Last Surgeon (12 page)

Nick paced along the crowded walkway in front of the Lincoln Memorial waiting for Jillian to arrive. The afternoon sky was crisp and bright, with only a few passing clouds to block out the three o’clock sun. If Jillian’s analysis of the photograph was accurate, it was around this time, four years ago, that Junie snapped the picture of Nick and Umberto that sent Manny Ferris running for the exit door.

It was after three that morning before Jillian had left the RV. By then, Junie was asleep in the back examining room, and Nick was entangled in a mesh of bewildering feelings surrounding the intense, engaging new arrival in his life. It was Jillian who came up with the idea to take photographs from every conceivable angle around the Lincoln Memorial, then observe Manny’s reaction to each. Maybe there was something to her theory that it wasn’t who was in the picture that so upset the Marine, but what.

To be certain they did not confuse Manny any more than he already appeared to be, Jillian wanted to get the time of their shoot as close as possible to the actual hour the photograph had been taken, in case time of day factored into his intense reaction.

It took some careful study of the photograph’s light and shadow for Jillian to determine the hour. Nick was astounded by her ability to deduce information from a single picture, right down to her figuring out that it was also taken in the springtime, based solely on the clothes worn by pedestrians in the background. He was certain if she had chosen a career in radiology, she would have been a star.

Jillian spotted Nick and called out to him as she hurried over. The last time Nick had experienced anything remotely close to a crush, he and Sarah had just met and were going out on their first date. Now, it was Jillian who had invaded his thoughts. They were supposed to meet by the stone bench, but Nick was too anxious to sit and wait. He tried to attribute his nervous energy to a desire to solve the Manny Ferris mystery, but he knew better.

“Hey you,” she said, “are you ready to be my assistant?”

“You look professional.”

And stunningly beautiful
, Nick wanted to add, but fought the urge.

“I thought we were meeting at the bench,” she said. “I was waiting for you there.”

“I guess I got antsy,” Nick said. “Figured I’d start scouting potential shots.”

“Well, I would have brought my Nikon D300 and wide-angle lens, but then I remembered I’m a nurse and about two grand short of being able to afford one, so you’ll have to settle for my Canon Rebel XT. It’s a little like a beagle next to an Irish setter, but they’re both pedigrees.”

“Hey, for all I know about photography, you could have pulled out a shoe box and told me we’re doing this with a pinhole camera. Consider me your loyal assistant, ready and willing to serve.”

“Is that a promise?”

There it was again. That flirtatious blink of her eyes and infectious smile that seemed to add ten degrees to an already warm spring afternoon.

“We better get started,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of pictures to take and not a lot of sun left.”

They finished the shoot in just under two hours. Jillian had stashed a portable printer in her camera bag, so they were able to print out twenty or so quality shots, representing every conceivable vantage point. The pictures from the east exterior captured the monolithic temple columns, palatial staircase, and expansive causeway. A few shots were from the temple interior, as well as one of Lincoln himself.

“So, if it’s the Lincoln shot that sets Manny off, does that just tell us he’s states’ rights and not an abolitionist?” Nick asked with a wry grin.

“Either that or he’s scared of statues.”

“That would make him staurophobic,” Nick replied.

“Now, how did I know that you’d provide that information?” Jillian asked, punching him teasingly on the shoulder. “I feel like I’ve been set up.”

It was childish, he knew, but Nick beamed inwardly at having impressed Jillian with his knowledge of phobias, the subject of a psychology term paper in college. What else could he impress her with, he wondered. But as quickly as that thought arrived, it left. This woman just wasn’t the type.

They continued sorting through the photographs, picking the very best shots to print from the hundreds stored in the camera. There was a picture of the Washington Monument across the Reflecting Pool, taken from the very spot where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Another captured the north wall of the Washington Monument through the Lincoln Memorial’s towering side portico. There were a couple shots of the back of the memorial as well, including one from the walkway along Parkway Drive Northwest and another rear shot taken from the bike path across the Potomac, which ran parallel to the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

“Looks like we’re ready to go,” Jillian said, zipping up her tripod bag after they printed the final shot. “Are you sure Manny will be at the club?”

