Cell (12 page)

GEORGE'S APARTMENT

WESTWOOD, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

TUESDAY, JULY 1, 2014, 8:37
P.M.

G
eorge opened the door to his apartment and slumped in. He was exhausted. His afternoon at the ER had been extremely busy, with multiple major trauma cases pouring in, requiring all sorts of X-rays and CT scans. A few MRIs had been needed as well to diagnose strokes. It had been even more chaotic after three when Debbie Waters's shift was over. Her replacement was not nearly as adept.

George found some leftover Chinese take-out in his refrigerator and popped it in the microwave. He scoffed it down while standing in the kitchen. To call it a meal would be kind.

Without turning on a light George threw himself onto the couch. With his hands behind his head he eyed the darkening ceiling. The sun had set, and he faced another long, lonely night. Tired as he was, he could not sleep, thinking about Amalgamated. There was no doubt in his mind that the combination of the federal health care reform empowering the insurance industry and Amalgamated introducing iDoc would turn medical care on its head. And what had Clayton been doing down in the morgue? George still thought it was odd.

George was roused from his musings by a knock on the door, a rare occurrence that was fast becoming rarer still with Sal gone.

It was Zee. A pair of sunglasses and a frown covered his still acne-prone face. The fact that there was no sun was apparently immaterial.

“What the hell happened, dude?”

“You mean in the ER?” George knew Zee was one of the few people in the complex who spoke to Sal.

“Yeah.” Zee walked in uninvited and collapsed on George's couch. “Man, it is wicked dark in here.”

George turned on a lamp and sat down. He considered suggesting to Zee that he remove the sunglasses, but thought better of it.

“That crash was on my Twitter stream all day. Everyone thought he was a suicide bomber at first.” Zee looked around the room, taking in George's sparse furnishings. “You need a decorator or something. This place is depressing.”

George frowned. He knew Zee was right, of course, but it bugged him being called out on it by someone whose own apartment was also nothing to write home about.

Zee shifted back to Sal. “He totally trashed Westwood on his way to the hospital. It's like he OD'd on Grand Theft Auto or something.” He gazed up at George's ceiling and sighed. “I liked Sal. He was always cool with me.” Then he squinted at George. “So . . . you were there, right? You saw it?”

“Yes. I watched them pull him out of the wreckage.”

“No shit.” Zee whistled. He was oddly impressed. “What did he look like? Cut to shit, I bet.”

“It wasn't pretty,” George agreed. “He exited his vehicle through his windshield. No airbag. Didn't use his seat belt. I really don't know much beyond that.” George felt odd talking about it, as if doing so were disrespectful of Sal.

Zee sensed George's reluctance to talk about the crash. “Sorry, dude. I know you were tight with him. Guess that's why I stopped by.” Zee paused, looking like he wanted to say something else. After a minute he continued.

“A lot of people are now saying suicide.”

“I heard that, too,” said George. “But I don't think so, Zee. I think he was having a health emergency and was just trying to get to the ER.”

Zee nodded. “Weird, though. I would have called an ambulance or gotten someone to drive me.”

“Who knows what he was thinking?” George shrugged.

“Does he have any family? Someone to notify?”

“Two sisters. I met them once back when I first moved in three years ago.”

“A suit on the five o'clock news was saying he had no known family.”

Now that George thought about it he was surprised the police hadn't asked more questions about the sisters when he mentioned them. Zee suddenly launched himself off the couch.

“Gotta roll, dude. It's a damn shame about Sal.” He headed out the door. “Catch you later, I got an online session scheduled. I'm up eight hundred for the week.”

“Later,” George said as he got up. “Thanks for stopping by.” George knew Zee was referring to his new career as an online gambler. It supposedly subsidized his living expenses. He had to be doing rather well, considering his rent was $1,500 a month and his unemployment insurance couldn't have been much more.

George sat back down. Someone should make an effort to contact Sal's sisters. George thought he would do it if he had their phone numbers. But he didn't even know what state they lived in, or their names. Were they married? Did they use their maiden name? He had no idea.

Since Sal had listed George as the person to contact in case of emergency, he thought there was a good chance no one had spoken to them. Believing it was the least thing he could do for Sal, George went down to see the building superintendent.

George knocked on the super's door. He could hear the television on inside. It sounded like a baseball game. He knocked again, this time on the narrow window next to the door. The blinds parted and a pair of red eyes peered out.

“Whadda ya want?” The tone wasn't unfriendly; in fact it was the opposite, it was hopeful. But the man was clearly inebriated.

“I just . . . never mind. Sorry to bother you.” George waved him off and took a step back. From past experience George knew that when the guy was this far gone, he talked endless gibberish. George did not want to subject himself to that. He'd find another way.

The blinds snapped shut and George could hear the guy moving for the door.

“I'll come back!” George shouted through the closed door. “I gotta run.” The door flew open before he could get any farther.

“Come on in, buddy,” the super said as he dusted the remnants of what looked like Doritos off his wrinkled T-shirt. “Got some brewskies in the fridge and the Dodgers are playing the Giants.”

“Tempting, thanks. But I'm on call,” George lied. “I have an issue with my sink, but it can wait.”

Those were the magic words to get the super to go back inside. He stumbled back a step. “Yeah, best if I take a look at that kinda thing in the daylight anyway.” Clearly, the last thing he wanted to do was handle a job. “But stop by anytime to shoot the shit, whatever . . .” The guy was weaving on his feet in an effort to keep his balance.

“Okay. I will, for sure. But not now. Thanks. Gotta run.”

George headed back to his apartment but slowed down as he passed Sal's door. Thinking,
Just in case,
George walked over and tried the knob. No luck. It was locked. George continued on to his own apartment, fretting. Once, when he'd lost his own keys, he had climbed the fence and jumped the lock on his sliding door. It would be pretty easy to do the same thing for Sal's apartment. And it would give him something to do rather than sit and stew. It was the least he could do. It wasn't like the man was going to care if he broke in.

