Chapters

At the end of each scene is Behind the Curtain. This is a short description of how I imagined the scene, rationale behind the action, the point, and anything else I can think of about the scene that might be of interest to... someone. Please check it out and feel free to comment, if you so desire.



Scene Two: The Autopsy 




Scene Six: Shots

Scene Seven: Is This a Hospital?

Scene Eight: Gummo

Date with a Dead Man

"What do you do for a living, Mr. McIntire," Calvado asked when their martinis arrived.

"This and that and some other boring stuff."

"What kind of this and that?" Calvado sipped her drink and instantly wished she had eaten before coming. One sip and she was light-headed. Better slow down: still, the martini tasted good.

"It's all boring. It all has to do with buying crap cheap and selling it at hugely inflated prices. Boring, boring, boring."

"You know," Calvado said. "A lot of people are defined by their work. They are what their jobs are. And, I've noticed, that when someone doesn't want to talk about their jobs they are really refusing to talk about themselves." She smiled at McIntire.

"I, for one, am not defined by my job. My job provides me with the money to be who I am. It does not define me."

"And who are you, Mr. McIntire?"

"Call me Mack. All my friends call me Mack. What do your friends call you?"

"I have no friends. I'm a medical school student."

"Speaking of jobs defining you, does your job define you?"

"I have no job."

"Did. Did your job define you?"

"What job would that be, Mr. McIntire?"

"It's Mack. Your bikini-clad, pouting lip, clothed as if a hooker modeling job."

Calvado laughed. "No one has ever put it quite that way before, Mr. McIntire. 'clothed as if a hooker.' I like that." She raised her martini. They clicked glasses. Mack finished his off, but Calvado had some left. "Are you going to order another?"

"Nope. I said one drink and I have finished," he mock-glared at her, "my one drink."

"Ooooh, a man of his word." Calvado gulped down her drink. "I haven't met a man of his word in ages."

"Well, as the sage of our times as put it, 'to live outside the law, you must be honest.'"

"And do you live outside the law, Mr. McIntire?"

"Mack. Call me Mack. My father is Mr. McIntire and he's been gone 20 years."

"Mine ran away when he found out my mother was pregnant with me."

"Mine died."

"Sorry."

"Well, I'll forgive you," Mack said, "If you tell me what your friends call you. I can't go on calling you Ms Calvado all night."

"Why not?"

"Well, first, Ms Calvado, we're not going to be together all night. And second, I've told you my name, you have to tell me yours. It's part of the Canterbury rules."

Calvado laughed and signaled the waiter. "Canterbury rules?"

"Okay, okay. Some other rules. The rules of order, or something."

"Speaking of orders, what would you like? I no longer hold you to your word," Calvado said. "You may order one more drink." She held up her index finger with its long, polished fingernail. "Just one."

"Perhaps," Mack said to the waiter hovering near them, trying to get a glimpse down Calvado's t-shirt, "perhaps we will order a bottle of wine. A cabernet, I think. Don't you?" he turned to Calvado.

"That is one very large drink, Mr. McIntire."

"Mack. Okay?"

Calvado nodded. When Mack turned to the waiter, she put her hands on her boobs and shook them. The waiter coughed himself into a fit and excused himself, coughing all the way to the kitchen.

When Mack looked at Calvado with a "what the hell?" look on his face, she only shrugged her "haven't got a clue" look. Then smiled.

"My friends, those that I have. The two that I have," she said, "call me Calvado."

"That's exceedingly unimaginative."

"And Mack and McIntire are exceedingly imaginative?"

"No, but I'm a boring businessman. You, you're a fabulous fashion model slash med student."

"Was. Was a model."

___________________________


How Calvado Got Rich

The detective sat down and looked at the witness. She was, he thought, the most beautiful witness he had ever seen. Much prettier than that actress in "Basic Instinct." He picked up his cup of coffee, stared at the woman's legs, and wondered if she dressed like that actress.

"Uh, detective?" the witness asked.

"Yes?" Timmons answered.

"I believe your cup of coffee is empty. And has been for the past five minutes. Can we get on with the interview?"

