, he had a strong Roman nose—not a lot of those in my past—and a solid jawline. He was probably a little old to be wearing the muscularly padded suit, but then it took age to have the kind of confidence to do what he was doing. He also proved that he was pretty good at what he did: cheering. This was the first time I'd felt my burdens lighten since the world and the deli floor caved in.

I turned toward the reception area. The staff was busy—some, distracted by Captain Health who waved and flexed his impressive muscles before getting back on the elevator—and I walked right by. I had no trouble spotting A.J.'s room along the corridor. A.J. Two was standing outside weeping.

I did not and could not know how this would go. What was the Old World saying?
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
A.J. Two was a smart young woman who had been scheduled to work that afternoon. She was also more reserved, more private than her outgoing mother. I didn't want to intrude on her moment so I stood to the side, her left side, and waited until she looked up. After a moment, she rubbed the sides of her fingers under her eyes and looked around. She saw me and drew a long breath before walking over. She always had good posture and she approached with her shoulders drawn back, her stride direct and strong. Her expression was neutral, however, her eyes were red. My heart galloped. It wasn't until she put her arms around me that I knew we were okay. She was slightly shorter than I and she cried big, heaving sobs on my neck.

I gave her a long moment, my hands cradling her head. Only when the crying subsided did I ask how her mother was.

“I thought I was hanging tough,” the young woman said.

“You are,” I assured her.

She smiled weakly. “Mom's unconscious—but she's still alive.”

“Has she been awake at all?”

“Not that I could tell,” the young woman said. “The doctors have her sedated and stabilized. She has three cracked vertebra, two broken ribs, and a mild concussion. Everything's been set and”—she started to lose it again—“my God, up close she looks like something out of a horror film.”

“Don't think like that,” I said. “This is all temporary.”

She nodded. “At least she's got some color back. That's something.”

“Why was she so pale? Did the doctors say?”

“Dr. Dundee said that it was from vascular constriction due to the trauma.” She took out her cell phone, read from it. “They actually found that she may have something called Raynaud's disease which, if I got it right, basically scoops up all the blood to keep the major organs functioning and lets the extremities fend for themselves. That's why mom's hands and feet were—I mean
are
—always so cold.”

“They haven't said anything about surgery, I'm guessing.”

“Not yet. I hope not at all. They want to watch her for a while and they don't want her to move.”

“Makes sense. Look, she's going to be all right,” I said. “I know it.”

“I've been praying for that, Gwen, for hours. First at her side with Luke and Dani and then out here, but I have a bad, bad feeling.”

“You can't,” I said. “Your mother would want you to be positive. She
needs
you to be positive.”

“I know, but the way she looks, just lying there. She's always so vital. I don't know how to deal with that.”

“We can figure it out together,” I told her. “Come on. Let's go give your mother some good thoughts.”

I took her by the hand and the young woman nodded, her tears a damp puddle on my shoulder. Together we walked to the room. The handholding was as much for me as it was for her. The door was ajar. We went in.

And something unexpected happened.

A.J. opened her eyes a smidgen and said, “Is that you, Two?”

For a moment neither A.J. Two nor I moved. We listened to her mother's low but steady breath and the pulse of the machines announcing her vital signs. And then we heard it again. She spoke something small, breathy. We sprang into the room with such suddenness that I was surprised A.J. didn't scream.

I let A.J. Two reach the bedside first. She dropped to her knees, looked into her mother's partly opened eyes. They were red and moist but they were present, alert. I thought of going to get a doctor but I didn't want to leave A.J. Two.

“Honey?” she said weakly.

“Yes, mother.
Yes!
”

“I thought—I thought I heard you crying,” A.J. said. “Like you . . . like you did when you were . . . a little girl.”

“God bless you, Mom.” A.J. Two wept again. “God bless you.”

A.J.'s eyes shifted slowly to me. It took a moment for her to focus and another moment for her to smile, albeit faintly. She shut her eyes, the smile still on her lips. My own eyes snapped to the life signs monitor. I had no idea, really, what I was looking at, but I wanted to make sure that wasn't some last moment of lucidity before death.

“I'm going to go tell the doctor,” A.J. Two said enthusiastically.