“Manny Ferris seemed as much a fixture in that bathroom as… the fixtures in that bathroom,” Nick said. “He’ll be there. I’m sure of it.”

By the time they arrived at Lucky Bill Pearl’s, the April sun had long ago set. A cool night wind chilled their skin. The two descended the dimly lit carpeted staircase with Jillian leading the way. Nick kept a few paces back, wanting to see if the bouncer who had pinned him up against the wall was again working the door. As luck would have it, it was another bald gorilla, although he was equally adorned in ink.

Maybe because the weekend was approaching, the club was more crowded this time than last. Nick watched with amusement as Jillian took in the scene. Her mouth hung just a little agape as she stared in bewilderment at the arcing bar, the high-backed chairs lining the edge of the stage, the brass poles, and the women-spectacular-looking by almost anyone’s measure.

“You guys do this for fun?” Jillian asked, leaning in close and speaking directly into Nick’s ear so she could be heard over the techno music blaring in the background. Nick enjoyed the sensation of her lips against his skin and wished the music were even louder and her question a little longer.

“I’m going to go find Manny. Do you think you can handle it here until I get back?”

“Sometime soon you’ve gotta come and see where I work,” Jillian said.

Nick waited until Jillian was settled at the bar before making his way over to the men’s room. When he glanced back, a heavyset man in a light blue suit was sitting down next to Jillian and starting his rap. Jillian waved to Nick, assuring him with her eyes that she had the situation well in hand.

It wasn’t until Nick had pushed against the swashbuckling cavalier on the restroom door and called out Manny’s name that he realized Jillian had the prints they had made.

“Manny?” he called out again. The orange marble countertop was dry and the toiletries were still in neat rows on top. Leaning over, Nick scanned underneath the stall doors, but they were all empty.

On his way over to the box office to check and see if Manny was even scheduled to work that night, Nick spied Jillian seated at the black lacquered bar, flanked by three leering men, each ignoring the girls on the poles as he vied for her attention. As if sensing Nick was watching her, Jillian turned and waved across the club.

Not to worry
, her playful look said.

Stepping into the dim, carpeted foyer of the stairwell landing, Nick peered into the box office window, but the room was empty.

“Hello,” Nick called out. “Is anybody there?”

Then he felt a strong grip on his shoulder. Nick turned.

“Hey, buddy,” a surly voice growled, “remember me?”

It was the same bald heavyweight who just yesterday had pressed him against the club wall like an ink stamp while Manny Ferris made his escape.

“How could I forget,” Nick replied, more calmly than he was feeling. “Isn’t your name Dick?”

The bouncer’s massive hands grabbed Nick’s shoulders, then spun him around and began shoving him up the stairway.

“When I toss someone out of here, it’s permanent. Didn’t I make that clear?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak gorilla. Must not have understood you,” Nick said, struggling futilely to hold his position.

“Well, maybe you’ll understand this.”

With a hard push, he launched Nick into the club’s blackened glass front door. Nick crashed into the frame shoulder first, knocking the heavy hinged door open as if it were part of a doll’s house, and cracking the glass. With his arms and legs flailing, he spilled out onto the sidewalk, rolling into a somersault as he fell, and continuing to roll until he was off the curb and onto one knee. Then, hoping he didn’t show the pain he was feeling in half a dozen places, he forced himself to his feet.

The bouncer, hands on hips, stood glaring at him.

“Look,” Nick said, “my friend is still inside. At least let me go down and get her.”

“Sorry,” the bouncer answered with a toothy smile. “But I don’t speak asshole.”

JILLIAN CHECKED her watch and frowned. Nick had left to find Manny Ferris nearly twenty minutes ago. Now she was starting to worry. To make matters worse, the gentlemen crowding her end of the bar were getting restless.

Where is he?

With no small effort, she managed to handle the quartet of admirers strutting about her bar stool like peacocks. When they weren’t inspecting, they were preening. When they weren’t preening, they were jockeying for position. Of course, she acknowledged, this
was
a men’s club-
their
men’s club. She could deal with matters so long as she didn’t run out of small talk and synonyms for no.

One of the men, with sloppy-drunk eyes and a sagging face that could have passed for a Rorschach inkblot test, was becoming a problem.