"Ah," Timmons looked into his cup. "So you're right. Well, okay. Now, Miss Calvado, I called the manager of that apartment address you gave us but no one answered. I'm sending over a... Well, yeah. Okay. Uh, do you have any idea what Mr. McIntire did for a living?"

"First, it's Ms Calvado. Second, I told you I met Mr. McIntire at the free clinic. I only met him that one time."

Timmons kept his eyes on Calvado's lips as she spoke. When they stopped moving he looked up at her eyes. The bluest eyes in captivity, he thought. And a smart broad, too.

"Why did he come into the clinic?"

"He needed medical attention obviously."

"Yeah," Timmons grinned and picked up his coffee cup. "I kinda figured that out by myself. Why did he need medical attention? What was his medical problem?"

Calvado frowned and looked at the dusty linoleum. "I don't think I should break the patient-doctor confidentiality. You've heard of that, haven't you, Mr. Timmons?"

Timmons nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I see. Well, look, first, Miss Calvado..."

"It's Ms Calvado, detective."

"First, Miss Calvado, you're not a doctor, so half of that confidentiality thing just landed on bullshit island. And second, your patient is dead. He ain't going to sue you, the clinic, or anybody else now. So the other half of that confidentiality horsepucky is on the same island."

"I'd have to check my notes."

"Notes? You keep notes of people who stagger into your free clinic? Impressive. You remember this guy's face but not his illness. Now, why, for the second time, Miss Calvado..."

"Ms."

"Why did Mr. McIntire need a doctor?" Timmons spun his pencil around and tapped the point on his desk. "Miss Calvado."

"Ms. He had a stab wound."

"The doctor in charge is supposed to notify the cops when a patient comes in with a wound like that. Gunshots, knife wounds, baseball bat to the side of the head wounds. You know, shit that just might indicate foul play."

Calvado fidgeted in her chair. She pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and began chewing on it. "Can I, uh, ask you a question, detective?" she asked.

"Shoot."

"Can I get in trouble for, uh, not reporting Mr McIntire's knife wound?"

"You? You mean, the doctor in charge, don't you?"

Calvado shook her head. 

"McIntire didn't see a doctor."

Calvado nodded.

"McIntire didn't even go to the free clinic, did he, Miss Calvado?"

Calvado nodded.

"McIntire lives in your building, right? He knows you're a med student. He comes up to your apartment and gives you practice sewing up a knife wound. And he says it was self-inflicted. He cut himself, uh, chopping up carrots for a stew. Am I close, Miss Calvado?"

Calvado nodded and started to cry.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, don't pull this woman shit on me."

"He, he, said he was in a hurry. The knife slipped, he said. And, and, he didn't have time to go to a doctor. Could I just, you know, help him?"

"Miss Calvado, are you aware you may just have tossed your medical career in the toilet?"

Calvado nodded. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her white medical coat. Timmons watched as the coat opened to show her t-shirt. That, he thought, would look good on any French model. Calvado looked up at Timmons and frowned.

"Mr. Timmons, could you please not stare at my chest all the time?"

"I was just trying to figure out what it said."

Calvado closed her coat. "It says, 'brain surgeons do it with a skull saw.'"

"Ouch," Timmons said. "That's got to hurt. Was that your goal, Miss Calvado, to be a brain surgeon?"

"Ms. Yeah."

"Well, if I happen to mention to your medical school that you sewed Mr. McIntire up, you could kiss that dream goodbye. Now, tell me more about this Mr. McIntire, if you would."

Calvado looked around at the police station. It looked just like the ones she saw on TV: crowded, busy, messy, and badly lit. Near the door, two uniformed cops were pretending to fill out forms. Calvado knew they were trying to get a better look at her. Since just before puberty, men had tried to get close to her, either physically or emotionally. Once her boobs came in, she didn't know who was trying to be a friend and who wanted to know her just so they could get laid. By the second year of junior high school, she had a rule of thumb: if a boy she didn't know was being nice to her, he wanted to get laid. Now, ten years later, the rule still worked. 

When she was fifteen, Calvado's mother took her to an advertising agency in mid-town Manhattan. Without an appointment, she and her mother walked in and asked to see the art director. They sat in the reception area for three hours. Calvado kept asking her mother if they could go home, but her mother shushed her.

