Right To Die - Jeremiah Healy (30 page)

The stairs were steep, each step shallow enough for
the ball of the foot to land just a little too far forward. Doleman
almost pranced down them, an agile gnome at home in his cave.

"Over here."

He stopped in front of a padlocked steel cabinet
mounted on the wall. The cellar was neglected, a strong, musty smell
matching the dingy whitewash on the cement.

Doleman fished in his pocket for keys. Getting them
out, he held each up three inches from his face before settling on
one. "Here she is, here she is."

He inserted the key in the padlock, having to force
the lock itself off the hasp. He pulled open the door, grating from
rust. "Help yourself."
 
Three
rifles and a shotgun, standing muzzles up. I worked the first one
out. An M-1 with enough dust on it to have been there since Truman
fired MacArthur. I looked into the bottom of the cabinet. The dust
around the other butts seemed undisturbed.

"Been a while since you've had these out."

"Long while. Haven't taken a deer since . . . I
don't know when. Still have to apply for some kind of goddamn permit
though. Every birthday, seems like."

Probably every fifth. I tried the action of the M-l.
The outside bolt you wedge back with the edge of your hand wouldn't
move.

Doleman said, "That's a military weapon, son.
The others are your sporting arms."

I put the M-1 back and tried the next, a lever-action
Winchester. I sniffed the breech area. No smell of burnt powder or
gun oil to have cleaned it. Same with the third, a Ruger. I left the
shotgun where it was.

"These are your only firearms, Mr. Doleman?"

"What, four ain't enough?"

Smiling, I still let him precede me up the stairs.

Back in the living room, I said, "Thought I saw
you over on Beacon Hill yesterday."

"Beacon Hill? Me? Not a chance. Don't go into
the city these days."

Not counting his trip to the library for the debate,
I guess. "Why is that?"

"Too dangerous. Besides, Marpessa there would
miss me something fierce. Wouldn't you, Marpessa?"

The bird said, "Right you are, right you are."

Doleman beamed. "See that? See? Better than kin,
better than a son or daugh — "

His face got doughy, the lips working at
cross-purposes to each other. "What . . . what was it you wanted
again?"

I could have asked him about his daughter's
treatment, about his contacting the Mass General over it. About a lot
of things. Instead, I said, "I'm all set, Mr. Doleman. Thanks
for your time."

He nodded, but more as a
good-bye as he retook his seat, Hopping the opened book over into his
lap and beginning to read. The macaw primped her feathers as I moved
backward toward the spacelock.

* * *

The door to Walter Strock's house bowed open,
Kimberly Weymond standing next to it. She was wearing a pink
terry-cloth robe with a peekaboo front and a hood that rode down from
the weight of her blond hair, recently washed. A floor lamp backlit
the hood, making her look like a cobra. If you believed in omens,
that is. Weymond didn't have to be reminded of who I was. "Come
in, Mr. Cuddy."

"Is Strock here?"

"No, but come in anyway."

I moved past her into the living room. A thick
hardbound case-book and a nearly as thick paperback vied with peach
five by eight cards atop a low, square cocktail table. In front of
the table was a beautiful marble fireplace, a couple of logs
crackling.

Weymond said, "I've always loved a fire after a
long, slow bath."

I took a chair facing away from the fire and nodded
toward the worktable. "I thought everybody used computers now."

Weymond glided to the table, nestling behind it
Indian-style. "Some things are better the old-fashioned way,
don't you think."

Great. "When do you expect Strock back?"

"Not for a while."

"Were you with him yesterday?"

"No. Walter and I see each other only a few
nights a week."

Weymond planted her elbows and made a pedestal of her
palms, resting her chin in them and speaking through partially
clenched teeth. "Walter's not exactly an everyday player
anymore. He needs pumping up."

"You know where I might find his gun
collection?"

"I might. What's in it for me?"

"The delight of betraying his confidence?"

Weymond laughed, the "I'm with it too, buddy"
noise you hear in bars.

She said, "How about a trade, then?"

"What for what'?"

"The carefully hidden location of Walter's gun
collection in exchange for what you have on him."

"What I have on him?"

"In his office that day, when he asked me to
leave. You've got something that gives you leverage over him, and I
want to know what that something is."

I gestured around the room. "This isn't enough
leverage for you?"

Weymond shook her head hard enough to free a swath of
hair.

She looked like a bad impersonation of a World War II
pinup girl. "There's no such thing as enough leverage. I get the
run of Walter's house because I pump him up, in a lot of ways."

"Isn't that kind of sexist?"

"Only if you take it out of context. This place
is closer to school than my apartment, and I like nice surroundings.
Walter's ego needs somebody young and attractive on his arm. That's
some leverage. Young, attractive and smart, that's more leverage. See
how it works?"

"Where're the guns?"

"We have a deal?"

"We have a deal."

Weymond bounded to her feet, the breasts jouncing in
reaction to the rest of her body. "Come with me to the treasure
trove."

I followed Kimberly up a flight of steps. She'd
nicked herself behind the right knee shaving her legs. Under the
circumstances, I wasn't about to mention it.

We went into what from dimensions must have been the
master bedroom. Mahogany wainscoting applied halfway up the walls on
all sides except for another fireplace. Velvet drapes, a Dhurrie rug,
two easy chairs.

Weymond jumped into the bed as though it were a pool,
an image of the athletic preteen she must have been not so long ago.

