The clinic Dr. Ewing works out of is a redbrick three-story affair just off the main drag. It might have been a shoe factory once upon a time. There’s free parking with validation in the back lot. I take the stub the machine spits out and pull into a shady space near an old sycamore tree. Downstairs there’s a sporting-gear place called Good to Go and a rare-stamp dealer named Marvin P. Watts, By Appointment Only. Dr. Ewing is on the second floor. I take the elevator and in no time at all I’m in an air-conditioned, pastel-colored room with abstract art on the walls and easy-listening music piping through. I’m leaning on the counter and making nice with her receptionist, a black woman in a tight pink sweater named Magnolia. That’s what it says on her name tag anyway. I’m too old to think about such things, but just so you know, Magnolia was made for that sweater.
“Amos Parisman. I have a ten o’clock with Dr. Ewing. I may be just a little early.”
She hands me a cheap ballpoint pen and a pale blue health form to fill out. “Tell me again what you said on the phone, Mr. Parisman,” she says, “what’s the reason for your visit?”
“Well now,” I say, in between reading and checking off the endless yes/no questions on the form—diabetes, cancer, heart disease, trouble passing urine—“it’s kind of personal, you know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh.” She wriggles her pink sweater closer to her hips. “That’s usually code for some sort of man problem.” When I don’t respond to this, she looks annoyed. “It’s okay,” she says. “You can tell me, I’ve heard everything. Or just about. Anyway, we’ve got to put something down there for doctor to look at. So what’ll it be?”
“Let’s see.” I bite my lip. “Why don’t you put down ‘mortality.’ That’s a huge concern of mine at the moment.”
“Mortality?”
“Yeah, mortality.” I flash her my best goofy old man smile and turn in the completed questionnaire. “We’re all gonna die, right?”
She shakes her head, shrugs, and fills in the blank.
Fifteen minutes go by before Dr. Ewing steps into the waiting room, and her eyes light on me. She’s holding a clipboard against her chest, inscribed, I presume, with my very own chosen malady. “Mr. Parisman?” she says. “Right this way.”
She opens a door that leads us into a small antiseptic cubicle. There’s the usual padded table covered by a broad white sheet of sanitizing paper, a stainless steel sink in the corner, a stand-up scale with adjustable weights, a cardboard box of pullout disposable gloves, a blood pressure cuff, and other paraphernalia. On the far wall, there’s also a full-sized, full-color poster of a grown man’s interior organs—thorax, lungs, kidneys, right down to his nuts.
“So,” Dr. Ewing says, a little perplexed, “we were going to do the usual routine—check your weight and blood pressure, ask about your meds. But first, what’s all this about mortality?”
Even in heels she’s only a bit over five feet, and at first her short spiky blond hair makes me wonder. Still, there’s something oddly beautiful about her. A rebelliousness in her eyes, and in the way she carries herself. Jason and Remo got that right. The lab coat is out of place, however. Starched and clean, but the sleeves are rolled back, as if meant for someone much taller. She seems painfully aware of this.
“Your receptionist said we had to put something down,” I tell her. “Fill in the blank, you know. Me, I’m more of an essay-question kind of guy. That was the first thing that popped into my head. Sorry.”
“So you’re not about to die?”
“I don’t think so.” I take the liberty of plopping down on the examining table. “Is this okay? I don’t want to spoil your sheets.”
She nods, checks something else on her clipboard, looks up again. “And you also didn’t bother to list your date of birth, Mr. Parisman. Why’s that?”
“Oh, vanity, I suppose. I was thirty-nine for the longest time. I studied with Jack Benny.” I try winking at her. Nothing. “Now I’m a little older.”
She offers up a faint smile. Of course she’s not nearly old enough to know who Jack Benny was, but still she has this pasted-on professional smile; in an alternate universe, I imagine, where people of her generation read books and listened to broadcasts of old-time radio shows, she might know. In any case, she’s exquisite looking, and her smile is telling me all things are possible. “So there’s nothing wrong with you then. No specific complaints?”
“Actually, doc, there is something wrong,” I say. “I’m here to ask you for your help. You have another patient.”
“I do?”
“Well, let me back up: you had one, until about a week or so ago. Fellow named Ezra Diamant. Fifty-three years old. Loud. Heavyset. Smoker. That ring a bell?”
“Diamant? The rabbi?” Now she’s on high alert. The smile is gone, and suddenly, I see there’s hardly any time left on the clock to make my case.
“His family, and the members of his congregation feel like his death wasn’t accidental. They’re hurting. You must know what that’s like for them. And they’ve asked me to look into it.” I hand her my business card, just to show that I’m for real, but she barely gives it a glance before dropping it into her pocket.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Parisman. Even if I knew anything that could help you, this a matter of confidentiality.”
“Sure, sure, you’ve already talked to the police, though.”
“I can’t even discuss that.”
“That’s okay. Jason and Remo dropped by to see you, I’ve heard. Lieutenant Malloy, he’s the guy they work for, he told me as much.”
“Then maybe you should discuss this with Lieutenant Malloy.” She opens the door to the consulting room. “I think it’s time for you to leave now.”
I’m still hunkered down on her padded table. Through the open doorway, Magnolia’s pink sweater comes into view.
“I’m interested in his medications,” I say. “They said he had a heart attack, so if, for example, you changed his prescriptions or the dosages recently—well, that could tell us a lot.”
“Get out, Mr. Parisman. Now.”
“Because his people deserve to know, doctor. His wife and daughters, the whole synagogue, they’re all in the dark. They’re in shock. They’re grieving. At the moment, this is being treated as a terrible tragedy, which I’m sure you’ll agree it is, but your whole career could be on the line if it turns out—”
Her tone grows a little more shrill. “I’m through talking with you, Mr. Parisman. And if you don’t leave right away, I’m calling the police.”
“Okay, okay.” I hold up my hands. “I can take a hint.” I shuffle past her into the pastel waiting room, where Magnolia, who has heard virtually every word, is tapping her fingernails on the desk, glaring at me. Two other ladies who must have just arrived, are sitting there, side by side, fashion magazines propped on their laps. They both look up, openmouthed. If it were Charles Manson instead of me, they’d be just as horrified. Malloy was right. I shoulda listened. This was a fiasco. And by the time I’m in my car and the key is in the ignition, I realize I’ve made an even worse mistake: I forgot to validate the goddamn parking stub.
Later