The Ditto List Read online

  “Explain.”

  She got comfortable and gathered air, a tidy package of concern. He hoped to hell it wasn’t medical malpractice. If it was he’d refer it out. Tempting, though. The plum he’d been waiting for, maybe. But he was too old for malpractice, too old to learn the medicine, too old to bluff the insurance monsters. He’d refer it out. Preferably to someone who would kick back half the fee.

  “I’m a practical nurse,” Rita Holloway began. “I work in private homes mostly, old people, invalids, that kind of thing. I have a regular list of clients, usually about ten, that I look in on at least every other day. I’m good at my work and I’m well paid, well enough so that two of my ten are taken on a pro bono basis.”

  D.T. nodded, unease developing like a chancre as he wondered if he were in the presence of a special being. God, he hated people who were able to do good effortlessly, whose impulses were charitable, not selfish. He had once represented an ex-nun who was becoming an ex-wife. She had made him feel septic for months. He was cured only by learning she smoked dope.

  “One of my current patients is a woman named Esther Preston,” Rita Holloway continued blithely. “She lives on Eighty-sixth Street. She has no family. She’s about forty-five and she has multiple sclerosis. She lives her life in a wheelchair and she’s the most wonderful human being I’ve ever met.”

  The encomium reverberated among the books, was confirmed by silence. D.T. looked to see if the statement was a joke or a ploy. It seemed neither, but Miss Holloway’s purpose was already in part accomplished. Already the crippled woman was a shadow on his brain.

  “That’s quite a statement,” D.T. said finally.

  “It’s inadequate. As you’ll discover when you meet her.”

  “If I meet her,” D.T. reminded. “What’s her problem?”

  “You mean besides an illness that keeps her on the brink of collapse? You mean besides a life that makes it impossible for her to work, or go out for lunch, or shop? You mean besides an illness that no one understands, that can kill or leave her at almost any moment? That makes her wear diapers, for God’s sake? You mean besides all that?”

  D.T. sighed. “Yes. Besides all that. Unfortunately, I’m not a healer in any sense that would apply to her.”

  He watched Rita Holloway reassemble the composure she had arrived with. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault, and I shouldn’t try to imply it is. There’s a book out now that even lets God off the hook for things like this, so I guess it’s just life. What a poison it can be sometimes.”

  D.T. stayed silent, wondering who Rita Holloway reminded him of, finally remembering. A girl named Deborah Glasston. His date to the junior prom. President of this, secretary of that, decorator of every sock hop in the history of his high school. What he remembered most was after the prom, when he’d driven to the accepted spot for such things, how she’d laughed at him when he’d slid his hand onto a silk-encased portion of her anatomy. It was one thing to be refused on the ground that a moral prohibition must not be breached. It was another to unwittingly participate in farce. He wondered where Debbie was now. He would have eagerly bet his bookie she was divorced.

  “Esther’s problem is money,” Rita Holloway continued. “She has none. Her savings are gone, her disability won’t pay her bills, her rent’s been raised, her medicine’s gone up along with food and everything else she needs to survive. She’s even told me not to come back, that she can’t pay me any more.”

  “Why don’t you make her a pro bono case?”

  “I offered to, of course. She refuses to hear of it. She won’t take charity. From me or anyone. Meals on wheels, visiting nurses, none of it.”

  “How bad is her disease?”

  “Almost totally debilitating. She’s confined absolutely to the chair. She has little physical strength, although some days are better than others. If she has to fend for herself, sooner or later she’ll exhaust herself totally, and fall and break a hip or fracture her skull or worse. I just can’t stand to think of it. I really can’t. It’s why I came to you.”

  D.T. shrugged in the face of two beseeching eyes. “I’m still wondering how I fit in,” he said. “Is she married, is that it?”

  “No. But she was.”

  “How long ago?”

  “More than twenty years.”

  “Divorced?”

  “Since 1965.”

