Lovesick (19 page)

Now I’m completely lost.

“Eckley Drive …” he repeats. “Harvey Martin …”

“So you know that maniac almost ran us off the road?”

“Harvey was confused.”

Sid slowly takes a stool at the lunch counter. I hobble over to the other side of the bar. I wish I could make us milkshakes, but the soda fountain doesn’t work and Sid is lactose intolerant.

Sid searches for the words. “I have a sense of your money problems,” he says, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing his forehead. “Gregory never went into detail, but I suspect you have lots of bills, and that house of his is probably mortgaged to high heaven.”

“It’s not good,” I admit.

“Gregory had too much pride to accept money from us, and I
for one didn’t have much to give. But we tried to find other ways to help.”

Sid’s throat is dry. I grab him a bottle of distilled water from the nearby minifridge and unscrew it for him.

“We owed Gregory” he says, taking a big gulp. “We still owe him.”

“Gregory would have done anything for you and Cookie,” I say.

“No, not just us….”

“I know. I’d do anything to get that time back, too. To make some sort of connection with Gregory,” I say with deep regret.

My nose tickles. My eyes are watering.

There is someone tapping on the front windowpane. I lean over to look and realize it’s that crazy fucking lunatic Harvey Martin. Principal Martin is wearing red flannel pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. A few grayish wisps of hair jut out in different directions like a madman. Martin greets us with a maniacal grin and a slow, creepy wave hello, fingers fanned out.

I’m awestruck.
Sid, you see him too, don’t you?

Sid spins slightly on his stool, lays his eyes on Harvey Martin, and waves the man inside.

“What the hell?” I mumble.

The overhead fluorescent lights flicker slightly. Time slows. Then the rest of the zombies start pouring in, one by one. First there’s Cookie Brewster; cane in hand, she limps toward me in satin purple pajamas. Mildred Pritchard is right behind her, in a neon pink jogger suit. She uses a walker to inch closer. That blue hair, Beatrice Lewis, looks even more like Big Bird than ever in her yellow nightgown and bouffant do. She holds her back in pain as she steps closer, dragging one foot. Harvey Martin is more like Frankenstein’s monster, rocking side to side. They’re all tired. In pain. Moaning in agony.

“I love that color!” Beatrice says, inspecting Cookie’s evening wear.

Cookie shakes her head in disgust. “It’s eleven o’clock. I should be asleep picking daffodils in la-la land right now,” she says.

When Cookie reaches her husband, she hands him her cane,
and regally extends her hand. Sid then helps his wife take a seat at the counter.

“Let’s do this,” demands Cookie.

Mildred and Harvey catch their breath while the rest of the crew look on with anticipation.

“Fair enough,” Sid says, lowering himself off the stool.

He claps his hands twice and clears his throat. Then he pulls out a folded-up piece of yellow-lined notebook paper and addresses me directly.

“Our government has failed us!” Sid yells with a raised finger. “As drug prices continue to skyrocket, outpacing inflation, seniors on modest or fixed incomes struggle to gain access to critical drugs.” Sid loses his place. He flips between the first and second page.

“For Pete’s sake, I’ll be six feet under before you get to the point,” Cookie interrupts him.

Cookie slaps both hands flat on the lunch counter and leans in close. Her pajama blouse hangs loosely open, revealing some sort of heavy-duty bra. I uncomfortably concentrate on her eyes.

“A bunch of us old fogies haven’t been able to afford our meds for some time now. For years, we’d come in here with no money, no insurance, no nothing, and Gregory, God bless him, would give us our pills and charge us some token amount. We started calling it the ‘Gregory Day Co-Pay’”

Mildred adjusts her hairnet. Harvey Martin scratches his back with an unopened toothbrush.

“First it was just drugs, but then Gregory started giving away the farm—Q-tips, aspirin, whatever we needed. He tried to keep track with tabs, but this godforsaken town is teeming with in-grates and everyone started piling on. Before long, Gregory lost track of who owed what, and he went into debt. Deep debt. That’s when ‘we,’” she says, motioning over her shoulder wildly toward Martin and her book club, “started ‘subsidizing Gregory’s cause.’ Capeesh?”

“You lost me after ‘Pete’s sake,’” I say flatly.

“Prescription drugs, Andy,” Sid chimes in. “We’d get him free
drug samples. Whatever, wherever, and however we could and he’d distribute them.”