I squeezed her hand supportively and then she ran off. I looked down at A.J. “Listen, you. I'll take your tables till you heal. But don't expect me to do it forever.”

Her smile seemed to broaden slightly, or maybe it was my imagination. Whatever, it was the second truly happy moment I'd had that day.

I got out of the way when the doctors arrived. Kissing A.J. Two and telling her I'd call her later, I dragged myself up the stairs to the next floor to give Thom the good news. My friend and manager was asleep so I didn't bother her. Instead, I took the pen from her chart and left a note on a paper napkin on her nightstand. That should boost her spirits. Apart from the bandages here and there and the fact that her shoulder-length hair was splayed under her head, she looked okay. I hoped that Jesus was beside her. I truly did.

“How is she doing?” I asked the nurse as I passed him on my way out.

“She had visits from several of her coworkers and also from her church group, which really raised her spirits,” the young man said. “Everything the doctor has said seems to point to a good outcome.”

That was an obfuscation if I ever heard one—and as an accountant and a woman, I've heard a lot of them—but I had to agree that Thom's color looked good and her breathing was steady. In the professional medical opinion of a dispenser of chicken soup, that did indeed point to a good outcome.

I was breathing easier. My soul was a little lighter.

Now it was time for coffee with a superhero. I had already been through my supercop phase with Grant; hopefully, a superhero would be a little more entertaining. Still, with my expectations low and kryptonite in my soul, I headed for the lobby.

There was a time, in memory yet green, when a coffee date meant cups and saucers or, at the very least, Starbucks. There was an element of “occasion” to it, however slim, and a potential for flirtiness across a table. You could even tell a lot—okay, prejudge—by what a person ordered. I made a completely unscientific study before I left New York. Guys who got the fancy, sugary beverages tended to be superficial metrosexuals. Black coffee drinkers were intense. Espresso? Self-absorbed, always glancing at their cell phones, plus they were giving themselves a fast drink for a quick exit if necessary. Double espresso? Need I say “wired”? Tea? Contrarians. Iced tea? Sanest of the lot, interested, a good bet. Bonus points if they ordered a brownie or pastry and gave me half. Sharing is sexy.

But this one was new. Coffee with Captain Health was a thermos in the passenger's seat of his van.

“How did everything go up there?” I asked.

“Beautifully,” he replied. “It always does. Not because of me but because of the kids. They so want to have a magical experience.”

“So they do. Helped a lot by you.”

He nodded. “I give them a little push. Their imaginations do the rest.”

That touched me.

“I know this may seem a little weird,” he understated as he poured the joe into a real mug, “but there's a reason for it.”

I thought,
Because you're about to drug me and to take me to the Bat Cave for some unholy purpose?

But I asked, “And that reason is?”

“In addition to being a superman, I'm super-spoiled when it comes to coffee,” he admitted. “I have a greenhouse on my property and I grow my own organic beans.”

“No kidding? How long have you been doing that?”

“Four years and a couple of months,” he said. “I wanted to start the day with something special for myself. This seemed to be it.”

I wasn't expecting that. I also wasn't expecting the full-bodied flavor as I sipped the brew. He poured a splash of almond milk into his own cup, then returned it to the cooler in the back.

“You grow and food process your own almonds too?” I teased.

“I would if I had the time,” he confessed.

I didn't take milk or sugar even with the bitter, watery
pishockts
sold at roadside diners, but I certainly didn't need any of that with this. I would be eager and proud to sell it. If I had a restaurant, that is.

“Wow,” I said after the second sip, which was just as good as the first. Then added, “Now that I approve, it's safe to take off the mask.”

He chuckled a little self-consciously. “Thanks for reminding me. It's like sunglasses when you go indoors. It's such a part of me, after a while I forget I have it on.”

“It's also safe to tell me your name,” I added.

He smiled but he didn't speak until he had carefully rolled back the carefully modified ski mask revealing, in addition to what I had already noted, sharp cheekbones and short, curly blond hair. Not bad.

“Kane Iger,” he said, showing a lot of teeth. They didn't sparkle under the lamp post in the dark parking lot, but they should have.

I sipped more of his coffee while I checked him out. Damn, it was good. The coffee. And Kane too.

