He didn't look the way I had expected him to look. His cheeks were full and ruddy, and his eyes sparkling and alive. I shot a glance to the nurse on duty and she returned it like a shuttlecock. He looked every minute of his 81 years, but he didn't look like a man about to die. Twenty minutes ago I was having a late dinner at Sandy's on Roosevelt when I got the call telling me that Buddy was on his way out and that I should try to see him one last time just so he'd have someone with him who knew him before he got sick. Someone who would be sorry when he was gone.
That job fell to me after his daughter Amy left for San Francisco with her boyfriend three years earlier. Up until then, she was the one who made sure he bathed every few days, fed him frozen dinners, cleaned out his bank account for him- the little things. Buddy always expected a phone call, always expected a card, a letter, but nothing ever came. It was as if his little girl, who would be about thirty now, had never existed. I had evidence though, in the form of a thick scar across my neck where she had tried to convince me to stay out of their family business using the putty knife she'd used to pry open the old man's side door a few minutes earlier. His little princess.
But there was Buddy, sitting up and eating some orange Jello when I walked up to his bedside. He saw me and smiled a wide, orange smile. He still had some of his teeth- the socializing ones in front- and I was happy to see him showing them for me.
"Rabbit! Sit down! You shouldn't be out in the rain like this! Ya gonna getcha death! Sit down! You want anything? You want a drink a'somethin'?" He snapped his fingers to get the nurse's attention. She rolled her eyes, placed a hand on one hip, and sauntered over. No wonder he thought she was his waitress.
Buddy said, "My friend here will have..." He pointed at me and raised his eyebrows.
"Nothing, thanks," I said. The nurse looked at us without expression
"You sure? You wanna Rum and Coke? You wanna steak? How bout a steak?" he said, waving his hands at me as if he were offering up invisible trays filled with invisible delicacies.
"Kitchen's closed and I'm on my break," the nurse said to cap the conversation and she turned and walked out of the room. I watched her while she walked away. I'm like that.
Buddy shrugged. "What can I tell ya?", he said. He chuckled and his laugh built until it became a hacking, violent cough. He held a napkin up to his mouth and doubled over.
When he'd collected himself again, his mouth was painted with blood and his face was the color of newsprint. I didn't mention it and he wiped at his lips while he talked.
"I faked out like I was dyin' so they'd call you over here," Buddy said with a vaudevillian wink, "I'm sorry, but they won't let me use the phone here no more. I don't know why!"
I knew why. I'd been covering his OTB losses for the last two months. It was never much, but for a guy who had nothing, it was still too much. I'd asked them to take the phone out, but I never told Buddy. I felt a pang of guilt for some reason.
Buddy started up with the small talk. I moved my chair over to the window and pulled it open so l could smoke. I lit a cigarette and watched Buddy's eyes bug out until offered him one
"Nah thanks. Just blow some of that smoke over to me sometimes, o'right?" he said.
"So you takin' care of yourself? You see Leo lately? If you do, tell him I says 'Hey'. He's a good enough guy. I got no problem with him," he said. I noticed him sniffing the scent of my smoke out of the air.
"Listen, I wanted to tell you somethin'," he said. His tone had changed now. He leaned forward and brought his legs over the side of the bed. His eyes were puffy and discolored, looking like a pair of bruised plums.
"What is it, Buddy?"
"I got a letter in the mail. Here, Lookit it. It's from my sister Joyce. It's two years since Joyce is dead, Godresthersoul, and this letter comes to me now? I mean, where was this letter for two years? Who had it all that time? And why? Why send it to me now? If they've waited a week they'da missed me."
Buddy fumbled for something between his mattress and headboard. I couldn't help but notice a racing form and some betting slips among the candy wrappers and other clutter hidden there.
He held out one wavering hand, crab-clawed around a filthy envelope. It had been kicked around quite a bit in the last twenty-four months. It had been folded, refolded, rolled up, and had been used as a coaster over time, but it had yet to be opened. I took it from him, but he seemed to give it up reluctantly. His thick fingernail scraped a long groove in its surface as l drew it away from him.
I nodded to him and held it up. "You mind?" I asked.
He shook his head and I tore it open. I looked inside and dragged the letter out with two fingers. I looked in again: nothing.
"Just the letter," I said. Buddy nodded. He was kneading his blanket between his hands, waiting.
"Let's see. She wanted to congratulate you on your success at the track," I began.