It was a pool, by the way. Sort of.

On her back, Kimberly laced fingers behind her head
in a modified sit-up. "Walter must have read somewhere that
water beds were 'where it's at'." She gave me a sly smile. "Do
I have that right?"

"What right?"

"The expression. 'Where it's at'?"

"As I recall. How about the guns?"

"Let's play a game."

"I don't like games, Kimberly."

"No. It makes sense. You'll see."

"Make it a short game."

"Okay. Now, move back toward the door like
you're a burglar or something."

I sighed but retraced my steps to the threshold. "All
right?"

Weymond hunched toward the headboard on her elbows.
"One more step back."

I complied.

"Now come at me."

My eyes went around the room for a camera or even a
lens, but there were enough furnishings to hide it.

"Come on, like you were going to attack me."

I started forward. On my second step Weymond hit a
panel in the wainscoting behind her. A handgun shot out on an
accordion device, like the boxing glove from a Three Stooges movie.
She grabbed the weapon, an automatic, on what must have been a
magnetic pad and leveled it at me.

Standing stock-still, I said, "Bad game,
Kimberly."

Weymond kept the automatic at serious for a count of
five, then let her arm weigh down with it to the comforter. "I
don't think so. He calls it Walter's Walther. One of his brighter
lights, to tell you the truth."

I walked toward her. She let me take the gun. A
Walther PPK all right. I tested the action. Loaded, one shell jacked
into the chamber. Safety off, ready for firing. Christ.

I made it safe. "Any more secret panels'?"

Weymond swam out of bed, tapping a taller, recessed
section of wainscoting on the other side of the bed. An AR-15, the
civilian version of the Colt M-16 assault rifle, nosed out.

I moved to the Colt, bringing it to "present
arms," and sniffing. Fired not too long ago, freshly cleaned and
oiled. Locked and loaded, a slick weapon for home defense. But I'd
heard M-16s often enough on city streets in Saigon. They make more of
a popping noise than the flat crack of the day before.

I said, "Any others?"

"A shotgun in the hall closet downstairs. Not so
melodramatic, though."

"No more rifles?"

"In the closet in the study. Walter's got a
strongbox or something anchored below the floorboards. But they're a
pain to get to, and anyway I don't have a key to that."

"Just to the front door."

The sly smile again. "And the back. Walter's at
some conference. He won't be home for hours." Weymond casually
showed a lot of leg. "Maybe you could use a little pumping up?"

"Thanks, but I'm afraid I'd keep reaching for my
wallet, looking for a fifty to stuff somewhere."

The smile evaporated. "That's a sexist remark."

"Only if taken out of context."

I turned to go.

Weymond yelled after me. "Hey, what about our
deal?"

"Should have gotten it in writing, counselor."

I went downstairs and out before she could pump up
Walter's Walther.
 

=26=

“
NOW WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF MARCH, YOU'RE
PROBABLY THINKING  you can shuck that Gore-Tex suit, start
training in the kind of clothes you'll be wearing the day of the
race. Forget it. Weather around here stays bad so long, it's better
to keep warm when you run. Less chance of getting some kind of bug,
knock you for a loop. Also more chance of losing a couple more
pounds, which'll help your knees and ankles for the longer mileage
this next month. So, stay with winter clothes for a while yet.

“
Another thing. You've got to start focusing on
your diet more. Backtrack from race day. Morning of the marathon,
real early like six in the A.M., eat a banana for potassium. And
toast, no butter, for carbohydrates. Some of the world-classers, they
carbo-deprive from about race minus ten days to race minus three
days, then carboload for seventy-two hours. They know what their
bodies can take; you don't. So instead, eat maybe sixty percent
carbohydrates for about a week before the marathon. Carbos give you
energy, and they also store water a lot better than proteins or fats.
Forget anything with alcohol or caffeine for that week. They're
diuretics, and you'd be peeing away water that you'll be needing
during the race.

"Running the marathon, whether she's a warm
day or cold, be sure to start drinking water early, even before
you're thirsty. The water you drink at mile two is the water your
body's using at mile twelve, and so on. Your system can't just absorb
and benefit from water like a shot of adrenaline.

"One more thing
for today. You'll be running as a bandit, not a qualyfier. Since the
officials'll force you to the back of the pack anyway, take my advice
and go way to the back, like the last two or three rows. It'll be
slower for you at first, but then as things start to open up, you'll
be passing people instead of being passed. Sounds like a little thing
now, but that'll psych you up, make you feel like you're winning
rather than losing. Feeling like you're losing can sap you,
wear you down mentally. And you just can't afford
that over twenty-six miles, three hundred eighty-five yards."

* * *

You look like you did back in high school, John.

Smiling in becoming modesty, I laid Mrs. Feeney's St.
Patrick's Day carnations crossways to her, the dipped-green flower
heads slanting down toward the foggy harbor.

Well, maybe more like college.

"I have to admit, Beth, I feel pretty good
physically. I thought I'd get rickety running almost every day, but I
feel better, more relaxed even, than I have in years."

And Nancy. What does she think?

"She still thinks I'm stupid even to try it."

Really?

"That's what she says."

Oh, John. Always dense as a post that way.

"What do you mean?"

Don't you see that Nancy's opinion might be her
way of supporting you?

"Frank1y, no."

Then think about it some more. Are you still
working on that case for the law professor?

"Not much in the month since the shooting. I
talked with everybody who seemed connected with guns."