“You take this gig seriously,” I said. “I mean—you obviously stay in shape.”

“I try, but I do that for me, not the costume,” he said. “An hour a day of push-ups, crunches, working with a medicine ball. My coffee tees things up and the whole routine gets the day going right.”

“I'm impressed,” I said. “If I can get out of bed, period, my day has started right.”

“I'm sure that's not true,” he said. “I get the feeling you love what you do. Otherwise you wouldn't do it.”

“Most of the time that's true,” I said. I got a pang when I realized I wouldn't have that to do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

“What do you do with the rest of your day?” I asked.

I was expecting him to revert to announcer-mode and say,
In his civilian life, Captain Health is a mild-mannered blogger . . .

Instead, he said, “I'm a money guy.”

“Oh really?” I said. “I was in finance back in—”

“No, no, I mean—I work at a bank,” he interrupted. “I'm an assistant manager at UTON.” UTON was the Unified Trust of Nashville, an institution that was supposed to go places when it was launched in 2006, but stumbled in the financial implosion of summer 2008. It took a government bailout to survive. “I'm not a portfolio manager or broker or anything sexy like that. Mostly, I handle loans.”

“Residential or business?” I asked, trying to purge the embarrassment he apparently felt at being a step up from a teller. Personally, I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. The hours left him time to have a life and do good things.

“I handle residential loans, mostly,” he said. “I like people. I like
helping
people.”

“Obviously,” I smiled, gesturing with the coffee cup toward the costume.

“It's nice to always try and find a way to say yes and at as low a rate as possible,” he said.

Even though it puts them in debt to UTON
, I thought with the muscular cynicism of a New York investment banker. It also helps fulfill dreams, if the lenders are responsible, not like all the clowns who gave out mortgages people couldn't afford, leading to the events of '08. I had to bite my tongue really, really hard not to rain on his low interest rates.

“So helping people—is that how the alter ego started?” I asked.

He nodded. “It was about three years ago. One of my clients had a sick kid. We had this costume our ad agency had used for a promotion—Captain Homeowner. Kids would always stop to see this superhero guy at a mall. That made it easy for our guy to pass out flyers to their parents. I always had an interest in superheroes, I admit it, so it was kind of a natural for me. I didn't even have to change the
CH
on the chest.” He pointed to the big yellow letters in case I'd missed them.

“Worthwhile repurposing,” I said a little enviously.

“What about you? Sounds like you didn't repurpose.”

“Not a bit. I just chucked everything in the nearest wastebasket and moved from New York.”

“With or without knowing anything about the deli business?”

“Without. Outside of the cash register and being able to tell matzo from a toasted bagel, that was pretty much all I knew. But I'm a fast study.”

“What have you figured out about me?” he asked.

That was surprising, hard and fast like a superhero punch. It took me a moment to think and another moment to decide whether I should answer.

“You look good in your threads,” I said.

He chuckled. “Thanks. I wasn't expecting that.”

“You were asking something else?”

“Yeah.”

I grinned, and stalled by drinking more coffee. That
had
been a little shocking of me. In New York, candor is a way of life. Here, silence is good manners.

“I haven't figured out anything else,” I said. “But you seem to have a good heart and that is more important than the size of the chest it's in.”

That managed to embarrass him even more. He was running one hand round and round the steering wheel like it was a throttle.

“You're a native Tennessean?” I asked, throwing him a lifeline.

“Nashville born and raised.”

“Ever married?”

“Only to my work,” he said. “This work, I mean. The bank is a job, one that I like a lot, but this—this is like a calling.”

When people say they're married to their work, it always sounds like a cliché, a default excuse for being a rotten spouse or friend or sibling. From him it sounded genuine.

“What about you?” he asked.

“I was married, for real, to a self-absorbed and deceitful former husband,” I told him. “If the choice is being married to a guy like that or being married to work, I'll take work. Any work.”

“Sorry it was so bad for you,” he said.

“There's that, but I also learned a lot about myself, my priorities. It's like any education—it costs something.”

“Still, I wish it hadn't happened to you. And on top of all that, you have to deal with this new situation.”

“Yes, but it introduced me to you and to some great coffee.”

“True, but I'm still ahead in that accounting.”

