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"It's my neck," I said as I hiked myself onto the table. "I was in a little accident and Raymond Maldonado suggested I have you check it." He crossed to a corner sink and washed his hands with a virulent-looking red liquid soap from a wall dispenser. The gaze he turned on me was brief, but sharply focused. "You should have mentioned that to Martha. We'll need an X ray," he said. "I'll have my assistant take it. You can come back here when you're done." He moved to the door and held it open for me. Instinct told me to take my handbag, which I picked up and tucked under one arm, a gesture of distrust not lost on him.
"Your purse is safe, if you'd care to leave it," he said.
"It's no trouble," I murmured, not volunteering to put it back. I had visions of his searching it in my absence, discovering the photo I'd swiped before he arrived. My memory warbled a little tune, too faint to identify. I was certain I'd seen the woman in the picture, but I had no idea where.
Barefoot, I followed him down the corridor to a makeshift X-ray laboratory, partitioned off by a few temporary plywood screens. The equipment looked like some I'd seen in a doctor's office when I was a kid: bulky and black, with a cone the size of a zoom lens. I imagined 1950s-style rays, thick and clunky, piercing my body in poorly calibrated doses. The assistant, a young guy with a cigarette bobbing in his mouth, took two views – a full spine and a close-up of the cervical vertebrae. I'm wary of u
"What's your relationship to Raymond?" he asked without looking up. Something about the nonchalance of his tone sounded a note of caution.
"I'm a friend of Bibia
"Have you known her long?"
"Two days," I said. "We did an overnight together in the Santa Teresa County Jail."
The sharp gaze shifted and I thought I detected a nearly imperceptible pursing of his lips. He disapproved of low-lifes like Bibia
"Since my license was reinstated," he said, surprising me with his candor. Maybe I'd misjudged the man. He opened a drawer and took out a number of ink pens, of various types and colors. He passed me a sheet of paper with a series of slots in the left-hand column. "Sign each line with a different pen, rotating them randomly. We'll fill the dates in later when we go to bill your insurance company. Who's the carrier?"
"California Fidelity. I called the office up north and they said they'd send the claim forms down."
"Good," he said. "And what sort of work do you normally do?"
"Waitress."
"Not good. I don't want you on your feet and no lifting heavy trays. File for disability. Nice to meet you," he said. He snapped my chart shut, got up, and left the room. Half a minute later, I heard him entering the examining room next to mine.
It was two fifty-five by the time I left his office. The day was hot for late October, the air perfumed with the yeasty smell of warm exhaust fumes. The neighborhood we were in wasn't much of an improvement over the one where Raymond lived. As I approached the Ford, Luis leaned over and opened the car door. I slid into the front seat. Whatever Dr. Howard had done in the way of adjustments, my hangover was at least gone. I tilted my head this way and that, taking inventory of my neck. Not bad. No stiffness, no more aches or pains.
The interior of the car smelled of fast-food burgers and cold French fries. There was an empty milk shake container on the dashboard and a white paper bag sitting on the front seat. "Oh, goody, for me?" I asked. I peered into the bag, hunger rising suddenly. "Luis, there's nothing in here but trash!"
"I thought you'd ate."
"You thought I'd ate?" I said pointedly.
Luis seemed embarrassed. "Eaten."
"Yeah, well, I eaten the same time you did and I'm starving again." I revised my tone. There was no point in being a bitch about this. "Isn't there any way we could stop and pick up some lunch for me on the way home?"
He started the car, checking the flow of traffic in the rearview mirror. "Raymond said come back as soon as you got done. We got work to do."
"How come we have to do everything he says?"
Luis turned a flat look on me.
I thought about Raymond's temper. "Good point," I said.
When we got back to the apartment, the dog was tied to the railing out on the balcony and the apartment door was standing open. There were six or eight young Hispanics on the premises, most of whom I hadn't seen before. Bibia
I crossed to the closet, slid the door back, and pulled up a corner of the dark blue shag wall-to-wall carpet. I slipped the pictures under it and pressed the carpet back in place.
I returned to the living room, where Bibia