"Just read your book," her mother said.

When the art director's assistant finally appeared, it was obvious to Calvado that she was being nice and would soon dismiss both her and her mother. Calvado was glad; she wanted to go home to study. Instead, the worst thing that could have happened, did: Calvado got a modeling job. Within a year, Calvado was making $10,000 a shoot; small potatoes compared with Elite Models, but still, $10,000 for a five hour photo shoot was... excellent.

Calvado lived with her mother and never knew her father. Her father was a big unknown. Her mother never talked about him and had no proof of his existence. And Calvado's mother was poor. If she lived in Alabama she would probably have married a cousin, lived in a trailer, and gone to stock car races every Sunday. But she lived in Manhattan. In a small, overpriced, cramped apartment in a rickety building on the cusp of Harlem. Morningside Heights by name. 

As a child, Calvado loved to read and the only thing her mother would splurge on was books. Books about butterflies, books about magic dragons. Books that Calvado would read again and again. In the fourth grade, her reading interests veered away from fiction and into first, general science, then into biology. One Christmas, a friend of a friend of Calvado's mother gave Calvado a used copy of Gray's Anatomy and Calvado discovered her greatest desire: to be a doctor and use this wonderful book everyday.

After puberty, when Calvado looked more like a fashion model with her long legs, her breasts, her blonde hair, and blue eyes than a junior high school student, she read and studied science more and more. To her there were two choices: stay indoors, read, and study or go outdoors and hear the whistles, catcalls, obscene propositions; maybe get rubbed upagainst by some pathetic old man with a scraggily beard. Studying always won out. 

Until her mother dragged her to that advertising agency. 

"Might as well make the most of what you've got," her mother said as she dabbed eyeliner on Calvado's right eyelid.

"Mom," Calvado complained.

"Just this one agency, kid, then you can go back to your books."

From fourteen to twenty, Calvado hauled her biology, chemistry, anatomy, and physiology books to a rush of photo shoots for cars, clothes, whiskey, ratchet sets, make-up, oil, coffee, spark plugs, dogs, and winter cruises to Puerto Rico while her friends had dates, boyfriends, and their senior proms. But at least Calvado helped her mother move out of the flea-bitten building on the edge of Harlem and into a nicer place. Her mother was happy. Calvado was not.

"Brain surgery?" her mother yelled. "Brain surgery? You could make ten times what those quacks make. You can be a super model!"

"I don't want to be a supermodel, mom. I want to be a brain surgeon!"

At twenty, Calvado started college at NYU. She tested out of as many classes as she could and, at twenty-two, graduated with honors. She got into medical school, cut her hair, threw away her make-up kit, moved into her own apartment in a nice neighborhood but not too expensive, and settled down to the life of a med student.

Other students complained of not having enough time to date or go drinking with their friends. Calvado never dated anyway, so she merely replaced one time-consuming enterprise (modeling) with another (medical school.) She studied 12 hours a day, she took classes 8 hours a day, she slept 4 hours a day. She was in heaven. Gray's Anatomy was open 24-hours a day; her never-closed book.

She did have one date. Early in her second year of med school. A small date. A 'pretend' date, the man called it. Not a real date, just a couple of friends having dinner or maybe going to a Broadway show and a couple of drinks? Calvado shook her head, shows and drinks take too much time.

"Okay," the man said. "How about, uh..." He pursed his lips together as if he were thinking. 

Calvado wondered if she should apply her rule of thumb. He kept his eyes on her face when they talked, though. She's sure he grabbed a peak at her ass when she walked away from him, but what kind of man wouldn't? 

"We meet at Bickerstaff's at, say, 6:00. Before the big dinner crowd. We have one," he held up a crooked index finger, "drink. We have dinner. Be back here by," he glanced at his watch. "8:30, 9:00 at the latest." He smiled at her. He reminded Calvado of a photographer she slept with when she was 17: funny, goofy, and a little sincere.

"Okay," Calvado agreed. "But I insist on paying my share."

