Sweet land stories - E. L. Doctorow [57]
The gal has quite a history, Molloy. Isn’t this a little late for your midlife crisis?
You’ll be discreet, I know, Molloy said.
Chrissie Stevens is a flake. She was riding pillion with a Hell’s Angel at the age of fourteen. Then she found religion, Zen wouldn’t you know, and spent a couple of years in Katmandu in some filthy ashram. Oh, and she lived in Milan for a year with some Italian polo player till she dumped him, or he dumped her. You want more?
Please.
Not just once has she been in for detox at Betty Ford. That’s the talk, anyway. You know my theory?
Tell me.
Lives to pay Daddy back for the life he’s provided her. I mean, that may be her true passion—they are really a very intense couple, Glenn and his daughter Chrissie. But you know what’s most remarkable?
No.
You sit across from her at the dinner table and she is spectacular. A vestal virgin, not a sign of wear and tear. Brian, she has the most beautiful skin you can imagine, coloring I would die for. Goes to show.
THE PHONE NUMBER Molloy had found in the Guzman kitchen was for the office of a Dr. Leighton, a pulmonologist, one of three associates in a clinic a few blocks from the Texas General medical complex. The waiting room was packed, aluminum walkers and strollers abounding: women with children on their laps, the elderly, both black and white, clutching their inhalators. Three TV sets hung from the walls. Eyes were cast upward—a chorus of labored breathing and bawling children blocked out the sound. It was a world of eyes sunk in hollow sockets.
A nurse, turning pale at the sight of Molloy’s credentials, had him wait in an examining room. Molloy sat in a side chair next to a white metal cabinet on which sat racks of vials, boxes of plastic gloves. On the facing wall, a four-color laminated diagram of the human lungs and bronchia. In a corner, on the other side of the examining table, a boxy looking machine hung with a flexible tube and mask. Nothing out of place, everything immaculate.
Dr. Leighton came in, equally immaculate in his white coat over a blue shirt and tie. He was a bit stiff, but quite composed and professorial-looking behind wire-framed glasses. He leaned back against a windowsill and with his arms folded looked as fresh as if he had not been tending all morning to an office full of people who had trouble catching their breath. Molloy remarked on the crowd.
Yes, well, the smog has been worse than usual. You put enough nitrogen oxide into a summer day and the phones light up.
I wanted to ask you about the Guzman boy who died last week, Molloy said. I understand he was your patient.
Am I obligated to talk with you?
No, sir. Do you know a Christina or Chrissie Stevens?
The doctor thought a moment. A sigh. What would you like me to say—what is it you want to hear? The boy suffered terribly. On days like this, he was not allowed to go to school. He tried so hard to be brave, to control his terror, as if it was unmanly. He was a great kid. The more scared he was, the more he tried to smile. In this last attack, they rushed him up here—Chrissie and the priest and the boy’s father—and I put him on intubation. I couldn’t reverse it. He died on me. Roberto didn’t need a respirator, he needed another planet.
CHRISSIE STEVENS had been checked in to the Helmut Eisley Institute, a sanitarium for the very wealthy.
Molloy found her in the large, sunny lounge to the right of the entrance hall. She was seated on a sofa, her legs tucked under her, her sandals on the carpet. He had not expected someone this petite. She was the size of a preteen, a boyishly slim young woman with straight blond hair parted in the middle. Her elbow propped on the sofa arm, her chin resting on her hand, she was posed as if thinking about Molloy as she stared at him.
But don’t you people travel in twos? she said