When he was home, which was most of the time—Quinn doted on her. But whenever he left, he chained her to the wall, his way of making sure she was glad to see him when he came home. If he planned to be gone more than a few hours, he’d use a longer chain, one that allowed her access to all her comforts. Quinn had been gone about three hours and was on his way home when I caught up to him on Walnut Street.
So again, according to Alison, my fault.
“Did he beat you?” Callie asked.
“Occasionally,” Alison said.
“Did he force himself on you?”
“At least twice a day.”
“You ever put up a fight?”
“The times I did, that’s when he’d beat me.”
Here in the well-lit room she looked white as a ghost. I said, “Before tonight, how long had it been since you’ve been outdoors?”
“More than three years,” she said. “And the only reason I know that is that I had a TV.”
Callie gave her a sleeping pill and sat up with her until she fell asleep. Then she joined me in my room and we broke the seal on a bottle of mini bar wine and drank it while working out Alison’s training schedule.
I said, “I’ll give Lou the second and third weeks, you get the next three, and I’ll take the next two. Then she can shadow you on a couple of jobs. After that we’ll test her out on something easy, see how she handles it.”
“What’s the going rate for nurse maids these days?”
“Twenty grand a week, plus whatever you make on jobs.”
“Works for me,” Callie said. “Who gets her the first week?”
“Dr. Crouch. Because if Nadine doesn’t think she’s ready, we pass on the project, and try to help Alison get her old life back.”
I punched a key on my cell phone and winked at Callie. “Listen to this,” I said, pressing the speaker button.
Dr. Nadine Crouch answered by shouting, “Unacceptable!”
I said, “I’ve got a patient for you.”
“What’s the matter with you? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“This is a good gig,” I said. “It will appeal to your avarice.”
“I’m trying to sleep, Donovan. Don’t ever call me in the middle of the night like this again. Unacceptable!”
“How’s twenty-five hundred a day sound?”
“I’m sure it will sound a lot better when I wake up in a couple of hours. Call me then,” she said, and hung up.
“She’s a bitter old bitch,” Callie said. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t care much for people, though she seems to like me.”
Callie shook her head. “You ever hear yourself talk?”
Chapter 58
Myron Goldstein was already parked at the rest stop at mile marker 177 just outside his home town of Cincinnati when I pulled up. I got out of my car and made a wide circle around his, checking for possible snipers. As I approached his passenger door, he unlocked it, and I got in.
“Sal says you want to die,” I said.
“You’re Creed?”
“I am.”
“I thought you’d be younger.”
“I thought you’d be older.”
Myron Goldstein nodded. He was a gaunt, sad-faced man with thick lips and sagging jowls. A thatch of wiry black hair protruded from each of his nostrils. He kept a wet, mucus-soaked handkerchief in one of his shaky hands, and used it to dab at the slimy fluid that steadily dripped from his nose. He wore thick horn-rimmed glasses.
I said, “The way this works, you tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll tell you what I think.”
“Have you always been a healthy man, Mr. Creed?”
“Can we just get to it?”
He smiled a thick-lipped smile. “Yes, of course,” he said. He paused for a moment to dab at his nose, and then said, “Are you familiar with ALS?”
“Lou Gehrig’s Disease?”
“Yes, that’s the one. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease that slowly but steadily robs your body of voluntary movement. The disorder causes your muscles to weaken, day by day, until they are unable to function. You can see it already in my hands. That’s not Parkinson’s, it’s called fasciculation, and it signals the beginning of the end.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said, and meant it. Looking at Myron Goldstein made me ashamed of myself. For the past seven weeks I’d been hosting a pity party over losing Kathleen and Addie, while this poor son of a bitch has been dying by inches. Of course it hurt to lose the people I’d wanted to grow old with—but Myron Goldstein wasn’t going to grow old at all. Maybe Kathleen and her fiancé would someday break up, allowing me to slip back into her life. Or maybe not. But at least I had a future to dream about, which was a hell of a lot more than Myron Goldstein was going to get.
“So what you’re saying, you want me to kill you, put you out of your misery.”
“Yes.”
“Why not just commit suicide? You’d save fifty grand.”
“I have insurance policies worth much more. But they don’t pay for suicide.”
“I have to say no,” I said.
“Why not?”
“This money, fifty thousand dollars. It’s money your wife and kids should have.”