"Oh, yes, please," the man smiled, "I insist. Have you seen the prices at Bickerstaff's? My god, why don't they just siphon out your bank account? I'll make the reservations. See ya," the man said as he stepped out of the lobby of their building and into the busy West Side street.

"You don't know anything about him," her mother argued.

"He's polite. He stares at my face not my boobs. He dresses well."

"John Gotti dressed well, too, and he killed people for a living."

"Mother," Calvado complained. She ran the iron over her Chanel t-shirt. "It's just dinner."

"And drinking! He's going to get you drunk and slip that, that date rape drug in your glass!"

"Nothing that hasn't happened before." Her mother gasped. "Just kidding, mom. Would you relax. I'm just having a, a, little break from studying."

"Finally. You've only been studying for eight straight years. Non-stop, I might add." Her mother took the iron from Calvado and finished ironing the t-shirt. "You should wear that nice blue blouse. The one you got in Atlanta."

"Too showy."

"Showy?"

"Cleavage."

"Ah."

Calvado slipped into her jeans, tied her hair up in a loose bun, checked her make-up in the mirror and held her hand out for the t-shirt.

"Bra?" her mother asked as she held the t-shirt out of range.

"You think so?"

"You don't want to show cleavage, but you're okay with a pair of hard nipples staring at the man all night?"

"Bra," Calvado said and hurried off to the bedroom.

_________________________________


Racing the Delaware Water Gap

As Mack pushed his Firebird down the freeway through the Delaware Water Gap, he had two thoughts: first, the place had really gotten trashy in the last ten years - it had lost the rugged, refreshingly New Worldly feeling it had when he first saw it; and second, if he could make it to Chicago and find Slim Jim before D-Man, he'd be safe. 

He could explain everything to Slim Jim: the money, the girls, the deaths. Everything. Then, if D-Man showed up, Slim Jim could help Mack.

Yeah, he thought, got to get to Chicago pronto.

He pushed his foot down on the accelerator and watched the speedometer climb to 75. 80. 85. He eased off. He didn't want any local or state cops stopping him, slowing him down, and delaying his confession with Slim Jim. Not in this Firebird. Now with what he was carrying. He looked in the mirror. He couldn't see any cops, but still, he eased back to just above the rest of the scattered cars and trucks. He was glad he was traveling at night - few sightseers. The more serious travelers, the ones who had business 500 miles away in less than 12 hours, the ones who positively, absolutely had to be in another city, they rode at night like some men rode cheap whores: hard and quick. 

When he first went to New York City, Mack showed up at Grand Central at night and all the other people there were lost, runaways, pimps or whores. And a cop or two. Mack took the first bus out of Chicago and got into New York just before closing time. He had to find a place sleep and keep away from all the pimps and whores in his first two hours in the city. Great start, he thought and shook his head. Nothing's changed.

A red light popped on on his dashboard.

"Damn it," Mack yelled. The Firebird needed oil. He should've checked it when he got gas but he was in too much of a hurry to get out of town and on the road. He saw the garish lights of an interstate gas-junk food-rest area with a Conoco sign rotating lazily against the night sky. He'd pull off there.

An SUV pulled up beside him. Nice rig, Mack thought. All black with tinted windows, no chrome, and not a dent or rust spot anywhere. Mack sped up. He didn't like cars matching his speed on the highway, especially not this night. The SUV kept pace with him. He glanced at it again.

"Shit," he yelled out loud. "It can't be....."

He floored it. The SUV stayed right beside him. He slammed on the brakes. The SUV did the same, so Mack floored the Firebird. The red light seemed to get brighter, stronger. It was almost like a flashing disco light.

"Hang on, babe," he said to his car. "Just half a mile..."

The SUV swerved into him. Sparks showered off of the Firebird as his door handle flew off.

"Damn it!"

The SUV smashed into his left front fender. Headlight glass jumped in the air. Mack cut the wheel to the right. The SUV cut right. The two cars moved in perfect precision.

"Damn it to hell!"

