Coots came alive, took a seat in a padded drugstore chair copied from the thirties.
“Was a Hungarian breed, something, wasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t talk about the dog, Mr. Coots,” interjected Barnes. Latouche was his charge, then.
“It’s fine, Riley. Really.” Latouche grasped the billiard table, his fingers going white over the felt edge.
“I’m a cat man, myself,” said Coots. Could he now detect Latouche trembling, his eyes rolling back into his head? Delicious, better than his first horror movies with Lon and Bela in St. Louis.
“Can’t stand them!” yelled Latouche. He shot back — reloaded, rather, thought Coots. “Sneaky, conniving!. . the odor of cat piss! Doesn’t that tell you something?” Agitated, pushing the insane, this beat the medical libraries cold. (“A death”?) But I don’t have the full persuasion for a spell, really, Coots decided. What do I hate about the man? My own grandfather? Grand patricide? Biting the hand that.
“I’ll have to ask you, Mr. Coots.” Barnes again. My word, so rapidly the nurse, all the jargon.
“No. I want this resolved and confessed!” shouted Latouche. “Secrets are killing me!”
The cue stick, released, fell over, plump, on the rug. Both his hands were on the table now.
“I buried Nana, I had Nana buried with my wives, between them, in Forest Hills cemetery! Riley did it for me!”
“That isn’t so bad, Latouche. Isn’t there a law, though? The Indians, you know. . the Egyptians. .”
“We didn’t ask. I did it at night,” said Riley Barnes.
“He’s got grofft, doesn’t he?”
“How’d you know?” Barnes bolstered Latouche. “Oh yes. Your travels. Would you know how it’s treated? Dr. Latouche, bless him, believes he can just ignore it away.”
Latouche was slavering and attempting to drop to the floor, while Barnes was resisting, gently, though all his big muscles were needed. The doctor certainly had his right man. Barnes seemed to care deeply for him. Coots smiled less than he wanted to, hands crossed on his stiletto cane in front, the boulevardier.
“I don’t think this is a mind-over-matter case, Barnes”—Latouche actually whimpered like a dog now—“though by what I’ve observed, the doctor has civilized the disease. Perhaps strength of character. Or just being un-Indian, highly Western. I recall the smallpox didn’t kill that many of us, but wiped out whole tribes of the Sioux. We’ve antibodies, but—”
Barnes sadly let the doctor go and raced to the door, pulling it to and locking. The doctor went around the table on all fours, sniffing and pointing, heedless of them. Why was this, Coots asked himself, so charming to him?
Why did Latouche pique such high disgust? Was he an old lifetime closet fairy and Coots knew it? Many great professionals were, no great mystery. Then was it the hypocrisy Coots loathed? The laurels and friendships gained by an, at least, eighty-year false front? But he did not really think Latouche was gay. Some deeply sick, hidden gays were fascinated by weapons, especially on the right wing, the loud NRA and all that, but not Latouche, who loved the technology more than the blast. Latouche acquainted himself with past heroes in dangerous times, as did Coots, who owned in his locker one of Billy the Kid’s purported old irons. But Latouche liked to balance the loads, better.
Latouche was all around the room now, scraping at the door and whimpering urgently. Something was out there he had to hunt. Coots thought of a feverish liver-spotted thing whirling in its cage, wanting the quail fields. He had witnessed that once in Texas when he was a failed marijuana farmer. The face of the doctor was working classically, too. His cheeks closed forward, lupine, more than could be done by a well man. Then came the barks and worried low growls, the mutter of need, almost ecstatic.
“How did he get into the Honduran wilds?” asked Coots.
“He didn’t. I went for him. The Indians were known for prodigious strength. Please don’t let on, Mr. Coots. You’re a man of the world, the cosmos. It shouldn’t shock you. I’d found a healthy young Indian, I thought. He’d had a fatal accident. I took his blood and brought it back chilled. We transfused Dr. Latouche.”
“Extraordinary. Why?”
“It had worked for one of his old colleagues. The man’s ninety-five now, in glowing health. Down there, the laws. . deep back in there, there are no laws. You can buy somebody. Never mind, I had the boat connections and the way, so I did it for him. There aren’t many Latouches in the world. Like there aren’t many of you. He’d been low, depressed, feeble, didn’t believe in drugs. This is corny, but he’s the grandfather I never had, and the father who left me. I didn’t want to lose him right after I’d found him.”
“Commendable. So this is the ‘secret’?”
“Yes.”
“But, my God, boy, he’s a horror. How can you have him out here in public playing at billiards?”
“He goes a long time without spells. He’s set off by mental. . imagery, I think. Especially dogs. Or their enemies. Cats, awful. And sometimes blacks, unfortunately, although Dr. Latouche doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.”
“He’s going to quit this after a while, then?”
“If things go right. But the spells are getting longer. We’ve got to keep him locked in here. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all. I’ve no other business. So he gave you money, he paid you. .”
“Mr. Coots, you’d imagine, but Dr. Latouche doesn’t even have that much money. He’s given it all away. He should have a better apartment, servants, but he’s got none of it. Thousands are alive because of Dr. Latouche.”
“And he looks a young seventy.”
“Doesn’t he? I think it’s all love and happy work, Mr. Coots.”
“William. You think so? And nobody knows any more than I do about the disease?”
“Looked everywhere. Only one doc in New York had ever heard of it. It’s never been treated in South America. We can only be grateful his is milder, so far. If you believe this, Dr. Latouche wants to begin a fund to go in and cure those few pitiful Indians. Not for himself, not in his lifetime.”
“Yet an Indian. . died. For him.”
“That’s the worst way to put it. And it was my choice.”
Coots lit a Player’s. He needed a strong hit. Fifty years of cigarettes now, with no drastic trouble. He was enjoying the smoke no less than the first good inhale in St. Louis. In that pool hall, he remembered now, a strange old man from nowhere had put his hand on his shoulder and said to him, “My lad, you will write masterpieces.” One of those magic episodes that had punctuated his life. Now Latouche was grievously scuttling and digging at the floor with his long elegant surgeon’s fingers.
“I don’t know why you’re here, sir. But you are the thing, I hope. Obviously you know medicine and magic. I’ve read all your books. What can we do?”
“The Indians did nothing. I believe they revered and, I know, feared the grofftites.”
“Your guess would be better than any doctor’s, I’d bet.”
“I could try something.” Coots was into the grim clinical zone he often elected for himself. It was obvious he could have been a fine MD, given any ambition to heal. The other, too. He grabbed at the pertinent file in his head. The delight of the fit was wearing out. He had lost his spite somewhere.
“You might try slapping him a hard one. Be a bigger dog. Canines respond to bald aggression. They’re pack animals.”
“I doubt I could—”
“Do it. Don’t hold back. Otherwise, you could drench yourself with bitch urine. But he might just hump you and bite your back.”