“Think we can get an address on her?”
Esperanza nodded. “Shouldn’t take long.”
They looked at each other for a long moment. Esperanza’s deadline hung over them like a reaper’s scythe.
Myron said, “I can’t imagine you not in my life.”
“Won’t happen,” Esperanza replied. “No matter what you decide, you’ll still be my best friend.”
“Partnerships ruin friendships.”
“So you tell me.”
“So I know.” He had avoided this conversation long enough. To use basketball vernacular, he had gone into four corners, but the twenty-four-second clock had run down. He could no longer delay the inevitable in the hope that the inevitable would somehow turn to smoke and vanish in the air. “My father and my uncle tried it. They ended up not talking to each other for four years.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Even now their relationship is not what it was. It never will be. I know literally dozens of families and friends—good people, Esperanza—who tried partnerships like this. I don’t know one case where it worked in the long run. Not one. Brother against brother. Daughter against father. Best friend against best friend. Money does funny things to people.”
Esperanza nodded again.
“Our friendship could survive anything,” Myron said, “but I’m not sure it can survive a partnership.”
Esperanza stood again. “I’ll get you an address on Deborah Whittaker,” she said. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’ll give you three weeks for the transition. Will that be long enough?”
Myron nodded, his throat dry. He wanted to say something more, but whatever came to mind was even more inane than what preceded it.
The intercom buzzed. Esperanza left the room. Myron hit the button.
“Yes?”
Big Cyndi said, “The Seattle Times on line one.”
The Inglemoore Convalescent Home was painted bright yellow and cheerfully maintained and colorfully landscaped and still looked like a place you went to die.
The inner lobby had a rainbow on one wall. The furniture was happy and functional. Nothing too plush. Didn’t want the patrons having trouble getting out of chairs. A table in the room’s center had a huge arrangement of freshly cut roses. The roses were bright red and strikingly beautiful and would die in a day or two.
Myron took a deep breath. Settle, boy, settle.
The place had a heavy cherry smell like one of those dangling tree-shaped car fresheners. A woman dressed in slacks and a blouse—what you’d call “nice casual”—greeted him. She was in her early thirties and smiled with the genuine warmth of a Stepford Wife.
“I’m here to see Deborah Whittaker.”
“Of course,” she said. “I think Deborah is in the rec room. I’m Gayle. I’ll take you.”
Deborah. Gayle. Everyone was a first name. There was probably a Dr. Bob on the premises. They headed down a corridor lined with festive murals. The floors sparkled, but Myron could still make out fresh wheelchair streaks. Everyone on staff had the same fake smile. Part of the training, Myron supposed. All of them—orderlies, nurses, whatever—were dressed in civilian clothes. No one wore a stethoscope or beeper or name tag or anything that implied anything medical. All buddies here at Inglemoore.
Gayle and Myron entered the rec room. Unused Ping-Pong tables. Unused pool tables. Unused card tables. Oft-used television.
“Please sit down,” Gayle said. “Becky and Deborah will be with you momentarily.”
“Becky?” Myron asked.
Again the smile. “Becky is Deborah’s friend.”
“I see.”
Myron was left alone with six old people, five of whom were women. No sexism in longevity. They were neatly attired, the sole man in a tie even, and all were in wheelchairs. Two of them had the shakes. Two were mumbling to themselves. They all had skin a color closer to washed-out gray than any flesh tone. One woman waved at Myron with a bony, blue-lined hand. Myron smiled and waved back.
Several signs on the wall had the Inglemoore slogan:
INGLEMOORE—NO DAY LIKE TODAY.
Nice, Myron guessed, but he couldn’t help but think up a more appropriate one:
INGLEMOORE—BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
Hmm. He’d drop it in the suggestion box on the way out.
“Mr. Bolitar?”
Deborah Whittaker shuffled into the room. She still had Le Helmet de Hair from the newspaper portrait—black as shoe polish and shellacked on until it resembled fiberglass—but the overall effect was still like something out of Dorian Gray, as though she had aged a zillion years in one fell swoop. Her eyes had that soldier’s thousand-yard stare. She had a bit of a shake in her face that reminded him of Katharine Hepburn. Parkinson’s maybe, but he was no expert.
Her “friend” Becky had been the one who called his name. Becky was maybe thirty years old. She too was dressed in civilian clothes rather than whites, and while nothing about her appearance suggested nursing, Myron still thought of Louise Fletcher in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
He stood.
“I’m Becky,” the nurse said.
“Myron Bolitar.”
Becky shook his hand and offered him a patronizing smile. Probably couldn’t help it. Probably couldn’t smile genuinely until she was out of here for at least an hour. “Do you mind if I join you two?”
Deborah Whittaker spoke for the first time. “Go away,” she rasped. Her voice sounded like a worn tire on a gravel road.
“Now, Deborah—”
“Don’t ‘now Deborah’ me. I got myself a handsome gentleman caller, and I’m not sharing him. So buzz off.”
Becky’s patronizing smile turned a bit uncertain. “Deborah,” she said in a tone that aimed for amiable but landed smack on, well, patronizing, “do you know where we are?”
“Of course,” Deborah snapped. “The Allies just bombed Munich. The Axis has surrendered. I’m a USO girl standing by the south pier in Manhattan. The ocean breeze hits my face. I wait for the sailors to arrive so I can lay a big, wet kiss on the first guy off the boat.”
Deborah Whittaker winked at Myron.
Becky said, “Deborah, it’s not 1945. It’s—”
“I know, dammit. For crying out loud, Becky, don’t be so damn gullible.” She sat down and leaned toward Myron. “Truth is, I go in and out. Sometimes I’m here. Sometimes I time travel. When my grandpa had it, they called it hardening of the arteries. When my mother had it, they called it senility. With me, it’s Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.” She looked at her nurse, her facial muscles still doing the quivers. “Please, Becky, while I’m still lucid, get the hell out of my face.”