"That must've been when Molly's Troubles came in. I made, like, $20 G's that day," he said. His eyes bugged out and his eyebrows raised up so far on his face that they almost lost themselves in his pasted-on hairline. He held his hands out in front of him and pawed at the air he was working a punching bag. His voice softened and he said, "That was the best day of my life, that and when I married Ruthie. Those were the best days of my life. And when my girl Amy was born..."
He should have stopped counting his best days at two.
"...those there were the best days of my life," he finished. He sat up and squared his shoulders, manufacturing pride in his accomplishments: a two-month marriage and a little sociopath born four months afterward.
I went back to reading the letter to him.
"'Del-' your name's Del? 'Del, I need to tell you about something I should have told you about a long time ago. We have money in the family. A lot of money, as a matter of fact. I found out about it a few years ago, but you were betting and drinking so much that it seemed like it might be a mistake to tell you about it back then. I didn't think that you should know.
"'You can hate me if you want to, but I know I should have told you about it back then, and I want to make it up to you now. I'm coming up to visit in two weeks, and 1 tell you all about it then. I can't wait to see my baby brother again! Keep your shoes away from the fire until then! Love, Joyce.'"
Buddy was hiding his face after I'd finished the letter. He'd turned his back on me and struggled to stifle his sobbing. Joyce's letter was lost all this time, and Joyce was lost along with it. He hadn't seen his sister in more than ten years when he got the call from a neighbor of hers that she had passed away in her sleep.
In fact, after he'd found out Joyce was dead, I didn't see Buddy for almost a month before he resurfaced. He had been dropped off at his place by a police car with a fresh brand X suit of clothes and a plastic bag with his broken upper plate in it. As it had been pieced together, Buddy had apparently started drinking the afternoon he'd heard the news about Joyce and he drank right up to the time a bunch of kids from Laguna Park decided to stomp him to sleep and make off with the sixty dollars he had in his pants pockets and shoes. Thirteen days in County medical care led to another four days in the jug for an outstanding D&D warrant. By coincidence, I was talking to his building super trying to suss out his whereabouts when the car rolled up. Buddy had hospital-issued cardboard slippers on his feet helped him into his apartment and sat him down on the sofa. In the 26 months since then, Buddy never mentioned his sister's name again until now.
Buddy was mopping his cheeks. Still facing the window, he said, "I miss my baby sister, Rabbit."
After another few minutes, he poured some ice water into a coffee cup and raised it into the air.
To Joycie," he said. He tipped the cup to his lips and drank it down. He wiped his mouth with his coughing tissue again and looked me in the eye.
"I never heard of no money in the family, Rabbit. I don't know what was going through her head back then. Maybe she had mental dementia," he said.
I held up the letter-perfect handwriting, perfectly worded, perfectly sane.
"No, Buddy." I said, " I think I believe her. You might have some money coming. Do you want me to look into it for you?"
Waving his hands in the air, and with a disdainful expression, Buddy said, "Rabbit, I don't think I even want that money now. I can't spend it. I'm stuck here for the rest of the ride, and I know it."
I respected him too much to say otherwise.
He smiled a sweet old man smile and said, "I just want you to look and see if you can find out where it is- for Amy. She's just starting out, and some money would make things a lot easier for her. What young lady doesn't need a little more cash, right?"
A little more cash on any given night might overdose his little snowflake.
"Sure, Buddy. I'll take a look and see what I can turn up" I said against my own instincts.
The tall nurse stuck her head in the room again.
"Lights out," she said.
"Can I take this letter along with me?" I asked, "I'll bring it back when I'm done with it."
"Sure, sure," he nodded, "See what you can make from it."
I turned and walked out of the room without another word. A young orderly with an Army tattoo was rolling out a cart full of little paper cups as I passed by the reception desk. I watched him palm a tiny bag of red pills into his shirt pocket before the elevator doors closed. I know when to speak up and when to zip up, so I left the building and headed off home. I'd come back to this later.
Sleep was hard to come by. The next morning I woke up late, after ten. I put coffee on, hit the head, and wandered out to collect the paper. That's when I noticed the front door had been jimmied at some point in the night. A hole had been dug in the door frame to free the lock plate. It had to have taken an hour to do it. I retreated to my room and collected my .38 from the hidden drawer in my nightstand. Then, just as quickly, I put it back. It was morning now. Whatever happened had happened a while ago. I remembered that I hadn't even used the front door the last evening. I came in through the back door by the carport. It had started raining a few minutes before I pulled in and I was in no mood for it, so l parked an arm's length from the stairs and hopped inside. That front door could have been forced at any time between seven and midnight. I looked around the place. Nothing seemed to be missing. Nothing broken. Nothing out of the ordinary.
