"Who was your husband's doctor, Mrs. Manners?"
"Steiner, on Hobart Avenue. I asked him about my husband. He said Robert had been in perfect health except for high blood pressure that could easily have been remedied."
I sat back, crossed my outstretched legs at the ankles and thought about Robert Manners-a man in good health, near the top of his profession, and with a dedicated wife whom he obviously loved. When a man like that committed suicide, it was usually brought on by something outside his normal sphere of existence, something often impossible to discover. I didn't envy Elizabeth Manners her quest, and I couldn't look with optimism on my own task.
Outside the gardener continued his toil, each chunk of the hoe like something breaking off and lost forever. Elizabeth Manners seemed impervious to the sound.
I assured her I could find my own way out and left her there.
From the Manners home I went to see Dr. Steiner, on Hobart Avenue.
His office was in one of those quasi-hospital medical centers equipped to do everything but bury the patient. It was a white-brick building with few windows and an arrowed sign explaining that the emergency entrance was around the back.
Happy to use the front entrance, I walked across a large reception area lined with red-vinyl sofas and low tables spread with dog-eared magazines. Everything but the magazines seemed new, slickly and professionally done, and there was a toy-and-game-equipped alcove off the reception area for the children to play in as they waited.
Half a dozen people were seated about the room, ignoring each other-two elderly men and four women. One of the women had on a low-cut dress she could have worn anywhere, another a heavy, jeweled necklace that soaked up most of the light in the room.
Behind a long, curved counter several white-uniformed women were moving about with smooth efficiency, and as I approached, one of them, a severe-looking young darkhaired girl, asked if she could help me.
I told her I'd like to talk to Dr. Steiner.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No," I said, "it has to do with one of his patients."
"The doctor's very busy right now."
"I can wait for a while."
"He has a full schedule today."
The nurse, or whatever her title was, was beginning to annoy me. No doubt part of her job was to protect Dr. Steiner from pesty private detectives and medical supply salesmen, but I did wish she'd let him know I was there.
"I only need a few minutes of the doctor's time," I told her, careful to hide my growing irritation. "My name is Nudger, Alo Nudger. Would you tell him I'm here?"
She neither moved nor dropped her professionally detached manner. "If you'd tell me the nature of your business…"
"It's private."
"Concerning which patient?"
"Mr. Robert Manners."
She pardoned herself and turned her back on me to riffle through a long, slender drawer of indexed three-by-five cards. There was something about her squarish hips and broad waist. Even from behind she looked intractable.
"I can find no Robert Manners," she said, sliding the long file drawer shut as she turned again to face me.
"Who am I talking to?" I asked.
"Nurse Malloy."
"Nurse Malloy, will you do me a favor and tell Dr. Steiner I'm here, and that it concerns Robert Manners and that it's important."
She glared at me with cool disinterest, as if she'd tired of toying with me and had more important things to do. "I checked. I'm sure the doctor has no such patient, Mr. Nudger."
"Manners is dead," I told her, my voice taking on ice. "And I'm sure Dr. Steiner wouldn't like it if he knew you were preventing me from talking to him about that unpleasant fact."
She stared at me as I were inanimate yet thought-provoking. "I'll inform the doctor," she said with distaste. "You should realize I'm only performing my duties. If everyone who came in here wanting to see one of the doctors was allowed to go in without first establishing a good reason, there'd be little time to care for the patients."
I didn't like the implication that I and people like me were somehow a threat to the proper medical care of the ill, but I said nothing as Nurse Malloy turned and disappeared through a doorway behind the curved counter. The two other women behind the counter continued their work and ignored me.
Almost five minutes passed before the nurse returned.
"Dr. Steiner can give you a few minutes," she said. Then her face brightened as if the sun had struck it, and she looked past me. "Mrs. Nesmith!" she said in a pleased voice. "You're here to pick up your medicine." The very old woman who was Mrs. Nesmith shuffled forward and basked in Nurse Malloy's good cheer. I saw that it helped to be a paying customer.
Dr. Steiner invited me into a small, antiseptic room with a sterile white washbasin and a leather-upholstered table covered with something resembling butcher paper.
Steiner looked like an expensive doctor-stocky, middle-aged, with heavy-lidded, serious eyes and a brush mustache. It was easy to imagine him in a laboratory somewhere, a microscope-glance away from some major medical breakthrough.
"Nurse Malloy tells me you're interested in Robert Manners," he said. "I am busy, Mr. Nudger…"
"What I'm interested in, Doctor, is the state of Manners' health preceding his suicide."
"I see." A cautious note had entered his voice. "Who do you represent?
"No one directly connected with Robert Manners. The information I'm seeking is only incidental to the case I'm on."
I could see he didn't believe me. "I'm sorry," he said with a smile. "Professional ethics forbid me to divulge a patient's medical history without permission."
"I'm not exactly asking you to do that, Doctor. Can you just tell me if Manners' medical state prior to his death might have caused him to commit suicide?"
Dr. Steiner gave my question a lot of thought, thick eyebrows lowered in a superb bedside frown. Maybe he was worried about a malpractice suit.
"I've already talked to Mrs. Manners," was all he said.
"So have I."
"Then I assume you know the answer to your question." He gave me a good-bye smile. "As you saw in the reception area, we have several patients to be served."
And in the income bracket not to be kept waiting, I thought as he stepped smoothly aside to let me exit first.
I left Dr. Steiner's hoping my health would last forever.
Outside the medical center I made a few phone calls from a public booth, trying to get in touch with an old friend of mine, Lieutenant Sam Hiller, of the Los Angeles police.
Hiller was off duty, but I contacted him at his home, and he told me to drive in to see him and gave me directions.
It would be good to see Hiller, I thought, getting back into my car. We'd worked together for a while, until he decided to go with the Los Angeles Police Department because it had the reputation of being the best and most demanding of its officers. That was the sort of situation Hiller craved.
Then, six years ago, Hiller was shot while attempting to quiet a family disturbance, and five months of hospitalization and three operations changed him. He eased up somewhat, on himself and everyone around him. I'd gotten along with the old Hiller, but the new Hiller was much more pleasant company.
He lived in a condominium unit in one of those sprawling low projects that look like luxury military barracks. The slant-roofed two-story buildings were lined along a wide cement walkway punctuated by potted trees and ornate lampposts. A young boy was repeatedly running at one of the metal posts, gripping it and letting his momentum swing him in circles.
My knock on Killer's door was answered by a call to come in.
The room was neatly and symmetrically arranged, clean, without clutter-books lined precisely on their shelves, lamp shades and pictures as straight as if they'd been adjusted with levels. Hiller himself was sitting with his stockinged feet propped on a hassock, watching the Dodger game on television. I was struck, as I had been before, by how he maintained his uncompromising perfectionist's attitude toward things but not toward people.