  “So what does that have to do with anything?”

  A sound emerged that D.T. eventually decided was from the grinding of Miss Holloway’s strong white teeth. “Her ex-husband is a doctor. He’s a well-known gynecologist, in the most visibly prosperous medical group in town. They’re in the new Health Sciences building over on Crestwood, maybe you’ve seen it.”

  D.T. nodded. “Quite a building.”

  “The doctors own it themselves; that is, Dr. Preston’s group does. They then lease to other doctors, laboratories, pharmacies, and what have you. They also own two nursing homes. They’re even building their own hospital, I hear. All very fancy taxwise, you can be sure.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of that, Miss Holloway. What I’m not sure of is what you want from me.”

  “May I have another drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you get mean when you drink, Mr. Jones? Or depressed? Or hostile?”

  Her questions seemed sincere, but he lacked answers that would match. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no, and sometimes when I get any of those it’s an improvement.”

  “Then why don’t you have another one, too?”

  He fixed the drinks, making hers a light one. There were things inside Miss Holloway that he guessed should stay there.

  “It’s like I told you,” Rita Holloway said after her first sip. “Mrs. Preston needs money or she’ll end up in a state institution. The only place I can see it coming from is her ex-husband. I want you to figure out how to get some from him.”

  “They were divorced, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did she instigate it or did he?”

  “He did.”

  “They had a property settlement agreement, right?”

  “I suppose so. Yes, I think she mentioned it.”

  “And he paid everything he was supposed to pay, right? As far as you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are there any children?”

  “No.”

  “And Mrs. Preston doesn’t claim the doctor owes her anything, does she?”

  “I—”

  “Does she?”

  “No.”

  “And in fact he doesn’t owe her anything, does he?”

  “No.”

  “He’s just a deep pocket. Isn’t that about it? Mrs. Preston needs money and he’s got some and you think he ought to give some to his ex-wife out of the goodness of his heart or, failing that, out of an order from some benignant court. Isn’t that about it, Miss Holloway?”

  “I’m not a child, Mr. Jones. You needn’t speak to me that way.” She placed her half-empty glass on the desk.

  “I admire your gall, Miss Holloway. That’s about all I can say.”

  “He’s a millionaire, Mr. Jones. A society physician who makes a fortune peeking into velvet-lined vaginas. Is it right that he should live like that and his wife should wither away in an institution?”

  D.T. sighed. “She’s his ex-wife, first of all. And second of all, what I do doesn’t have anything to do with right, it has to do with law. The concepts meld only occasionally. So far you haven’t told me anything that would give Mrs. Preston a legal basis for glomming onto her husband’s money.”

  “But there must be some way. A loophole? An exception? Aren’t lawyers always coming up with things like that?”

  “Tax lawyers are. Divorce lawyers do well to file in the right court and show up on the right day. And to recognize their clients when they do.” D.T. stood up and walked to his golf bag and pulled out his wedge.

  “Another urge,
Mr. Jones?” Her words nipped at him like rats.

  “I’d like to help you, Miss Holloway,” he said, taking his stance, beginning his waggle. “But this isn’t a Legal Aid office or a charitable foundation. So far I don’t see either a case or a client who could pay my fee.”

  “What is your fee?”

  “On a matter like this? Seventy-five dollars an hour.”

  He heard her gasp behind him. “You must be joking. I thought you were supposed to be …”

  “Cheap? That is cheap compared to what Doctor Preston’s lawyer would charge him if I filed some kind of suit. Which I’m not going to do.”

  “Would you just see her? Please? Just see her and ask about her divorce? Maybe there’s something there. Nathaniel Preston’s such a bastard, there must be something.”

  Ignoring her frenzy, D.T. took his swing at the phantom ball. His shoulders turned fully, his left side cleared nicely, his finish was high, the sole of the club scraped the pitted parquet with just the faintest whisper. He envisioned the ball, high and arcing, spinning away from his perfect pitch, landing six feet beyond the hole and sucking back, coming to rest inside the leather, a gimme birdie. D.T. was smiling until he looked again at the urgent woman perched on the edge of the chair across from his.