George headed out of his apartment. He looked around to make sure he was alone. The coast was clear. He stepped past the anemic shrubs that ringed the outside of the fence and put his hands on top of the wooden structure. It was a little loose, like everything else around the complex, but it seemed sturdy enough to hold him. He hoisted himself up and swung his legs over. Unfortunately it was dark on the other side, and he landed on a potted plant, tipping it over on its side. In the process he lost his balance and fell, hitting the side of the fence hard, tilting it outward at an odd angle. He scrambled to his feet, shaken by the fall, perspiring in the heat of the night while trying to catch his breath.

Damn! Didn't see that coming!

He peered over the now-leaning fence and scanned the courtyard area. There was still no sign of anyone about. He was fairly sure the noise had gone undetected. He looked down at the pot fragments and clumps of dirt that had spilled out of it. In the dark it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like Sal had been growing tomatoes in it. Not anymore. He pushed the fragments into the patio corner with his foot and then tried to pull the fence to its original position. No luck. And pulling it made a lot of noise. He'd try to deal with it later from the opposite side.

George tried the glass sliding door. It was locked, but it was an older model, so all he had to do was lift the sliding panel up to disengage the latch.

A moment later George was inside the apartment, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He didn't feel at all comfortable turning on the lights. He felt like a burglar. A thud from above made him freeze, then he realized it was just the tenants in the apartment upstairs moving around. He had a flashlight app on his phone. Until now he had only used it to read menus in dark restaurants, but now he flipped it on. It threw a strong but concentrated beam of pure white light through the phone's camera flash feature.

He panned the light across the room, wondering where Sal would have kept his personal phone book. He moved into the kitchen, searching the counter below the wall-mounted landline. Nothing. He methodically worked his way through the kitchen, pulling out drawers and digging through them. They were filled with papers, but there was no particular order. Sal must have saved every piece of paper he ever received. George found an address book and was encouraged, only to see that it was brand-new, with no entries at all.

He returned to the living room, checking the coffee and end tables. No luck there, either. All that was left were the small bedroom and tiny bathroom. In the bedroom he found a number of magazines, old newspapers, and letters. He groaned but, having come this far, steeled himself to go through it all, hoping he might find a letter from one of the sisters. For one who was so meticulous about his car, Sal didn't seem to mind that his apartment was a haphazard mess.

George carried all the material over to the bed. Holding the phone with the flashlight in his left hand, he began rapidly shuffling through it. Nothing. His eyes shifted to the nightstand. There was a television remote, the latest issue of
Car World
, a book about the Civil War, and . . . aha! A worn address book!

The sound of a dog barking outside startled George. He sat still and listened. He heard it again and relaxed, recognizing it as coming from out on the street, not from the courtyard. He reached for the address book, but stopped his hand in midair. He heard another, more disturbing noise. It sounded as if the door to the apartment was opening slowly. A chill ran down George's spine.

With his heart pounding, George started to stand up when a blinding light hit him in the face. A second later another bright light hit him from outside the window.

“Freeze!” The command came from a disembodied male voice.

George froze, not from the command but from sheer terror. In the next instant the bedroom's overhead light flipped on, flooding the room.

“Hold it right there!” ordered a uniformed LAPD policeman standing in the doorway, his firearm pointed at George, who had dropped the phone. “Hands in the air!”

With great effort, as if his muscles were refusing to function, George raised his hands. They were visibly trembling.

“I got him!” the policeman yelled to his partner in the courtyard. “Get your ass in here on the double!”

The officer in the bedroom advanced toward George. “Drop to the ground, facedown! Spread your arms and legs! Now!”

George obeyed and immediately felt a sharp pain in his back as the officer's knee pressed into it. A moment later the second officer charged into the room. He grabbed George's wrists, cuffed them behind his back, and quickly patted him down. “He's clean!” The two officers roughly hauled George to his feet.

•   •   •

G
eorge stood by the police cruiser at the rear of his apartment complex. The uniformed officer who had apprehended George was looking down at his smartphone, taking notes while he interviewed George. He had George's driver's license along with his hospital ID tucked between the two of his fingers holding the phone.

“And how long did you say you lived here?” the policeman inquired.

“A bit more than three years,” George answered. His voice was tremulous from the adrenaline still coursing through his system and his cognition was not what it should have been, but otherwise he had recovered for the most part. He was now feeling indignant about how he was being treated.

A small group of bystanders, many in sleepwear, were watching the proceedings. George looked vainly for Zee but didn't see him. Instead he recognized an older woman in pajamas among the group who lived up on the second floor.

“Mrs. Bernstein!” George called out to her. She frowned and looked away. George turned his attention back to the cop. “You don't want to tape this, too?”

The policeman looked up. “Pardon me?”

“Just wondering why you're not taping this. I was recently told by an officer that details can be forgotten if you're not careful.” George angled his face down to try and read the cop's phone. “At least I don't think you're taping this.”

The cop stared at him. George knew he was coming off as a smart-ass, which wasn't his intention, but it was hard to stop. The whole episode felt surreal.

“Sorry. It's just that one of your colleagues was interviewing me earlier today and he . . .” George trailed off, realizing that he was digging himself into a deeper hole.

“You were interviewed by another police officer earlier today?”

George backpedaled, getting nervous. “Yes. But not because I did anything wrong. It was right after Sal's car crash, which I'm certain you have heard about. Sal's the neighbor whose apartment you found me in.” George nodded down toward the IDs that the officer had between his fingers. “I'm a radiology resident at L.A. University Medical Center and your colleague was trying to put together a picture of what had happened.”