“Digoxin, Monopril, Viagra, Lanicor, you name it,” Mildred shouts.

“But no narcotics,” Beatrice chirps. “And no amphetamines.”

“Yeah, no class two narcotics,” Harvey Martin assures me.

“How responsible of you!” I cry. “These pills just dropped out of the sky?”

“No, we’ve got a system,” Sid explains calmly. “The free samples come from local practitioners. Cookie pressures Dr. Mills. Mildred’s assigned to Dr. Platt. And Beatrice works closely with that nice ear, nose, and throat gal on Hudson, what’s-her-name.”

“Hardy,” Beatrice pipes up. “Dr. Cynthia Hardy.”

“Right, right, right. The doctors would put together brown box collections and Manny Milken would pick them up and deliver them here,” Sid explains, pointing to the stack of generic packages I just knocked over.

“Jesus, Manny knows?” I holler.

“No, Manny’s clueless. He just delivered the stuff to Gregory,” Sid assures me. “Gregory would give us the packages and then Cookie’s book club would meet once a week and sort the sample pills.”

“We’re not big readers,” Cookie says on behalf of Mildred and Beatrice.

“There is
absolutely no way
Gregory was okay with this,” I insist. “The guy wouldn’t let me prescribe water.”

“Before he handed out the samples, Gregory would stay here late and check our work. It was totally on the up-and-up,” Sid insists.

“Up-and-up?” I yell. “He commingled legitimate pills with free samples that were
clearly marked
‘Not for Sale.’ Then
we
distributed them and”—panic strikes—“and we filed the forms and committed insurance fraud!”

“I didn’t realize we were dealing with such a prude,” Cookie ridicules me from her stool. “Down!” she commands her husband.

Sid helps her, handing Cookie her cane. “Clearly this ain’t happening.”

But Cookie isn’t going anywhere. Mildred and Mildred’s walker stand in her way.

“And what about Looney Tunes over here?” I ask, pointing my thumb at Harvey Martin. “You’re a cop, for Christ’s sake!”

“Volunteer peace officer in the Contra Costa County Sheriff Department’s Reserve Program,” he clarifies.

Like that makes a difference
, I say with my hands.

“It’s no big whoop,” he assures me.

He steps right up to me. Harvey Martin has always been a close talker.

“I’d go to the Veterans Affairs Hospital, they’d give me whatever I need, and I’d hand it over to Gregory.”

Then he starts with the theatrics. Harvey clutches his heart and puts on a thick Italian accent: “Ooh, ahh, ooh, my chest.
No problem, Mr. Martin, here’s a prescription for Lipitor.
Ooh, ahh, ooh, my head.
Take some Frova, Mr. Martin.
It’s my bones, my bones I tell you.
How about this 90-day supply of Boniva
?”

“You realize you almost killed us tonight!” I scream.

“And for that, my friend, I apologize,” he yells back like he means it. Harvey Martin places one hand on my shoulder. “Since Gregory passed I got all these drugs piling up in my house. I thought maybe I could drop them off at the house, but you’re never alone. I saw your car tonight, and thought ‘bingo, here’s my chance,’” Martin cries, snapping his fingers. “I chased after you, but then Paige poked her head up, and I guess I panicked. Sorry.”

“Harvey gets a little overexcited sometimes,” Sid explains.

“None of you can afford drugs? What about Medicare?” I insist.

“Medicare sucks!” Cookie blurts like some adolescent.

“It’s too complicated. Too pricey,” Beatrice echoes.

“That stupid jelly doughnut ruined everything,” Mildred complains.

There is a slight pause before Sid gently reminds her: “You mean
doughnut hole.
”

Mildred nods, warmly. Cookie doesn’t appreciate Sid showering attention on another woman.

The dreaded Medicare “doughnut hole.” The doughnut hole is the government’s legal loophole in the Medicare prescription coverage plan: it represents the span of time or “hole” during the year when a senior citizen has to pay for drug benefits in full, but receives none. During the doughnut hole, Medicare folks fork over twenty times what they’re accustomed to paying.

“Gregory was an American hero, small fry,” Sid says. “Like a soldier, he always covered everyone ‘in the hole.’”

I start thinking about how many people this might mean.

CRASH!

I’ve been conditioned to panic when I hear this sound … especially here. But this time, the commotion isn’t coming from behind the pharmacy counter, but the front of the store. It sounds as if someone’s thrown a brick through our window. There is glass everywhere. The front door is hit with such force the bell flies off, sliding all the way down Aisle Five and landing right in front of our group.

