Feeling like a dependent child, I called Milo. He wasn’t in and I sat at my desk, baffled and angry.
Someone had trespassed on my property. Someone had watched me.
The blue brochure was on my desk, my name and photo-the perfect logic of trumped-up evidence.
Reading this, someone could believe you ztere esteemed colleagues.
I phoned my service. Still no callback from Shirley Rosenblatt, Ph.D. Maybe she wasn’t Harvey’s wife.
… I tried her number again, got the same recorded message, and slammed down the phone in disgust.
My hand started to close around the brochure, crumpling it, then my eyes dropped to the bottom of the page and I stopped and smoothed the stiff paper.
Other names.
The three other speakers.
Wilbert Harrison, M.D FACP Practicing Psychoanalyst Beverly Hills, California Grant P. Stoumen, M.D FACP Practicing Psychoanalyst Beverly Hills, California Mitchell A. Lerner, M.S.W ACSW Psychoanalytic Therapist North Hollywood, California Harrison, chubby, around fifty, fair, and jolly looking, with dark-rimmed glasses.
Stoumen older, bald and prune faced, with a waxed, white mustache.
Lerner, the youngest of the three, Afroed and turtlenecked, full bearded, like Rosenblatt and myself.
I had no memory beyond that. The topics of their papers meant nothing to me. I’d sat up on the dais, mind wandering, angry about being there.
Three locals.
I opened the phone book. Neither Harrison nor Lerner was in there, but Grant P. Stoumen, M.D still had an office on North Bedford Drive-Beverly Hills couch row. A service operator answered, “Beverly Hills Psychiatric, this is Joan.”
Same service I used. Same voice I’d just spoken to.
“It’s Dr. Delaware, Joan.”
“Hi, Dr. Delaware! Fancy talking to you so soon.”
“Small world,” I said.
“Yeah-no, actually, it happens all the time, we handle lots of psych docs. Who in the group are you trying to reach?”
“Dr. Stoumen.”
“Dr. Stoumen?” Her voice lowered. “But he’s gone.”
“From the group?”
15AD LUVE I ID “From-uh. .. from life, Dr. Delaware. He died six months ago. Didn’t you hear?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t know him.”
“Oh. .. well, it was really pretty sad. So unexpected, even though he was pretty old.”
“What did he die of?”
“A car accident. Last May, I think it was. Out of town, I forget exactly where. He was at some kind of convention and got run over by a car. Isn’t that terrible?”
“A convention?”
“You know, one of those medical meetings. He was a nice man, too-never lost patience the way some of the-” Nervous laugh. “Scratch that comment, Dr. D. Anyway, if you’re calling about a patient, Dr. Stoumen’s were divided up among the rest of the doctors in the group, and I can’t be sure which one took the one you’re calling about.”
“How many doctors are in the group?”
“Carney, Langenbaum, and Wolf. Langenbaum’s on vacation, but the other two are in town-take your pick.”
“Any recommendations?”
“Well Another nervous laugh. “They’re both-all right. Wolf tends to be a little better about returning calls.”
“Wolf’ll be fine. Is that a him or a her?”
“A him. Stanley Wolf, M.D. He’s in session right now. I’ll put a message on his board to call you.”
“Thanks a lot, Joan.”
“Sure bet, Dr. D. Have a nice day.”
I installed the dog door, making slow progress because I kept pausing between saw swings and hammer blows, convinced I’d heard footsteps in the house or unwarranted noise out on the terrace.
A couple of times I actually went down to the garden and looked around, hands clenched.
The grave was a dark ellipse of dirt. Dried fish scales and a slick graybrown stain marked the pond bank.
I went back up, did some touch-up painting around the door frame, cleaned up, and had a beer. The dog tried his new passageway, ingressing and egressing several times and enjoying himself.
Finally, tired and panting, he fell asleep at my feet. I thought about who’d want to scare me or hurt me. The dead fish stayed in my head, a cognitive stench, and I remained wide-awake. At eleven, he awoke and raced for the front door. A moment later, the mail chute filled.
Standard-sized envelopes that I sorted through. One had a Folsom POB return address and an eleven-digit serial number hand-printed above it in red ink. Inside was a single sheet of ruled notebook paper, printed in the same red.