“So, baby mama, are we going to dance or not?” he slurred.

“I’m sorry, but I’m a customer, not an employee,” she answered him, stone-faced.

He turned with a huff and Jillian smiled to herself. Again, she checked her watch. Nick seemed resourceful, but that did not stop her from worrying. Years in nursing had turned concern into a sort of sixth sense that was impossible for her to shut off. Even so, she knew her feelings for Nick were shaped by more than a professional instinct for his well-being. There was an attraction to him she simply could not deny.

“I’ll pay you double whatever he offered,” a man was proposing, leaning close enough to give Jillian a lungful of Old Spice.

Jillian was readying to rebuke the advance when a tall man, dressed in a black turtleneck and a tailored Brooks Brothers jacket, stepped between them.

“Hey, what gives?” Old Spice snapped. “The lady said she wanted to hang with me, so back off.”

“I said no such thing,” Jillian shot back.

The two men glared at each other and Jillian would not have been surprised if they started to growl. The tall man, who had thinning black hair, an aquiline nose, and confident dark eyes, reached inside his blazer, pulled out a toothpick, and slipped it into the corner of his mouth. His narrow face was pocked by acne scars that were ill concealed by his rough five o’clock shadow. The diamond studs pinned on each ear had to be two carats at least.

“Hey, friend,” the newcomer said, “why don’t you take a hundred Pearl Bucks and go hang with a lady that wants your company.”

With his Jersey accent he could have easily passed for one of Tony Soprano’s henchmen. He pulled out a roll of fake bills.

“You think you can buy me off with toy money because you’re big into jewelry?”

“No. I think I can buy you off because I own this place.”

Jillian watched with amusement as Billy Pearl padded the Spice man’s sweaty hand with a wad of colorful Pearl Bucks.

“Sorry about that,” Pearl said, turning to Jillian. “We love it when women stop by at the club-especially beautiful women.”

“Thank you,” Jillian said, feeling no threat from the man.

“Our patrons come here and pay a good deal of money to behave like sharks. Sometimes innocent guppies become part of their feeding frenzy. You have my apology.”

“No need, but accepted. I’m a very fast swimmer.”

“Have you been here before, Miss-?”

“Jillian.”

“Miss Jillian. Buy you a drink?”

“Thanks, but you’d better have a lot of Pearl Bucks on you to do that.”

“I appreciate the feedback. I’ll make sure to tell the boss. I know this sounds like a line, but what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Jillian laughed. She liked Pearl.

“Actually, I’m here with a friend, whom I can’t seem to find at the moment. We came in to talk to one of your employees, Manny Ferris. Do you know him?”

Pearl’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. She was being assessed by him, but for what and why, she did not know.

“Know him? Yeah, I know him,” Pearl said finally. “Manny’s my cousin. What do you want with him?”

“He’s not in any trouble, Billy, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Maybe your business with Manny isn’t any of my concern, but seeing as he’s family, and he’s, well, not all there, if you know what I mean, I kinda need to make it my concern.”

“I’m a nurse on the psych unit at Shelby Stone. I need his help, is all. We think Manny may have information about a man we’re trying to find.”

“I promise you, Manny Ferris doesn’t have information about anything, at least not information he can get in touch with.”

“What does that mean?”

Billy studied her for a time, as if deciding if she should be trusted.

“You’re a nurse,” Billy said. “Maybe you can help.”

“Help with what?”

“What do you know about brainwashing?”

“We studied it in a psych course,” Jillian said. “The modern version goes back to the fifties. It involves breaking down a person’s sense of self so they can build a new one.”

“Manny was a sharp kid, even when he came back stressed out from war and was drinking all the time. Then he disappeared for a while and one day he showed up here. He looked as if someone had cut up his face and he seemed to me as if he had been brainwashed.”

“How sad. What makes you think he was brainwashed?”

“It was like the old Manny was gone, but replaced with nothing. He couldn’t tell me where he was, or what he had been doing. Only that he needed a place to stay and something to eat. Drugs? Pain? I don’t know who did it or how, but somebody wrecked his mind.”

“My friend went to find him in the men’s room. I don’t think he found him there.”

Pearl laughed.