The red light got brighter. All Mack could see was the red light and the SUV crashing into him. Off to the right Mack saw an opening: a hole in the interstate's concrete barrier. He slammed on the brakes. He spun the Firebird to the right. He headed to the hole. He floored it. The SUV caught his right rear fender. The Firebird started to rear up. The front end slowly went airborne. The SUV crashed into the back of Mack's Ford. Then, slowly, it seemed to Mack, the Firebird started to fly. It went up and up and Mack knew it was going to leap over the concrete wall and land like a ballerina on the other side; the SUV would crash into it while Mack and his Firebird would gallop out of New Jersey and on to Chicago.

"Maybe I'll just friggin' fly," Mack smiled. He could see his Firebird floating through the air like a peregrine falcon; too bad it wasn't white, he'd love to be a giant white bird: Up there with the bats, butterflies, and jumbo jets. He wouldn't have to worry about a thing: no bad guys, no oxygen deprivation, no gasoline. He'd just sit, listen to his CDs and enjoy. Enjoy the flight up and away. Maybe he'd circle the globe, maybe he'd do a loop-de-loop over the Chicago loop. Yes, he could fly; his Firebird could fly. If he wanted it hard enough; if he wished for it hard enough.

Then the car hit the earth. Which was hard enough. Then the wall. 

_________________

 Scene Two: The Autopsy Room                        

Behind the Curtain: How Scene One Came To Be


The Autopsy

"Now, as you gentlemen and ladies can easily observe, I have a naked body on a metal slab behind me. The police, bless their hearts, found him very early this morning, I had the privilege of doing the site analysis at about 3:00 AM. Since our patient had absolutely no identification on him what-so-ever, we cannot contact his next of kin. The police then hauled his ass in here. Now, this John Doe is dead. Am I right?"
 
Twenty-five medical students nodded their heads. 

Dr. Henrietta 'Hank' Slovensky shook hers.

"No, you overeducated macaroons, John Doe is Not dead. And do you know why he is Not dead? Because you haven't checked to make sure he's dead. You can Not look at a patient from across the room and tell if said patient has croaked or not. For crying out loud, if you saw the chief of staff asleep in his office would you immediately assume he was Dead? My goodness. Okay," Hank surveyed the group searching for the one she knew would faint at the sight of a blade inserted into the dead man's sternum. "You," she pointed at a pale-looking female with her long black hair tied up on top of her head and stuffed under a surgical cap. "Get your Ivy league butt over here and tell me what you see."

The long-haired medical student looked around to see if, by hope and chance, the medical examiner meant someone else, someone other than her.

"You!"

No, she didn't. The long-haired student shuffled slowly to the cadaver.

"What's your name?"

"J...J..Jennifer."

"Well, J, J, Jennifer, educate the rest of us over-achievers what you see on the slab this morning."

"Well, ah, er. I see a man." Jennifer said. She glanced at the man's face but couldn't look at him for long. 

"Very good. So, we have a John Doe who, as Jennifer has aptly pointed out by examining his genitalia in detail, is male.. What else?"

"Hmm, his chest seems to be, uh, damaged."

"Ah, yes," Hank agreed. "The old damaged chest ploy. Jennifer, honey, if you ever want to get through this autopsy, and by ever I mean sometime in the next, oh, 28 minutes, you're going to have to speed up your examination. Gather round, my little ducklings, gather round. Now, as Jennifer as ascertained, our John Doe has a penis and a crushed chest cavity. What does that indicate? You," Hank pointed at a male student.

"He got hit by something heavy?"

"He did?" Hank questioned.

"I mean, uh, he might have gotten hit by something like heavy?"

"Is that a question, young man? Jennifer, was that a question? It sounded like a question. Voice raised at the end of a sentence, like, you know? Clear precise speech, ducklings, clear and precise speech, if you don't mind. As it turns out, our Mr. Doe met the steering wheel of his car."

"Excuse me, Dr. Slovensky?"

Hank turned to the questioner: a tall, blonde woman with the looks of a fashion model. She held a clipboard to her ample breasts; her hair was cropped short, almost like a man’s. Probably, Hank thought, to suggest studiousness instead of slutishness but only ending up looking dykish.

"Yes?" Hank asked.

"I, uh, I think I know this, uh, John Doe." 

_________________________

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