“Yeah,” I said, drawing it out a little, “that’s probably right.”
He fumbled with the latch on the door, then pushed it open.
Albert Zitin’s house was more my style; under-socialized bachelors who live alone for extended periods share certain similarities. Plainness of surroundings, for example. Albert had nothing on his walls, no rugs on the scuffed hardwood floors. His couch was an expensive one, but it clearly had been bought to sit by itself in a living room as the sole piece of furniture.
“At least let me make a cup of coffee first. You want one?”
“Sure, if you got it.”
He led the way to the kitchen, whose cabinets doubtless held an unmatched set of dishes missing odd and random pieces. His refrigerator, I guessed, would have a scattered collection of condiment jars and a carton of milk a week past the expiration date.
“I think this is still drinkable,” he speculated, opening the refrigerator door and sniffing cautiously at the lid of a milk carton. “At least for coffee.”
Can I call ’em or what?
Albeit boiled water and pulled two mismatched mugs from a cabinet above the stove. He spooned instant coffee into each, then poured in boiling water and handed me a cup. The instant coffee clumped up like chunks of brown mud floating in the water. I took the carton when he handed it to me and poured in a dollop of milk, which immediately clotted into rancid-looking lumps.
I stirred hard, hoping to make something drinkable out of it. Finally, the liquid inside resembled coffee, except for the truly sour lumps of milk that refused to dissolve no matter what. Think of it as yogurt, I told myself.
“Sugar?”
I took the lid off the sugar bowl; inside, clumps of brown mixed in with the white, the result of spooning sugar out with a wet coffee spoon. Yeah, Albert and I could have been roommates.
He sipped the coffee as if it were actually something fit for human consumption. I lifted the cup to my lips and took a quick swallow, surprised that it wasn’t any worse than I feared.
“So what do you want?” he asked, heading back into the living room. “Here, have a seat.”
I sat on the far end of the couch and set my coffee cup on an upturned fruit crate that served as an end table. “Just wanted to talk to you.”
“Jane says you think I killed Fletcher, and that she was in on it.”
“I don’t know if that’s what I think or not. It could be that way. On the other hand, there were a lot of people who wanted to see Conrad Fletcher dead.”
“You got that right, He was one slimy son of a bitch.”
“And I thought doctors never spoke ill of each other.”
“That’s one rule I’ll break in his case,” Zitin said, pulling his legs up on the couch under him. He sat cross-legged, the beginnings of a paunch settling over his belt. He was pale, pasty, not terribly attractive to women, I would think. But he was obviously intelligent and dedicated, as well as determined.
“Tell me how you came to meet him. How’d you wind up here?”
“Same as everybody else, I guess. I’m from up north, took my medical training at Albert Einstein. Came here to do a surgical residency under Fletcher. He’s one of the best, you know. Was one of the best, I mean. I’d heard he was a tough guy, real hard to get along with.”
Zitin leaned over behind him, picked up the coffee cup. “That’s not news to you, though, is it? I just figured if you can survive med school, you can survive anything.”
“I always heard that was true.”
“Usually it is. But not in surgery. Surgeons are weird. They’re gearheads, really. Highly specialized, technically oriented, with a surprisingly limited knowledge of general medicine and no insight into what it means to be human. They’re not very pleasant to be around.”
“And you want to be one.”
He thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do. With all the drawbacks, there’s nothing like it. You cut into a human body, use your skill and your knowledge, and sometimes your balls, to make a human body determined to malfunction work properly again. My father was a surgeon. He was a lousy father, probably a lousy person. But he was a great surgeon, a real miracle worker. I’ve wanted it ever since I was a child.”
“Means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“Everything, almost.”
“What was it like for you when Conrad Fletcher threatened to take it all away?”
Albert Zitin reddened just a bit, the color rising quickly and then fading just as fast. “What are you asking me, Mr. Denton? Did I kill him, or did I want to kill him?”
“Maybe both.”
He looked down at his coffee cup, stirred the sludge with a bent spoon. “I’m in business to put people back together, not take them apart. I didn’t kill Fletcher. Then again, I might have one of these days, if someone hadn’t beaten me to it.”
“Where were you the night he was killed?”
“Right where you found me this afternoon. I’d come in off a seventy-two hour shift at six P.M. that evening. I ate dinner, went through some correspondence, and started watching a movie on television. Which I promptly fell asleep right in the middle of.”
“Were you alone?”
“Absolutely. And unfortunately.”
“No phone calls? Visitors?”
“Nothing. There wasn’t even anything on the answering machine. I woke up in bed about four A.M. with the television still going and turned it off. It was midmorning before I woke up again.”
I stared at him, figuring that he must know how weak an alibi that was. “What did the police say when you told them this?”
“They gave me the same look you just did. Then they went next door and talked to the couple who rent the other side of the duplex. They confirmed that my car was parked in the driveway exactly when I said I was home.”
“But they didn’t see you.”
“I don’t make much noise. Neither do they. We’ve met, pass pleasantries coming and going. That’s all.”
“What about Jane?”
“What about her?” he said, just a trace of defensiveness in his voice.
“Tell me how you feel about her.”
He laughed. “What are you, a therapist?”
“Hey, confession’s good for the soul.”
“It may be good for the soul, but it’s hell on your options.”
“If what you say is true, that you and Jane didn’t have anything to do with Fletcher’s murder, then what have you got to lose?”
He leaned back wearily in the chair. So fer, what I’d learned most about doctors in training is that they’re always exhausted. Zitin seemed to be thinking, perhaps choosing his words, maybe trying to figure out how he really felt.
“Jane Collingswood is an unusual woman,” he said. “I know that no other woman’s ever had the effect on me that she has. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Denton. I’m no virgin. On the other hand, my priorities have always been elsewhere. I always figured that sooner or later, I’d find somebody, but after the internship and residency were over.”
“Then you met her.”
“Yeah, then I met her. I can’t keep my mind on anything anymore. All I think about is her. I think this is what teenage boys feel when they get a first big crush on somebody. Only back when I was supposed to be taking care of all that, I was buried in a biology book.”
“Hormones have a way of catching up with us all,” I said.
“This is more than hormones. One of the few benefits of age is that you gain perspective on life, even if your experience in life’s a little limited. I’m very much in love with Jane Collingswood, and I haven’t the slightest idea why I’m telling you that. Maybe it’s because I know that nothing will ever come of it.”
“Don’t be too sure. Fortunately, women gain perspective as well. Part of that perspective is realizing that the true value of something often exceeds surface appearances.”
“Thanks a bunch, pal. What you mean is that I’m still worthwhile even if I’m no Mel Gibson.”
“So what’s wrong with that? I ain’t exactly going to win People magazine’s Sexiest Man of the Year award myself.”