  “Does she even know you’re here, Miss Holloway?” he asked softly.

  “No,” she said, matching his tone and lowering her eyes.

  “If you’d told her beforehand she would have told you not to come, wouldn’t she?”

  “Of course. But don’t you see? That’s exactly why you should take the case. She’s so proud, she won’t do things for herself. We have to do them for her.”

  “How many lawyers have you been to before me?”

  “Why …”

  “How many?”

  “Six.”

  “Big firms?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they all refused?”

  “Right.”

  D.T. dropped the wedge into his bag. “That’s the first thing you’ve said since you’ve come in here that makes me want to take the case.”

  Rita Holloway stood up and went to his golf bag and pulled out an eight iron and waved it awkwardly but carefully. “Did you really hit a real golf ball in here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I try?”

  “Sure.”

  He took a ball from the enormous leather bag and placed it in the exact center of a square of pristine parquet. “Is this the way?” she asked as she positioned herself.

  “Close enough.”

  “Here goes.”

  “Watch the ricochet.”

  She skulled the ball across the room at a height of six inches. It skipped off the floor, hit the spine of a volume of American Jurisprudence, and rebounded directly toward her. Had she not hopped quickly out of the way it would have crushed her knee. She looked calmly at D.T. “Will you see her?”

  D.T. went back to his desk. “I can’t solicit a client, Miss Holloway. It’s called barratry and that’s what it would be if I went to see Mrs. Preston without an invitation. If you can persuade her to give me a call, then I’ll go by her house. But no promises beyond that. I don’t think she has a case, and if I still think that after I’ve talked with her, then that’s it. Period. Understood?”

  “Yes. Can I be there? When you see her?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “There are about six reasons, none of which I’m going into. Where I am going is home. I suggest you do the same. And besides. I don’t think she’ll call.”

  Rita Holloway pointed the sole of the eight iron at his chest. “You don’t know me very well, Mr. Jones. I make my living overcoming obstacles. I give enemas to blocked bowels, and physiotherapy to dead muscles, and closed chest massage to stopped hearts. She’ll call within a week.”

  Somehow, D.T. believed it. When he showed Rita Holloway to the door he felt better than he had all day, which wasn’t saying much but was saying something. When he wondered at the reason he decided it was the prospect of encountering someone even more wonderful than the not at all unwonderful Miss Holloway.

  FIVE

  After dusting Rita Holloway and her principal from his mind, D.T. called his ex-wife and told her he didn’t need her money after all, thanks to Mama’s Buns and Mareth Stone.

  “Don’t tell me you picked a winner and turned up a paying customer all in one day,” Michele said, laughing.

  “Clients. They’re called clients in this business. And yes. I did. Turn one up.”

  “Congratulations. So what are you and Barbara doing this weekend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Which is exactly your trouble.”

  “What’s my trouble?”

  “You never plan. You never take charge. You just drift along until something happens, which it doesn’t very often, at least not to you. Are you still watching television five hours a night?”

  “Only when there’s nothing on.”

  “How can you waste your life like that, D.T.?”

  “It’s not waste, it’s preservation. Sitcoms prove that my clients aren’t the world’s most foolish creatures and sports prove there’s still one unpredictable public undertaking left in America.”

  Michele made noises with her tongue. “Poor Barbara.”

  “Poor me,” D.T. countered.

  “Why you?”

  “Have you seen what’s on TV these days? They’ve not only eliminated all traces of intelligence and wit from the medium, they seem to be proud of it. Still, it’s only very bad when it’s trying to be very good.”

  “I wouldn’t know, darling,” Michele cooed. “The last time I watched TV was the night you cut your tongue on my earring. But I’m happy about your horse and your new client. Really, I am. You’re so grouchy when you’re insolvent.”