“Nobody move!” the bandit commands.

From where I’m standing, I can’t see him, but I spot another dark figure file in quickly. Beatrice screams and then squats down to get out of the line of fire. Mildred knocks a shelf full of aspirin to the floor, but her walker is there to catch her. Neither Sid nor Cookie moves a muscle. Harvey Martin seems the most terrified of all. He’s frozen, next to me, arms by his side, chanting “Oh-my-God.” I don’t have a lot of faith that Sid’s gang is capable of taking these thugs down in a rumble.

I take a few steps to my left, peer down the aisle, and watch as a member of the local sheriff’s department struggles to free his foot from the door frame he just kicked in. The Keystone Cop can’t be more than twenty years old, five feet tall, with rippling muscles and a wide-brimmed hat. His gun pointed straight out, Sparky finally loosens his leg and tells everyone to “get down on the ground. NOW!”

In the split second that I realize that we’re being raided by the
police and not robbed by desperados, I go from rattled to relieved and then back to rattled again. The last thing we need right now is the fuzz, and if Lara hadn’t just told me that our pharmacy insurance was three months in arrears
(arrears
, fun word), I might even welcome a break-in right now.

I throw up my hands and Sid slowly starts bending at the knees.

“Go ahead and shoot me,” Cookie advises the officer once he’s behind her. “Put me out of my misery. I’m too tired to get down. And this floor is filthy.”

“Sweetie!” Sid says, all concerned, but then he grabs his back in pain.

How are we going to explain this? How much did they hear? The last thing I remember saying before Sparky barged in was “insurance fraud.”

“Aw crap,” the police eyewitness shouts once he sees us. “False alarm. False alarm. Put down your weapons,” Manny cries.

In a panicked fit, Manny awkwardly reaches out and lightly swats down on the barrel of the officer’s gun.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Sparky yells, spinning around. “You almost made me shoot this lady.”

Beatrice is still on the ground, her hand clutched to her chest. Mildred’s eyes dart around the room. We all have this guilty look on our faces.

Manny begins: “Sorry, sorry, I was driving by, saw some suspicious activity, knew the pharmacy was closed. I was worried you guys was being burgled.”

Manny squares off with the young officer who doesn’t know what to make of this pajama party. “Nothing to see here,” Manny repeats. “Andy
works
here.”

“Did you have to kick the door in?” I complain to the officer.

“We had 12-11 in progress,” Sparky says. “You expect me to knock?”

“Damn it, man, the door was open,” I lecture him.

“You really should get a burglar alarm,” the officer advises me.

“We have one. It wasn’t set because we were in here, you moron. Did you even
try
the door?” I ask.

He has no response to that.

“Someone tell me what the hell is going on here,” a second officer asks.

His nametag says “D. Fielding.” I’m pretty sure Paige and I graduated with this guy. He played baseball or football—definitely a sport where you throw something.
Danny, Donny … Dudley!
Dudley Fielding. It’s the thick brown mustache that threw me.

“Why are you all dressed like that,” Officer Fielding demands.

“It’s an orgy,” says Cookie.

Sid buries his face in his hands.

“We’re having a book club meeting,” Mildred insists suddenly.

“That’s right!” Beatrice remembers.

“Book club?” Dudley Do-Right asks skeptically. “I don’t see any books.”

“Who brings books to a book club?” Mildred complains.

“And what book are you reading?”

Like possessed game-show contestants, Beatrice, Mildred, and Harvey shout out different titles:
Love in the Time of Cholera, He’s Just Not That into You, Who Moved My Cheese?

“You’re reading
He’s Just Not That into Cholera Cheese?”
Dudley asks.

“No, dum-dum, we’re all reading different books. That’s how this club works. Then we gather here in the dead of night and discuss them,” Cookie explains. “I bet the last thing you read was an eye chart.”

Dudley flashes her a look that would intimidate anyone but Cookie.

“All right, fellas, you’ve done your job here. Time we call it a night,” Martin informs them.

“Not so fast,” Dudley says, taking off his hat and patting down his bushy brown hair. “With all due respect, Mr. Martin, we’re not in high school anymore, and you’re not the boss of me.”

Dudley Fielding doesn’t say that last part.

With a mobster’s nod, Sid tells Harvey to get rid of them.