The Fall-Down Artist (8 page)

“Your robe's in the bedroom closet,” Dorsey said. “Hey, before you go up, take a look at the medical in that file.” Using the frying pan, Dorsey indicated the manila folder on the tabletop. “You take your shower, I'll never get you to do it. It'll take five minutes, no more.”

Gretchen opened the file and studied the contents for a few silent moments. “Can't anybody in this part of the state drive without getting hit? It's all I ever see you handle, that and some really hokey comp cases. And something else: must everything I look at be from these cock-and-bull chiropractors? It's insulting, equating me with them.”

“C'mon, I don't do that.” Dorsey forked bacon into the pan. “Besides, there's some X rays and a CT scan report in there.”

“And both of them say nothing.” Gretchen closed the file and rose from the table. “No pathology; no disc problems, herniated or bulging. A whiplash case is what you have.” Gretchen pushed the folder away. “Let the bacon fry crisp. I'm going to take a long shower and try to loosen my hip.”

Dorsey lowered the flame under the bacon and went to
the office for his tape player. When he returned he plugged it in above the kitchen counter and put in a cassette of Benny Goodman's 1938 Carnegie Hall concert.

He had first met Gretchen in the waiting room of a large law firm in the Oliver building. The firm did a lot of insurance defense work, and Dorsey was there to be deposed on a personal injury case. Gretchen had accompanied a fellow ER physician who was being questioned about a negligence suit filed against the hospital. Seated on the waiting room's brown herringbone sofa, Gretchen spoke first, curious as to what Dorsey was doing there. She had been in Pittsburgh for only two weeks, he gathered, was a little on the lonely side, and talked to anyone she rubbed up against. In doing so, she went on to explain that she had just finished her intern training at Hershey Medical Center near her native Lancaster.

Dorsey was irritated by her at first. The case he was to be deposed on had some serious holes in it, double-and triple-checking that should have been done but proved impossible. But Gretchen was a notch away from being soft-spoken and in an odd, endearing way could not be put off. When Dorsey explained his business she became intrigued, and as Dorsey was being called off to a corner office Gretchen asked if he would like to meet later for a drink. Yes, I would, Dorsey had answered.

Dorsey fell hard for her. She was young but not so terribly that he found himself explaining himself and his favorite TV shows from boyhood. She was strong and she was tranquil and, though they argued, her even manner usually won out. Everything I've never had, Dorsey would tell himself, everything I've never had. He knew the beer and jazz was a kick for her; beyond that he didn't know why she loved him in return. After six months she kept half her wardrobe at Wharton Street.

“Please turn that off—please?” Gretchen entered the kitchen, pulling tight her terry-cloth robe. Dorsey hit the stop button, and the tape fell silent. “Over the last twenty-four hours, with the exception of the basketball game from
Atlanta, I've been cut off from the world. Let's catch the cable news.”

At the end of the counter sat a portable TV with the cable lead running under the windowsill, courtesy of Al's electrical prowess. Dorsey flicked on the set, then went about dividing the food onto two plates before sitting down across from Gretchen. Gretchen chewed each forkful slowly and patiently watched the TV screen. He wondered if the food was registering in her mouth and admired her powers of concentration.

“Hey.” Gretchen indicated the TV with her fork. “Isn't that the priest you told me about?”

Dorsey twisted in his seat and watched as a short, slight priest, bald but with a full salt-and-pepper beard, was led away in handcuffs by sheriff's deputies. As the videotape played, a monotone commentator explained that Father Andrew Jancek and thirty members of Movement Together had been arrested when they attempted to block the main gate of a steel mill in McKeesport. The mill was scheduled for demolition, and Movement Together had vowed to impede the work. Following their arrest, the commentator went on, the priest and his followers had been released when bail had been posted by the organization's attorney, Jack Stockman.

“What is this shit?” Dorsey muttered. Not enough money coming in from the insurance companies, P.I.? Or is this just branching out, tired of kicking my sorry ass? New worlds to conquer, or just dabbling in labor? For money, of course.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Dorsey said. “Eat your eggs.”

After making love, they rested in bed and Dorsey gave Gretchen a full report on the meeting with his father. “He says my little piece can grow into a big slice. I said no, he got persuasive, and I said I'd think about it. Which I will do. But for now, what do you think?”

“I'm not crazy about his motives, but money is nice to have around.”

“I wholeheartedly agree about the money,” Dorsey said. “But tell me what you really think.”

Gretchen propped herself on one elbow, her nipple grazing the hair on Dorsey's chest. She smiled playfully. “What I think is this. It's a wonderful world we live in when a jerk like you can make a living like you do, have someone offer to make you rich, and, best of all, get laid by a classy broad like me.”

“Hell's wrong
with him?” Al Rosek stood behind his oak bar cleaning beer mugs and rinsing them in clear water. He wiped his hands on his stained white linen apron. “Somebody stick a little Iron City where his Rolling Rock oughta be?”

Al's Bar consisted of a long room with the countertop running along the right, beginning at the entrance from South Seventeenth Street. To the left were three Formica-topped tables, each with four chairs. At the far end was a step-down entrance into a large back room, which held a tiled one-time dance floor and a jukebox. Dorsey and Bernie stood at the center of the bar, a few steps from the beer taps.

“My friend must have your indulgence,” Bernie said, filling his glass from a Michelob bottle, careful not to splash his newest dark suit. “Have you never before seen the pensive look of the gifted investigator? The man has a theory, a case. He is not merely sneaking pictures or conducting interviews—and, let's face it, only Johnny and Merv make the big dough holding interviews. But Dorsey here finds a pattern is developing. Now he must unmask the conspirators!”