Another sincere expression. This may sound strange but I didn't know how to handle this much kindness and empathy. I didn't even know whether to run toward it or away from it. I didn't for a moment imagine I could ever end up with anyone as provincial as Kane, however sweet he was. That said, it was nice to feel appreciated. I was also getting way ahead of myself, though that was par for me too. There was something—
something
—intriguing about a guy who was a little bashful in this setting yet was uninhibited enough to appear in a superhero costume, fit enough to fill it properly, and either confident or naïve enough to have approached a girl while wearing it.

“So here's a question,” I said. “If I were to join you on your escapades, what would my superhero identity be?”

He seemed pleased with the question. “That's easy. Soup Queen.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone knows chicken noodle soup is good for you.”

Now I was blushing. And, of course, I covered it with a joke. “I'd've gone with Latke Lass or Matzo Maid. But that works.”

“Captain Health is good at names,” he said. “Cheering kids up with names is really my thing. I always come up with them bedside. Like the Shiny Avenger for kids undergoing chemo or Tube Titan if they've got an IV.”

“I'm guessing they love it.”

“They do.”

“I'm not really up on what kids go for,” I admitted.

“None of your own?”

“Zero population growth for me,” I said. “I don't need to mess up more than one life.”

“You're being hard on yourself, Gwen. You shouldn't be.”

“It's what I do. But enough about me,” I said hastily. “So, Captain. You've got a Health-Mobile. I assume you also have a Health-Cave?”

“Over on Beech Avenue,” he said. “I keep my Captain Health physique by running around Reservoir Park.”

“I haven't been there,” I said provocatively.

“They close at night so I do three circuits in the morning before I go to work,” he said.

Closed at night. So—no park by moonlight. I turned my attention to the coffee. If he wanted me to visit, it was apparently going to have to come from me. I sat there thinking that I was seriously out of practice. I couldn't remember the last time I'd waited to be asked home. It was a strange, unpleasant, very retro feeling. I wanted him to ask even if I wasn't a hundred percent sure I wanted to go.

His hand started working around the steering wheel again. “Say, I don't have any women's spandex, but if you want a homemade smoothie—”

“Sounds good,” I replied, perhaps a tad too quickly. “I don't get to the southlands much.”

“It's a pretty undiscovered spot,” he said, finishing his coffee. “That's one reason it's closed at night. Still deserted.”

“Good for muggers or lovers,” I said.

He laughed at that, which was good; I didn't have to roll out my A-game, humor-wise. I wasn't sure I could find it after this day and I was starting to worry that I was not making sense since I was tired
and
a little nervous. But at least we seemed to be on the same page: getting to a private place to see what developed.

I finished my own coffee, spilling some on my black slacks out of first night jitters. Then I got into my own car to follow him home, and off we went into the night, leaving behind a bad day and hopefully not giving birth to a bad evening. The ten minute drive was full of strange palpitations which I hoped was anticipation or first night jitters and not post-traumatic stress. Though I was guessing that if I had to come apart with someone, Captain Health would be a good choice.

Kane lived in a newish contemporary that looked unimaginatively like a big lean-to. But the big windows showed a lot of stars, the modern furniture was just right for the setting, and the lighting was low-key just
like
a cave—so as not to interfere with his Blu-ray viewing, I learned, from a library that consisted not surprisingly of a lot of movies with the Rock, Jason Statham, and Marvel superheroes.

Kane disappeared into his bedroom to change. There were no photographs anywhere, which seemed strange. Then again, I wasn't entirely used to the online cell phone world. That's where a lot of people kept treasured images. There were several stacks of well-read comic books and mystery novels in the bookcase, some college textbooks, a few best-selling novels from a few years back—before the age of the Kindle—and no newspapers or magazines. I noticed a video-game system attached to the television. If you wanted to occupy yourself here, it was either a copy of the
Amazing Spider-Man
, TV, or a game called Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
.
I felt a little antiquated and out of it, not having even heard of something that had merited an anniversary edition.

He emerged in a civilian version of his costume: a tight-fitting t-shirt from the 2014 UTON half-marathon, Nikes, and a snug pair of casual slacks that looked very good on him. He had the slightly stiff gait of a thickly thighed weight lifter, but his earnest smile was what I noticed first.