“Manny doesn’t have much range. If he isn’t in the bathroom, then he’s in the basement storeroom sleeping on the job. When you can’t rely on your bathroom guy, you’re really in trouble.”

“He sleeps in the basement?”

“It’s not as bad as you’d think. In my more colorful youth, I used to store other stuff besides toilet paper and cups down there. The space had to be comfortable and roomy enough to work in, but also well concealed, if you get my drift.”

“Can I see him?” Jillian asked.

Pearl considered the request.

“Well,” he said finally, “if you don’t mind following me into the men’s room, I’d be happy to give you a tour.”

“What about my friend Nick? I’m getting a little worried. He hasn’t come back.”

“I’ll check with the guys out front and find out where he is. I’m sure that if he’s not in the washroom with Manny, then they’re downstairs. Come on, I get a kick out of showing off the room anyway.”

Billy Pearl knocked on the men’s room door, waited less time than Jillian would have liked, then escorted her inside and made a quick assessment of the situation.

“Okay, so Manny’s not here. That means he’s downstairs. Here’s the deal; I’ll give you two hundred Pearl Bucks if you can find the secret door.”

“Pearl Bucks. Tell me the truth, Billy, did you plan on naming your money after the writer, or was it a coincidence?”

“Next to the location of the mystery door, that’s my biggest secret. But I will tell you that my eighty-nine-year-old mom still has my diploma from James Madison High up on her wall.”

“Got it. But what would I do with two hundred Pearl Bucks anyway?”

“Okay, make it three hundred.”

Jillian groaned, then began to walk the elegant black-and-white bathroom perimeter, observing that it was hospital clean and blessedly odorless. As for finding a door to some secret chamber, she knew at the outset that she had no chance. Pearl watched with keen interest as she continued to look in all the wrong places. He kept his arms folded tight across his chest and his face etched in a know-it-all grin.

“I give up,” Jillian conceded quickly. “I’ll have to pass on the Pearl Bucks.”

Beaming at his own ingenuity, Pearl marched over to the row of bathroom sinks and wrapped his hand around one of the opaque plastic soap containers.

“Showtime,” he announced.

Turning the container clockwise a full 180 degrees, Pearl pulled the stainless steel mount out three inches from the sink backsplash. A spring-held door next to Pearl, camouflaged to look like part of the black-tiled wall, popped open without making a sound. Jillian, who was standing only a few feet away, stepped back in surprise.

“That’s amazing,” she said.

“We used to have some pretty serious business going on down there.”

Pearl eased open the hinged doorway with his fingertips, then flicked on a light switch on the upper wall of the stairwell. Jillian followed him down a short flight of well-built wooden stairs that descended into a dimly lit antechamber with a cement floor. Proceeding cautiously, she had to duck low to avoid colliding with the exposed lightbulb dangling by a dust-covered cord. Through a small alcove she emerged into a much larger storage room. Boxes of paper goods and other bar supplies were neatly stacked on plastic shelving units that lined the jagged stone walls. Abutting the only wall without shelving, Manny Ferris lay sleeping on a thin mattress resting atop a rusted metal bed frame. Jillian was grateful she had been prepared for his disfigurement.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Pearl said with surprising gentleness, “customers are wondering where you at. Did you forget to set an alarm?”

Manny jumped up, rubbing his eyes, mumbling something Jillian could not understand.

“Did you hear it?” Pearl asked. “Did you hear him speak Arabic?”

“What?” Jillian said.

“Arabic. He can barely put two words of English together, but every now and then the poor bastard blurts out sentences in Arabic.”

“How do you know?”

“We have a lot of Arab clients. One day, one of them heard him. Said he didn’t have much of an accent either.”

“Amazing,” Jillian said.

“That’s one of the reasons I think he was brainwashed. Maybe the Arabs did something to him when he was over in Iraq, fighting. Who knows?”

Manny’s eyes were glazed from sleep, but Jillian suspected they would not become more lucent even after he’d been awake for hours. Nick was right, vacant was the best description for Manny Ferris.

Nick.

“I’ll go find out about your friend,” Pearl said, reading her thoughts. “You stay here with my cousin. Don’t worry, you’re safe.”

Pearl hurried up the stairs before she could respond.