  “Speaking of solvency, Michele, have you ever heard of a society doctor named Preston? A gynecologist? He’s supposed to run with the blue bloods so I thought perhaps you’d met, maybe at one of those Interesting People lunches you go to.”

  “Now, D.T.,” she admonished. “I’ve heard all I need to hear from you about my luncheons. As it happens, I do know Nathaniel. Why?”

  “What’s he like?”

  “An arrogant boor. Given his profession it goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

  “Is he married?”

  “Yes. She’s quite young and quite lovely. They appear to have what is known as an Understanding.”

  “You mean he sleeps around?”

  “That’s only half the story.”

  “You ever partake?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. The only doctor I ever slept with acted as though he was looking for a place to attach an electrode. I’ve never felt more irrelevant in my life.”

  D.T. smiled at the image. “Does Preston have money?”

  “Loads.”

  “Know anything about his background?”

  “Not a thing, D.T. Why? Has Natasha Preston actually engaged you to sue the good doctor for divorce? Has the fun gone out of the relationship? Why, society will veritably convulse with the significance of it all.” Her low laugh gurgled marvelously.

  “It’s nothing like that, Michele. But mum’s the word, okay?”

  “Sure, D.T. You know me.”

  “I do know you, Michele. I really do. It’s one of the few accomplishments of my middle age.”

  “By the way, D.T. Do you remember those leather knickers you gave me for my birthday back in the dog days of our marriage?”

  “Sure. What about them?”

  “Well, leather’s come back with a vengeance, and I can’t find them anywhere. You didn’t take them, did you?”

  “Why on earth would I take your knickers?”

  “As a souvenir, maybe?”

  D.T. laughed. “I’ve already got a couple of souvenirs, Michele.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a scar in the shape of a fingernail on my
left buttock. And like that poem.”

  “What poem?”

  “Remember the night I proposed? And gave you that ring I bought for a buck at the carnival? You gave me a poem.”

  “God. That thing? I’d forgotten all about it.”

  “Want me to recite it?”

  “Spare me. Please.”

  “Some days your faults are strengths,

  Your parts forever shifting in my mind.

  Hate, pride, always near,

  But you I can only love,

  The whole of you, to me.

  When I am lost in your parts,

  You find me with a word or touch,

  You crystalize and are whole again.

  One feeling replaces many;

  Love is all I know.”

  Michele sighed. “There was even more, wasn’t there? How embarrassing.”

  “I think it’s great.”

  “Good-bye, D.T. May you be stricken by permanent poetic amnesia.”

  D.T. closed the file cabinet, locked the safe, doused the lights, and drove to his apartment.

  It was one of eight identical units inside a box glued precariously to the side of a hill that rose out of the middle of the city like a wart. He had selected it because he hated freeways, basements, lawnmowers, home repairs, and the thought of not being able to walk away from it all on a moment’s whim. And because it furnished a guard and a security system that forewarned of clients prowling after hours. After parking in his assigned slot and removing the mail from his assigned box, D.T. opened the apartment, fixed himself a drink, and took the mail to the deck that opened off the living room.

  The view was of the industrial portion of the city, a steamy and disheartening cauldron by day, a surreal mix of light and dark by night, at this hour uninhabited and ominous, somewhat like his brain. D.T. spent much time on the deck, wondering, musing, imagining—constructing apocalyptic conclusions founded on inadequate information, erotic fantasies dependent on impossible coincidence, heroic comportment demanding nonexistent energy and resolve. It was his only hobby besides betting—bending the future in his mind, sculpting it with the aid of booze and solitude and the accumulation of a personal history he needed often to evade. Lately his undirected thoughts seemed inevitably to drift to the fiftieth anniversary of his birth, which lay in wait for him, four years into the heaving sea of his future, like an iceberg ready to sink his simple ship without a trace.