“Liked it better when you were taking pictures of people in bed,” Al said, leaning across the bar on his elbows.
“That way, you showed the films and we all shared in your triumphs.”

“Up yours,” Dorsey said through a mouthful of beer, twisting the green long-necked bottle, illustrating the technique Al was to use.

“Buddy, I'm sorry,” Al said. “Ain't seen ya in a while, missed givin' you a hard time.” He waddled to the end of the bar to fill a customer's glass.

“Must be very important, this case,” Bernie said. “Up yours? Really, that's not up to standard. It's a disappointment to those of us who have come to rely on your wit for a reason to live.” Bernie sipped his beer. “So, anyways, last week you were in Johnstown.”

“Last week in Johnstown,” Dorsey said, “was where it finally came up and bit me in the ass. Well, actually, it was
this
week, when I was in Greensburg and Somerset. Another one of Tang's patients—the girl in Somerset, I mean. And while I'm going over it there were some locals in Pitcairn and Homestead that need a closer look. If I can get Corso to let me retrace my steps, pay me for it, I could make something out of it. Maybe build your goddamned pattern for you.”

Bernie tapped his empty bottle on the bar top, signaling for a refill. “This Radovic in Johnstown, I know a little about him. Our firm does the defense work for Fidelity Casualty, just locally. They send cases over, every now and then, for us to look at in the early stages, and me being the lowest man on the totem pole, they all come to me. Radovic was in the last batch. Conjecture is all you have. Maybe the Maynard girl tipped him to the layoff, maybe not. But there's still the medical from Dr. Tang. You may not like the guy, but you haven't come up with a way to get around his medical opinion, either.”

“There's some fresh reports you haven't seen,” Dorsey said. Al returned with two beers, collected money from Bernie's change pile, and leaned forward into the conversation. “The woman out in Somerset,” Dorsey said, “the one who's Tang's patient; I filed my report on her. Anyway,
she has a history of knee problems; some cartilage had to come out when she was a kid. She worked at this plant where they did specialty steel, and two weeks before the plant is to close she's in this fender-bender. Neither car has more than two hundred dollars' worth of damage, but she runs to Dr. Tang, and now she has lateral compartment syndrome. Can't get around and sure can't work. She gets a disability check from another carrier, but Fidelity Casualty is on the hook for the auto liability. Lost wages, present and future, services lost to her parents she lives with, maybe she'll claim loss of consortium with her boyfriend. Depending on their favorite position.”

“Wait. Hold up.” Bernie gestured with his right hand to silence Dorsey. “How much is fact and how much is dreamed up?”

“Next-door neighbor was pissed and had a lot to say about her.” Dorsey sipped at his beer. “I knocked on his door and caught him on his way to the evening shift. The guy, he's laid off from the same plant and he's got a night gig at a gas station on U.S. Thirty, feeds the kids with it. Believe me, he's less than crazy about the young chick living next door with her retired parents getting eight hundred a month for shit. He told me the story was all over the shop, before the layoff, that she was going for disability. She bragged about it, said she had a friend who could show her the ropes. This friend supposedly told her it was now or never.”

“Not so special,” Bernie said. “There's been plenty of this before. A place is supposed to close down on Friday at five? Guess how many employees fall and hurt themselves at four-thirty. It's common, real, everyday stuff.”

Dorsey followed Al's eyes as they drifted away from the conversation. Stepping out of the back room was a short squat man in his late fifties. Dressed in work pants and well-worn brown sweater, he wiped his bald pate and close-cropped side hair with a cloth handkerchief. His chest had the solid look that comes not with exercise but from a lifetime's hard labor.

“The cases stacked?” Al asked him as he stepped behind the bar and drew a glass of water.

“By the far wall, like you said.” The short man drained the water and drew another from the faucet. “Kegs, too. But they're right next to the tap hookup.”

“How's it been, Russie?” Dorsey asked. “Haven't had much time to talk.”

“Good, good,” Russie said. “How 'bout you and your dad, Mr. Dorsey? He's still good, right? You see him much? Good fella, always a good fella.”

“Just the other day, I was over his place.” Dorsey's words sounded slow even to himself after Russie's rapid fire. “He's good, asks about you.”

“Good fella, real good fella.” Russie stepped back around the bar, making for the door. “You got any work for me, any of you guys, gimme a call here at the bar.”

When Russie had gone, Bernie asked Dorsey why he gave the old bum the time of day. Dorsey told him it was none of his fucking business.

“Anyway,” Dorsey said, “getting back to what we were saying, the plant closing was a complete surprise. The guy I talked to, he had sixteen years in, two terms as shop steward. He had no idea of what was coming. But he says he thinks maybe the girl did.”

“Good,” Bernie said, shaking his head. “So now you have two.”

“There's more,” Dorsey told him. “I've had a lot of work these last couple of months, you guys both know that. Mostly from Corso. A lot of it is work comp and auto. Now the majority—not all of them, but a majority—are these blue-collar singles. Some old and some young, but all are on some type of disability and negotiating on the auto settlement. And from what I pick up, they all were a nut hair from being laid off. There's an epidemic of chintzy bullshit going on.”

“Bernie's right,” Al said, back in the conversation, ignoring a customer at the bar's far end. “Guys have been doin' that since I was a pup. Seen it myself down the street
at J and L before I got this place. Young single guys like you said, they love that shit. They get plenty on disability, more than enough, and they take their time gettin' better. Layoff time comes and the older guys with responsibilities, they get in on the act too.”